The wisdom of the old farmer (part 10)

"It don't take a genius to spot a goat in a flock of sheep."

Overheard at the cracker barrel. 

Sure, you've heard this one before, or roughly the same thing….

Me, too.

Still, I realize every once in a while that I'm puffing myself up after spotting another goat amongst the sheep, too easily asking myself "How do I keep doing this stuff?!" and then, you know….

I'm trying to cut back on my "I see the goat!" announcements, trying to take a second look, scanning for a detail that maybe the other guy didn't see, trying to get beyond the goatish stuff….

Rain dance, uh huh.....

Tell it to the dog....

Having fun at Disney….

Folks with too much money are hiring handicapped folks to get themselves and their kids to the head of the line at popular attractions in Disney World.

You can buy your own bona fide handicapped person, in a motorized scooter labeled "Handicapped," to be your "family member for-a-day" from Dream Tours Florida, for only $130 an hour. Only about $1,000 for a full day. Here's a New York Post story on it.

Disney allows families with handicapped members to scoot around the long waiting lines and do the rides without waiting.

Whatever you're thinking, I already thought it….

Your own Batmobile for $4.6 million

  

Is it really Sam's piano?

IRS in Ohio: wrong, for a different reason

OK, let's get this out of the way right now: of course, the IRS employees in Ohio should not have targeted the Tea Party folks who submitted applications for tax-exempt status. Wrong on so many levels. Heads should roll.

But here's the thing: one way they did wrong was that they didn't put every single application under the microscope. After the horrifying Citizens United court ruling, partisan and obviously political groups all across the spectrum actually doubled the incoming applications for tax-exempt status all over the country.

The carelessly zealous IRS folks in Ohio should have been the model for IRS application reviewers in every state, for every application.

Ruth Marcus had some serous insight on this point in her Wednesday column on WashingtonPost.com, read it here.

The news media and the cable TV talking hours have spent approximately zero minutes on taking a deep look at the applications that were actually sent in, and approved or disapproved, in Ohio. How many of them were bogus, blatantly outside IRS guidelines?

I don't think I'm going out on a thin limb here when I suspect that way too many of those Ohio groups who climbed on the bandwagon, seeking tax-exempt status, were manifestly unqualified to receive it because they intended from the git-go to get involved illegally in political electioneering.

The IRS flubbed in Ohio, and literally failed to do its job all over the country.

http://barleyliterate.blogspot.com/2012/06/too-much-money.html

http://barleyliterate.blogspot.com/2012/04/elections-for-sale-part-4.html

Book review: Girl With A Pearl Earring

Book review: Girl With A Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier

A slim offering of historical fiction about Johannes Vermeer's enigmatic portrait of an unknown young girl, circa 1665.

It's a breathtaking, tantalizing love story….tantalizing because Vermeer and the maid, Griet, almost embrace their passion, each stepping over the line without transgression, but not without hurt:

Vermeer, the worldly one, the master, tempted to the edge of the precipice…

Griet, the child innocent, heedless of her woman's heat, trespassing unaware and ever nearer to the mystery that she barely understands in the beginning….

She feels the lush weight of the earring, his fingertip sears her skin, she inclines toward his touch, trembles with a disembodied, virginal start of pain….

Quickly stilled, she sits for him.

He trembles—a long moment—with the rush of desire, masters it, and steps back to his easel, granting her a little more time in the childhood she is leaving behind, giving her a peace that will become a bereavement, a keening memory….

They look at each other, mute, apart yet bound, in flagrante delicto, withering, without joy….

The 2003 film

http://barleyliterate.blogspot.com/2013/05/book-review-rita-hayworth-and-shawshank.html

http://barleyliterate.blogspot.com/2012/08/book-review-saint-martins-summer-by.html

http://barleyliterate.blogspot.com/2012/01/book-review-financier-by-theodore.html

http://barleyliterate.blogspot.com/2011/11/book-review-1491-by-charles-c-mann.html

http://barleyliterate.blogspot.com/2011/09/book-review-cleopatra-life-by-stacy.html

Are you nuts?

Here's hoping…..

And by the way, you're never too young to learn that quiet privacy is a good setting for a good read….

Are you a reader?

Warning: guard cat!

"Slow-motion mass murder…."

The Newtown murders of 20 first-graders didn't suddenly go away, but the story has sort of gone away in the feckless mass media and the cable TV news shows….the breathless media and the talking heads are endlessly chasing the next blowout news sensation.

E. J. Dionne, in the Washington Post, has again sagely offered a calm jolt to our communal sensibilities: his column last Sunday simply referred to the routine daily toll of gun deaths in America as "slow-motion mass murder." Read it here.

These are not E. J.'s words, but they shout out his convictions.

Mine too.

Other than many craven representatives in Congress, who are the people who have forgotten Newtown, and given up their passionate revulsion?

a brand new reason for gun control.....

        

3,628 gun deaths since Newtown

The art of Susan Boyle

Oh yeah, she dreamed a dream...

Susan Magdalane Boyle (b. 1961)

Haven't heard a lot lately about Susan Boyle, the Scottish lady whose singing can stop time and start your heart all at once.

I'm listening again to "I Dreamed A Dream," her first album in 2009. She's working on her 5^th album, due out this fall.

If you can listen to Susan without understanding, again and again, that some people can sing from the heart and make it hurt real bad, then don't bother reading any more of this….

I realize I'm lining up behind millions of folks who have used many of the available English adjectives and adverbs to try to say in words what Susan can sing….

This friendly mezzo-soprano from Blackburn, West Lothian, in Scotland, youngest daughter of a coal miner, who sang in her local church and local pubs all her life, just pushes her power and her mojo into every lush note, she injects smooth, stunning organ-energy into every phrase, you can sink into her song or you can fall backwards into it, you know you are safe and sound….

And what a sound…..

Just imagine being one of the lads and lassies, in your local pub, not too close to last call, joining the others in calling for "Susie" to sing another song....

"Cry Me A River" in 1999

The wisdom of the Cherokees (part 12)

"It is common knowledge among the Cherokee that every animal, except man, knows the main business of life is to enjoy it."

The wisdom of the Sequichie of the Cherokees

I think I need to have a serious talk with one of those squirrels, it seems I have much to learn.

that disagreement....

...today is house

more from the Cherokees

Book review: Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption

Book review: Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King

This irrepressible, inscrutable short story by Stephen King is about bad people who are sort of really good people, and sort of good people who refuse to let really bad things become their way of life.

Red is a murderer, but we get past that in the first pages. Red is the philosopher-king of Shawshank Prison. For my money, Red is the point of the story. He repents his crime, he does the time, he comes to understand Andy Dufresne's untouchable devotion to regaining his rightful freedom, and Red finally, doggedly, walks the line of rock walls in hayfields in Buxton until he unearths the final proof of a friendship, and hope.

Andy remains a mysterious character, right to the end. We know he's innocent, we know he is cruelly and unjustly entombed and forgotten in hell, we know what he does in Shawshank, we admire his motivation, and yet we know the man only as Red knows him. Red is a passive observer, attentive to be sure, and responsive to Andy's intellect and his bulldog determination, but Red never penetrates Andy's mind, never really understands Andy's private self.

For me, as for Red, the man Dufresne has a full-length poster picture of himself taped to the top of his head, and we never are able to get behind the poster and get in to the real Andy.

Enfin, I cheered Andy's escape, and I was happy that Red finally got on the bus to McNary, Texas, and I think the two will enjoy a decent life in Zihuatanejo….and I think they live in a different world that I do not know, and do not want to know.

A Farewell to Arms

Saint Martin's Summer

The wisdom of Theodore Roosevelt (part 2)

"…the man in the arena…"

Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919)

26^th President of the United States

Has victory or defeat ever been your portion in life?

Teddy put life, and himself, in the crosshairs.

Medal of Honor

He said:

"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly...and…if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." 

Lots of folks have said this in different ways, but the Bull Moose President puts his personal courageous stamp on it, think San Juan Hill and "the divil take the hindmost…" ---

Here's TR's complete statement:

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

 "Do what you can..."

Roosevelt, the Progressive

We’re cooking the planet (part 9)

A new report from Hawaii says scientists at Mauna Loa, for the first time in human history, have measured atmospheric carbon dioxide at 400 ppm.

In 1958, when the observatory was established, CO2 was measured at 320 ppm.

In 1800, at the beginning of the industrial revolution which spawned manmade global warming and global climate change, the worldwide CO2 level was about 280 ppm.

Folks, we're cooking the planet. The entirety of  believable science says so.

It's the only planet our grandchildren are going to have to live on.

We need to do more, now, to mediate the worsening effects of global climate change.

Mother Nature owns it....

Cooking the planet (part 4)

Heard "thank you" from your boss recently?

I worked hard all my life. I did some good things. I'm proud to say I held up my end.

Without embarrassment, I say that I was self-motivated.

Sadly, too many folks do the same for the same reasons, without much recognition or reward from their organizations.

For many years I thought this was a depressing mystery.

Now, I don't think it's a mystery.

Workin' 9 to 5, or not, maybe...

A new protocol for the management hierarchy

...from Peter Drucker

How do managers learn right and wrong?

And here's a confirming anecdote from my trusted personal advisor:

"During a recent visit to our local state park, I was on my way to the ladies' room, and the lady from the state park's cleaning service had just finished swamping it out (and I use that term with specificity). She was standing at her truck, resupplying her cart to attack the men's room. I said 'Hi!' and she returned the greeting.

"I stuck out my hand, saying 'You know, cleaning public restrooms is usually a thankless job, so let me thank you for your effort today, I appreciate it.'

"She looked at me like she'd been pole-axed. Then she shook my hand, saying 'No one, not even my boss, has ever thanked me. This means a lot to me. You've made my day.'

"Such an easy thing for me to do…."

The wisdom of Chief Joseph (part 2)

"I am tired of talk that comes to nothing."

Chief Joseph AKA Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt ("Thunder rolling down the mountain") (1840-1904)
Chief of the Wallowa of the Nez Perce

Well, who isn't?

I'm going to try to make something happen today.

A wise man of the Cherokees offered this profound advice:

"Listen! Or your tongue will make you deaf."

And Chief Joseph had lots more to say about talking:

"It does not require many words to speak the truth."

Non sumus pulvis et umbra….

"We are not dust and shadow…."

Recently I read a homily that included a casual observation—pulvis et umbra sunt—with this intended meaning: we are nothing but dust and shadow.

I'm familiar, as you are, with the standard poetic and philosophical thought bubble that argues on these lines: 

"Man is a mote in the cosmic crystal spheres, a life is a bit in the vastness of being" and so on….

That doesn't ring true for me. My life is all my own, it is all, I share my being and my living with those I love, I think it's a big story and I love it.

Dust and shadow are involved, yes, but we can strive always to limit dust and shadow to circumstance, to a dust whirl, to a passing shadow….

I like to hear the song of the Sequichie of the Cherokees:

"O, listen! Hear! Sing with me, for I am joy."

 The wisdom of the Cherokees

389,000 millionaires in New York City

Yup, the U.S. has about 5 million millionaires, that's 5,000,000 millionaires, and almost 400,000 of 'em live in the Big Apple.

That's a lot of millionaires.

Now, Tokyo is the go-to city for millionaires, with 461,000 of 'em.

This is according to Yahoo.com, with data recently released by London-based WealthInsight.

We're talking about individual persons who have at least $1 million in assets, NOT counting the value of their primary residence.

Y'know, you can live on that….

...some folks have too much money

The wisdom of the old farmer (part 9)

"Meanness don't just happen overnight."

Overheard in the old farmer's tractor barn  

Seems like some folks are schooled to meanness, or embittered into a permanently nasty condition….it strikes me that the old farmer is right, again, a person just doesn't get mean all at once, whatever the creeping causes may be…

I'm going to try to stop my next potentially mean thought right in its tracks.

I want to stay off the casual, step-by-step path to meanness, don't want to go there.

who's that troublemaker?

cruel words don't go away....

The wisdom of Charlie Munger

"A majority of life's errors are caused by

             forgetting what one is really trying to do."

Charles Thomas "Charlie" Munger (b. 1924)

Vice-Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, Buffett's right-hand man

In other words,

"Keep your eye on the ball."

"Do what's at the top of your list."

"Do the right thing."

Munger also says: "In my whole life, I have known no wise people who didn't read all the time -- none, zero. You'd be amazed at how much Warren [Buffett] reads -- at how much I read. My children laugh at me. They think I'm a book with a couple of legs sticking out."

Reading isn't the only thing you have to do if you aspire to be wise…I think it's true that if you want to be an interesting person, if you want to be an interested person, if you want to make a difference in your life, and with your life, reading is one of the preliminaries, and you have to keep it up, too….

for bibliophiles....

"...and step on it!"

Dear Charlie Munger, .....

A new reason for gun control legislation

At least let's agree on this:  some Americans shouldn't be allowed to buy .40 caliber ammo.

Florida police recently reported that a 31-year-old man with a BB gun and,  apparently,  a real jones for squirrel meat, did something you and I could have told him not to do, not now, not ever, it's a No-No, don't even think about it….

Seems Mr. Squirrel Hunter actually taped a .40 caliber bullet to the end of his BB gun, and, you know, aimed at that tasty-looking rodent and squeezed the trigger….

….yup, the BB pellet hit the bullet cartridge, which exploded, causing shrapnel wounds in the man's arms and legs.

Obviously we need a universal background check on all ammunition buyers, so we could uncover any latent tendencies to tape bullets to BB guns in pursuit of a squirrel steak.

Animal lovers should get behind this proposal, too, and I'm sure they're happy to hear that the squirrel is still on the loose.

"Get started shooting something..." ?

"Kids don't learn from people they don't like."

Dr. Rita F. Pierson, a teacher in Houston for more than 40 years, gives the kind of TEDTalk that makes TED rightly and spectacularly famous. Watch it here: Rita Pierson at TED

If she isn't the "my favorite teacher" that you remember, well, I hope your favorite was close to her level of sparkle….

She gives lots of believable advice on motivating young children, the kind of stuff you'd like to believe that teachers say to each other in the teacher's lunch room.

She remembers a colleague whose mantra was "they don't pay me to like the kids." Pierson's rebuttal: "kids don't learn from people they don’t like."

She recalls, with a smile, a youngster who muffed 18 questions on a 20-question quiz….Pierson marked "+ 2" on the quiz and handed it back.

She explains to the TED audience: "you know, a 'minus 18' sucks the life out of you…a 'plus 2' says you ain't all bad…."

This TED talk is so short you'll feel like you want to watch it again, right now. It's a rousing summons to educators to believe in their students and actually connect with them on a real, human, personal level.

Which teachers don't measure up?

...hungry, hungry hearts

some children left behind

Belafonte Sings The Blues

The art of Harold George Bellanfanti Jr. (b. 1927)

His friends call him Harry Belafonte

"Belafonte Sings The Blues" record released 1958 by RCA Victor, LPM-1972, a "New Orthophonic" high fidelity recording

Give me a minute, here…

I realize that Harry Belafonte isn't everybody's cup of tea, and the blues may not make you tingle, I get that part, too….

So, just saying, here's a side of Belafonte you may not know, and this is the gritty, gutsy, smoke-gets-in-your-eyes, I-gambled-on-your-love kind of blues….

I realize most folks don't talk like this these days, but this is my favorite album of all time. And I do mean "album," I bought this vinyl 33 1/3 record in a cardboard jacket sometime in the early 1960s, when I  was in high school, I thought reading the jacket notes was cool, I read them time after time, Nat Hentoff wrote the notes for this one, in the old formal style, very articulate, erudite, Hentoff assumed readers would understand his references to blues structure, jazz origins, and he used big words like "exultantly" and "wryly unconquerable spirit"….it's a re-education to read the notes again.

I've listened to Belafonte's blues all my adult life, and listening to the cuts again now is a re-generation of the spirit, I know all the words, I can sing the nuances, I experiment with feeling the hurt in "I gambled on your love , baby, and got a losing hand…"

I just slump into Belafonte's mood when he sings "The Way That I Feel":

This is the way that I do feel,
I feel it everywhere I go…
I feel just like a engine
   that lost its driving wheel.

This is the mojo of the blues, the inconvenient truth, and the inconvenient love.

Thanks again, Harry.

Who's the "Old Sock"?

   

"Lay Down, Sally"....

Habla español?

Perhaps you don't speak Spanish, but it's a good bet some of your neighbors or co-workers do.

A recent report from Experian Marketing Services rather casually mentions that, right now,  almost 25% of Americans 6-34 years old are Hispanic…and that percentage obviously is growing, because there are lots of Hispanic ladies in their prime childbearing years.

The Pew Research Center projects that Hispanic and other immigrants who arrived in the U.S. since 2005, and their children, will account for 82% of all American population growth through 2050.

Indeed, America is the melting pot.

Your children might be interested in learning Spanish.

Encourage them to do so.

And it's never too late to pick up some conversational skills in another language.

Try saying "hablo español" like you mean it.

...your daddy's daddy...

what immigration problem?

The wisdom of Abraham Lincoln (part 7)

"My great concern is not whether you have failed,
                 but whether you are content with your failure."

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

16^th President of the United States

I tell myself, and I have confided to folks I work with, that a mistake is a temporary wrong thing, it goes away when it is corrected.

I'm not afraid to admit that I made a mistake.

Companies and organizations would be much better places to work if bosses and everyone else could accept admission of mistakes without doling out or fearing punishment.

Heck, life is a series of prolonged successes and—I'm being optimistic here—corrected mistakes.

Do some dabbling today, and then separate the mistakes from the successes, see what you get….

http://barleyliterate.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-wisdom-of-calvin.html

http://barleyliterate.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-wisdom-of-elbert-hubbard.html

http://barleyliterate.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-wisdom-of-winston-churchillpart-3.html

"All politics is local" ?

It might be a lot easier to defend this statement:

"All politics gets pretty crappy, pretty soon, pretty much all the time, pretty much everywhere."

Case in point: the local race for mayor in my town.

One party hasn't even bothered to put up a candidate, so the two front-runners in the other party are pretty much going to decide the ultimate election outcome in a couple weeks, when they submit themselves to voters in the May primary.

The campaigning has been pretty much the usual stuff so far, walking the neighborhoods, appearances at Little League games, kaffeeklatsch-type stuff with groups and organizations, and, oh yeah, some mud being slung—"you falsely claimed support from our policemen" and "you're too young for the job, when you were a kid you did things that kids do," you know the kind of stuff…and the campaign news coverage has been shallow, hum-drum....

Last night the two candidates met for the first of three "debates." My local Patch.com reporter devotes his entire report to detailed recitation of the "heated exchange" between the two gents about, you guessed it, the "smear tactics" and "dirty politics" that each claims the other guy started first, omigaw! pretty much the same old tired crap that politicians love to shout about, while they're in the act of doing it themselves….

There isn't one word in the published news report about any of the substantial discussion, or---it's possible, you know!—about any of  the "debate" issues that might have been sharply illuminated and deeply explored during the televised event….

In other words, the event featured a lot of pretty much the same old crap, and the news coverage was pretty much the same old crap.

I deliberately didn't mention candidate names or party affiliations here, because of course it really doesn't matter, does it? It's the same story everywhere. Now don't get me wrong -- I'm going to vote for one of them because he says he thinks much the way I think, and I hope he may do a good job.

But, the disheartening bottom line is: why do we continue to tolerate the same old campaign crap?

And the great mystery: why do we keep re-electing so many self-serving pols who aren't really interested in seriously, carefully, intelligently doing the people's business?

Stop voting for incumbents

Why is re-electing HIM/HER good for YOU?

The wisdom of the old farmer (part 8)

"Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment."

Overheard on the farm

Making mistakes is a popular topic:

"A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing."

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new."

Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

Lessons of the broken branch....

Don't look at that broken tree branch the way a grown-up sees it: inconsequential, a nuisance, another clean-up chore added to the list.

See it with the young child's eyes: so much bigger than you, a marvel, mysterious, why does the branch touch the ground?, a thrilling chance to shake and lift and wiggle a giant thing, the option to stick a fearless finger into the splintered fracture higher up on the trunk if Old Grandfather will offer a lift (he does)....

...and try to feel the excitement of telling Mommy later in the afternoon that "the branch is broken," and leading her to that fantastic scene, and telling the story again....

A walk in the woods....

So many lines written about a walk in the woods, what could I add?
...perhaps this:
the woods are not a single state of nature, they do not remain unchanged, next day, next season, a new panorama, newly fallen branch, squirrels' home in a different tree, the birds' song is a new variation...
....and each of us is changed, bringing a different mood to the bosky trail, stopping in a different place to take a new look at the old scene....
....perhaps with a child who will not remember this first walk in the woods, whose happy footstep, whose innocent fascination, whose first touch to the pine cone will create a new, timeless memory for the grandfather who had forgotten the pine cone mystery....
We will walk again in these woods, verily....

Good morning, the sun...!

Volpone said it best, but I'll take my turn....it's a beautiful morning, the fog is rolling off the river, a few intrepid birds are doing bird things, green stuff is burgeoning everywhere, I think Spring is going to take another step toward the front of the stage...

Welcome, sweet Spring!

The wisdom of Benjamin Franklin (part 7)

"Avoid trifling conversation."

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

Now, usually I love quotes from old Ben, they are a dagger to the heart or a bolt to the brain, most of the time…

But this one gives me pause. I think the point is NOT to avoid "trifling conversation," or call it blather, or even perhaps ambiguously call it gossip….human beings do the chit-chat thing very well and very often, one researcher claimed that "gossip" comprises more than half of all human verbal intercourse, our mundane remarks to each other help to keep us decently human, in fact.

I'd prefer to interpret Franklin's advice as a warning to avoid giving undue meaning to our "trifling conversation" and,  perhaps, to strive for unadorned, candid, truthful communication, face to face, as often and wherever that's what's needed.

If you stretch the point and define "trifling" to mean "not true" or "poorly reasoned" or "carelessly uttered" or "deliberately obfuscatory," then by all means go with Ben and do the avoidance thing….

http://barleyliterate.blogspot.com/2012/06/wisdom-of-benjamin-franklin-part-3.html

http://barleyliterate.blogspot.com/2012/05/wisdom-of-benjamin-franklin-part-2.html

http://barleyliterate.blogspot.com/2012/05/wisdom-of-benjamin-franklin.html

I know, it's none of my business….

I think I'm decently tolerant of some of the very bizarre names of people I don't know.

I think I might not be thrilled to meet the self-indulgent parents of people who are stuck with names like "LaJarra" and "Christmas" and "Moon Unit," but usually I lie down and let the feeling go away….

 I just wasn't able to force myself to avoid commenting on a name I spotted in the most recent issue of Oxford American Magazine….among its offerings is a rather spasmodic and indifferently written piece on an apparently not exceptionally obscure writer named Breece Dexter John Pancake, AKA Breece D'J Pancake.

The mangled middle initials first showed up as a typo in The Atlantic Monthly, and Mr. Pancake decided to adopt them.

Sorry, I can't help myself, I refuse to wonder in silence about how to pronounce "D'J" and I ease my conscience about writing this tepid, tentative diatribe by imagining that you very likely feel the same way….

There, I said it, I'm done with Mr. Pancake.

...some people have too much money

"Friend" your cereal?

3,628 people killed by guns since Newtown....

In case you were wondering, more than 3,628 Americans have died from gunshot wounds since Dec. 14, when a crazy shooter killed 20 first-graders and several adults in Newtown, CT.

That's about 28 people each and every day.

And by the way, about 130 gun permits were issued to some of the 27,000 residents of Newtown last year. In the three months since the murders at Sandy Hook Elementary School, there were 79 applications for gun permits. "20 kids were shot, so I need a gun" ???????  That's not what I said when I heard about it ……

We have too many guns in America.

Too many dead people.

The average household in America has more guns than balloons.

We need more balloons, fewer guns.

Gun death tally on Slate.com

"I got the PFA, but he still has a gun..."

"Get started shooting something..." ??