Nemo Came... And Went

Didn't lose power (yay).  DID get about 27 inches of snow - and most of it fell between 11pm Friday night and 11am Saturday morning.  Breaking out of the house was fun on Saturday, and I got the drive shoveled (I am one of the last remaining person-powered snow removal device users left in the neighborhood).  Took two hours, and that was having parked the car down the drive just out of reach of the kick-up from the plowing.

So Saturday was a complete loss - there was a travel ban on until 4pm and nothing was open ANYWHERE.  I think it was noon before I saw a car actually traveling down the road, not just pulling out to shift the snow from around the parking spot.  But man, any vehicle they could slap a plow to the front of got one.  For thirty-six hours the plows were working pretty much non-stop and they did a phenomenal job 9yes, even though the plow crust across the head of the drive was waist-high and packed three feet wide.

Went to my folks' for lunch today.  Mom and I washed the (stinky) dog.  He doesn't quite know what to do with snow that is almost taller than him.  He can stand and rest his chin on it - which makes it a little bit of a daunting prospect for him to forge through it.  He can, because he is a 70-plus pound lab.  But it is still daunting.

Dad went off to watch the girls swim at their meet today.  I guess they both did all right.

Ugh...

So I have both radical liberals and militant conservatives (or radical conservatives and militant liberals) on my facebook feed.  Most of both are family, so I can't exactly excise them from my life - nor would I want to.  Regardless of what they believe - how different it is from what I believe, I love them, they're family.  Sometimes I can't believe such sane seeming folks are so NARROW in their thinking.  I expect that they think the same of me - that I am a bleeding heart and slightly crazy.  Its fine, but I try to keep that off my facebook because I have professional contacts on my facebook, and I am very cognizant of who has access.

Some of the more strict conservatives shared this today:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=556708591019410&set=a.381310341892570.91810.201409103216029&type=1&theater

And I've been trying ALL DAY to figure out why I am so disturbed by this story.

It comes down to, if the interviewer was a man would the General have responded the way he did (and why not - why, because she is a woman did he immediately make the leap to prostitution)?  How much did she threaten his masculinity for him to have said what he did?

And why would ANYONE think his response was okay - or even a "win" for him?

I believe in gun control - I think it should be way harder than it is for people to buy a gun.  But I do NOT want to curb someone's right to go hunting with an appropriate hunting rifle or bow (I say "appropriate" because I do not think an assault rifle is an appropriate weapon to turn on deer) if that is their thing.  Or even keep a revolver or handgun in their own home if they want to.  I even think teaching people the safe way to handle a gun is a GOOD thing.  My brother took a rifle-shooting class at summer camp one year - he was maybe twelve/thirteen - and he was pretty good at it. 

I have no issue with a boy scout troop learning safe rifle procedures and discipline. I also think up until the comment he made that the General was doing pretty well.  I find it interesting the General responded to a comment, not a question.  It would have been far better for him to respond to the comment by saying that they were not planning to give the boys guns, but to teach them respect and safety for weapons.  Not as polarizing a comment, but also not one that demeans more than half you population, either.

ETA: Even if the story is not true, it still made me think... so I'm going to leave this as is.