March of 3014. Dang!
That’s some mighty good food preservation technology, right there.
(Yeah; I know. Don’t try to correct me. I though it was kinda funny, OK?)
Dang; that’s over a thousand years!
Author Archives: Lyle
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
We usually think of it terms of incorporation doctrine, but;
Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
Just sayin’. Now I know the times and the environment in which it was passed, but read the words. As an amendment to the construction they were meant for all times and all environments. They say what they say, and nothing different, and there’s been a whooole lota rebellin’ and insurrectin’ goin’ on out der.
I don’t have food
In any conflict, the most important thing is to understand exactly what it is that’s conflicting with what. If you can’t define the opposition, or even name it, you can’t fight it. Worse yet is to fail to understand what it is you’re fight FOR.
Even those ostensibly opposed to ObamaCare are often heard conflating medical insurance with medical treatment, as though one equals the other– If you don’t have insurance, you have no “health care”. They are the same thing.
By that standard, since I do not pay into a common financial pool designed to insure against starvation, I have no food. Period. I do not eat. I’m already dead. I died back in 1958 or ’59 as soon as my mother ran out of milk. I’m a ghost. Boo!
The notion that I might simply pay directly for my food, as I wish, and choose my own food provider, with no middle man, no money pool and no qualifications (or, heaven forbid; I might even grow some of it myself) is apparently a foreign concept to those who claim to favor a free market. It simply doesn’t even enter their minds.
If those who are opposed to a nationalized starvation insurance program are telling me I have no food, or if those opposed to ObamaCare are talking about people who have no healthcare, they are insane. They are not on my side. They have been co-opted by the enemy. They are blind, blithering, gibbering idiots, or zombies, who can’t even understand their own words, and yet we tolerate and entertain this insanity. Liberty isn’t even on the table for discussion. We can’t even speak of it, or even define it, and so how can we claim to fight for it?
What’s wrong with us?
Hostage!
The leftist mind thrives on clinging to its victim status. We make that work against us. We’re the problem insofar as we entertain their victim status assertions. Here’s a short conversation that took place tonight between me and a loved one;
LO; “I need (such and such help from you).”
Me; “I can do that, but you’ll need to (clean up a years old, nagging financial matter)….that’s my pre condition. It’s as simple as that.”
LO; “blah blah blah…Wait. That’s your pre condition?! So you’re holding me hostage!! Anger. Body language indicates a feeling of having gotten one over on me. Now I’ve crossed a line that shouldn’t have been crossed, or so I’m supposed to believe. I am a piece of crap, or so I’m supposed to believe. I should be wary of the pain that’s going to come from this transgression, and that wariness should alter my position on the matter. I should fold, and then beg forgiveness for my evil ways and my generally evil constitution.
Me; (pause) Yes. If getting you to do the right thing is holding you hostage, then I’m definitely holding you hostage” and I just look LO in the eye, and then add; “You need to take care of this (nagging financial matter) right away too, not weeks or months from now, but within days.”
LO; “I’ll take care of it by the weekend. You have my word.”
And that was that. LO will love me for it, and love LO’s self for it. Not for the help, mind you, but for the insistence, as a condition for the help, that LO do what we both know is the right thing. Even right now, because all the tension and angst and doubt has been taken away and the right decision has been made on good terms, LO is being all chatty and friendly with me, which doesn’t happen very often.
This was not planned. This is not a tactic. It was not manipulation or intimidation, competition or one-upmanship. It cannot be planned. It was love, and love doesn’t back down, feel guilty, try to illicit guilt or demand anything in return. It doesn’t need to keep its story straight or feed an ego and doesn’t allow itself to be distracted, upset or derailed. It’s just holding your ground for the right reason and it is the simplest thing ever. I only bring it up because it’s something I haven’t understood well enough in the past, resulting in much pain and suffering.
Would that I’d known this simple and obvious thing a few decades ago…
So you could say that this is a testimony, just one example of things going the right way when so many times they’ve gone the wrong way.
And so it is the reason, or the mechanism, by which a lot of people seek “freedom” from right, do to wrong, while others seek freedom from wrong, to do right. Both the communists and the libertarians see themselves as would-be liberators. Each sees the other as the problem standing in their way. But one is beautifully right and the other is horribly wrong.
That’s where we get the term “liberation theology” as practiced by the likes of Rev. Wright. They see the “constraints” of true freedom and true justice, and of property rights, responsibility and so on, as chains of bondage. They’re being held hostage in that sense and we do practically nothing to correct them. Instead, as a whole, we appease them and try not to offend them too much, trying to make ourselves look good in their wrong-seeing eyes. We don’t stand up to the challenge purely on principle and make the clear case, fearless, insistent and without rancor, and they hate us for it. We fail their test.
High Sloth
While riding in the family 4×4 pickup with my daughter today, I spied a bumper sticker; “Moscow High Pride”
“I wonder what that means” I said. “What kind of pride is high pride?”
“It’s Moscow High School pride” she said.
“Ah yes of course. I was thinking that high pride was being preferred over, say medium or low pride. (pause) Isn’t pride one of the seven deadly sins, and so why is it being promoted? We might as well promote some of the others then. How about Moscow High gluttony?”
“Moscow High sloth?”
(Laughter)
Pride is pretty popular among the seven. We’re to appreciate the claim, “Made with pride in the U.S.” or “Proud to be an American” or “The few, the proud, the Marines.” We are expected to be proud of our work and so on. We’re taught pride. Maybe “something you could be very proud of, but aren’t” is a better way of looking at it. Objectivity may allow me to recognize that I’ve done something good, but pride has nothing necessarily to do with accomplishing good things, and it can certainly be a factor in doing bad things.
More on “Barrel Harmonics”
There is incontrovertible proof that those who talk about barrel harmonics do not know what they’re talking about, and that proof is in the very term they use to talk about it.
First; the term “harmonic” is a very specific term for an integral multiple of a fundamental vibration frequency. Since a barrel is (usually) a somewhat irregular object tethered at one end, I question whether most of them have a harmonic overtone series at all (like a guitar string or the air column inside a flute) or a primarily inharmonic one, like a bell or a cymbal. “You keep using that word…”
Second; the fundamental frequency of the “resonating” barrel is being ignored (by the language at least) yet the fundamental is often, or probably, more significant, i.e. it probably has a higher amplitude than the higher frequency vibrations. That’s usually very much the case with a vibrating body unless it’s being dampened at the fundamental. So why, particularly, are we discussing overtones (harmonic ones or inharmonic ones) and not the fundamental?
Third; don’t even talk to me about barrel harmonics, or barrel fundamental vibration, or inharmonic barrel overtones (A.K.A. “partials”) on an AK or a 30 Carbine, et al barrel. Just don’t.
I once had to do this with a class of music majors during a seminar I did at the U of Idaho. We were talking about advanced tweaks, the last one percent, of what goes into the design and structure of a musical instrument to make it a really fine one, and the students were responding as though I were talking about major issues. My fault. I should have been more clear at the outset.
So here it is; you don’t address the last one percent on your AK. It’s not a beanfield rifle. Please. There are several other factors that totally overwhelm the last one percent (like the previous 99 for example) and so if you address the last one percent as though it were “the issue” you’re ignoring the issues that matter.
No More!
I got this circular from some GOP Senate twerp;
“Lyle,
In 8 days, we’ll hit an important fundraising deadline. How much we raise will have a big impact on whether or not our candidates are set up to succeed, so every dollar counts. I’m so committed to helping us reach our goal that I’ll match 3 times your donation.
As the last few weeks have made crystal clear, our country desperately needs new leadership in the Senate. It’s plain to see that Harry Reid just isn’t up to the job. Under his tenure, the Senate has become a dysfunctional disaster — plagued by political games, partisan stalemate, and constant finger pointing. We can break the mold, but we’ll need your help to do it.
With 7 seats up in states Mitt Romney won, combined with the Democrats’ failure to recruit competitive candidates, the political map shows we can win in 2014. Now we’re counting on you to help us make it happen.
Harry Reid and his left-wing special-interest groups are already raising millions to protect their majority. They’re desperately doing everything they can to out raise us. We simply can’t allow that to happen.
Will you please contribute $100, $50, $25, or whatever you can afford today and help us take back the Senate?
Again, donate before the deadline and I’ll personally make sure your donation is triple matched.
Thanks,
Senator Roy Blunt”
To which I replied;
“Roy,
This plea of yours reads like a joke. In fact, the GOP has become a dysfunctional disaster — plagued by political games, ideological hypocrisy, and constant finger pointing. I’ve been saying for years that we must first defeat the GOP before we can defeat the Progressive movement and the Democrats, that the GOP has been a major obstacle standing in our way.
That fact is, right now, more blatantly obvious than ever. I will be working to convince as many people as possible that it is time to defund the GOP, and stop being fooled by the pseudo conservative pap that is being fed to us as a ruse. I’m sick and tired, and I am DONE having my own money used against the principles I hold dear by the very people who have pledged to uphold them!
After the despicable performance of the Republican senate leadership these last weeks, I am insulted by your request for money. You apparently take your voter base for gibbering fools, but to some extent I can understand your confusion being that against our better judgment we have supported you so much in the past. Well, Sir; No More!
Lyle”
I don’t know Roy Blunt from Adam, and I don’t care to know him or any other GOP hack.
If you want to throw money at the problem, don;t send it to the GOP and don;t send it to any candidate– some of that money always goes to the Party even if you gave it to a candidate. Send it to Freedom Works or some other group you know for a fact doesn’t play games. At this stage I think it’s better to send no money rather than risk one dime going to game-players, “the wizards of smart” and Progressives.
Besides; money is far from being that which defines victory. There may even be an inverse relationship. If the GOP dorks want to win, all they really have to do is stand up for the principles we elect them to stand up for. In that case they wouldn’t need any money. We’d be able to see them as people we want representing us, just by their actions. It’s free.
Don’t fall for the crap anymore. We’ve tried it too many times and seen it thrown back in our faces already. The enemy (The Bloods) of my enemy (The Crips) is NOT my friend! Same goes for the Dems and Reps. I think we have yet to learn this lesson properly.
Update, 10/23/13; My reply to Senator Twerp at the NRSC was bounced, so they want your money but they don’t want to be bothered hearing from you. It seems to me I’ve gotten replies through to them in the past. I’ll look for his own e-mail address and get this to him that way.
Why Republicans are not cowards
You must have principles before you can fail to stand up for them.
“If I were in charge!”
I get these emotional appeal type e-mail forwards every day. I usually delete them without reading them (just so all you forwarders know, and besides; I get the same information, if it’s even real, days to weeks, to sometimes years, before you apparently did). This one caught me eye as something that needs to be addressed though;
“PUT ME IN CHARGE . . .
Put me in charge of food stamps. I’d get rid of Lone Star cards; no cash for Ding Dongs or Ho Ho’s, just money for 50-pound bags of rice and beans, blocks of cheese and all the powdered milk you can haul away. If you want steak and frozen pizza, then get a job.
Put me in charge of Medicaid. The first thing I’d do is to get women Norplant birth control implants or tubal ligations. Then, we’ll test recipients for drugs, alcohol, and nicotine. If you want to reproduce or use drugs, alcohol, or smoke, then get a job.
Put me in charge of government housing. Ever live in a military barracks? You will maintain our property in a clean and good state of repair. Your home” will be subject to inspections anytime and possessions will be inventoried. If you want a plasma TV or Xbox 360, then get a job and your own place.
In addition, you will either present a check stub from a job each week or you will report to a “government” job. It may be cleaning the roadways of trash, painting and repairing public housing, whatever we find for you. We will sell your 22 inch rims and low profile tires and your blasting stereo and speakers and put that money toward the “common good..”
Before you write that I’ve violated someone’s rights, realize that all of the above is voluntary. If you want our money, accept our rules. Before you say that this would be “demeaning” and ruin their “self esteem,” consider that it wasn’t that long ago that taking someone else’s money for doing absolutely nothing was demeaning and lowered self esteem.
If we are expected to pay for other people’s mistakes we should at least attempt to make them learn from their bad choices. The current system rewards them for continuing to make bad choices.
AND While you are on Gov’t subsistence, you no longer can VOTE! Yes, that is correct. For you to vote would be a conflict of interest. You will voluntarily remove yourself from voting while you are receiving a Gov’t welfare check. If you want to vote, then get a job.”
Followed of course with the obligatory;
“Now, if you have the guts – PASS IT ON…”
Oy. I guess we’re supposed to respond with a hearty; “YEAH! You Tell ’em!” and then go back to our search for other emotional stimulants, such that by the end of each day we’ll need to get drunk or bury our faces in the television to calm down.
Uh, no. I responded to the forwarder thusly;
“This is all assuming that the government is rightly and should forever be in charge of “charity” by way of coercive redistribution, which of course is the problem from the start. It shouldn’t.
‘Put me in charge’ she says….
No, Young Grasshopper; PUT THE CONSTITUTION BACK IN CHARGE. PUT THE FOUNDING PRINCIPLES BACK IN CHARGE and then we won’t have those in government usurping the very concept of charity and turning it into something horrible.”
Oh, and just as a side note; If you can’t vote as long as you’re on government subsistence? Heh! No problem; we’ll just make sure everyone is forced onto government subsistence. The Progressives are working on that right now anyway, and so long as you’re dependent on them, vote or not, you’ll have to do what they tell you.
This is the difference between Democrats and Republicans on one side, and libertarians/objectivists and Christians on the other. The former see the problem as an issue of WHO is in charge, while the latter see the issue as being whether or not the guiding principles are in charge. Whoever wrote the forwarded e-mail is every bit as clueless as any card-carrying, ideological Marxist, and most likely is a die hard Republican; take all of the leftist assumptions, make them your own, and wish you were in charge of administering them so you really SHOW THEM, BY GOSH AND BY GOLLY, GEE WHIZ!!!. I’d tell such people to go to hell, but they’re almost certainly already there, so even if they were genuinely inclined to take my advice it would make zero difference.
I’ve tried to say this in several different ways already, but we’ll give it another try;
That which irritates you owns you. It has converted you over to its purpose. This e-mail forward is a PERFECT example of that, and think how many cultures have been trading one tyrant for another, for another, for yet another… Get it?
Shakedown?
I got a request from a guy who works for one of the gigantic firearms magazine publishing companies. They put out several major gun magazines, all of which you know well. He wanted high resolution images showing off some specific products of ours. I was heading out of town at the time and could not change my plans, no way, no how, and so I went to GREAT lengths, using digital back-channels, running into road blocks, fiddling this and that, and finally I got him his images in short order. It was a pain, but when a major publisher indicates that they want to run an article that shows off your products, you jump, right? So I jumped. I know the guy. He’s a big name in a huge industry– Why shouldn’t I jump?
Days later, after hearing no reply, I get this;
“Thank you for the images.
I am also interested in getting one of those [product name redacted] for myself…
Let me know what I would owe you.”
No mention of any specific, up-coming article in any specific magazine, just an implied request for a special personal deal on some special hardware (nod nod, wink, wink).
So I went through all that dorking around just for this?
This ain’t my first rodeo, bitches– I have decades of experience dealing with people attempting to use their very real influence for personal gain, and with those who accommodate them at every opportunity. Many of them have been in public employ too. I’ve also seen more than few of them fall flat on their faces for doing it.
Most people in any business, and all industries have this sort of thing going in spades, take the position; “Aw, just go with it. Don’t be a fool– It’s how the game is played and there’s nothing you can ever do to change it.” I’ve had it said to my face.
Uh huh. Well consider this post my reply to that, and count your blessings that I haven’t mentioned your name and your employer. Yet. Now let the reprisals begin, if you’re dumb enough. I’m ready.
Pre conditioning
I get a lot of e-mail spam, and I work in the firearms accessory business, so when I saw a message from a car dealer I read it as “Full Auto Inventory Clearence”.
“Hmm. Someone must have a lot of machineguns…”
Actually it read; “Fall Auto Inventory Clearence” but my pre conditioning made me read it wrong.
That’s just a tiny example of pre conditioning determining someone’s perception. It happens all the time to most of us, in some way or another.
We played a trick on my brother years ago. We wired up a whistling sky rocket firework and clamped it under his work bench. When he came in, we told him we suspected something was wrong with his bench lamp. When he turned on his bench power and all hell broke lose, he was scrambling in a panic, amongst the fire, the smoke and noise, to turn off his bench lamp. We had pre conditioned him to respond in a completely useless (and funny – to us) manner.
Yeah, funny funny hah hah, but this sort of thing is done to us in politics and social engineering, and we do it to ourselves.
I’ve been a wafer a while
Which is to say that I left town for a week, and at the same to say that attempts to find the original meaning of mere syllables can be utterly pointless. The lyrics to the song, Jock-a-mo being a good example. Or is it Chaque Amour? It’s bad enough if you’re sure of the language, but the many languages from several continents that were in use in the greater Mississippi delta region of the Gulf Coast, in addition to several native languages and trade language amalgams, it’s just stupid to think you can ever know.
Anyhow; the central Washington desert is a beautiful place, most notably for the vast, wide open spaces covered by sage brush, layers of ancient basalt formations, the more recent signs of the Missoula Flood, and gigantic public works projects. You can sit in one place and see millions of years of violent geologic history and our violent political future at the same time.
Say WHAT?
I’m still wondering about Fast and Furious, and we’re what, a couple dozen scandals removed from that now, each one taking the former one off the main headlines? You couldn’t make this stuff up– It would be taken as way too far beyond believability.
Quiz
1. In your best, logical assessment, America’s enemies would rather see American citizens;
A) armed.
B) disarmed.
2. In your best, logical assessment, America’s enemies would rather see U.S. Military personnel;
A) armed while on and off duty inside U.S. military installations.
B) disarmed while on and off duty inside U.S. military installations.
3. In your best, purely logical assessment, America’s enemies;
A) approve of the second amendment to the U.S. constitution and would like to see it protected and enforced.
B) disapprove of the second amendment to the U.S. constitution and would like to see it limited, eroded and degraded as much as possible.
4. In your best, purely logical, most detached and rational assessment, America’s enemies would rather see American citizens generally;
A) capable in the use of arms, having arms and ammunition of their own, being self sufficient and largely independent individually, largely fearless and moral, hopeful, principled, and more able to help their friends and neighbors in times of need such that outside help from official authorities is not crucial to survival.
B) ignorant in the use of arms, having no arms or ammunition of their own, being largely dependent on government programs for their sustenance, medicine, energy, education, transportation and protection, largely fearful and demoralized, unprincipled, and less able to help their friends and neighbors in times of need such that outside help from official authorities is crucial to survival.
You will be graded on your answers.
Words mean things
I think that’s a Rush Limbaugh quote, to give credit where I believe credit is due, but maybe he got it somewhere else.
The shipyard shooting was described on the news tonight as having taken place in a “heavily secured” area. Has the term “heavily secured” been redefined while I wasn’t looking, or is that a blatantly moronic description?
Yet another mass shooting in what amounts to a gun free zone, in a long line of mass shooting in gun free zones, but in this case it can be said that this was a “heavily secured gun free zone”. In other words, the shooting took place inside a real live, physical, three-dimensional contradiction in terms. Which of course is the problem.
Last time this happened I had military vets tell me that trusting kids on the military bases with guns is not practical, which is either coming from a mental position of pre-conditioned, certain defeat, or it means we don’t have a military, which is certain defeat. Sorry guys; that’s insane. You may believe it with every fiber of your militarily experienced being, but it’s insane.
One would think we should have learned this lesson, that military bases can and do come under attack, in, say, December of 1941, but then people do forget. Fort Hood on the other hand, was in the news just within the last few weeks due to the trial. Is anyone in the military feeling a clue coming on yet, or are we simply going to ramp up the stupid, as I predict?
If we had sanity in our military, every low level grunt, every secretary, every truck driver, etc., would be a rifleman first and a whatever else, a floor polisher or cook, second. Militaries are for killing people and breaking things, and so if you don’t have the ability to kill people and break things on short notice, on any base or any boring flower planting assignment in some peaceful corner of the world, you’re not military material. (By the way there are no peaceful corners of the world. There are only places wherein the violence is taking a break and readying itself for the next push)
Which, practically, means we need the CMP back in full force and effect, jr high and high school shooting teams should be reinstated, and of course the NRA needs to be doing more of what it was born to do. If our government and military are tying their own hands, we’ll have to do it on our own.
It is being reported that the DC metro police were called in……….to protect a military installation against a single attacker (or maybe two we don’t know for sure yet). A civilian force had to go in and help save a United States military installation from one or two dumbshits.
Let that sink in for bit. We’re now telegraphing to the world, AGAIN, that a single trained squad, or two, could likely dominate an entire base inside the U.S. Could it get any worse, Mr. commander in Chief? How f-ing lame is that, you generals?
And their response appears to be that we need more restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms, i.e. more of the kind of poison that made this latest act possible. They want restrictions on the provision in the constitution that was designed to foster the security of a free state.
You know the saying; once is happenstance, twice is coincidence… Well the Fort Hood shooting was enemy action or worse. This last one (maintaining the conditions that made the Fort Hood shooting possible) borders on treason, or it leaps over that border. Conspiracy theories abound in regard to the lack of preparedness in Pearl Harbor in December of 1941. This is at least as bad, considering that Ft Hood was in the lime light just this summer.
Another defeat for criminals…
…both inside and outside of government. This time in Illinois.
I give more money to the SAF than anyone else outside my family.
More on voter suppression
We’re being asked (told?) to believe that the voters who wanted Progressives in office “couldn’t get to the polls” (Where are they? I don’t know. What IS a poll anyway? Where am I? Who am I? Who are you? What planet is this? Vote for Who? Why? What’s happening and is there any way of stopping it?) while those who wanted freedom didn’t have any trouble at all finding those pesky, shifty, sneaky, evasive polls, even after the Progressives massively out-spend those who prefer freedom.
Well there you have it. When Progressives win it’s grass-roots democracy in action– a beautiful expression of The American Way and what could ever be better or more wonderful than that. When Progressives lose it’s big money corporate-funded voter suppression by mean people who suck and are probably terrorists.
More on redistribution
Charity is a vitally important component to any civilized society and as such, government should be kept completely out of it.
The first amendment touched upon the concept that a most highly important societal aspect or institution should be hands-off (no government involvement) but it is not well understood. We tend to focus on the particulars (religion, speech, the press, redress and assembly) but ignore the principle behind it.
More on Markley’s law
PETA is now promoting the idea that eating chicken will result in a small penis and other problems.
Well sure– If the idea that animals are essentially equal to humans doesn’t stop us from eating animals, then we might as well take the penis angle, because apparently people care more about penises (and sex) than practically anything else. It’s bound to get a few more, uh, members.
This is part of a long term trend. Leftists used to attack people they don’t like by calling us “fags” or “queers” but since they now have to pretend that they’re promoting the rights of homosexuals, they have to turn to other methods of distraction. Hence Markley’s law, and the recent PETA story is part of the same trend of using sex as a cultural/political lever.
A common phrase used back in the 1960s and early ’70s (the Vietnam war period) was “Girls say yes to guys who say no”. It’s an appeal to young, horny men, telling them straight up that they’ll get laid more if they at least pretend to help support the Progressives and the communists.
It’s a common theme among communists, to get the vulnerable young people on board, and sex is a powerful lure. Charles Manson used young women as bait to sucker young males into the group, and Sun Myung Moon, Jim Jones, the Heavens Gate Cult and others in a long line of socialist predators (but I repeat myself) followed very similar tactics. Islamists, we are told, will be treated to a harem of dozens of virgins if they die in the great and glorious jihad (and Allah will be super happy about your killing people too, but seriously; virgins!). They could just as well promote a new scientific study which finds that reading American freedom blogs will result in sexual dysfunction, and so the 72 virgins in heaven might go unsatisfied, and we wouldn’t want THAT to happen would we? If they haven’t done it already, they will.
Nothing changes. PETA has just put a slightly different twist on it, but their new spin has a lot of precedent. It is a good one though, as the left has also been trying to make us fear our food, our water, our air, and our neighbors, and this gimmick hits on at least two fronts.
And so I say to PETA; Good one, guys! Right on! You’re in good company. Keep up the good work. You’re completely insane, sure, but you’re giving it the old college try, you’re learning from your predecessors, and that deserves some respect.
Parenthetically; if animals raised for slaughter are as good and have rights the same as people, then people are no better and have no more rights than animals raised for slaughter, which is the whole point of organizations like PETA even if most of their members are clueless kids just trying to get laid. Remember it.
On Race Gunning and TV
I don’t do race gunning for the most part, which of course qualifies me as an Internet Race-gunning Expert.
I just finished watching an episode of 3 Gun Nation. By the way; Internet TV is really the best way to watch TV. You don’t have to program a recorder to catch your favorite shows. They’re all recorded on the server, so you just go and pick out what you want, whether it’s live or whether it’s two years old.
First impressions after the episode; Wow, but there are a lof of gun malfunctions! It seemed that every shooter had to deal with a malf on at least one stage. I do not know. Is it that the guns are so specialized that they’re accepting less reliability as a role of the dice, such that when the gun doesn’t fail you get a super duper stage run? OR, is the show edited so as to highlight malfs? After that experience, I can almost envision a moment in the sport wherein someone uses a stock standard gun, wins, and is accused of having had an unfair advantage.
Watching the shooters do their run-throughs prior to shooting a stage continues to mildly disturb me. I’m thinking of a skit. It’s a defensive situation, and the defender demands a run-through before the bad guy is allowed to commit his horrible act of aggression.
There’s a conflict between calling it practical shooting and having a nice and safe spectator sport in which every shooter can maximize his performance. Wouldn’t it be just as fair for the shooters, and yet more of a practical exercise, if no one got to see the stage before shooting it? Or maybe have at least one stage no one sees before shooting?
On TV in general, a camera, a microphone and an editor can be used to depict reality, or to change it all around and mix it up. Say you want to experience the taste of a new apple variety, or you want to bring that new variety to the public. So you hire a chef, and by way of impressing us with his skills he dresses up the apple by baking it and covering it with caramel, cinnamon and nutmeg and topping it with a dollop of whipped cream.
It may be a really great dish, but in the processing you are robbed of the experience of the apple itself. Same goes with TV. If it’s a motorcycle show and I want to know how the engine sounds, they rob me of that experience by ALWAYS overdubbing heavy metal music on top of it. If you want to know something of the pace of the shooting event, you have to sort of guess, because of the fast editing and the slow-mos.