Dog Story

IN MUCH BETTER TIMES than these, I had a big dog named Lee Roy. He was a boarding-kennel accident, half purebred Rottweiler, half purebred Golden Retriever, but he looked very much like a purebred Rotty with a long powerful tail. I got him when he was seven weeks old, a rowdy pup nobody else wanted, and from the very beginning he was a genuine character who in the too-short 13 years of his life generated enough anecdotes to fill an entire book. One of the ways he often delighted me and some of my closest friends as well was by playing what we all eventually understood to have been dog jokes – jokes that were all the more astonishing for the fact they were obviously carefully thought out.

There were three humans living on this land in its two houses then, just as there are today, but the psychodynamics were very different, because the other occupants were near soul-mates completely unlike the hostile kinfolk who live here now. The bigger house was then occupied by the people who are my two best friends in the entire world, a man named Jim and his wife Mary, and I was in the smaller house as I am today. Between us we had six dogs, three apiece, and Lee Roy was the leader of the entire canine pack.

Lee Roy first played what we took to be his most favorite dog joke one day in 1995 when Mary drove into town for groceries.

Because this is a rural area and the store is ten miles distant and we all practiced fuel economy even when gasoline was relatively cheap, we would almost invariably check with each other before shopping (“I’m going to the super market; do you need anything?”), and more often than not the answer was yes. It was August and clear and hot, and on this particular day I was stacking firewood – both houses here are heated by wood and we burned ten to 12 cords a winter – and Mary walked back to the woodshed to tell me she was going to the grocery store, and I said I needed a gallon of skim milk, and if they were still on sale, “a couple of bags of those Tostados,” which are un-flavored tortilla chips that go very well with tuna salad and other such summertime dishes.

Lee Roy and some of the other dogs had been keeping me company while I was stacking wood, but the others had gone off to hunt feral cats, and a little while ago Lee Roy had carefully even meticulously chosen a chew-stick by sniffing the entire unstacked four-cord pile dumped from our wood man’s truck. I had seen Lee Roy do this enough times to know he was looking for a length of cedar – Pacific Northwest dogs love to chew cedar just as Southern dogs love hickory sticks and sassafras poles – and soon of course he found what he wanted and carried it to a shady spot just out of my way and after a suitable interval of contemplating his treasure, he began to gnaw it. But now as Mary and I talked he stopped chewing and looked up and appeared to listen intently.

An hour later Mary returned with the groceries, and Lee Roy met her at the gate to the property. While Mary was unloading her own purchases from the back of her pickup truck, Lee Roy jumped up into the truck bed, peered into each of at least a half-dozen sacks until he found the two bags of Tostados, then snatched both bags and took off on a dead run toward the woodshed, about 100 yards away from the driveway where Mary had parked. I had gone into the barn, which is adjacent the woodshed, to get a hammer and nails to repair one of the firewood cradles, and as I stepped out into the sunlight again, there was Lee Roy rattling the Tostados bags as if to make sure I saw them – the bags dangling from his mouth, one on each side of his massive head. Then he ran full tilt to my house, laid the bags on the doorstep, and came prancing back all tail-wag and satisfaction and proud wolfen grin.

I was of course enormously impressed and hugely perplexed as well – how in the world could he have done that? – but I soon dismissed it as some sort of inexplicable coincidence and went back to stacking wood. But a few weeks later he did exactly the same thing with a head of celery, and not long after that, with two packages of pork chops – and no, he didn’t eat the meat until I cooked it and offered him some. That sort of product-recognition thing became so commonplace, Mary and Jim and I sometimes joked that Lee Roy was obviously a dog who could understand English better than some humans – and probably read it better as well.

What follows is a report that suggests Lee Roy might not have been joking at all. The research is summarized here. After you read it you’ll probably understand why now I think LeeRoy had maybe picked up on the fact we three humans are uncannily attuned to canines and was just trying to share with us that much more of himself. That we took it as a joke rather than a serious attempt at communication says volumes about why no one has yet responded to our attempts to communicate with other worlds.

With Hope, Strength

The procession to the rotunda. I will never forget it. Lileks wrote his impressions of it, but I do not entirely agree with his assessment of Nancy Reagan.

I never thought her a cold, brittle woman. I always thought of her as a classically reserved and graceful lady. I thought her elegant and poised as a lady should be. Perhaps I could see it, because I ws reared by just such a woman in the form of my grandmother.

Nancy, I've always felt, is a Real Woman. She isn't some shrill shrewish manling like other former First Ladies I could name. Instead, Nancy was always quiet, and softspoken, but nevertheless forthright and honest. Nancy ws the sort of lady who could tell you to eat excrement and die, and you'd walk away feeling like she'd offered you a glorious luncheon.

Where Ronald Reagan was the embodiment of Hope, Nancy is the embodiment of Strength.

I saw it in her face again, yesterday, during the ceremonies.

When she stepped out, I thought, "Goddess, she looks so thin and tired!" For a moment, I thought she looked frail, and I was afraid for her. Then the cameras zoomed in on her face. Where she was weary, inexpressibly so, I saw the same strength and poise I've always recognized in her face, and once again I loved her for it.

I was standing. The cameras moved to the courtyard, where our Servicemen made ready to lift the coffin and begin the long procession to the rotunda. The cameras switched back to Nancy's face while she stood there wrapped in her solitude and memory.

Her gaze was far-off just then, with the barest hint of an affectionate smile playing about her lips. Was she remembering some long-ago day? Perhaps she was seeing him in her mind's eye, watching him mount those very steps with his long, energetic stride. Maybe she was remembering some conversaton they'd had, strolling along the promenade.

Whatever she thought, she wasn't alone. His presence around her was a palpable thing, and that's when I began to cry. I cried because I have that sort of partnership with my husband: soul mates. It's such an overused term these days, but nonetheless true for Nancy and Ronald Reagan. I wept because finding the strength to go on after such a leavetaking can be very, very hard, and I could intuit the loss she feels. I have no doubt that Nancy will go on, and that was part of my grief: after so long and so profoundly Together, it can be physical agony to be separated fron your bona fide Other Half.

Yet, she stood there, calm and dignified; wrapped in memory. I stood, tears flowing, unwilling to sit until he had finished his journey, and she did. I felt that it was the least I could do, in my living room, thousands of miles away, to show my gratitude and respect for the Great Man and The First Lady.

She reached out with an almost affectionate pat when the pallbearers got him to the top of the steps, as if to say, "You're almost there. Everyone's waiting on you." I covered my heart with my hand, and did not move until he was at rest in the rotunda, under the eagle gaze of his guards.

When she finally sat, I did too, and drew my daughter into my arms. She's too young to ever remember our farewell to Ronald Reagan, but I shall never forget it. May I be as graceful under pressure, as forthright, and as unblinking as Nancy Reagan. May I be as dignified in the face of friends and foes alike. I pray that I will be as integral a partner, and as loving and firm a mother, as she.

Thank you, Nancy, for sharing your husband with us. You were his Strength, and he was our Hope. We will never forget him, and are forever grateful to you.

Focal Point

OPINION POLLS ARE PROBABLY among the most misunderstood elements on the American political scene, and for that reason they are almost reflexively denounced by the partisans of whichever side is behind in the most up-to-date ratings. The usual accusations are that the pollsters are biased, or that the pollsters deliberately skewed their sample to obtain results pleasing to one side or another, and in either case are unfairly attempting influence the outcome of the election. But while it is true questions can be biased to produce desired responses – polls by anti-Second Amendment activists are a classic example of this sort of disinformation – such purposeful manipulation nevertheless renders the poll useless as a picture of reality: garbage in, garbage out. And I can’t think of any instance in which opinion- poll results demonstrably changed the outcome of an election (though it is surely arguable that election-day exit-polling may do so), nor have I ever known or heard of any documented proof that even a single voter was moved to switch candidates or positions on the basis of pre-election poll results. Poll-bashing – save where the polls are clearly dishonest (like those run by the down-with-self-defense looneys) – is thus mostly an exercise in pointless expulsion of hot air.

What a well-constructed poll can do – and this is its great utility – is provide campaign managers with a kind of statistical report card on how well (or how poorly) they are doing at any given time. For this potential to be fulfilled, the pollsters have to craft their questions properly, and they have to poll a sample of the population that is not only statistically random (and therefore truly representative) but is carefully selected to include only respondents who are likely to vote. Any error in the research model – the questions – or in the sample itself will render the results misleading and therefore worthless, a lesson learned the hard way by more than one local political campaigner. For the layperson, probably the best way to think about pre-election polls is that they are indeed analogous to report cards. Just like those dread reports to parents schools issue after some specified “grading period,” polls evaluate a campaign on its deportment and scholarship, with levels of achievement (or lack thereof) measured by how a campaign’s grasp of issues resonates with likely voters.

Thus President Bush’s declining poll numbers are – or should be – increasingly a matter of concern among his campaign advisors. Support for the President has already dropped beneath the point at which any other incumbent has won re-election, and the reason is obvious: the ruinous combination of the administration’s own blunders at home and abroad, and the gross magnification of these blunders by a media establishment that is more hostile to George Bush than to any other President in my lifetime and possibly in the entire history of the Republic. A third factor in this equation is the increasing aloofness – many would call it arrogance – of the President himself, a stance disturbingly reminiscent of his own father and the debacle of 1992. Instead of rebutting his critics, Bush ignores them – precisely as if he expects to be re-elected by Divine intervention – which some of his more rabid detractors have indeed already charged.

While there is little doubt the apparent resolution of the Iraqi crisis via the United Nations has deftly co-opted one of the Democrats’ two issues, the other – the economy – remains the one upon which Bush can yet lose the election. Despite the statistical recovery that is unquestionably underway, there remain stubborn pockets of unemployment throughout the nation. Some of these hard-hit areas are key electoral-college states. All of them are afflicted by staggeringly high fuel prices, and in some – my home state of Washington among them – runaway fuel prices have already sent shipping costs soaring and thus triggered inflation in the price of food and other necessities. The President’s decision to cut taxes and let the marketplace solve its own problems without additional federal interference was brilliant – and some economists say it may have prevented a full-fledged depression. But neither the President nor his associates have been successful in telling this story to the electorate, and the results of the poll linked here (for which thanks are due Andrew Sullivan), merely underscore that fact.

Another big reason the President is losing ground is that Second Amendment advocates have seen through the eyewash of Attorney General John Ashcroft’s “individual right” proclamation and are increasingly disaffected by the grim reality of Bush’s own stated anti-gun positions. These include support for renewal of the Assault Weapons Ban, enactment of new prohibitions on private firearms sales and gun shows, and most of all, his support for the draconian NICS Improvement Act. NICS Improvement, formerly named the “Our Lady of Peace Act,” (Google either title) would begin the imposition of New York City-type gun controls on the entire nation by criminalizing even minor mental illness, and on that basis – labeling all mentally ill persons “mental defectives” no matter the brevity or mildness of their condition – would expand the universe of prohibited persons accordingly. This would eventually ban as many as half of all U.S. citizens from firearms ownership – no exceptions, no appeals – and thereby deny them forever any meaningful right to self defense.

But from the perspective of the War and America’s defense against Islam’s renewal of its 1300-year onslaught against civilization, the most telling aspect of Bush’s opposition to the Second Amendment is how he continues to allow two anti-gunners, Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, to brazenly obstruct the will of Congress that the nation’s commercial airline pilots be armed – just as pilots were in the years of “airmail” service. The obstruction is old news, so there is no doubt Bush approves of it. But in this instance, Bush’s hidden anti-Second Amendment agenda is endangering the nation, as documented here.

Some Ramifications to Biotech

Read this and think about the implications. Pay close attention to the last paragraphs.

I'm sorry that's all I have time for today.

--LInda

Soap Opera

MY SO-CALLED “FAMILY,” WHICH is second to none in treachery and hatefulness, has betrayed me once more, and as a consequence, I will not be returning to East Tennessee this summer after all – or for that matter ever again. In truth – and it is a bitter truth I have avoided for most of my 64 years – I have had no family at all since 1945. In that year, my mother’s intended post-partum abortion was interrupted by my father, which saved my life. But shortly thereafter, following the inevitable divorce, my father married his secretary and attempted to abandon me in a Virginia orphanage, but was forbidden to do so by the court. Since that time I have lived with the bitter knowledge that I am quite literally the human equivalent of a dog no one wanted. To my father I was never more than an object of embarrassment and contempt, while to my stepmother I was a despised burden. My mother hated me too – her attempt at ending my life on Midsummer’s Eve demonstrated her true feelings beyond any scintilla of doubt – and most of her family regarded me as an unwelcome reminder of an episode best forgotten.

But stupidly – like the dog who returns to an abusive owner out of the desperate fantasy that the next time it will somehow be better – I allowed myself to be victimized (or at the very least betrayed) by these people again and again, fantasizing that it didn’t really matter I was only a “half” brother or a “half” nephew or – worse – someone who had witnessed the infinite viciousness in my own mother’s heart and thus could not ever be trusted by any of her siblings and kin. Like an abused dog, I believed if I but tried just a bit harder, I would be accepted, perhaps even loved -- and like an abused dog, I was only kicked again.

That will not happen any more. After the events of yesterday, I have banished nearly all these people from my life. I will not let any of them -- even the ones I have not formally rejected -- into my life ever again. And if that means I spend the remainder of my years alone save for my two canine friends – friends who sense my emotions and thus were uncommonly solicitous all day -- so be it.

I post a summary of this wretched matter because it will undoubtedly affect the future of my participation in this blog. As I promised Linda, I will continue posting for as long as I can and as often as I can. But at some point – at most in about a year – I will be ousted from the house in which I now live, the plug will be pulled on my Internet connection, and whether there will be anything in the way of writing from me beyond that moment is profoundly unlikely. To continue blogging would mandate that I find income at least double my tiny pension – and for a long-unemployed 64-year-old man, no matter what the degree of his talents, that is simply not realistically possible anywhere in today’s America. Indeed it would require a miracle: something that happens only to others, never to me. Once again, I am a dog no one wants or needs or has any use for, and probably the very best I dare hope is merely to remain at large and out of the pound for however many more months or years fate allows me to live.

Even so, I post on this miserable topic not to whine and whimper and practice self-humiliation (though I recognize there are many who will take it as all of that and worse) but rather in the hope someone somewhere might offer a useful, perhaps even life-saving suggestion.

Focal Point

I AM PROFOUNDLY UNCOMFORTABLE with the Bush Administration’s decision to involve the United Nations in the war in Iraq. But UN involvement is not the turn-about the jeering Democrats and some conservatives claim. It is instead the resumption of pre-war politics, and I am uncomfortable with it precisely because it unfortunately restores the credibility of an organization that was once literally the hope of the world but which has deteriorated into the most powerful criminal cartel on the planet – a fact vividly demonstrated by the truly obscene Oil-for-Food scandal.

Involving the UN also reeks of election-year desperation, a reversion to the tried and (un)true merely because so doing will steal an issue from an opponent, rather like Bill Clinton’s sudden decision to take welfare reform away from the Republicans. Even so there is no denying the tactic’s effectiveness: for now when John (Neville Chamberlain) Kerry complains of the situation in Iraq, it will be a complaint against the UN – one of the Left’s most sacrosanct of sacred cows – which means it will most likely be a complaint never uttered at all. The result will no doubt help President Bush regain some of the lost support that is so vividly reflected by recent polls, but if he continues his stumblingly passive campaign performance, I question whether that will be sufficient to ensure his re-election, especially given the unprecedented hostility of mass media.

Meanwhile, in the wake of the UN’s unanimous endorsement of post-June-30 Iraqi sovereignty, a long-range plan summarized by Paul Wolfowitz – the existence of which suggests determined Defense may have used the UN gesture as cover and concealment to take back the Iraqi policy-helm from always-treacherous State – is available here.

No post by Linda (except this)

I won't be able to blog for the next few days, folks. If you could see my desk, you would understand why.

Once I get these problems sorted away, I will be back. In the meantime, please enjoy Loren's posts and commentary.

[sinking in the back row]
--Linda

WAIT! While you're missing me, go see this presentation, delivered in their own words.

Focal Points

IN A DAY OF reading tributes to President Ronald Reagan, the following are two of the very best I could find – best as measured in terms of uniqueness: originality of approach and disclosure. I had hoped to discover three, but finally contented myself with these. One is by Spengler, the always-thought-provoking Asia Times columnist, who says President Reagan was the greatest commander-in-chief of the 20th Century. It is available here. The other is by Wesley Pruden, editor-in-chief of The Washington Times, and portrays the greatness of Reagan’s presidency and personhood in the context of the venom spewed by his present-day enemies, here.

DIPLOMATS, SPOOKS AND THE NEW YORK TIMES: A troubling report by Joel Mowbray suggests somebody at The Times conspired with anti-Bush Administration elements at the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency to discredit Ahmed Chalabi and wreck the administration’s plans for postwar Iraq. The link is here.

SLEEPING MAKES US SMARTER: Researchers at the University of Wisconsin have discovered that sleep allows our brain cells to integrate new information so we awake better able to use it. The report doesn’t say so, but this function of sleep is obviously analogous to what happens when you download a program and then re-boot your computer to finalize the installation. The details, already integrated, are available here.

Farewell.

Since hearing the news of former President Ronald Reagan's passing, I've been trying to write something that adequately expresses my sense of loss, and the profound influence his example played in my life.

I cannot find the words. But Bob Lonsberry and James Lileks seem to understand.

Rest in Peace, President Reagan

Severed from the Internet as I was, I did not learn until just this minute of former President Ronald Reagan's death. Because my coverage of his presidency was always from afar, for the next 24 hours I will post nothing more here, so readers can focus on eulogies of this great American by writers who genuinely knew him. Requiescat in pace, Mister President.

The Reality You Have Accessed Is...Disconnected

Thanks to a screw-up at my local ISP, my Internet and e-mail services were shut off for most of Saturday but were restored early Sunday morning.

While I still don't know the reason for the error -- apparently a paperwork mistake arising from the recent addition of a second telephone line gave birth to a DSL disconnection blunder -- that is why I never I never returned to post weekend reading as promised, for which I apologize.

(What is there, some kind of karmic or astrological obstruction monster lurking in my neighborhood? Maybe that was the bright light in the sky the other night...which you can see for yourself here.)

In any case -- fate, the gods of the Internet and the troll that lives inside my computer all willing -- I'll be back with more tomorrow.

Focal Point

THIS IS POSTED LATE again today, not because of any personal trauma but because I was obstructed by persistent site-access problems early this morning, their source undetermined. My apologies for any resultant inconvenience.

Other obligations including the need to get my dogs Brady and Jasmine their annual inoculations will keep me busy for most of the rest of the day, but I’ll be back sometime this evening to post a couple of offerings for the weekend. Then it’s “have a good weekend” and farewell until Monday.

*********

I WAS A CHILD during World War Two. I have proud memories of the war effort at home including my late father’s diligently compensatory service for the War Production Board – he had been in the Army in the 1930s, had shot in match-competition using the now-legendary 1903 Springfield, had made corporal in a time when promotions were rare and slow, and had demonstrated such a remarkably high level of military skill, there is little doubt he would have seen action as a sniper and probably eventual promotion to officer-grade in some marksmanship unit – but much to his profound frustration, he was barred from further military service by a heart condition that was the legacy of childhood rheumatic fever. This was indeed the greatest frustration of his life, especially since the problem was not discovered until “new” medical standards were imposed at the end of his first enlistment, sometime in 1936 or 1937, the details unclear to me because he never talked about them or the profound and devastating blow they represented.

But I also have much more recent and deeply infuriating memories of the American home-front in another war, recollections of “anti-war activists” who spat upon and otherwise viciously harassed veteran soldiers returning from Vietnam. These "activists," a vast mob of infinitely selfish, morally imbecillic cowards, made no secret of the fact they despised all military veterans no matter what the war, and in many instances their "activism" included hurling human feces at men who instead should have been given ticker-tape parades and showered with rose petals. Thus because Tom Brokaw was very much a part of the so-called anti-war movement (though as far as I know he never spat on soldiers or pelted them with dung), I have always felt his “greatest generation” accolade was subtly condescending – an especially cruel form of damnation via praise. This is particularly true since Brokaw is surely one of the members of the hate-America-first school of modern journalism – though he is far from its most obnoxious perpetra(i)tor -- which has always made his suffusions of praise toward World War Two veterans seem vaguely hypocritical: the sort of thing you feel but can’t really single out for proper expression.

But now comes David Gelernter refining and articulating my half-formed thoughts on the subject as perfectly as if he had read my very own subconscious mind – in fact doing it far better than I could do because Gelernter makes points that would never have occurred to me – all of which results in a significant and vitally thought-provoking essay available here.

Sixty-six Thousand and Thirty Three

I received a chain email from my father a little while ago. Forwarding chain letters is something I have never been able to break him of.

Yet, this one is different. Sure, it has the exhortation to "pass it on to everyone you know!", but I think in this case, it may be warranted.

The email was a pictorial roll call of our WW II dead, and the French cemeteries in which they slumber. The list is grim and poignant:

• Aisne-Marne Cemetery: 3,349 Americans killed
  
• Somme Cemetery: 2,177 Americans killed
  
• Brittany Cemetery: 4,908 Americans killed
  
• Oise-Asne Cemetery: 6,253 Americans killed
  
• Epinal Cemetery: 5,679 Americans killed
  
• Rhone Dragungnan Cemetery: 1,155 Americans killed
  
• Lorraine Cemetery: 10,933 Americans killed
  
• Meuse-Argonne Cemetery: 15,200 Amercans killed
  
• St. Mihiel Cemetery: 4,437 Americans killed
  
• Suresnes Cemetery: 998 Americans killed
  
• Normandy Cemetery: 10,944 Americans killed
  

That equals 66,033 American dead who are missing or buried in France. Many, many others made it home, and rest peacefully in their mother soil. The numbers given do not include other brave Allies who also fought and died, to be buried in France.

Sixty-six thousand and thirty three Americans, alone. That is an unbelievable sacrifice, isn't it? Ten thousand, nine hundred and forty-four of these died in Normandy. Every one of those digits has a name; perhaps their faces remain locked in yellowing family albums, or fade in dusty attics. They were men from every walk of life. They were tall, short, slim, heavy, light-haired, dark-haired; brown, blue, and green-eyed. Some were grim, others were merry sorts. Each one had friends, family; things and people they loved.

They are not numbers. They were men who felt that it was their sacred duty and calling to go forth in defense of their world. They fell in a foreign land. Some of us will never forget them.

Fifty-nine years later, in 2003, America asked France to help us put paid to another regime that would have made Goebbels squirm with delight. It was the first time we'd ever asked them for help. They declined, which is certainly their right.

The insult is the fact that the French government did more than decline. They have also sneered, scoffed, insulted, and actively sought to obstruct America from our goal of a safer world; one free of terrorism.

What's more, that government has been implicated in illicit oil deals with the regime of Saddam Hussein. They seek the establishment of an authoritarian socialist government in the form of the European Union, after so many of our own died to give them personal liberty.

The insult is the fact that despite the sacrifice of sixty-six thousand and thirty three men, the French government yet plays nice-nice with dictators and terrorists.

What's more, President Chirac is quoted as having warned East European nations that he would oppose their admission to the EU, if they sided with the US in our War on Terror.

Is this the action of a friend? Are they worthy of the blood our men spilled to free them? That's arguable. Our men in WW II seemed to think so -- Gods rest them.

I will remind readers that several WW II British and American graves have been defaced in the last year. The graffitti was in French.

Sixty-six thousand, thirty three.

Let it sink in.

Sixty-six thousand, thirty three.

To free the French in World War II.

Several ideas have been noised about in the interest of expressing the public's dissatisfaction with the actions and attitudes of the French government. There's an active and voluntary boycott on, even now, of French companies and products. Other folks have mentioned putting together a public fund to bring home the bodies of the men who rest in France. (Where can I donate?) Still others actively work to let their congresspeople know that it is not acceptable to award French contractors with American work of any sort -- especially the mess hall support of our US Marines.

If the idea of France's defection of friendship bothers you as deeply as it does me, there are several things to do. Try them all if you like.

But, this weekend, on June 5^th and 6^th, remember the men who had the moral fortitude and clarity of vision it took to march on foreign soil, and lay down their lives in the pursuit of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness not only for Americans, but for all people in all lands. Meditate upon courage, conviction, and principle.

Then, if you're as lucky as I, and have grandparents from that era who yet live, give them a call, and let them tell you their stories. You will learn much of self-sacrifice, and what it takes to achieve a greater good in your community and the world.

Sixty-six thousand and thirty three. May I live to be a worthy daughter of such courage.

College Conservatives

Now enthusiastically added to the blogroll:
College Conservatives

Conservative thought. Taking back your college since 2004.

(Affectionate hat tip to Ethne.)

Focal Point

AGAIN IN DEFENSE OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT: I am posting much later than usual because I badly wrenched my shoulder clearing brush with a tractor yesterday evening -- a tree-branch caught my canvas coat and nearly yanked me out of the saddle -- and I am still a bit muzzy from painkillers. But I want to share the following link because of its ruinous Second Amendment implications.

Remember the "Our Lady of Peace Act"? It has been renamed the "NICS Improvement Act" and remains alive in both houses of Congress. Just like its predecessor, this measure to "improve" the National Instant Check System would criminalize mental illness. Lawyers familiar with mental health law and advocates for the mentally ill all agree its enactment would condemn any and all mentally ill individuals as "mental defectives" no matter how minor or temporary their affliction. The proposal would also add the names of anyone so condemned to a national computer-maintained roster of officially declared untermenschen, and on that basis would permanently deny the right of firearms ownership and thus also the corollary right of self-defense.

These facts become profoundly significant in light of the claim that as many as half the people of the United States will at sometime in their lives suffer from diagnosable mental illness. While the 50 percent estimate is sometimes disputed, the following figures are not in dispute at all: a just-completed American Medical Association study that at least one in four U.S. residents currently admit suffering from some form of defined mental illness.

Every one of these folks would become permanently prohibited persons – no exceptions, no appeals – under the NICS Improvement Act. They would be forever denied their right to own guns and thus forever denied their right to defend themselves if attacked or victimized.

Bear in mind too the NICS Improvement Act is supported by a broad coalition in both houses of Congress: Democrats and Republicans, anti-gunners and the National Rifle Association – with the NRA once again showing the infinite hypocrisy of its Nazi-like hostility to anyone who is mentally ill – never mind the brevity or mildness of the condition, and never mind the fact that the mentally ill are statistically no more violent than any other subgroup in America (and considerably less violent than some).

The link to the AMA survey – vital information in this ongoing debate – is here.