Many pre-Christian religions conducted blood sacrifices in one form or another. Christianity changed that by making Jesus the ultimate sacrifice that made further sacrifices unnecessary. Personally, I find the notion that you can atone for your sins by shedding innocent blood to be preposterous, but people in Biblical times were comfortable with the concept, probably because it had been around for so long.
The word "sacrifice" implies that you are giving up something of value. In the days when wealth mostly consisted of livestock, it was a way of giving something back to the god who had provided it to you in the first place. Some cultures sacrificed prisoners of war, and some even sacrificed their own children, both of which had intrinsic value at a time when the Earth was more sparsely populated than it is today. At some point, however, people began to believe that blood itself had magical properties. Blood represents life itself. All animals have it and, when they lose it, they cease to be alive.
The fact that the blood sacrifice was practiced in so many cultures for such a long time suggests that it appeals to some facet of human nature, a facet that has been pretty much bred out of us by now. Because so few people practice it today, we may deduce that it is a recessive trait. You can minimize a recessive trait in a population, but you can never completely get rid of it. You might think it's gone, but it comes back like a bad penny every so often. The mass murderers of today may represent such a throwback, although I'm pretty sure that they don't consciously know that. They feel compelled to do what they do by some force that they don't understand. People originally sacrificed animals because they believed it would appease their gods, but they really were doing it to make themselves feel good. I mean, "What does God want with a dead sheep?" Those gods are now long forgotten. but the good feeling that people got from appeasing them lingers on in our genetic heritage.
Well, it's just a theory. What do you guys think?
Tuesday, October 10, 2017
Little Bang Theory
I remember as a kid endlessly playing guns with the other kids.
That was a lot of fun, wasn't it? Cowboys and Indians, Cops and Robbers, or Good Guys and Bad Guys, it made little difference. And you didn't even need a gun; the ability to point your finger and shout 'bang' or 'pow' was enough to drop your opponent in his tracks (if he played fairly, which wasn't often). I think you had to yell "I got you" for it to be a confirmed kill, and high value was placed on dramatic death throes. It was considered poor form to simply drop to the ground, and the longer it took for you to fall in your final and fatal repose, the better. "You got me! (gurgle)"
Cap guns were the preferred weapon of choice, with those little red rolls you inserted in the gun but I don't think you can get those anymore. It's kind of funny to look back and think of the time when it was perfectly normal for a child to buy what was, essentially, a paper strip of explosives. "Harmless fun" had a different meaning back then. Sometimes I wouldn't bother with a cap gun and would smack them with a small rock to make them go off, which quickly escalated to hitting the whole roll, which gave a much bigger bang. Since those rolls were attached in groups of five it didn't take long to try and hit the whole thing with a brick to see if they would all go off at once, and they didn't. Lot of misfires, and you had to go back and smack them with the small rock to make sure you got them all.
But what's this nonsense about not pretending to plant a bomb? Didn't you guys have firecrackers on the South Side? There was always some kid on the block who had an older brother who would make a clandestine journey to the mysterious, far away realm of Chinatown for firecracker procurement. I thought such things were illegal, but apparently he knew a guy that knew a guy named Chang and soon packs of firecrackers were in our greedy little mitts. Oh, the joy of separating the individual firecrackers to be later inserted into model cars, anthills, or groups of the little green plastic army men. That, too, escalated like any other arms race. Superior firepower was required, and cherry bombs, the glorious red orbs with the green fuse, were the answer. By golly, now we were having fun! And the fun lasted until the appearance of the very serious M-80, not something kids should be playing with (although we did when we were older). The M-80 was like a nuke, not something to be trifled with, and there was an unspoken agreement that the arms race was over and peace and quiet returned to the neighborhood. Looking back, I don't recall any parent, adult, or busybody neighbor yelling at us, telling us to quit fooling around. I wonder why that was.
-----
I've read the term 'unicorn hunter' before, but being ignorant, I assumed that it has to do with searching for something fanciful that didn't exist, like a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Well, now I know better, and I also learned that the apparent opposite of a unicorn is the dreaded 'swamp donkey.' The growing lexicon is marvelous and soon nobody will know what anyone is talking about, even if we act like we do.
-----
A while back I inquired about what are considered reliable news sources, and I stumbled on an answer in a YouTube video, of all places. It's one of those 'top ten' lists, and it seems kosher, providing caveats for the biases the sources may have. I can't say that I disagree with the results, as I am familiar with all the sources named. Anyhow, here are the top ten in ascending order: Wall Street Journal, New York Times, BBC, NPR, Snopes, Reuters, The Economist, PBS, C-SPAN, and at #1, The Associated Press.
The video is seven months old, so take it for what it's worth and you can view it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHo_YnxEiW0
That was a lot of fun, wasn't it? Cowboys and Indians, Cops and Robbers, or Good Guys and Bad Guys, it made little difference. And you didn't even need a gun; the ability to point your finger and shout 'bang' or 'pow' was enough to drop your opponent in his tracks (if he played fairly, which wasn't often). I think you had to yell "I got you" for it to be a confirmed kill, and high value was placed on dramatic death throes. It was considered poor form to simply drop to the ground, and the longer it took for you to fall in your final and fatal repose, the better. "You got me! (gurgle)"
Cap guns were the preferred weapon of choice, with those little red rolls you inserted in the gun but I don't think you can get those anymore. It's kind of funny to look back and think of the time when it was perfectly normal for a child to buy what was, essentially, a paper strip of explosives. "Harmless fun" had a different meaning back then. Sometimes I wouldn't bother with a cap gun and would smack them with a small rock to make them go off, which quickly escalated to hitting the whole roll, which gave a much bigger bang. Since those rolls were attached in groups of five it didn't take long to try and hit the whole thing with a brick to see if they would all go off at once, and they didn't. Lot of misfires, and you had to go back and smack them with the small rock to make sure you got them all.
But what's this nonsense about not pretending to plant a bomb? Didn't you guys have firecrackers on the South Side? There was always some kid on the block who had an older brother who would make a clandestine journey to the mysterious, far away realm of Chinatown for firecracker procurement. I thought such things were illegal, but apparently he knew a guy that knew a guy named Chang and soon packs of firecrackers were in our greedy little mitts. Oh, the joy of separating the individual firecrackers to be later inserted into model cars, anthills, or groups of the little green plastic army men. That, too, escalated like any other arms race. Superior firepower was required, and cherry bombs, the glorious red orbs with the green fuse, were the answer. By golly, now we were having fun! And the fun lasted until the appearance of the very serious M-80, not something kids should be playing with (although we did when we were older). The M-80 was like a nuke, not something to be trifled with, and there was an unspoken agreement that the arms race was over and peace and quiet returned to the neighborhood. Looking back, I don't recall any parent, adult, or busybody neighbor yelling at us, telling us to quit fooling around. I wonder why that was.
-----
I've read the term 'unicorn hunter' before, but being ignorant, I assumed that it has to do with searching for something fanciful that didn't exist, like a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Well, now I know better, and I also learned that the apparent opposite of a unicorn is the dreaded 'swamp donkey.' The growing lexicon is marvelous and soon nobody will know what anyone is talking about, even if we act like we do.
-----
A while back I inquired about what are considered reliable news sources, and I stumbled on an answer in a YouTube video, of all places. It's one of those 'top ten' lists, and it seems kosher, providing caveats for the biases the sources may have. I can't say that I disagree with the results, as I am familiar with all the sources named. Anyhow, here are the top ten in ascending order: Wall Street Journal, New York Times, BBC, NPR, Snopes, Reuters, The Economist, PBS, C-SPAN, and at #1, The Associated Press.
The video is seven months old, so take it for what it's worth and you can view it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHo_YnxEiW0
odd blokes
I don't know if we can ever understand the motives of these mass killers. I guess you could say they have a screw loose. It's sort of a circular definition, anybody who does something like that must have a screw loose, but most of these guys come across as odd blokes. Still there are plenty of odd blokes (not us, I hasten to add), and most of them don't do mass murder. And they have that annoying habit of killing themselves. If they are after that dubious glory wouldn't you think they would want to live so that they can revel in their fame, give cryptic comments to reporters, make a speech at their trial that would shock the nation?
I think there is a lot we don't know about the current guy. The strange thing to me is that he was some kind of big time gambler, but mostly it seems he played video poker, which is just a glorified slot machine, the longer you play it the more you will lose. What exactly is the nature of his real estate ventures that he made so much money on them? I think what you have now is reporters swarming around to get a story from anybody who claims to have known the guy, and then they just report whatever the guy says because any story about this guy will get published.
I remember as a kid endlessly playing guns with the other kids. When I was subbing, I remember once handing out protractors to some second graders and the boys pretended they were guns and ran around shooting each other (the girls responsibly went about the classroom measuring angles, you will note that there has never been a female mass murderer), and it seems like most video games are some version of playing guns. I think there is something about aiming, and about hitting, and about killing, especially people, it feels like you are accomplishing something. Though I have to admit that as a kid we never thought of actually killing somebody, it was more like keeping score in a game,.
I looked up upper peninsula unicorn hunters and came up with this https://www.lssu.edu/banished-words-list/unicorn-hunters/ It seems like that list of banned words was just one of the things they did to get publicity for their lonely little college on the northern rim of Michigan.
Did I say northern rim of Michigan? That's where I thought Cheboygan was. I looked at that google map and saw water north of Cheboygan and I thought here lies Canada, but not so. There is yet a whole stretch of the upper peninsula between Cheybogan and rampant socialism, it's like the yoopers reach over from the west and tap the loopers on their heads. Coming west from Lake Huron it is a left turn to Lake Michigan and a right to Lake Superior. The things they don't teach you in school, or maybe they do, you just weren't paying attention,
I think there is a lot we don't know about the current guy. The strange thing to me is that he was some kind of big time gambler, but mostly it seems he played video poker, which is just a glorified slot machine, the longer you play it the more you will lose. What exactly is the nature of his real estate ventures that he made so much money on them? I think what you have now is reporters swarming around to get a story from anybody who claims to have known the guy, and then they just report whatever the guy says because any story about this guy will get published.
I remember as a kid endlessly playing guns with the other kids. When I was subbing, I remember once handing out protractors to some second graders and the boys pretended they were guns and ran around shooting each other (the girls responsibly went about the classroom measuring angles, you will note that there has never been a female mass murderer), and it seems like most video games are some version of playing guns. I think there is something about aiming, and about hitting, and about killing, especially people, it feels like you are accomplishing something. Though I have to admit that as a kid we never thought of actually killing somebody, it was more like keeping score in a game,.
I looked up upper peninsula unicorn hunters and came up with this https://www.lssu.edu/banished-words-list/unicorn-hunters/ It seems like that list of banned words was just one of the things they did to get publicity for their lonely little college on the northern rim of Michigan.
Did I say northern rim of Michigan? That's where I thought Cheboygan was. I looked at that google map and saw water north of Cheboygan and I thought here lies Canada, but not so. There is yet a whole stretch of the upper peninsula between Cheybogan and rampant socialism, it's like the yoopers reach over from the west and tap the loopers on their heads. Coming west from Lake Huron it is a left turn to Lake Michigan and a right to Lake Superior. The things they don't teach you in school, or maybe they do, you just weren't paying attention,
Monday, October 9, 2017
No More Monkey Business - I Promise!
Thanks to Old Dog for tracking down that bogus monkey theory. I never said that I believed it, you know, just that I remembered reading something about it a long time ago. And now, back to our story:
The more I think about it, I don't think that riot psychology is applicable to those mass shooters. Riots are crowd affairs, and those shooters are mostly loners. Then again, they usually target crowds, but that's probably just because they want to maximize the body count. Rioters are under the spell of mass hysteria, if you can disperse the crowd, the spell is broken and the riot is over. The shooters are under the spell of something, but I don't think it's hysteria, because that is usually a temporary condition. These guys plan their operations in great detail and they seem to know exactly what they're doing. They frequently kill themselves at the end, so that must be part of their plan from the beginning. Too bad they don't kill themselves at the beginning and save everybody a lot of trouble.
I always considered range target shooting as practice for hunting, but there are people who like to shoot who don't even hunt. I can understand that, it's a skill like a lot of other things, and there is satisfaction to be derived from mastering a skill. I might do more of it myself if I had the time. Shortly after we moved here, I built my own private rifle range alongside the garage. It's only 50 yards, but that's the distance at which I see most of my deer. I really should practice more than I do.....maybe this year.
I have heard that people can become addicted to running and other forms of exercise, so I suppose it's possible to become addicted to shooting, but I don't know if a shooting addiction could lead to a desire to kill people. It seems that it would be easier and safer to just keep shooting targets. Even hunting doesn't provide as much opportunity to shoot as range shooting, and it seems like shooting people wouldn't be an improvement in that respect. Then, with your own death or incarceration as a likely consequence, your shooting days would be over. What fun would that be?
As far as I know, the Unicorn Hunters to which I referred are not into kinky sex. Well, they are college students, so you never know, but that's not the point. They get together once a year to ban words and phrases from the English language for "misuse, overuse, and downright uselessness". People submit nominations, and these guys decide which ones make the final cut. Our local newspaper usually prints the top ten or so, but I think the whole list is longer than that. I usually have never heard of about half of that top ten list, so I find it hard to believe that these terms are in general circulation. Like I said, these guys are associated with some university, I think it's Lake Superior State, which is in the Upper Peninsula, so maybe they speak a dialect all their own.
The more I think about it, I don't think that riot psychology is applicable to those mass shooters. Riots are crowd affairs, and those shooters are mostly loners. Then again, they usually target crowds, but that's probably just because they want to maximize the body count. Rioters are under the spell of mass hysteria, if you can disperse the crowd, the spell is broken and the riot is over. The shooters are under the spell of something, but I don't think it's hysteria, because that is usually a temporary condition. These guys plan their operations in great detail and they seem to know exactly what they're doing. They frequently kill themselves at the end, so that must be part of their plan from the beginning. Too bad they don't kill themselves at the beginning and save everybody a lot of trouble.
I always considered range target shooting as practice for hunting, but there are people who like to shoot who don't even hunt. I can understand that, it's a skill like a lot of other things, and there is satisfaction to be derived from mastering a skill. I might do more of it myself if I had the time. Shortly after we moved here, I built my own private rifle range alongside the garage. It's only 50 yards, but that's the distance at which I see most of my deer. I really should practice more than I do.....maybe this year.
I have heard that people can become addicted to running and other forms of exercise, so I suppose it's possible to become addicted to shooting, but I don't know if a shooting addiction could lead to a desire to kill people. It seems that it would be easier and safer to just keep shooting targets. Even hunting doesn't provide as much opportunity to shoot as range shooting, and it seems like shooting people wouldn't be an improvement in that respect. Then, with your own death or incarceration as a likely consequence, your shooting days would be over. What fun would that be?
As far as I know, the Unicorn Hunters to which I referred are not into kinky sex. Well, they are college students, so you never know, but that's not the point. They get together once a year to ban words and phrases from the English language for "misuse, overuse, and downright uselessness". People submit nominations, and these guys decide which ones make the final cut. Our local newspaper usually prints the top ten or so, but I think the whole list is longer than that. I usually have never heard of about half of that top ten list, so I find it hard to believe that these terms are in general circulation. Like I said, these guys are associated with some university, I think it's Lake Superior State, which is in the Upper Peninsula, so maybe they speak a dialect all their own.
maybe we never outgrow shooting guns
I found that wiki article too. What seemed crazy about the study as described by Beagles was that the behavior would go from one island to another even though they didn't know of each other's existence. How could that be? It turns out it wasn't. The other part seemed reasonable, much like that threshold thing where more people jump on a behavior when a bunch of other people do, Basically I am thinking hula hoops here and that thing I never quite understood where people go searching for Pokeman characters that don't even exist.
There is that herd mentality, often derided, but sometimes it works. If you have no idea of what to do, it's not a bad strategy to do what other people around you are doing. If you round a corner and people are running in the other direction, maybe it's a good idea to join them, lest you get eaten by a giant grasshopper.
I wonder in what way would those bump stocks would be regulated. I suppose you could make it so they never leave the shooting range. I think they are looking for some kind of trade off, something like universal conceal and carry, and of course my ilk will want something more reaching. In the end it will be a lot of sound and fury and likely nothing will happen. But here's something I thought was stupid, how the gun nuts thought it was so shameful that the gun control nuts would bring up the subject right after the massacre. I mean, what better time?
I looked up unicorn hunters and I came up with something about people being attracted to bisexual poly people. I think Beagles meant some other term/ There are always these people who get in the papers by decrying some crass term, like hopefully, but it is sort of interesting, I like people who talk about grammar or vocabulary. There used to be a lot of columnists who did that like Safire when he wasn't shilling for Tricky Dick. I miss them.
I think Americans are a little nuttier than other people in that most of us are descendants of people who didn't get along in the old country. The other difference is that it 's a lot easier to get ahold of weapons of mass destruction here than elsewhere to carry out newsworthy plans. After I wrote that I started thinking of like the mideast where weapons are probably even easier to get than here. I guess all the crazy stuff they do is enveloped in some cause.
You have to think that Paddock with all the planning he did could have killed more people with some explosive, but maybe he wanted to shoot people because it is more fun. When we were kids we didn't play at pretending to plant a bomb, and I suspect that those video games don't involve that either. There is just something fun about shooting people. Perhaps when we first started chucking spears and shooting arrows some gene that favored aiming took ascendancy.
There is that herd mentality, often derided, but sometimes it works. If you have no idea of what to do, it's not a bad strategy to do what other people around you are doing. If you round a corner and people are running in the other direction, maybe it's a good idea to join them, lest you get eaten by a giant grasshopper.
I wonder in what way would those bump stocks would be regulated. I suppose you could make it so they never leave the shooting range. I think they are looking for some kind of trade off, something like universal conceal and carry, and of course my ilk will want something more reaching. In the end it will be a lot of sound and fury and likely nothing will happen. But here's something I thought was stupid, how the gun nuts thought it was so shameful that the gun control nuts would bring up the subject right after the massacre. I mean, what better time?
I looked up unicorn hunters and I came up with something about people being attracted to bisexual poly people. I think Beagles meant some other term/ There are always these people who get in the papers by decrying some crass term, like hopefully, but it is sort of interesting, I like people who talk about grammar or vocabulary. There used to be a lot of columnists who did that like Safire when he wasn't shilling for Tricky Dick. I miss them.
I think Americans are a little nuttier than other people in that most of us are descendants of people who didn't get along in the old country. The other difference is that it 's a lot easier to get ahold of weapons of mass destruction here than elsewhere to carry out newsworthy plans. After I wrote that I started thinking of like the mideast where weapons are probably even easier to get than here. I guess all the crazy stuff they do is enveloped in some cause.
You have to think that Paddock with all the planning he did could have killed more people with some explosive, but maybe he wanted to shoot people because it is more fun. When we were kids we didn't play at pretending to plant a bomb, and I suspect that those video games don't involve that either. There is just something fun about shooting people. Perhaps when we first started chucking spears and shooting arrows some gene that favored aiming took ascendancy.
Sunday, October 8, 2017
Crazy times
Wiki never heard of it, so maybe it wasn't the 13th, maybe it was some other number. Does anybody here know what I'm talking about?
I've not heard of that monkey study but it piqued my interest and it was time to check with Mr. Google. I used the search string "monkey behavior separate islands" and Bingo! Up popped a Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundredth_monkey_effect
This may be the research Mr. Beagles was talking about but it seems that some of the conclusions lack academic rigor and relied on second- and third-hand interpretations of the data. I think the original study was done by Japanese scholars in the early fifties, so something may have gotten lost in the translation. Although interesting, it isn't the kind of thing I'll be pursuing for the time being.
So, what about studies in human behavior? Psychologists and head shrinkers have been hard at work for a long time and yet we don't seem to be any closer to understanding the goofballs and crazies. Maybe it's the media coverage (or how I'm interpreting it) but the US seems to have a unique type of craziness in its citizens. It took that guy in Vegas a lot of time and money to plan and execute his operation, and to what end? Just to kill some random strangers? There are some things I can't wrap my brain around, and this is another one of them.
But lest we conclude that the US has a monopoly in generating crazy people we should consider what a fun duo has been up to for the last twenty years. Ask Mr. Google about "Russian cannibal couple" for some grisly details.
-----
I should take comfort in the fact that things could be a lot worse; there could many more mass murders than there are now, firearms or not. Nowadays it's trivial to find the information needed to create explosives, poisons, or any other killing tool. To humanity's credit, most folks just aren't into that kind of thing. Sadly, I don't think anything can be done to prevent highly motivated nutjobs from exerting their will, same as it's ever been.
I've not heard of that monkey study but it piqued my interest and it was time to check with Mr. Google. I used the search string "monkey behavior separate islands" and Bingo! Up popped a Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundredth_monkey_effect
This may be the research Mr. Beagles was talking about but it seems that some of the conclusions lack academic rigor and relied on second- and third-hand interpretations of the data. I think the original study was done by Japanese scholars in the early fifties, so something may have gotten lost in the translation. Although interesting, it isn't the kind of thing I'll be pursuing for the time being.
So, what about studies in human behavior? Psychologists and head shrinkers have been hard at work for a long time and yet we don't seem to be any closer to understanding the goofballs and crazies. Maybe it's the media coverage (or how I'm interpreting it) but the US seems to have a unique type of craziness in its citizens. It took that guy in Vegas a lot of time and money to plan and execute his operation, and to what end? Just to kill some random strangers? There are some things I can't wrap my brain around, and this is another one of them.
But lest we conclude that the US has a monopoly in generating crazy people we should consider what a fun duo has been up to for the last twenty years. Ask Mr. Google about "Russian cannibal couple" for some grisly details.
-----
I should take comfort in the fact that things could be a lot worse; there could many more mass murders than there are now, firearms or not. Nowadays it's trivial to find the information needed to create explosives, poisons, or any other killing tool. To humanity's credit, most folks just aren't into that kind of thing. Sadly, I don't think anything can be done to prevent highly motivated nutjobs from exerting their will, same as it's ever been.
Saturday, October 7, 2017
Monkey See - Monkey Do
I read that New Yorker article last night and found it interesting. Some of the principles were familiar to me because of my army riot control training and my experience driving school busses. I don't believe I've ever heard the part about the thresholds before, though. There just might be something to that.
I am reminded of a study that I read about somewhere a long time ago. These researchers were studying two groups of monkeys on two different islands. I believe they were the same species, but the two groups didn't have any contact with each other. I don't remember if there were two groups of researchers as well, or if the same researchers shuttled back and forth between the islands, which could have significantly impacted their findings. Whenever one of the monkeys developed a new behavior, it might take a long time before one of the others copied it but, after that, more monkeys quickly adopted the new behavior, and soon all the monkeys on the island were doing it. The amazing thing is that the monkeys on the other island soon adopted the behavior as well. I seem to remember that there was a specific point at which the behavior jumped islands, it was after a certain number of monkeys on the first island started doing it. I think a book was written about it, called "The 13th Monkey", or something like that. Wiki never heard of it, so maybe it wasn't the 13th, maybe it was some other number. Does anybody here know what I'm talking about?
When I said that "William Tell" was the last opera on my bucket list, I meant on my opera bucket list, not on my whole life bucket list. I don't think I have one of those. I've always done pretty much what I wanted to do, or abandoned the idea for one reason of another. I won't nurture a fantasy forever, I eventually either make it a reality or I quit thinking about it. At this point in my life, there is nothing that I want to do that I haven't already done, so I just keep doing the same things over and over again. Every once in a while, I have to give something up because I no longer have the time or energy to do it. If a time slot opens up in the future, I plan to reinstate one of the things I have previously given up, so I will never run out of things that I like to do.
I understand that the NRA now wants bump stocks to be regulated, but not totally banned. As far as I'm concerned, you can go ahead and ban the shit out of them. Since I never heard of them until a few days ago, they couldn't be very important in the grand scheme of things. It's like those Unicorn Hunters in the Upper Peninsula who ban words and phrases for "misuse, overuse, and down right uselessness".
I am reminded of a study that I read about somewhere a long time ago. These researchers were studying two groups of monkeys on two different islands. I believe they were the same species, but the two groups didn't have any contact with each other. I don't remember if there were two groups of researchers as well, or if the same researchers shuttled back and forth between the islands, which could have significantly impacted their findings. Whenever one of the monkeys developed a new behavior, it might take a long time before one of the others copied it but, after that, more monkeys quickly adopted the new behavior, and soon all the monkeys on the island were doing it. The amazing thing is that the monkeys on the other island soon adopted the behavior as well. I seem to remember that there was a specific point at which the behavior jumped islands, it was after a certain number of monkeys on the first island started doing it. I think a book was written about it, called "The 13th Monkey", or something like that. Wiki never heard of it, so maybe it wasn't the 13th, maybe it was some other number. Does anybody here know what I'm talking about?
When I said that "William Tell" was the last opera on my bucket list, I meant on my opera bucket list, not on my whole life bucket list. I don't think I have one of those. I've always done pretty much what I wanted to do, or abandoned the idea for one reason of another. I won't nurture a fantasy forever, I eventually either make it a reality or I quit thinking about it. At this point in my life, there is nothing that I want to do that I haven't already done, so I just keep doing the same things over and over again. Every once in a while, I have to give something up because I no longer have the time or energy to do it. If a time slot opens up in the future, I plan to reinstate one of the things I have previously given up, so I will never run out of things that I like to do.
I understand that the NRA now wants bump stocks to be regulated, but not totally banned. As far as I'm concerned, you can go ahead and ban the shit out of them. Since I never heard of them until a few days ago, they couldn't be very important in the grand scheme of things. It's like those Unicorn Hunters in the Upper Peninsula who ban words and phrases for "misuse, overuse, and down right uselessness".
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