Monday, July 30, 2007
RON PAUL AND THE TAX-RESISTING BROWNS. D.A. sends this report (thank you) from the We the People Radio Network.
Posted by Claire @ 03:04 PM CST [Link]
HARDYVILLE HAS A one-perp crime wave.
Posted by Claire @ 03:00 PM CST [Link]
Thursday, July 26, 2007
BEST GUN BUYBACK EVAR
Blogispondent Ian here. I think we've all heard of the neat idea of going to those inner-city "gun buybacks" and buying up all the usable guns people bring to turn in. It's a cool sounding idea, but has some practical problems (like, how many decent guns really get turned in? Next to none). But that's not to say one can't make good use of something as silly as a gun buyback. Check it out:
One gun-rights group in Illinois (yes, apparently there are still some embattled gun owners in Illinois) found out about an upcoming Chicago program offering $100 prepaid credit card for any gun turned in. The group members dug through their closets and attics and turned up a whole pile of broken, obsolete, and just plain worthless firearms.
One member, acting as clueless about guns as the organizers of the event, proceeded to turn this junk in 10 guns at a time to several of the buyback locations. His bags of rusty junk revolvers was, in the course of the morning, turned several thousand dollars worth of prepaid Mastercards. And here's the best part - the money was then used to help fund a local youth shooting camp. Ha! What cooler thing to do than take the gun-grabbers' money and use it to introduce youngsters to shooting sports? 
Read the whole story at the above link for all the great details.
Posted by Ian @ 05:42 PM CST [Link]
THIS QUOTE IS FROM A MARVELOUS 1988 SF NOVEL, Crazy Time, by Kate Wilhelm. You (and I) may come from a different political orientation than Wilhelm. But gotta appreciate the sentiment.
(The person having this revelation is a psychologist who specializes in working with people who hate their jobs.)
Sanity was behaving within the norms tacitly established by society. ...[more]
Posted by Claire @ 04:13 PM CST [Link]
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
"With great power comes great responsibility." "To whom much is given, much is required."
It's me, PSM. Hi.
I'm in mind of these patinaed old phrases because of a good friend of mine, a little brother of sorts, whose inability or unwillingness to acknowledge this universal principle has cost him his freedom, his mental health, the respect and affection of the one he loves, the happiness of his mother, the admiration of his peers, and no small measure of his future. To say nothing of his self esteem.
But rather than simply cluck and tsk at the misdeeds and misfortunes of my friend, I feel compelled to turn the lens of examination back on myself and assess my own part in his tragic and needless downfall.
My record as a mentor is not a pretty one. For all my sermonizing about natural rights and liberty and the oppression of The Man, I don't recall one time that I ever had a face to face talk with my friend about temperance, or consequence, or self control, or responsibility to oneself and others. [more]
Posted by Penguinsscareme @ 08:44 AM CST [Link]
Monday, July 23, 2007
SPEAKING OF BEING LATE ... Today's Hardyville column is finally online. Oliver Del Signore and I aren't sure what happened. But the Internet ATE the darned column multiple times while letting other mail, and even later Hardyvilles through.
Hey, maybe I wrote something really controversial, eh?
Thank you, Webmaster Oliver, for being patient, and for leaping right into posting once the Net gods finally let you have the column.
Posted by Claire @ 03:40 PM CST [Link]
I AM WAAAAAY OVERDUE TO BLOG THIS NEWS, but Joel Simon has written a sequel to his novel, Walt's Gulch. And it's even more of a page-turner than the original. More, Joel! More!
Posted by Claire @ 03:32 PM CST [Link]
Saturday, July 21, 2007
WEEKEND READ. "The Stalker in Your Pocket." ComputerWorld's Mike Elgan cuts through scary urban myth to the rather scary reality of ways your cellphone can spy on you. The article is long but more authoritative than so many others.
Posted by Claire @ 12:11 PM CST [Link]
Friday, July 20, 2007
FROM THE "THINGS YOU'D RATHER NOT DO But Sometimes You Just Gotta" Department. I walked into town yesterday morning and spotted a dead oppossum on a street. Not unusual.
But as I passed, a blind, hairless, pink baby was squirming across its back. Oh lord. Feeling guilty, but helpless, I walked on by.
Couldn't stand myself, though.
[more]
Posted by Claire @ 11:11 AM CST [Link]
Thursday, July 19, 2007
WELL. 'BOUT DARNED TIME SOMEBODY SAID IT.
A specter is haunting America’s politicians and professors—the specter of illegitimacy. The political-intellectual elite fear that millions of Americans will conclude that the current democracy is a fraud—that they are being given bogus choices at the ballot box—and that the phrase “will of the people” now means as little as “the check is in the mail.”
The somebody -- as is so often the case -- is Jim Bovard, in an article beautifully titled "'Deliberative Democracy'" Dementia." Jim, if you didn't live so darned far away, I'd invite you out and buy you a pilsner and a cheap cigar.
Posted by Claire @ 01:21 PM CST [Link]
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
MARGARET PETERSON HADDIX will be on Katherine Albrecht's show, Thursday, July 19, 11:00 a.m. Eastern time. You can listen on the We the People Radio Network.
Haddix is the author of the seven-part -- and very freedom-oriented -- "Hidden Children" book series, which you can find in the Wolfesblog book store, and which I mini-reviewed here.
Posted by Claire @ 04:46 PM CST [Link]
Monday, July 16, 2007
IN HARDYVILLE justice for the Federal Five slowly winds its way through the town's non-system, while 15-year-old Jennifer Carolina, in seach of an EZ short-cut to adulthood finds herself in the toilet.
Posted by Claire @ 03:05 PM CST [Link]
ARE THE FEDS AFTER RANDY WEAVER AGAIN? Nobody knows. But this report comes via The Old Polish Woman. (Hi, Jackie!) Neighbors recently chased black-uniformed lurkers off his land, and supporters are now guarding him.
Weaver also went to New Hampshire to support the tax-resisting Browns (thank you D.A.), And speaking of them ... this MP3 file gives the latest from Katherine Albrecht's on-site experience.
Posted by Claire @ 02:55 PM CST [Link]
Friday, July 13, 2007
I'M SORRY FOR NOT BLOGGING MUCH LATELY. And I see the other blogistas are in a similar mood. Can't speak for them, but I haven't been reading the news (aka blog-fodder) and I have been working with an associate on a large, potentially important freedom project -- a project that's been nearly a year in the works and is only now truly coming into form. It takes all my writing energy.
But mostly, I haven't been blogging because I've been living. Getting spring and summer projects done. Enjoying the rare sunshine. Sharing time with friends. Delving more deeply into freedom, but in ways that don't lend themselves to a few paragraphs of bright banter.
The headlines no longer move me. And those things that do move me don't translate well into bloggery. This afternoon I was on a bus, riding back from a nearby town, when a tiny, ancient woman hobbled up the steps and fumbled in her bag for her bus pass. At least, I thought she was ancient at first. She was as hunched as a fairytale dwarf and leaned on a four-legged cane. Her legs were like the legs of a crane or heron -- straight, skinny, with no definition or muscle mass at all. I could have nearly encircled her thighs with the fingers of one hand. Only when I looked at her more closely did I realize she could have been ancient -- or could have been younger than me.
She sat down in the seat nearest the driver and said to him, in her bird-like croak, "I learned on the second that I have only a couple more months to live." The driver mumbled non-committally and the crone began to chat matter-of-factly about the weather.
How do you blog about something like that? It's more important than politics. But what do you say?
Posted by Claire @ 05:11 PM CST [Link]
Monday, July 9, 2007
WELL, I'LL BE. Here's another of those teeny benefits of being footloose and without an Internet connection at Cabin Sweet Cabin. I was sitting in a park a few minutes ago, downloading email from a nearby wifi system, when one of the garden club ladies came along to water the plants, which are in riotous bloom. We got to talking. She plucked and handed me a nasturtium blossom and showed me how to suck the nectar out of the bottom. Then she started munching away on the bloom. Handed me another and off we went.
We stood there like a pair of proper herbivores, noshing on the nasturtiums -- which are as tasty as they are beautiful. The bloom had a sweet, lettuce-like flavor with overtones of pepper. And a half an hour later, here I am, still alive and well. Miracles never cease.
I normally don't experiment with foraging garden plants. But that nasturtium was nummy. Here's a guide to edible garden ornamentals for your edification. If nasturtiums are blooming in your area, I can recommend a nibble.
Posted by Claire @ 04:53 PM CST [Link]
GAEL CAROLINA'S PLANS for making Hardyville over in his own image get momentarily interrupted.
But hardly derailed.
Posted by Claire @ 04:45 PM CST [Link]
Saturday, July 7, 2007
FREEDOM'S FRIEND DAVE GROSS of The Picket Line makes the mainstream news for his tax-protesting ways. Go Dave!
Posted by Claire @ 02:42 PM CST [Link]
RON PAUL A CONGRESSIONAL PORKER? Please say it ain't so!
(He does say it ain't so, BTW.)
Posted by Claire @ 02:37 PM CST [Link]
Thursday, July 5, 2007
THE MIND IS SUCH A STRANGE BEAST. The last week or so, I've been wrestling with decisions. On one side, I can make a practical, pragmatic choice. On another, a choice that seems like sheer, blind, mindless folly. But no matter how much my head orders, "Be sensible!," my inner voice urges, "Go for it. Damn caution. Damn the consequences. Life will provide."
I hung suspended in indecision. Then yesterday morning, Independence Day, I became conscious of a lyric that had been going mindlessly through my mind all week. It's a snippet of an old Beatles song, which my unconscious custom-distorted for its own purposes:
And it really doesn't matter if I'm wrong
or right.
If I'm wrong I'm right
Where I belong.
Lennon and McCartney might not have approved of the rewrite. But my mind got its message across: "Even if you screw up, this is a screw up you need to make right now. The worst that will happen is that it will lead you to somewhere else you need to go."
Hope you enjoyed yesterday's fireworks. The U.S.A. may have little freedom left to celebrate, but we Outlaws can still light up the sky.
Posted by Claire @ 03:30 PM CST [Link]
Monday, July 2, 2007
IN HARDYVILLE, a new arrival brings (even more) chaos to the Carolina family.
