Making This A No Insanity Zone

OK this is Tuesday afternoon just after three and [name withheld] said we had two minutes to clear out of the patio before he hosed it down.   I wonder how many patients get hosed down on a regular basis.  Here’s a funny idea.  Supposed there was some transcript testimony of events that occurred around here while [name withheld] was hosing down the patio, but in Word they opted for the “find and change all” and substituted “a patient” for “the patio”.  You gotta admit that would be pretty funny to read back in court.   Actually I would like to declare today “No Insanity Day” because Randy Rhodes was talking about some really insane propositions, like giving blind people access to firearms.  It’s legal for blind people to hunt in several states.   Hell, considering all the accidental hunting accidents- - this must really inflate those numbers.  Many see no problem with mental patients being allowed access to firearms.  Someone said “The tea party people are never going to budge on this gun issue till one of their own high ranking officials gets gunned down.   That sounds like a Di Mira threat but think about it.  “It’s not a threat- - just an observation of the way it will be”.  They say that police only hit their targets 34% of the time.  But now with these Glock weapons that all the police departments are switching to- - it’s easier to be a good shot.  I guess there’s less recoil or something.  Because this one reporter guy was invited to take target practice with a Glock, and his accuracy at the target was almost as good as the cops.  I never knew Glocks didn’t come into existence till 1982 and were invented by an Austrian company.  It seems there are a lot fewer moving parts.  And because they have an eighteen bullet magazine- - you can get off a lot more rounds in a gun fight.  When we grew up cops normally used .38 revolvers, which were like a relic from a different age.  But I had a regular Larry Miller type suggestion, to convince the rest of you that I really have lost my mind.  As you know I have been utterly opposed to bringing back the draft.  But now I think I have reconsidered.  Since the second amendment is associated with a standing militia, why not just say that every individual who purchases a firearm- - is now ellegable for the draft.  And if you’re some 68 year old hunter- - if your eyes are still good and you have enough finger strength to pull the trigger, why not put you in s special division that doesn’t have to run the obstacle course at Camp Pendelton.   And by the way I wasn’t given my 1 Y status for my mental illness.  Indeed I passed the psychiatric portion of the exam.  That was on April 23^rd 1970 so note that date.  It was for my vision.  And I’d make a lousey hunter because if someone says “do you see that bird?” or “Look, there’s a garden weasel in the heavy brush” I’ve missed it.  It’s my concerted opinion that you have to have a lot better both vision and reflexes to hunt, as opposed to even driving.

Perhaps President Obama should announce the existence of a group - - let’s call them an “education group” that goes around to the worst parts of ghettos in major cities, and “minesters’ to down and out young Black men, and encourages them that they can boost their pride and self-esteem, and all they need to do to accomplish this is to get all their friends to go out and purchase a firearm.  Perhaps they can even film big burly Black men at the target range- - and show the video on Fox news.   I think what President Obama needs to do - - maybe this is already happening- - is to have some “education” features on television telling the people about how they can benefit from the Affordable Care Act, and remind them that even if congress “shuts down the government’ that the whole Affordable Care Act is already written into law- - and its favorable provisions can’t be undone, no matter how much the Republicans threaten.  It also came to my awareness that the vast majority of gun owners in the nation are NOT members of the National Rifle Association.  I think polls of non NRA gun owners on various issues should be propagated a lot more than they have been.  First remind the people what the NRA used to be, and remind them of what it is now.  And how truly we have a “tail wagging the dog” situation in congress where there is virtually no “Base” to the NRA’s position.  Hell, at least the word “Al Qaeda” in fact means “The Base”.  At least Al Qaeda has a base.  The NRA doesn’t.

In soap land- - now E J is working at acquitting Samantha from the other side of the fence trying to cut a deal with his father to produce the evidence of the knife.  Stephano was very cagy about how he responded to him- - almost as if he suspected Elvis might be wearing a wire.  But all the same he conveyed the message that Hell would freeze over before Stephano would lift a singer to help Samantha.  I’m wondering if they might resolve this thing by Elvis agreeing to give Stephano his business empire back.  Well guess what?   Call me a “dirty rat” if you want, but whatever I agreed to with Stephano I’d go right down to the DA and turn the recording in as evidence- - to get Stephano put away.  Not only won’t he get his business empire back but he’ll be looking on the inside of a jail cell from the rest of his life.  Meanwhile Abigail finally “became a woman” today, finally having sex for the first time.   Now she can actually sing the song for real.   You know Lucas has always reminded me of Roger Shepherd.  Not just in his face, but also some ethereal quality about his personality I can’t quite put my finger on.

I was talking to Roxanne today - - because she or someone raised the question whether God could really “forget’ about a person’s past transgressions.  I then said to her that certain words in the Bible like “remember” mean slightly different things than in common usage.  It’s not that God has Amnesia or something.  Indeed if God doesn’t ever change- - and developing ignorance of something he formerly had been aware of would be a change- - we can reason that God doesn’t literally “forget” something, as Billy Graham proposes.  But also when God says “I will remember you in times of distress”, what he means is that he is aware of your state, and will come to give you aid to remedy the problem.   One of the explanations for the name Zachery - - is an allusion to Jesus Christ saying “I will hold this generation accountable for every sin ever committed from the murder of innocent Abel to the murder of innocent Zachariah- - who was murdered on temple grounds”.  Apparently the father of John the Baptist- - was indeed murdered, perhaps by Herodians- - who believe Zachariah was a little too messianic.

There is this case in Charolette, North Carolina, I believe, where this guy gets in a wreck and totals his car and has broken bones and is a bloody mess and in great pain.  Somehow he manages to get out of his car and wander through the woods or something to this woman's house, and he bangs on the front door frantically for help before he bleeds to death or whatever.  The woman heard the banging and calls the cops immediately.  The cops arrive there - - three of them.  After some verbal interchange, according to the cops the suspect "lunges at one of the cops" and he fires and kills them.  We left out a detail or two in this recounting.  First of all the guy can't even walk, let alone lunge.  And did we mention that the guy is a young Black man.  And not one, but ten bullets were pumped into him.  But this NC PD unlike in Sanford, after reviewing the record for a day or two, indicts the culpable officer for volentary manslaughter.  But as we saw in that Subway case up north - - the Counts tend to be lienient on Cops.  Really, really lienient.

Perhaps we aren’t as racist as a nation than we were Sixty years ago, but neither did we have information at our finger tips like we do today.   My guess is that if we had- - hard core racism in this country would have been dealt with a lot more swiftly than it was.  Back then people still had a sense of moral revulsion twords things they saw.  Today it’s almost a case of “the more disgusting, the better”.  We honor the person who screws up big time.  But a lot of people are trying to bring back racism.  Now they are all uptight because Miss America is from India, which in their minds is just a little too close to the Islamic nations.  I guess maybe there are Sufi’s in India.   But you know- - people really need to take a break from media madness and remind themselves that the media is not the real world.  As Howard Beale told us in 1976, “We are not Real; we are a manufactured Illusion; - - You are the real people out there”. You know there was one time in late August of 2006 when I did not put out a blog posting.  I had to go back in Word to check remarks I made there- - to reassure myself that no postings had been deleted by mistake or whatever.  But I don’t read blogs every day, and I don’t even check my E mail every day.  I think it’s possible we may be a bunch of information junkies, which really isn’t healthy.  This is because the NEED for the information - - actually exceeds the importance of what is RELEVENT in your own life.  Obviously if you listen to “books on tape” in your car driving to work every morning you don’t get traffic updates every fifteen minutes.  

Here's a psychological roreshock test.  Suppose you receive a call from someone who says he knows an associate of yours and claims he was shot two days ago and is in the hospital but "I don't think he will make it".  If you're like me and you hear certain stories like - - oh say "A girl you were in love with is seeing another guy but they want to "take it slow" but you assume the worse, and of course you are absolutely correct.  Anyhow back to our hypothetical story.  Suppose you have this mental debate with yourself - - like after a Bill Halliday conversation and you think "Perhaps I misheard, or it was a misunderstanding- - or maybe I just need to be sure".  In the case of Halliday I didn't even allow myself to have THIS conversation with the other half of my brain - - till over six months later.  But in the case at hand lets give it maybe ten days.  You call back on a "private number" and another stranger answers the phone, and you ask how your friend is - - and you hear laughter in the background - - and the guy on the phone says something evasive and suddenly remembers he has to go do something.  And then we have Bob Dylan in the song "Serve Somebody" and one of the names Dylan says "You may call me - - " strikes you kind of funny.  But of course you're just a paranoid so a lot of things strike you funny.