Zimmerman part 2

Did Trayvon Martin have the right to stand his ground? Or does that only apply if you're holding a gun?

Trayvon Martin should have been able to walk down a neighborhood street unmolested. It was wrong of George Zimmerman to tail him. It was wrong of Zimmerman to confront him. Zimmerman went out of his way to let Martin know, "hey, you're not welcome here." In the world according to Jack, a guy like that deserves a good ass-whuppin'. If he shoots someone to death for giving him the ass-whuppin' he deserves, he should go to prison.

Unfortunately, George Zimmerman didn't shoot Trayvon Martin in Jack's world. He shot him Florida where, apparently, it is legal to start an altercation and if it doesn't go down like you imagined it in your head, you can kill the other guy. In fact, maybe you even should kill the other guy. There are several minutes of uncooberated events that ocurred during this altercation. What words were exchanged? Did Zimmerman approach him with his gun in hand? Did Martin fear for his safety? Who took the first swing? Kind of fortunate for Zimmerman, isn't it, that he's the only person who can answer those questions.

Trayvon Martin did a brave thing when he stood up to George Zimmerman. Not necessarily a smart thing, being that he was an unarmed teenager standing up to an armed adult, but a brave thing. I guess I've never heard anyone accuse adolescent young men of having too much common sense, right? If anyone stood his ground that night, though, it was Trayvon Martin who had every right to be out on that street, who was doing nothing wrong, nothing even out of the ordinary and yet found himself harrassed by an intolerant, self righteous prick.

Consider this about stand your ground firearm laws. If a state wants to put a man to death it has to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the man has already committed a murder. Under stand your ground laws, any one of us can sentence a man to die based on what we suspect he might do in the near future. It's like some post-apocalyptic comic book scenario. Every citizen is commissioned as judge, jury, executioner, and can make their judgements based on some sort of extrasensory clairvoyance.

From what I understand of the events that ocurred that night, the jury probably made the correct legal decision. That doesn't lend even an ounce of legitimacy to what happened, though. It merely illustrates just how bad stand your ground laws are. This was the nightmare scenario. George Zimmerman, legally, got away with murder.

Gun Control Soap Box

I've got to admit, I don't think a background check should be performed on every gun sale. I mean, I understand how it could be a hassle for small, private transactions. Sometimes it really isn't worth it. If I just want to sell an hunting rifle I inherited to my neighbor, for example. That should be a simple, private transaction.

No, I think that instead, background checks should be done when you get your license to use a firearm. Then you simply produce the license when you register any firarm you purchase and, voila, you have verified that you already passed the background check.

You know, there have been a couple of high profile incidents recently that demonstrate the NRA isn't always lying. They make the argument that if an evil person wants to hurt people, he will. Regardless of access to firearms. He will grab a knife or a hammer or a car or whatever he can to use as a weapon and he will hurt people. Incidents last week when a guy drove his car into a Wal-Mart in California and this week at a community college in Texas demonstrate the truth in that.

In both cases people were severely injured. They were serious crimes and the perpetrators should face serious criminal penalties. It should be noted, though, that in neither case was anyone killed. I would argue that if the criminals had brought a gun, that would likely be different. I understand that's not necessarily true. I don't have a crystal ball, "would have beens" and "could have beens" are always, really, just conjecture. However, given the many, many documented incidents of gun violence, I feel pretty safe saying that criminals' access to guns, or lack thereof, makes a significant difference in their crimes. And I hate, hate, hate the NRA for how hard it works to make it easy for anyone, anyone, to get almost any type of gun and take it anywhere they want.

Joe Biden is absolutely right. Bring the gun control legislation to a vote. Make legislators put their official yay or nay on the bills in question and then hammer the bejeebers out of them over it when they come up for reelection. Air commercials with pictures of kids from Sandy Hook next to the plots where they're buried and ask the question, "How did your legislator respond?"

I missed Dancing with the Stars for this!?

Honestly, it was an exciting game to watch. Despite Seattle totally dominating the first half. Pushed the Packers around like it was nothing. I seriously got sick of how gleefully the announcers talked about how awesome Seattle is and this is what we can expect from them all year and isn't it great how they can demonstrate it against the Pack that was supposed to be so good. At least the Packer D played well enough to limit Seattle to a single TD. Did the announcers bother to point that out? How despite the Seattle Defense manhandling GB so thoroughly, they were held to only 7 points in the half? Ha!


Then the Packers came out with a revised game plan second half. Instead of passing every down, they mixed in a healthy dose of run plays. Maintained forward progress, got a first down every few plays. No big plays. Nope, none. But more important than anything else, kept our offense on the field. Turns out it's a lot easier to see how good Green Bay's defense is when the opposing offense never hits the field. 3 and out 75% of the time has a bigger impact when you take the field 4 times than it does when you take the field 16.

Or something like that. Point is, Green Bay controlled the game indisputably the second half. Held the ball, like, 25 minutes. Scored two field goals. Then a TD. Missed the 2 point conversion, but took a 12-7 lead.

Intense, exciting come back. Especially, remember, after Seattle had spent the first half demonstrating what a great team they were. And they were still ground down by Green Bay in the long game.

Then came the final drive. Less than 2 mins left on the clock. Green Bay had just kicked the ball back far enough that Seattle had a long field in front of them. And they began marching down it. Moved the ball further that drive than they had the whole 2nd half. Got a couple first downs. Got as far as their own 40 yard line before Green Bay stuffed them. Hard. Forced a long pass on 3rd and 32(!). Seattle put the ball up, heading straight for a receiver being dogged closely by a GB defender. The defender won the fight to get between the ball and the receiver, had a great chance to intercept it, so the receiver wrapped up the GB defender and the ball bounced off his hands, pass broken up. The officials could have, and looking at the replays should have, called offensive pass interference on Seattle. But OPI is rarely called, right? No one really expects it, even when the foul is that blatant.

But what no one really expected was when the official called pass interference against Green Bay! Seriously?! Seattle's player had Green Bay's wrapped up in a bear hug? And the Packers get the pass interference penalty? Yep. A 38 yard penalty for a Seattle first down. Bringing them into field goal range.

Now . . the game had been plagued by bad calls. I understand all the games have been so far this year. And probably both teams had benefitted from bad calls over the course of the game. It would probably be pointless to try and figure out who benefitted most. You just laugh, shrug and play on, right? What was clear, painfully clear, was that no call in the game had been that absurdly wrong.

Not yet anyway.

Green Bay held Seattle again. With 8 seconds left in the game they were still over 30 yards out of the end zone needing a TD to win. Last play of the game, a few players from both teams skirmish around the QB, but most of both teams sprinted to the end zone and waited for the Hail Mary. It came to the back left corner, two Seattle receivers in the area, four Packers. The defenders surrounded one receiver, totally cutting the second off from the ball. The surrounded receiver hauls off with a violent shove of one defender. I mean, not even remotely defensible as "bumping", but blantantly violent enough to legitimately disqualify him as a legal receiver. Everyone jumped for the ball. Green Bay intercepted it. As the intercepting player came down, Seattle's receiver reached in and tried to rip the ball out of his hands. Both players hit the ground hanging on to the ball, a scrum ensued, when it cleared, Green Bay still had the ball. Two officials were standing right there. One signaled an interception for Green Bay, the other (senior) official a fair catch and touchdown for Seattle.

The play was reviewed. Watching the replay, maybe you could the make the case that as fast as everything happened, maybe it looked like both players simultaneously got hands on the ball, in which case it would go to Seattle.. In slow motion, it becomes apparent that is not really the case, though. And yet they let call on the field stand.

Oh man. I do understand that sometimes games are decided by bad officiating. And when it happens, we should consider that it's not just a bad call that won the game for Seattle. They played extremely well the first half and because of that were in a position where one touchdown would win them the game. But man, I have never seen any calls as bad as those last two of the game. I mean, this is a perfect example of why good officiating matters. The NFL needs to get its scabs off the field and put real officials back in charge.

Labor Day

Happy Labor Day! 

I've been reading Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, but it seemed like somewhat of a sacrilege to read that book on Labor Day.  So I took a break to catch up on the blogging . (1) I really do need to catch up because this has been an incredibly good weekend. So I am posting entries by day.  In fact, so everything shows up in the right order, I have already posted them.  Take a gander at the past few if you missed them.  (2) I also really need the break from Atlas Shrugged.  That book is a chore . 

I'm actually only reading it because it has been in the news recently related to Paul Ryan's political views.  I have not liked Paul Ryan since his "Road Map" budget and one of the criticisms I've levelled at him is having a political foundation based on being an asshole.  Now that he's in the national spotlight I figure as long as he's going to tell us the literary work which laid the first stones of that foundation, I should read it and know what I'm talking about.  I am glad to be doing that.  At the very least I have learned "asshole" is not an accurate adjective.  Heartless and immoral, sure , those are accurate.  But I suppose I should admit he could still be a decent guy.

The book is awful.  It is fictional entertainment comprised of 2 dimensional charicatures aimed at a very narrowly targetted audience.  It is comic book fodder and not even for a very good comic book.  It is Horatio Alger vs the Communists McCarthy era tripe.  The most accurate review I've read went something along the lines of "Never has an author assembled a larger cast of straw men nor thrashed them about as vigorously."

So yeah, reading it is a chore.  I'll force myself to finish it, but it might take a while.

I am aware Ryan is distancing himself from the book.  He now claims something along the lines of, "Yeah, I was a fan back when I was young and first read it, but I'm more mature now."

Whatever. 

It's the work that inspired him to go into politics, he made it required reading for his interns, and his budget reeks of its influence.  Putting a disclaimer on that now smacks of political expedience.  Turns out Ms. Rand was also an ardent atheist and had some socially radical ideas about moral norms.  I'm sure Mr. Ryan wants merely wants to ensure that his views on those subject aren't miscontrued.

So there's my own disclaimer.   Duly noted:  Paul Ryan believes in God and disappoves of adultery.  However, I still say his socioeconomic views are heartless and immoral.

In any case, enough ranting.   I'm not reading it today.  I worked on our bathroom sink, which now not only drains slowly but leaks while it does so.  Becky painted flowers on Tabby's newly pink walls which are turning out beautifully.  Sam spent the day with a friend from Preble.  Tabby & Ben took turns playing on the computer.

For Family Home Evening we took the route Ben & Sam need to walk to school starting tomorrow(!).  Then went to Dairy Queen.  I guess the day ended pretty well.

I can't even think of a good title

I thought this only happened as part of an apocalyptic future in sci-fi books/movies/games.

Walker

I've heard Scott Walker say on several occassions something to the effect of, "Hey, why are you all so surprised? Why so upset? I told you during the election that this is what I was going to do. This is what you elected me to do." As if it were really that simple.

I don't doubt there are people who elected Walker to bust up unions. And there were probably people who elected him to devestate government programs. Then there are those who elected him to get strict concessions from the unions, like he said he would, but aren't quite willing to go along with Walker legislating the unions' concessions for them and killing their ability to recover from the economic downturn once it's over. There are those who might have thought getting localities to cut costs was a good idea during the campaign, but think maybe Walker is going too far when he not only does that, but also cuts state aid to localities and prohibits them from raising revenue. Ever. And of course there are people who voted for Walker for no reasons related to economics at all. Maybe simply because he wasn't the other guy. I personally know at least one guy who voted for him only because he promised he'd let us carry guns in public.

Kind of a funny tangent. I've been to one Democratic party organization meeting in the past. Yep, only one. At that one was also the head of a union at a local aluminum rolling mill. He claimed that he could convince every one of his union members to vote for Democrats if he could just make them believe Democrats weren't really going to take their guns away. So 2+2 = maybe Walker should rethink pissing off unions then telling their member to go ahead and carry their guns wherever they want.

In any case, it seems somewhat disingenuous of Scott to keep telling us, "This is what you elected me to do!" when #1, he really hadn't told us the details of what he planned and most importantly, #2, in light of recent polling indicating that people are thinking, "Dude, if we'd known you were going to totally destoy public unions and starve government into inefficacy, we'd have voted for the other guy!"

The Flag

Today I got behind a car that was flying a Confederate flag. Not just plate holders or a decal on the window, but a full size flag on a pole affixed to the trunk. Man, the older I get, the more that flag sets me off.

Can you imagine it happening today? Say, in Florida, for example. "Hey, United States of America, thanks for all the infrastructure investment. You know; roads, airports, military bases. We are now the United State of Florida, though. We're going to start regulating your trucks using those roads, your planes using those airports, and your soldiers are no longer welcome on our bases. We're going to request that they store their arms and that you evac them to bases in your country. If you don't cooperate, we're going to start shooting them."

That is what the Confederate flag means to me. Wisconsin sent soldiers to fight in the Civil War. Some of them died fighting against an army that flew that flag. That flag stands for a people who took up arms against their country. Against my country.

I dunno'. Maybe it's different down South. It would probably still drive me nuts . . . but here? Especially here. What are they thinking?