Take what you will from it, I guess.

The history of our national day of giving thanks is disputed.

It has become fashionable lately for people with (Midnight Oil's "Beds Are Burning" playing on infinite repeat) to tell us that Thanksgiving is a terrible celebration of the massacre of the trans-historic indigenous peoples of North America. There's quite the movement afoot to banish the holiday, or to reinvent it as a day of sorrow and atonement.

Hey, if that's all you've got in your box, then I guess it's going to rattle around a bit.

If you're an atheist, then the question arises: to whom are you giving thanks? Certainly not to God. Okay then: how about just appreciating how you got the things for which you may count among your blessings? Somebody likely helped you get there. Thank them. If you did it all by yourself, thank the person in your mirror. Saying "thank you" is polite.

I've always liked the way that William Bradford looked at Thanksgiving: as a celebration of capitalism as a way to get through the harsh winters. It seems that before, the Plymouth Bay Colony had tried collectivism of corn, and that hadn't worked out; the hardest workers got no more than the shirkers, and they had almost starved the year before. So when they tried the concept of working for one's self, and trading for whatever was needed, the colony flourished.

It is interesting to note that some of the colonists worked for the local Indians, planting and such, to get their seed corn. I've heard one reference to them working "as slaves" for the indigenous people, but slaves don't generally get to walk away with any profit for their labors. This was an exchange of labor for commodity. That yellow seed corn was truly their specie.

Here at Better And Better, we try to see the optimistic side of things*. So on this day of Thanks Giving, I'm asking you all to simply see what is good in your life, and spend at least part of the day loving that.

______________________________
*We've also been known to fail at this, on occasion.

Self-Justification

Tam, as she often does, hit the nail on the head:

"Having a dedicated Agency responsible for "gun crimes" creates an incentive to find and, if necessary, manufacture gun crimes in order to justify their existence."

It is not because I'm a generalist that I am annoyed at the BATF. Hey, I'm all for specialization, in complicated areas. I just recently did a sexual assault investigation with the assistance of a larger city investigator who specializes in that, specifically on children. (And bless his heart for that. I would get burnt out within about 2 months of that work.) Two weeks ago, I provided some intel to a detective who specializes in copper theft. (Note: detectives who work in such areas are GOLD MINES for info on the meth trade in their area.) When I have a financial crime, I know just the detective to call on for help, and she's brilliant. Time to lift fingerprints? I call a neighboring crime lab. Specialization makes sense, in a lot of areas. Those fellows are better at it than I am, due to their familiarity with the topic. They are all subject matter experts.

Large cities generally break down their police department's investigative bureaus into sections like Property Crime, Violent Crime, Sex Crimes, Juvenile Crime, and Homicide. That's fine; there has to be some way to delegate cases. But when you create an entire agency that specializes in a specific type of crime, you run into problems. What if that type of crime is down that year? Their budget could be in jeopardy.

The problem is compounded when the premise of the crime fighting is in question, in the first place.

But we have a system in this nation, good or bad, that dictates how guns are sold from dealers. It's hackneyed, but it's followed. As FFL licencees are generally quite law-abiding folks, the prospect of committing felonies rightfully scares hell out of them. So obvious straw purchases are not permitted. Clear felonies in firearms purchases are denied. Unless. Unless the aforementioned hackneyed system is intentionally sabotaged by the agency ordering its use, to create more crimes for that agency to investigate.

This would be akin to the FBI ordering that the back door to banks be left unlocked, and the vaults be left ajar, with the alarm passcode be scrawled in pencil on the wall next to the door.

I believe that I've mentioned before that using numbers to try to promote your own crime-fighting agency is a double-edged sword. Trying to pump them up is a Bad Idea, friends. Look, you chief administrators: You're spin doctors, right? Right. If crime stats are down, we all know that you can just say "Look at what an effective job that we've done! Our agency needs more resources to continue in our quest to stamp out crime!" And if crime stats are up, you get to sound the alarm that "Now, more than ever, we need more resources to fight the growing trend of crime!" You can serve it up either way. We all know that.

You don't have to make more. Got it?
_______

While at a nearby police range recently, I had to wait for the local ATF agents to finish their stuff. One of them, a friendly lady agent, chatted with me for a few minutes. I enjoyed our talk, but wondered if she was as annoyed by my shirt as I was by her hat. Her aftermarket custom hat was similar the standard ATF ballcap, but with the words "Mt. Carmel" embroidered in smaller letters below the agency letters. Marvy.

She didn't remark on my shirt, which I had ordered a decade ago through the assistance of the now-famous author and then fellow TFL denizen, Larry Correia:


I don't know if she understood the meaning behind the words "MOLON LABE." If she did, I suspect that she would have been confused as to why I, a cop, ordered the shirt, and why I, a cop, still wear the shirt.

Meanwhile, I don't have to guess whether the sentiment would have been understood by the Texas Ranger recently seen in the area with the Gonzales battle flag scrimshawed on the outside grip panel of his ivory stocks of his 1911 pistol.

But there I go, taking up for generalists. :)

Vivid dreams.

Lately I've been waking up with clear memories of my vivid dreams. And, unlike before, they're actually pretty decent. Mostly B movies, but with happy endings that don't fill me with dread. Uh, that's a switch.

I don't know what all these dreams mean. Oh, I certainly don't believe that dreams are foreshadowing of anything to come-- that's bollocks-- but I surely do know that our subconscious minds will chew on stuff a lot when we let our guards down. It is more remarkable to me that the dreams are ones that I can recall than that they are generally happy-ending dreams.

I suspect that it's just that I've recently changed my sleeping schedule.

For the most part, I tend to think of dreaming as sleep's in-flight-movie, and nothing more. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's forgettable, sometimes it's terrible, and sometimes you can't hear the dialogue because the kid behind you keeps singing, over and over, the chorus to "Tiny Dancer," using the wrong lyrics. (Ever awaken from a nightful of earworm? It's a particularly nasty form of nightmare.)

At any rate, even though last night's dream did involve the ever-present 200 lb Trigger Pull and the Hammer Dropping In Slow Motion, Failing To Detonate The Primer (two themes so common in my dreams that I swear my REM is interrupted by my rolling of my eyes at the recurrence, these nights), I still persevered.

Must be sending the new batch of cards out.

Site Meter tells me that I'm getting a LOT of hits by people Googling "Magna Cum Laude.org", "National Scholars Honor Society", etc.

I really don't want to use the word "Scam," to describe them. (Mostly because I already did that back in November.)

I'll just say that you're probably not getting what you think you're paying for.

Gosh, I hope they don't sue me, or anything. [/yawn]

Scam, National Scholars Honor Society looks like a scam, worthless organization, magna cum laude.org, magnacumlaude.org is a scam, don't bother unless you really need to throw away $85.

Lonnie.

Drop me an email.

Please reply to let me know you got this.

-MG

Esprit d'Escalier

"The wit of the staircase," or what you should have said...


Ever found yourself pronouncing your comebacks to an irritatingly smug person (say, an honors high school instructor) 18 years after the fact?

Anyone?

Heh. No, me neither. Haw. I was just joshin', y'know?







[That old bitch. Sure would like to... But she was in her early 60's then. She may be dead. (A world without that old battleaxe? I can't comprehend it. And choose not to.)]