BuggBlog

"You'll take my gun away over my cold, dead prawns"

Some Virginia gun-rights activists are going to protest an alleged grievance -- that some gun owners in "urban" Virginia areas have been asked to leave restaurants for bringing their firearms into the establishment -- by having a night out in Fairfax County restaurants while packing heat.

So, to recap the situation in Virginia: Mixing liquor and wine to make sangria -- illegal. Carrying your favorite handgun into a restaurant or bar full of drunken idjits -- legal.

Dave Vann of Falls Church wouldn't tell the Post what restaurants the activists would be patronizing because they don't want anyone to warn the restaurant owners. Boy, that instills some confidence in their goals. Honestly, I just want to know where they're going to be so I can make sure to be somewhere else.

Without getting too deep into it, I actually think the second amendment guarantees gun rights to citizens. But just as the first amendment's guarantee of freedom of the press comes with rational limits such as slander and libel, there are limits to gun rights. And, frankly, this whole issue is stupid -- which is frankly a given when it comes to much of the Virginia legislature.

Even if you have the right to carry, I don't see why you should have the right to carry into a private business that doesn't want guns present. It's by no means irrational as a restaurant or bar owner to decide that firearms aren't welcome in an establishment -- not everyone believes that gun toting and family dining go together. Or drink slinging and gun slinging, for that matter.

And honestly, if you think that Denny's or IHOP is so dangerous that you dare not venture in unarmed, maybe you need to take your meal in another restaurant.

Naked self interest, democracy, it's all the same thing

If Hillary Clinton had cared so passionately about the democratic voting rights of Michiganders and Floridians, she would have done something about it long before those states ran their front-loaded, illegal primaries in defiance of party rules. Instead, she chose to have her campaign issue press statements supporting the DNC decision, lauding the special position of Iowa and New Hampshire in the primary process, and pledging not to campaign in those states. Now, naturally, she's so very concerned with Michigan and Florida as she attempts to conjure some scenario by which she nabs the nomination.

I'm not even going to get into the nonsense that's been spewing from her on this issue over the past few weeks -- well, other than to say that if you consider the ability to tell big, whopping lies with a straight face and steady voice to be a prerequisite for occupying the White House, then Clinton is your candidate -- but it's important to remember that while citizens should have the right to vote in a democracy, a democracy doesn't mean you get do-overs.

Clinton's push for a mulligan distracts from the fact that there are many people responsible for this clusterfuck:

First, the candidates -- all of them, but Clinton, Barack Obama and other top-tier candidates in particular -- should have been vocal and active in opposing the draconian punishment the DNC imposed on the states for violating primary schedule rules, and supported some alternate plan that would allow a vote, campaigning and some measure of representation in the process.

Second, the DNC and the Florida and Michigan parties for all the obvious reasons. Should've been this, should've been that. Politicians in those states wanted to play as big boys in the process and they got burned for it. They should have thought twice about playing a game of chicken with their constituents' votes.

Which leads to the third and, I think, most important cog in this blame machine: the people of Michigan and Florida. You sat back and let your legislatures, elected representatives and party elders get you into this mess. Democracy means that you get a vote. Democracy also means you should be paying attention to what your government does, particularly on such a high-profile and well-covered issue as this one. You didn't do that, so you don't get to go twice because you realize you screwed up. That leaves you with one very democratic option -- in the next election use your vote against the people who got you into this mess in the first place.

A man who made the world

I haven't been blogging much, in part because I've found myself swamped with actual paying work and in part because I felt I was getting too wrapped up in the ongoing campaign to be president of Pennsylvania.

But the news yesterday of the death of Arthur C. Clarke saddened me. As a pre-teen, science-fiction geek bookworm, I naturally read a lot of his stuff -- as an adult I didn't keep up, aside from the Rama series. But 2001, Rendezvous with Rama and short stories such as "The Nine Billion Names of God" left a huge impression on me. People who dismiss science fiction as mere genre are unfortunate in what they miss -- good science fiction, particularly the "hard" science fiction of Clarke and the writers he inspired, grows not only the imagination, but the sense of wonder and sense of reason.

It was just a few weeks ago that I introduced Cavin to the film version of 2001: A Space Odyssey. His verdict: "It's slow." True enough. But it contains indelible moments from our shared culture, the kind of things that most artists and writers only dream of creating.

To live 90 years and create a body of work that will likely live another 200, if not more -- that inspires a sense of wonder.