Category Archives: Philosophy/Politics

Craiggers Gettin His Teach On, and a few shots at NaNoWriMo

Posted on by
Reply

Hey there,
I wrote an article for All Things Book-Review about “World Building in Genre Fiction.”  It comes with silly youtube links (although the Bob Ross one at the end exactly reinforces what I’m saying) and a good worksheet at the end.  Here is the link.  I’d like to do several of them, as they come right from my lesson plans, and it’s stuff that aspiring writers need to know.


I used to be a teacher, and I still tutor English and History.  As such, I know a little bit (quite a bit) about writing theory and proper structure.  Planning ahead is very important if you want to write a good story, that is, if you want to write a good story without scrapping half of it.  And this is why I have serious issues with NaNo.

As some of you know, NaNo purposefully ignores structure (their motto is “no plot, no problem), leading to 1) formless nonsense with a weak plot and/or glaring plot holes, forcing the serious writer to throw out most of his work in order to fix it. or 2) a story that can’t be finished because the writer runs out of ideas and/or writes himself into a corner.  “No plot” is a serious problem.

Planning saves paper, people.

I like what Natalie Goldberg has to say about outlining.  Once you know what’s going to happen in a chapter, or from point to point, it gives your mind free rein to write as it sees fit, to flow in a natural, zen-like manner, the no-mind.

It’s like how a zen practitioner structures his meditation from gong to gong.  I’m paraphrasing, but the message is clear.
NaNo claims that it is allowing the writer to write without structure, but instead it does the opposite. The writer has to constantly think about what comes next.  It prevents the freedom to write.

It’s like a driver without a map, that has to constantly look for signs to tell them where to go.  Instead be the driver with a map that knows exactly where they’re going, free from stress, and wrong turns.  The successful NaNo writers I’ve seen have a plot in mind before they start writing.  Some even have (gasp) plot points and a chapter outline.

Let’s make September National Preparing for NaNo month (SeNaPreN?). While we’re at it, make December National Revising Your NaNo month (DeNaReYN?)

I’ve written about this before, and each time I am deluged with NaNo devotees that attack me as if I am attacking their religion. I suppose that I am, but I hate to see someone put so much effort into writing something meaningful, only to see it fall apart.

If only they looked before they leaped.

I’m sorry if you think “i’m being a dick,” I don’t “get it,” “it’s the community, man,” or “your writing probably sucks anyway.”  Maybe you’re right, but next time try planning ahead before you do NaNo.  I guarantee that your story will be much better.  Look.  Leap. Land on your feet.

Love ya, and Happy writing,
C.A.

craig with bandana cropped

Black Friday?

Posted on by
Reply

I don’t understand why they call it Black Friday. I mean, it’s a great song, but Steely Dan has written much better ones.

How about we call dec 19th “Hey Nineteen?”

If anything, we should call it Green Friday, since Shakespeare’s green-eyed monster takes so many people over.  I for one, don’t shop on Black Friday.  I hate shopping, I hate crowds, they give me panic attacks.  Going to the store during the worst shopping day of the year could possibly kill me.  I’d rather stay at home at kvetch about consumerism like the pretentious jackass I am.

Speaking of pretentious jackasses, I’m stunned that Family Guy killed off Brian.  He was my favorite character, my brother in douchebaggery. Dear Brian, in heaven, “Faster Than the Speed of Love” is a best seller. Here’s my favorite Brian moment.

Real Life Alignment: A Pointless Voyage Into Good and Evil

Posted on by
Reply

I decided to take some time off of my shameless plugging in order to discuss something that is often, if not always, on my mind.

I am a nice person. I am always polite to people. I hold doors open. I compliment people for no other reason than to make them feel good. But am I a good person? There’s a difference, and being nice does not necessarily equate to being good.

I’m not saying that I am a bad person. I don’t think that there are many truly bad people in the world. There’s a current book out whose name I can’t remember. It says that one out of twenty people, 5% of the population, are sociopathic. They have no ability to feel empathy, or to act in any way other than for their own benefit. We all know at least one sociopath (I happen to know several). Not all of them are criminals or even noticeable in their sociopathy, but all of them are incurably selfish.

We are all selfish at one time or another, but that doesn’t make the person “bad.” Being selfish all of the time–being unable to be anything but selfish–that’s bad. Of course, there are other kinds of evil too. There are many normal people out there that have explosive tempers, or purposefully hurt someone to fill a need inside of them. I think these are learned traits, though, and different from sociopathic behavior. They’re just assholes.

I play a lot of roleplaying games. In D & D, they have something called “Alignment.” This is where you decide your character’s world view on an ethical (law vs chaos) and moral (good vs evil) scale. When I was younger, I used to argue with my DM that people were inherently good, and it was ethics that were variable. He countered that most people are neutral: they care about family and friends, maybe even the greater world around them, but they do little to help anyone outside their immediate circle.

I was an idealist. I am not anymore. I think that my DM is right. You can be a nice person, but unless you are taking an active stance towards improving the world, you are neutral. “Good” is reserved for heroism in RPGs, and in a lesser sense, in real life.

Because I’m a writer, and especially because I write speculative fiction, I am constantly grappling with the nature of good and evil. Song of Simon, for example. Simon begins as a “nice guy,” but an ordinary guy. He has fears, he has moments of selfishness. He makes bad decisions that come back to haunt him. Yet the novel is about him growing from a “nice person” into a “good person,” a person that will take a stand to defend what is right.

There are other characters in Song of Simon that are not quite so heroic. And there are those that appear heroic, but have done (and do) horrible things. I tried to show the variability of what is good and what is evil. Good and evil isn’t black and white. It isn’t even shades of gray. Good and evil is every color in the rainbow and every shade therein. It’s alizarin crimson and yellow ochre. It’s midnight blue and aquamarine. There are no simple answers to be found.

As for me, I’m going to make a change. I’m tired of just being a nice person. I want to be a good person. I want to help, and I’m gonna find some way to do it.

Novel Updates and more Comic Book Questions

Posted on by
3

Hi everyone. I decided that I am going to update every Tuesday and Friday. I’ll try, anyway. Sometimes I get so caught up in other work, I forget to update here.

I just finished writing the first 5 chapters to the currently unnamed Watchmage novel, which is a retelling of the serial that I’ve been working on since november. I expect to have the first draft done by the end of the Summer, unless I get a life. My serial, on the other hand, is going strong. It recently moved into 8th Place. If you haven’t VOTED, you really should. We emerging artists need your help.

Song of Simon is still at the editors. I recently submitted all of my author info, including my dedication and acknowledgements. I dedicated it to my Mom and to Valerie. There are some people that might be surprised that they’re in my acknowledgements. If I leave anyone out, I apologize in advance.

My publisher would like me to make a video trailer for SoS. I know nothing about that kind of thing. Luckily I have several filmmaker friends, that I can arrange something with (hopefully). I might even be able to get original music. I like getting my friends involved, so they could get some credit and exposure too.

Now about comics: i was thinking about DC the other day. Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and Shazam (Captain Marvel) all have connections to Greek Mythology. WW is an Amazon and the daughter of Zeus, AM is King of Atlantis, Shazam draws his power from several Gods/ heroes. So why hasn’t there been a WW, AM, and SZ crossover. As they all have connections to different gods (give AM to Neptune), it would be easy to turn a conflict between the gods into a conflict between their proxies. Both WW and AM, when they are at their best, are flawed heroes (as the best greek heroes are). Put them in a story with Shazam, who has always been portrayed as the purest of heart of all the DC heroes, and you are bound to find sparks.

I heard that the new Shazam isn’t quite as heroic as the one before the reboot. This really pisses me off. The whole appeal of Captain Marvel is his innocence and unshakable devotion to good. Sure, it makes it hard to carry a series like that, but as part of an emsemble, he’s fantastic. In fact, all three of these characters work best in an ensemble (IMHO). Put them together, see what happens.

Earth's Mightiest Mortal...I still think he can take Superman

Copyright Infringement: The sincerest form of flattery

Posted on by
1

I was having a conversation with a writer friend the other day.  The topic switched to fan fiction, and I said “I can hardly wait until there’s some fan fiction for Song of Simon out there.”  He agreed and said that he was looking forward to fan fic for his novel too.

The reason that I find this funny, is because of the crazy paradigm shift in the past 10 years.  Fan fiction used to be something to laugh at, and for writers to condemn for infringing on their intellectual property.  Now it is something that writers embrace. I would love it if people wrote fan fic.  I would be honored.

Yes, it is still copyright infringement (although a case can be made for parody), but there’s no harm in it.  Yes, most fan fic is pretty bad, but there is a lot of really good fan fic out there too.  Valerie wrote tons and tons of fan fiction, ranging from everything from Buffy to Downton Abbey.  Like everything else that she wrote, it was brilliant.  I would love to send some of her Buffy stuff to Joss Whedon, but I don’t know how he would respond.

Fan fiction is also a great “starter project” for people who want to write, but are not confident enough in their own characters.  I never had this problem.  I had D & D, which gave me a very strong background in characterization.  Others are not so lucky.

Note: aspiring writers should join at least one roleplaying campaign.

The downside?  Every now and then, a stinker like 50 Shades of Grey gets out there.  Meh, can’t be worse than its source material (Twilight)

Also, why do I hate Twilight?  Because the protagonist is a bland nobody who lacks the ability to do anything for herself.  Instead she must be saved by equally bland men.  When her man leaves her, she tries to kill herself repeatedly.  There isn’t a heroic bone in her body.  She is the epitomy of the weak, subservient female stereotype that people have been fighting for over 100 years.  She has single handedly taught an entire generation of women to look pretty, bend over and let your man take care of everything.

Hey-ah I’ma Da Pope-ah!!

Posted on by
Reply

I was getting into the whole search for the new pope thing. It’s not as cool as searching for a new Dalai Lama, but it’s close.  Now we have one, (and by we, I mean “not me.”) I was very excited.  I thought that maybe he would have a more progressive view on things.  Maybe he would even clean up the pedobearia in the church.

I doubt it.

Re: gay marriage, there is this:

Same shit, different Pope

So gay marriage is a plot by the Devil to confuse the children of God?  What is priestly molestation then?

We’d be better off with Zoidberg

Wrestling With God

Posted on by
Reply

It was a month since Valerie died on the 24th. It feels like so much longer, like I’ve lived ten empty, soulless years since losing her. Every day, every minute, every instance drags on forever. Everything reminds me of her, not the obvious things like her action figure collection or the poem that I taped to my wall, but little things. I took out the garbage earlier, and I passed by where she parked on her last visit. It was the spot of our last kiss. I knew that I was kissing her goodbye, but I didn’t think that it was forever.

What kind of God would do this?  What kind of monster would snuff someone so wonderful, and do it in her prime?
People tell me that it is all part of God’s plan.  God’s plan?  Plan for what?  What makes anyone think that it’s a good plan?  Look at all the suffering in the world.  If God is omnipotent, then why does he have to kill, unless he WANTS to?

So what’s the deal?  Either God isn’t good, or God isn’t omnipotent.  Or maybe God doesn’t exist.

I don’t know.

Against my better judgement, I choose to believe in God.  I do this only because the thought of never seeing Valerie again, (or my Mom, gramma, grampa, etc) is too much for me to bear.  I have to believe, because the belief that she is still with me is all that keeps me going.  I don’t care if I am deluding myself, the delusion is better than reality.

But then WHY?  Why do you kill?  Why do you cause pain?  If you are all powerful, why do you allow these things?

Maybe God isn’t all powerful.  Maybe there is evil out there just as powerful.  This appeals to the fantasy writer in me, an epic battle between good and evil with the Earth at stake.  But being appealing doesn’t make it real

Maybe this is Hell.  We’ve already lived horrible lives and died, and our existance here is punishment for the life that we led.  That explains the massive amount of pain and suffering in the world.  We all deserve it, because we are bad people.

Maybe God only watches, but doesn’t step in.  Cold and unfeeling, he looks us over like someone watching the History Channel, caring nothing for the people involved.

The thing is, none of else will ever know.  The only “proof” is “faith” and they are not the same thing.

I do know that I’ve been calling out God for weeks now, but he won’t get in the ring.

Rest in Peace, My Valerie (1977-2013)

Posted on by
1

I buried my soul mate yesterday.

Last Tuesday (Jan 22), I went up to Binghamton to visit Val.  She was up there to begin her PhD candidacy in English.  I climbed the stairs to the back door and knocked.  I looked through the screen, and she was on the floor.  I don’t think that Val would want me to tell the final details of her life to strangers, so I will refrain.

Val was pronounced brain dead Thursday morning.  She died that evening.  She was my world.  She was the most brilliant, caring, gifted, loving, person that I will ever know.  Her writing is some of the best that I have ever read.  I only wish that I could write like her.

Her obituary is here.  Her website is here.

If you read my blog, you know how much I love her.  We just celebrated our anniversary.  I went to her mom’s for Christian Christmas (as opposed to my usual, Jewish Christmas.  We just didn’t have enough time together.

I want to tell you all about her.  I want people to know and love her the way that I love her, the way that she deserves to be loved.

This is what I told the Binghamton reporter that is writing her memorial:

She was about as warm and giving a person could be.  She cared very deeply about her students and would always go the extra mile for them.  Her favorite writer was Oscar Wilde, and I am sure that she could go wit for wit with him and come out the victor.  On her wall there was a picture of Oscar Wilde next to a picture of Malcom X.  I asked her about it once, and she said “I’d like to think that they are lovers in Heaven.”
Val loved so many things:  Joss Whedon (especially Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Rancid (for the past year she has been keeping a tongue-in-cheek photo journal updating the status of Tim Armstrong’s epic beard.  That was just her sense of humor), action figures (she had a massive collection of action figures, she would sometimes use them as writing prompts for students, but mostly they just hung around the house).  She loved to write, she was constantly writing, but even more than that, she loved to teach.  She loved the Oxford Comma, if you could love punctuation.  She had a passionate affair with Semicolons.

She was a strong woman: independent but not distant, tough but not hard, witty but not cruel.  She was brilliant, the most intelligent person that I have ever met.  She loved Grammar.  She was very excited to be taking a Grad level Grammar class at Binghamton.  She felt a great sadness for people that couldn’t use “there, their, and they’re” properly.

Her writing was incredible.  When we first started dating, I asked what she wrote.  She said something like “I do mostly short stories, mostly humorous, but when you say you write humor people think you write bad stand-up or something. I love the type of short story that can make you laugh and feel sad within like five pages so that’s what I try for.” 
If you read some of her writing (on her website), you will see that she succeeded everytime.
 
If you would like, I can recommend some of my favorite stories. 
 
I don’t know what else I can say.  She was the most perfect person that ever walked the face of this Earth.  She was too perfect, too gifted, too gentle and loving for us.  I would say that she was ahead of her time, but Time will never catch up to her.
This is what I said, but there was so much more to her.  She wrote erotic fan fic  as a hobby, and helped form an entire community for it.  Her frank talk and writing about mental illness was inspirational and life saving for many people.
On our first date, she gave me a toy for my turtle.  Who does that?  Who is that thoughtful?  Val was.  On our second date, I spilled an entire move-sized diet coke in her lap, and she didn’t walk out on me.  On the contrary, after the movie, she still made out with me.
She did all of this, but I knew that she was the One when I first walked into her apartment, and there was a giant Godzilla doll on her refrigerator.
I am concerned with her legacy.  I want the whole world to know how gifted a writer she was.  I want her name immortalized the way that it should be.  She was everything that I could ever want, or want to be.
I love you so much, Valerie.  I will love you forever.
The two of us, late December, 2012

The two of us, late December, 2012

Birthday: Reflections, Refractions, and a Serious Confession

Posted on by
1

Last week was my 36th birthday.  I just getting around to writing about it now, mostly because I don’t know how I feel about it.  One thing is certain:  I feel old.

I broke a rib on New Years . . . Coughing.  I broke it coughing.  Who the hell breaks a rib coughing?  I have saggy man tits and a jiggly belly.  My back hurts.  My blood pressure is up.  I suppose that these are normal things, but there is a lot more on my plate.

Lifewise, I like where I am right now, but it’s not where I expected to be.  To be honest, I expected to be dead by now.

I have a serious confession to make.

I have severe Bi-Polar Syndrome.  I was diagnosed when I was 14.  I spent much of my teenage years in and out of hospitals.  I went to a special school for the “emotionally challenged.”  The side effects from the various medications are torturous, to the point where I no longer know what it’s like to “feel good.”

As an adult, I have never been able to hold a full time job for more than a year or two.  No matter how extraordinary I am at the job, I inevitably have a manic or depressive cycle and lose it.  I ended up working low paying odd jobs and resigning myself to poverty.

Last year, I ended up homeless in the middle of Winter.  I was living out of a ’97 Saturn, which I would park in a park or parking lot and hope that I wasn’t carjacked.

Through most of my adult life, I suffered without help.  I didn’t know that there was help out there for people like me:  mentally ill, but not ill enough to require a group home.

Thankfully, I found help.  MHA found me a place to live, and helped me to apply for disability.  So yes, now I am a drain on society.  I am ashamed of this, very ashamed.  I hate myself for it.  I wish that I could stand on my own, but I tried and failed at this for 36 years.  I still live well below the poverty line (you don’t want to know how low), but at least now I know that I will always be able to pay the rent and have food to eat.

This is not where I expected to be.  I still work towards getting off of disability, but the only thing I am able to do, even when I am having an attack, is write.  It’s the only thing that I have ever wanted to do, and oddly enough, it’s proven to be the only thing that saves me.

I don’t know why I am confessing something that I am so ashamed of, especially when there is such a public stigma towards it (no, I don’t own a gun.  If I did, I would’ve turned it on myself a long time ago.  It worked for Hemmingway, right?)

I am ashamed of being ashamed.  Ashamed of hiding who I am.  I just turned 36 years old, and I don’t care about being stigmatized anymore.  I don’t care if you judge me.  I don’t care if you are revolted, scared, or made uncomfortable by me.  I don’t care if you think that I am melodramatic and think that I should just “suck it up.”

I just turned 36 years old.  I have bi-polar syndrome.  If you have a problem with that, you can go to Hell.

That’s what I tell myself.

Thank you for reading my blog.  If you like it, follow me.  And don’t forget to check out and vote for my serial “The Watchmage of Old New York” on Jukepop Serials.  Chs. 1 & 2 (of a planned 6) is up now.  Registration takes a minute. 

And of course, you can look at my fiction and nonfiction right here on this website.  Writing is the only thing I do well.  Help me to keep doing it.

In Which Craiggers Tries to Solve the Gun Control Issue, Because He Thinks That He is Smarter Than Everyone Else

Posted on by
4

I don’t think that i am smarter than everyone else. Even I’m not that arrogant. What I am is a very smart dude who surrounds himself with people smarter than him.

So why do I say that I can solve gun control (when I know that I can’t)?  Because I am not a politician or a media whore that has to play to his base and say ridiculous, inflammatory stuff.  I am trying to see both sides.  I am trying to find a compromise, not an inflammatory treatice.

Yes, I am a liberal, but I am going to do everything in my power here to take a moderate position, something that people on both sides will hate and call me horrible things for.  So let me have my say, and then feel free to call me names in the comments section.

There are 3 parts to my plan:

  1. No new bans on guns
  2. Clamp down on illegal gun sales and trafficking
  3. Comprehensive licensing

Leave the guns alone . . . yes, all of them– This is going to piss off a lot of my liberal friends, but I think that banning certain guns is less important than making sure that the gun owners are, as they say, “responsible gun owners.”  As gun owners say, “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.  Guns make it easier, but it is the person behind the gun that is the variable

I personally do not own a gun.  I feel no need.  Then again, I own no property (or any nice things) and I live in an apartment complex about a block from a police station in a very safe neighborhood.  I can shout “help! police!” from my window, and a cop can shout back “What do you need?”

However, there are a lot of people in rural areas that have a lot of land and no police nearby.  Where I live, the police would be here in minutes.  In rural areas, it might take hours.  The police would never be able to respond in time.  People have no choice but to arm themselves.

Allow States/Counties/etc to Make Ordinances On Specific Arms–Can you imagine someone with an AR-15 walking down the streets of Manhattan?  People in rural areas have no idea how crowded city streets are.  An auto or semiauto weapon firing in NYC would endanger dozens, if not hundreds of people.  I am not exaggerating, hang around the City sometime and you’ll see what I mean.  Your resonable weapon in the boondocks is an unintentional massacre in the City.

There was an incident last year where a gunman shot and killed his boss in Midtown Manhattan.  The police gave chase and it became a running firefight.  A dozen people were wounded by police and the gunman.  What happened was that the ricochets struck all the passerbys.  Concrete creates ricochets where soil does not.  A gun that can fire 500 rounds a minute is going to have a lot of innocent caualties.

If a city wants stricter gun control, they should have it.  This way, the rural areas can get what they want, and the urban areas can get what they want.

Law-abiding Citizens Should Not Have Their Guns Taken Away–I am never in favor of laws that take away freedoms instead of protecting them.  That said . . .

If you commit any felony or misdemeanor violent crime, you lose your gun rights–If you can’t follow the law of the land, you don’t deserve its freedoms.  We all know someone that owns a gun, and you can’t help but think that this guy is gonna kill someone someday.  Hopefully, he gets caught in time.  I believe that expanding the felony rules to violent misdemeanors like assault will help weed out the violent types that are going to use guns unlawfully.

Perhaps we can allow these people to petition a judge to get their guns back after a while, but they have to earn it (maybe community service, anger management,etc)

Expanded Focus on Arms Trafficking–The NRA is taking an extreme stance, but they are right about one thing: the problem isn’t the guns, it’s the people.  We need to cut off Arms trafficking.  I can think off three ways to do so, and nobody is going to like them:

Increased power to ATF and Border Police–You say ATF to some people, and they reach for their shotguns, but the ATF is specifically there to stop illegal gun ownership and trade.  We need to stop the illegal trafficking at the border, not after they’ve been bought.

Let’s increase funding for state and local police too.  This what worked in NYC.  More cops = less crime.

No more gun shows or internet sales–This should be a no-brainer, but people have been glossing over it.  The gun show is basically a big loophole to get guns to people illegally.  It’s called “straw buying.”  A legal person goes to a gun show, buys a bunch of guns legally, and then sells them illegally.  This is much more prevalent than you might think.  The ATF reports that it is #2 method of aquiring guns illegally, next to smuggling.

The internet has the same problem.  Our buddy that killed all those people in Aurora last year, before he went on his rampage, he bought tons of guns and ammo on the web.

I’m sorry NRA people, but if you want guns out of the hands of the bad guys, you’re gonna have to compromise.  This is only a minor inconvenience anyway, as there are gun shops in about every town.  Support your local arms salesman, it’s good for the economy.

Build the damn wall–I never, ever, in my life thought that I would say that.  I am all for immigration, I wouldn’t be here if my great-grandparents didn’t say “screw you” to the pogroms and come to America.  But the issue is that Mexico is at war with itself right now, with drug lords carving out their own baronies.  Weapons and drugs keep spilling over.  There is a staggering amount of guns coming over illegally from Mexico.

But what about the immigrants?  Shouldn’t they be entitled to the American Dream?  Absolutely.  I think we should make it as easy for them as possible.  Have official immigration centers along the border.  Lots of them.  Hire lots of people to make it easier (reduces unemployment).  Give them green cards and a shot at making it.

People should be allowed to immigrate.  Why should we deny them the opportunities that were given our ancestors?  My family went through Ellis Island.  We should have something similar for them.

It doesn’t have to be a big stone Berlin Wall, but the border should be guarded.  Now that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are winding down, we have plenty of soldiers to do it, not to mention spy satellites, drones and all sorts of other stuff.  There are already civilians doing this (The “Minute Men”) and they are violent nuts jobs who are ready to kill.  Take the job out of there hands and give it to trained soldiers. Defending our borders is their job, let them do it.

Treat guns like cars.  In order to drive a car, you need to pass a permit test, and then a license test.  You need one for every type of vehicle you drive (car, motorcycle, commerical truck, etc).  Every car you drive requires insurance.

Cars kill more people than guns, yes, but guns are made specifically for killing.  they should be regulated at least as much as cars.

I propose a gun owners license for every type of gun (handgun, rifle, shotgun, semi-auto, auto, etc).  They have to prove that they know how to use and maintain their gun, as well as a written test on gun laws and responsiblities.  in addition, every gun must be registered, even rifles and shotguns.  Every gun should require insurance.

Again, this is an incovenience, but gun owners have to understand that what non-gun owners are angry about is not illegal gun owners, but stupid/angry/crazy gun owners.  Prove to us that you are not one of these gun owner, and we’re cool.

I was reading the comments on Yahoo News, and one genius said something like I know that I feel safer for me and my young children with my loaded AR-15 in the unbrella stand by the front door.

I went off on the guy.  the idea of having a loaded assault rifle within the reach of children is disgusting.  This guy thought that he was a responsible gun owner too.  No, he was a stupid one, and I hope that CPS pays a visit to his house.

I am sure that there are a lot of gun owners that think they are responsible, but they are really not.  Licensing helps keep everyone safe.

So that’s it, my little manifesto is over.  I think that this is a good, moderate compromise that everyone will come away from unhappy.  That is the essence of good politics.  In order to get what you want, you have to give a little.  We all have to slouch towards the middle.

Feel free to barrage me with comments now.  If you like what I said, or even if you hate it, you can share this too.  I don’t mind.