Opinions and rants from central MN

Now that the dust has settled and we all realize the world is not going to end, it is time to bid a sad farewell to the Mayans and their calendar.  So, as of Friday, we will not see cable stations devote entire banks of time to documentaries about the Mayan calendar and the repercussions.  There was a lot of junk on television but there were some good documentaries on a subject that is worth learning.   I hope Mexico and Guatemala were smart enough to get tourist dollars of this.  I wonder if they realized what a market there is in the Northern countries for authentic myths for ancient cultures.  I am sure they are looking into their prehistory to see if there is anything that can be so easily merchandised, and done so without any expenditure on their part. 

It is a bit too bad that none of the money spent went to the living descendant of the Mayans, who live today and Mexico and Central America.

We had news of a school shooting on Friday 12/14/2012.   It happened in Newtown, Connecticut.  As of this morning the death total is 26 with 20 of them children. It is a bit unusual that it was an elementary school. It was also unusual in that the guns seem to have been purchased by the first victim, Nancy Lanza, the mother of the shooter. We still don’t have a complete story about the shooter and how he acquired his guns. It does appear that they were acquired legally. CNN has had a sorrow fest for the last few days about this. There is a lot of wringing of hands by politicians and it does appear to be genuine

The gun lobby and their enablers have come out in force. Ross Douthat of the NY Times, wrote an article entitled “Loss of Innocents” and the title is a fair summary of what comes next. It is impossible to shield children from evil. At a certain level he is correct, we cannot shield them from all evil, but shouldn’t we even try to shield them from this?

As a country we talk about freedom but we are oh so willing to restrict freedoms if it serves a purpose. Free speech is hardly unrestricted. We have copyright laws to control what is printed. We have libel laws to punish speech after the fact. We have various laws about pornography, especially child pornography. In an age when images can be easily manipulated there is no self-evident connection between any image and an event. Speech is the first amendment. If we are willing to control speech why are efforts against the second amendment unthinkable?

As far as freedoms not enumerated in the constitution we are very willing to enact all sorts of laws to enforce various ideas seen to be in the public interest. In the 1960’s and 70’s drinking laws in the US were slightly liberalized in a number of states, but during the 1980’s laws were passed that would reduce federal highway funds in state that allowed the purchase of alcohol before age 21. Statistics seem to indicate that this did reduce some drunk driving. What is missing is that way this law has helped make underage drinking in colleges worse that it was in the past. While I don’t support this law, it does indicate an attempt to fix a problem. What is missing here is any attempt to monitor the efficacy of the law.  Still it was a start.

With gun violence we are almost completely unwilling. The Democrats have just about given up. The Republicans are the Jesus and Guns party so anything from them would be a surprise.  Do we really need to have easy access to semi-automatic rifles? Do we need large capacity magazines?  Should it be so easy to buy large amounts of ammunition?

Let me preface this by reminding people that I spent most of my life in NJ and I have seen my share of hurricanes and tropical storms.

Hurricane Sandy should be a eye-opener for people in the Northeast. They were woefully unprepared.  Nobody seemed to expect the power outages or the shortage of supplies that should he been expected.  Did anyone remember Katrina?  There was better coordination and the disaster response was fast (they did learn something from Katrina). 

People need to take their own steps to prepare.  There are silly shows on television about people who take emergency preparedness to the extreme but one can learn from them.   In those shows people are always stockpiling guns and ammo.  During this emergency basic law and order never broke down.  Those guns would have been useless.  What did break down was the supply chain, particularly in fuel and water. Many people living in apartments in NYC were living without power and water for a week or more.   This was a very well predicted storm. People could have built up a water store. People should have had edible food.  People should be prepared to live in cold rooms (at this time of year hardly colder than a camper would find outside).   In an apartment it would be hard to find a heat source that is safe.  People should be able to stockpile 20 gallons or more of gasoline for their cars. 

We also need to think about our infrastructure.  Does NYC needs a sea wall?  A lot of petroleum is stored in tank in NJ.   Some of those were damaged during the storm.  This is the kind of thing that is preventable.  There was a documentary called ‘It Can Happen Tommorow’ that show what might happen if a category 3 hurricane hit NYC.  Of course this was an exaggeration, but it should have given city planners ideas on what needs to be upgraded.  Well that upgrade was never made, but perhaps now is the time.