God,Guns and Gays.

A letter writer from Goliad, Jeneal Jackson, asked citizens to write their federal congressional representatives to stand up for marriage between a man and a woman. What good is that going to do when only one republican has announced that he’s for marriage equality? Only the uninformed doesn’t know where the GOP stands on this issue. Gay marriage is now before the Supreme Court and is beyond the bounds of Congress.

The issue is about the constitutionality of proposition 8.and DOMA. I don’t think it’s a job of the Federal government to define marriage, no matter how many times the evils of homosexuality is mentioned in the bible. I did get a chuckle when Jeneal Jackson said, “even a non -Christian can understand this one.” Perhaps Mr. Jackson will someday understand that we should let the states police the marriage laws and not the feds or his definition of Christianity.

I recommend the Stonekettle Station blog (click on the blogs I visit) because he gives careful thought-out answers to another letter that is very similar to the one Mr. Jackson wrote.

Before 9/11, it wasn’t fashionable to be anti- Muslim. It’s not unusual to see a large gathering of people in a public restaurant holding hands and saying grace before their meal. I wonder why it’s cause for panic when two or three Muslims put down their prayer rug and start to pray? On any given Sunday, you can surely find a church service on television but you would be hard pressed to find a non- Christian service. An isolated incident is not a war on Christianity and neither was the incident where gunman killed six people and critically wounded three at a Sikh temple during Sunday services. I’m old enough to have gone through school where prayer was led by a teacher. I’m here to tell you that it didn’t make a difference. Mr. Jackson should read the statue because he’s either preaching ignorance or bigotry.

I understand the politics of the NRA and gun laws, but I also understand the consensus of the American people. Poll after poll clearly shows that Americans want background checks. I was horrified to learn that Senator Grassley(R-IA) was working to water down a gun bill in order to avoid Senators Rand Paul, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz's filibuster. So is the senate now catering to the tea party on such an important issue? Those three senators smell blood in the water and they are willing to hold up legislation at any cost.

As I said the other day, the gun advocates have one argument, and that’s their fear of gun confiscation. I read where the parents of Jared Loughner took his shotgun away because they feared what he would do in his condition, but he was legally able to purchase a Glock 19 at the Sportsman’s warehouse outlet in Tucson, Arizona. That’s on us because we allow the absolutists to hold up the 2^nd Amendment as if it’s written in granite. If you’re a bartender, you better not get caught selling more liquor to someone who’s intoxicated.

In order to enforce stricter laws on straw purchasers, prosecutors need a paper trail but that’s what the GOP senators are objecting to. The message is “go after the entertainment industry and the records of the mentally ill but guns are strictly off limits.”

The investigation of the Newtown shootings is nearly over, and we have found some startling evidence that proves Adam Lanza favored the Bushmaster and the 30 around clips, so he could kill as many schoolchildren as possible. How do we know this? He left behind the 10 round clips and other weapons in his arsenal that would slow him down. We know that they prefer rapid fire weapons with extended clips for maximum destruction.

Why is it that we can’t prevent a prisoner who was recently released from prison from persuading a straw purchaser to buy him a gun? The released prisoner knew he couldn’t pass a background check and probably knew that we don’t normally prosecute straw purchasers. A prosecutor can’t make a case without a paper trail unless they go through trouble of setting up a sting operation and then they have to rely on video evidence or a confession.

We no longer can fool ourselves, we know the motives of mass shootings, the weapons of choice and equipment and the flaws in our gun laws but some just want to shrug their shoulders and say “that’s unfortunate but that’s life.”

Have a good weekend,Good Friday and Happy Easter.

A Trip back to Yesteryear

I had a lot of fun looking through the Victoria Advocate archives yesterday. I immediately noticed that the newspaper 25 years ago was only 35¢ for its 64 pages but advertisements were in abundance. It wasn’t unusual to be reading one column on page A3 and finish it on page A12 because the rest of A3 was filled with a huge Dillard’s ad.

The big local issue of March, 25, 1988 was a discussion on giving teachers a 6% raise. Of course that was nixed, so the sentiment hasn’t changed in 25 years. I was surprised that nationally, there was a report out against standardized tests for kindergartners. Why did we start testing them in the first place and are we doing that now? Hey, I was in my early forties and raising two teenagers; so I probably didn’t know this was happening.

Nationally, President Reagan was still answering questions about the Iran-Contra scandal. Even back then they were setting up a deficit panel. On the business front, DuPont discounted making CFS (Freon) because it was depleting the ozone layer. The Dow Jones average was a mere 2,026 points and trying to recover from the S&L crisis.

This particular day, Henry Wolff wrote about his latest visit to Matagorda Island and described it only as he could.

Remember the old “Hocus Focus” where cartoon characters would be involved in some activities on two different panels? The object of the game would be to pick out the differences between the two panels. For example, one character might be using his left hand to pound a nail into a board and in the other panel; the character would be using his right hand. I remember it becoming a race between my workmates to find the differences.

The ads were interesting, and it’s a good thing they were because they were everywhere. In this particular edition, Kmart had their plants on sale; a full steak meal at the Sirloin Stockade was only $5.49 and Jerry Lentz had a 25% off on all their sporting goods. Twenty five years ago, Montags  had their round steak on sale for $1.99 a pound, but I would have opted for their tenderized fajitas at the same price.

The entertainment section of the paper was also interesting. Hungry Jacks had their 80¢ draft beer the Armadillo band was playing at Schroeder, but they all had to compete with the local night clubs like Cody’s,Dallas,Peppers,and the Cowgirl Club. We had three movies theaters, Cinema IV, the Playhouse, and Salem Six where you could watch a movie for four bucks.

I used to have my head buried in the sports section in those days starting with the cartoon Tank McNamara and finishing with Julius Ermis’s outdoor section.In between the Cowboys and Astros were in their hey day,so there was a lot of material to read.

Whatever happened to the Town Crier section where you could catch up on the gossip and what was the L.M. Boyd section about?