Month: April 2013

Fetuses have Second Amendment rights too

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 23 Comments

Do you suppose a mass shooting of fetuses might move the Senate to action on gun control? Naw, they’d just vote to station armed guards in American wombs.

Herself and I sent the usual NastyGrams® to our senators, for all the good that does. Two more mutts yapping. You don’t even hear it after a while. I’ve lived next to runways and railroad tracks, crack houses and frat houses, and if I’ve learned one thing it’s that a fella can learn to sleep through any kind of godawful racket, even me screaming at you over the phone.

If the killing of 20 children in Newtown can’t motivate “our” elected representatives, I don’t know what can. Oh, yeah, right — money. How silly of me.

The National Rifle Association spent $500,000 on Wednesday alone, for advertising critical of “Obama’s gun ban.” Of course, this is above and beyond what they’ve already invested in the best Congress money can buy.

Postage due

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 10 Comments

Random observations on a snowy Wednesday:

• Sloth apparently has a genetic component. So, now, in addition to everything else, you can blame your parents for making you a lazy fat bastard.

• It doesn’t matter if you get shot by a loony. What matters is how many lawmakers might lose their jobs if even a watered-down bit of gun-control legislation were to pass Congress.

• Great idea, bad optics. I’m all for Denver making 2014 “the year of the bike,” having lived there for a few years that weren’t. But if you’re going to argue that bike-ped programs should be among your top budget priorities in a tough economy, it’s probably a good idea to not let a Denver Post scribe snap a staged photo that makes City Council look like a bunch of kids enjoying spring break on Mommy and Daddy’s dime.

• Seen descending a slushy Bibleburg hill: An Audi driver motoring one-handed with a cellphone clamped to her right ear. The very personification of the Angel of Death.

Smile, though your heart is aching

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 41 Comments

Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps, for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are and what they ought to be. — William Hazlitt, English essayist, 1778-1830

I first stumbled across Hazlitt’s notion by way of Robert A. Heinlein, in “Stranger In a Strange Land,” which I was reading when I should have been reading English essayists. Valentine Michael Smith had asked Jubal Harshaw, “What is ‘Man?'”, and the answer took Jubal a little time to puzzle out.

There was one field in which man was unsurpassed; he showed unlimited ingenuity in devising bigger and more efficient ways to kill off, enslave, harass, and in all ways make an unbearable nuisance of himself to himself. Man was his own grimmest joke on himself. The very bedrock of humor was—

“Man is the animal who laughs,” Jubal answered.

There will be many ponderous pronouncements over the coming days. While we endure them, let’s all remember that Man is the animal who laughs.

One bomb deserves another

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 30 Comments

The best advice I’ve seen so far about the bombings in Boston comes from Ed Kilgore at Political Animal:

“If you live in Boston, stay home until things are better sorted out. If you live elsewhere, try to avoid jumping to any conclusions.”

Word. On a related note, I suppose it’s too soon to make a joke about how we’re all gonna have to take off our shoes before we’re allowed to run our next marathon.*

* As an ink-stained wretch of long standing I assume that this bit of black humor or some variation thereof hit the nation’s newsrooms before the smoke cleared.

Jones’n for a ride

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 28 Comments
Diamond in the rough
Jeff Jones’ Steel Diamond bike.

The first wave of the Oregon invasion has landed: a Jones Steel Diamond.

Got the big-wheeled bugger yesterday and we’ve taken two short get-acquainted rides; call it two hours total.

As usual, I can’t say much before the paying customers get theirs, but I will tell you it’s an eye-grabber. A neighbor snatched it away from me at the end of today’s ride and went for his own short roll-around.

Tell you something else. With those wheels and tires you don’t much care what gets in your way, whether it’s a pothole in the pavement or a Prius in the bike lane. Pretty much everything just got demoted to speed-bump status.

Have a look around Jeff’s website for more on his bikes and related goodies.