RKBA, free speech and Mexico

You know what I’d love to see? A discussion of how the Mexican people’s right to keep and bear arms having largely been denied is affecting freedom of the press in Mexico. I realize that the drug traffickers are getting arms from other nations that aren’t even available commercially in the United States, but somehow I get the feeling that if Mexican media outlets were able to form their own little militias and start shooting back, things would be a lot different. Thoughts?

Do I really look that naive?

…or, I’d like to take the handle of that damn pan and beat some people down for their fucking nerve…

I’m used to panhandlers, yes. I encountered them every now and then back in Southeast Texas. Perhaps I should have known the number of times I’d be approached by them would increase when I moved to the big city, but I was still taken aback by it, especially lately; at the closest H-E-B, it seems I have gotten approached by someone about four times out of every five that I have been there. One incident earlier this week triggered my ire:

Panhandler: “Do you have a couple dollars?”
Me: “No.”
Panhandler:”Come on, can’t we work something out? I come to your house and do your lawn?”

Oh yes. I will give a complete stranger directions to my home! I DID in fact fall off the turnip truck yesterday! Who the hell do these assholes think they are? Yeah, I realize they may be falling on hard times, but do they think everyone they come up to has that money to spare? It’s one thing to ask, but after I say no, dammit that should be IT.  Would that I could do that again. I know exactly what I’d say.

“Don’t fucking ask me again, what the fuck is wrong with you? Don’t you fucking think I have a family to feed too?”

I know very well that Jesus said, “whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me,” but who’s to say that “the least of these” is anybody but my pregnant wife and three stepdaughters? I may drive a semi-new truck, but it’s NOBODY’S place to assume that I have money to give away just because of that. More and more I understand my wife’s aversion to people in general…

More musical musings: Yep, that’s exactly the problem….

…or, Sometimes I think I get off on the pain…

I made the lunch run just now, to this little barbecue joint on New Braunfels Avenue just north of IH-10. And once again, I left the Sirius receiver at home and surfed. I need to get out of that habit. I heard a Y100 promo that went, “We play the best country,” followed by a snippet of Kid Rock’s “All Summer Long.” I thought to myself, all righty then, as I went on to KZEP and Bad Company…

And backing out of the place to bring home lunch, once again on Y100, I heard Jason Aldean’s “Crazy Town” (thought the melody sounded like “She’s Country,” and that’s a commentary all its own — people think GEORGE STRAIT records the same song over and over? What the hell ever, y’all.) in which he describes Nashville as “Hollywood with a touch of twang.” And I thought that summed up the problem with modern country in a nutshell, though I’m sure the songwriters probably meant it as a compliment. So back to KISS 99.5 it went. Lord knows Sirius isn’t perfect, but it’s still a fat lot better than terrestrial. I’d have to agree with TFG’s comment here, though I do love the headbangers:

“This town don’t know from country music — it’s headbangers and Nashville.  Kind of like hell would be.”

There can be only one…

…at least, according to one letter-writer in today’s Houston Chronicle:

The Bushes, not the Kennedys, are the royal family of the United States.

Really? I don’t recall any of the Bushes being romanticized by the media the way the Kennedys have been. Everybody and his brother knows about the JFK administration and that general era being painted as an “American Camelot” of sorts. The Kennedy mystique and the media musings of “what might have been” were only amplified by Bobby Kennedy’s assassination; it’s arguable that had neither Jack nor Bobby been cut down in the prime of their careers, we might well have seen three or even four Kennedy presidents. Of course I’d hate to think Americans would have been so starstruck as to have elected a piece of human detritus like Teddy, but I am well aware that could have happened — perhaps even in spite of Chappaquiddick. Thank the good Lord above that it didn’t, though.

It’s good to see…

…that at least some interests and concerns transcend skin color, especially in this day and age. It’s also good to see an organization that represents black-owned businesses not reflexively support what the president (with the backing of Congress) wants to do just because he’s a black Democrat. One might even call that progress, even though we still have a long, long way to go.

I wish I had thought of this.

ROTFLMAO at this comment from jdruse, in the comments to this post:

Bono peaked with Cher, it’s all been downhill from there (including the tree).

I bow to your rapier wit, dude!

This is somehow the fault…

…of those damned American gun shows, right? I mean, surely the Mexican prison guards are not really to blame, huh?

Stupid radio edits

…or, The pussification of terrestrial country radio continues.

I should preface this by saying I don’t make it a habit to listen to San Antonio country radio. I’d heard enough complaints from Sabra about about KJ97 and Y100 that I figured it’d be best to stay away from them. It’d take a lot for me to be pulled away from the satellite radio anyway, though KISS 99.5 is actually a pretty good rock station and I’ve really gotten to like KKYX…

The other day I made a run to Bill Miller’s and HEB and left my satellite radio at the house, so I was left with terrestrial. So I surfed, as I am wont to do, and came up on Y100 playing the Zac Brown Band’s “Toes,” which as far as mainstream country songs go is pretty edgy, with the line about the dude having his “ass in the sand” and “roll(ing) a big fat one.” But what do I hear when they get to that first line?

“I got my toes in the water, toes in the clay.”

And radio programmers (and supposedly audiences) had a problem with the word “ass” here but two summers ago had no problem with the blatant sexual overtones in Rascal Flatts’ “Bob That Head”? What the hell is wrong with people?

They do this quite often.

A letter in today’s Express-News:

In his article “Republican political wave could hit rocky shore” (Other Views, July 18), Michael Gerson takes time out to throw some eggs at libertarianism. His comments are quite inaccurate.

Many people who throw eggs at libertarians do indeed take liberties with the truth about the libertarian philosophy. Almost to a man and woman, they paint libertarians as, well, anarchists — as if anarchism and libertarianism were one and the same. I know well why they do it, but you’d think if their position was so strong, they wouldn’t have to resort to lies.

Like they don’t have a clue.

Damned if I can find a link to it, but in the print edition of the San Antonio Express-News I read a news analysis from the Washington Post on the Shirley Sherrod affair.  Said analysis characterized Andrew Breitbart as someone who had a “casual relationship with the truth” — without a single shred of evidence to back up said characterization. It’s like they think they still have any credibility outside the ruling class. Amazing.