Gun Control, Habeas Corpus, Gopnik, Z'Baby, Wade, Barkley, Cats, Dogs Etc.

OPINION OF THE DAY:

People who oppose gun control should be shot.

OK, to be a bit more rational about it....this should not even be a debate. It should be a fiat, a decree, a"no duh" dictum. Regular citizens should not be able to buy guns. Period. If they want a gun for hunting, fine. They pass an exhaustive battery of tests for the licensing of a rifle. But no handguns for regular citizens. and no semi-automatic weapons for any conceivable reason. Guns kill people. Stop selling guns and fewer people will be killed. End of story. After a massacre in Scotland, guns were made illegal. Result: no more massacres and a significantly reduced murder rate. There are no more crazy murderous people in america than there are anywhere else. There are just more craz murderous people with guns. Without a gun--let alone two semi-automatic weapons--the lunatic at Virginia Tech stabs one person and then is wrestled to the ground. I read in the NYT today that since the murders of RFK and MLK, one million americans have been killed with firearms. And that the same number of people killed in the V-Tech horror are killed by handguns in America every four days. Anyone who invokes the "right to bear arms" argument to oppose the most stringent kind of gun control is at best intellectually dishonest and at worst (and in all likelihood) a hateful aider and abettor to murder. The right to bear arms was proclaimed so that people could join the militia or defend themselves on the frontier. Not so they could kill people in suburbia or the inner city. It was declared at a time when blacks were not considered citizens and women did not have the right to vote. Do the NRA/anti gun control folk defend those basic principles of our constitution as well? Oops, bad question. I take that back. Or rather: I rest my case. There is no argument here. After careful consideration, i return to my previous assessment:

People who oppose gun control should be shot.

(Point blank. With the hollow point truth.)

STUNNING CONTRAST OF THE DAY:

I listened today to this NPR report called Habeas Schmabeas: An expose of some of the the kafkaesque nightmares that have taken place in the last few years at Guantanamo bay. One of the stories focused on a a young Pakistani comedy writer who was mistakenly held as a terrorist and subjected to countless abuses and indignities over 4 years before being released without apology as a NLEC (no longer enemy combatant) when in fact he was a NWEC (never was an enemy combatant). He had spent some time in America as a college student at Old Dominion and had visited Disneyworld in Orlando and gone to Daytona Beach for Spring Break. I couldn't stop thinking about the mind-boggling contrast between his experience in the carefully controlled fantasy of Disney World and his experience in the carefully controlled nightmare of Guantanamo Bay. It's the kind of thing novels, plays, Beaudrillardian theories and, of course, blog entries are built on.

LFAQs of the Day:

Is it just me or does anyone else get the vague sense that Adam Gopnik (a writer too artful by a hair) shows every piece he writes to his mother and says "Mommy, mommy look at what I made today! Look at my perfectly formed, artfully sculpted stool." ? (Note: I never get that feeling when I read something Hendrick Hertzberg writes.)

Is there any writing surface on earth more densely covered than the arms and neck of an African-American NBA guard?

Why do cats--given their oft demonstrated ability to lick their own genitalia--never undermine the reproductive intent of nature's call by pleasuring themselves when they're in heat? Are they still awaiting the first feline Onan? Or is it perhaps the cruelty of the sandpaper tongue--designed to be perfect for cleaning but not for sensory gratification? How cruel...to be able to reach one's genitalia with one's tongue...only to discover that it is not in any way pleasurable. Ahhh...the sandpaper tongue...proof of intelligent (if malevolent) design!

ADVERTISING COMMENT OF THE DAY:

Let me begin by giving props to my friend Jurgen who left me the following brief voicemail which could certainly qualify as "Voicemail of the Day."

"Charles Barkely, Dwayne Wade, TV commercial, tight shorts, lollipop...i eagerly await your comments."

Thanks to Jurgen and his acute sensitivity to all matters homo-erotic, my attention was brought to this remarkable little commercial.

Yes, Jurgen, that new Wade/Barkely ad for Cingular is pretty gay. the two of them alone in some screening room watching tapes of a fit, firm young Charles Barkely playing ball and Wade, licking a large lollipop, commenting on how remarkable it is that the round mound of rebound stuffed his ass into those tight little shorts. Is this some statement of solidarity with John Amaechi? is this what the whole series of entertaining Wade/Barkely commercials has been about all along! Is THAT why those two dudes have been spending so much time alone together? Is the desire of one to get into the other's "five" really just code for wanting to get into the other's pants? Or is it just the little comedic brain fart of some idle homophobic quipster copywriter? Probably the latter. But far more pleasurable to read it as the former.

P.S. OF THE DAY:

I don't know if it's relevant to the above or not, but Jurgen wore boxers instead of shorts during our Wednesday night basketball game last week. And this made a lot of the guys rather uncomfortable.

DESCRIPTION OF THE DAY:

Z'baby. Home of the $74 dollar baby t-shirt and $86 dollar baby sneakers. A shrine to upper west side disposal income and displaced parental narcissism.

CONCEPT OF THE DAY:

Market-tested breakthrough ideas.

RESTAURANT REVIEW OF THE DAY:

Ate at Telepan the other night. The food was so good and there was so much audible (and vaguely sexual sounding) expressions of delight at the table, that I imagined the following exchange:

-Come here often.
-Yes. About three times per meal.

OBSERVATION OF THE DAY:

Been watching a discovery show on the evolution of domestic dogs. Evidently, man didn't domesticate wolves to become dogs. The wolves domesticated themselves. Once men ended their nomadic ways and started to settle in stable communities, some wolves realized that these human villages were reliable sources of food. And so they just hung around...until they got adopted. In essence, dogs are just lazy wolves. Wolves who don't want to hunt. Or maybe just smarter wolves. Wolves who've found a way to get someone else to do their hunting for them.

RANDOM SINGLE SENTENCE PORTRAIT OF THE DAY:

He didn't only triple check the door when he locked it; he triple checked it when he opened it.

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Posted on 4/30/2007 ( Permanent Link )
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