Year: 2009

Music for the Weekend

I like music.  Probably not something I share with folks often on here.  From the time I was five years old, I took classical piano.  Except for a few years in my pre-teens, I took lessons continuously through to almost being done college.  I was told I was good.  Last recital I gave was at 22, which if I recall, I performed Debussy’s Estampes, “Jardins sous la pluie.” and Chopin’s Military Polonaise.

One of my great regrets was not keeping up with it.  It’s not like riding a bicycle.  After a while, the muscles in your fingers forget how to play.  You lose ability rapidly.  On a day or so’s notice, I can relearn some simple pieces, like the first movement to Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata (used to know the third, but I’d be damned surprised if I could get through the first few bars today.).  I still, in theory, know how to read music, but I doubt my fingers would work.  But I’m still an avid listener.

Elgar Violin Concerto Anyway, I thought I’d spend a few Fridays sharing some musical recommendations for the weekend with you all.   Today’s recommendation is Violin Concerto in B Minor by Edward Elgar, performed by Izhak Perlman, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Daniel Barenboim, conducting.

Amazon sells it here, if your interested. Proceeds go to Bitter’s Amazon unemployment fund.

Elgar is an English composer probably best known for his work “Pomp and Circumstance,” which will be played at most graduations over the next two months, but though his Violin Concerto is lesser known, I think it’s one of his greatest works.

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When Do You Not Own Your Property?

In DC, you don’t own your driveway or lawn. Now it’s finally coming to the attention of the press since the Congresswoman with no vote started getting tickets for parking in her own driveway.

My old office suffered from this problem. There were no warnings. One day officers just started ticketing all of the cars in the parking lot claiming that it was really public space and not a parking lot. Nevermind that it had been a parking lot since the building was zoned for business or that it was completely paved. We were told we had to preserve it as open space for the city, yet we were also responsible for maintaining it in bad weather. Several very expensive “tax” payments eventually resulted in special permission for us to use it. They had to be paid quarterly, so I wonder if changing this law will finally solve the problem for my old former employer.

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How Much Gun Ownership in England and Wales?

The Guardian went through all the police records for England and Wales and put them in a spreadsheet.  Looks like there are about 129 thousand rifles, and about 549 thousand shotguns legally owned in those two countries.  That’s a very low level of gun ownership considering the combined population of England and Wales is 53 million.

You also see this in states that have licensng of gun owners, such as New Jersey and Massachusetts, which have very low levels of gun ownership by American standards.  Once you get that nose under the tent, it reduces our numbers, and thus reduces the constitutency willing to fight for more reasonable gun laws (reasonable by our standards, not theirs).

Try getting someone into shooting when it requires dealing with the police for months in order to get approved.  You can do it, but it becomes a lot harder.  We have one air gun shooter who’s been borrowing other people’s guns.  He’s from New Jersey.  To get one there, you have to go through the whole permitting process, including getting permission from the police first.  It takes months, fingerprints, and a lot of paperwork and hassle.

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World Turned Upside Down

What does it means when you have an editorial in the US News and World Report that says gun control is unconstitutional, period, and the Baltimore Sun runs an article about the ineffectiveness of the gun control movement?

It’s part of American legend that when Corwallis’ men surrendered to Washington and LaFayette after the Battle of Yorktown, effectively ending the American Revolution, the band played “The World Turned Upside Down.”  Someone send Paul Helmke a fife.  If the media abandoned them, all is lost.  That’s not to say gun control is dead, but the current incarnation might be.  Will there be a rebirth?  Will Brady change their name again?  Who knows.  But pretty clearly what they are doing now isn’t working.

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What Will NRA Do?

I was just tying up some loose ends with the Blog Bash this morning, and a thought occurred to me. This year’s banquet speaker was supposed to be Rush Limbaugh. Something in his schedule conflicted and he had to back out, but a note was sent to attendees that he promises to come to the 2010 banquet in North Carolina.

Only now, after he negotiated with NRA (presumably for a pricey speaking fee), Rush decided to become a shill for HSUS, an organization that vows to ban hunting and sponsors ballot initiatives to close down hunting seasons.

Now I suppose I have an interesting question for one of our sessions at the Blog Bash – will the staff who plan the NRA Annual Meeting for Charlotte continue to extend an invitation to (and pay) Rush to speak in light of his new support for HSUS? Will we give a stage to someone who is recording PSAs for an organization that seeks to end our hunting heritage if he does not apologize?

While I’m on the subject of pondering next year’s Annual Meeting, want to take bets on how many patriotic words NRA can fit into a banquet title? In 2007, I recall the event was simply called the National Rifle Association Annual Banquet. In 2008, it was the National Rifle Association Celebration of American Values Annual Banquet. In 2009, they have renamed it the National Rifle Association Celebration of American Values Freedom Experience Banquet.

If you can come up with a more patriotic sounding title using as many words as possible, I will submit it to NRA as a suggestion for the 2010 banquet. If there is sufficient interest and entertainment value, I’ll try to sweet talk Sebastian into awarding a prize for the best suggestion.

UPDATE: I forgot to add that another twist in the “WWNRAD” (What will NRA do?) saga is that they opted not to sign onto a letter with 28 other sportsmen’s groups asking Rush to stop supporting HSUS and their anti-hunting agenda. I will be sure to ask why they didn’t sign on to the group letter at the Bash, too. It’s quite curious considering they are usually part of these group efforts.

UPDATE: NSSF has posted the letter where you can see NRA did not join. (Before anyone asks, yes, they are on the list of groups notified when an effort like this is being organized.)

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More on Self-Defense

Brillianter has two more good bits on handgun retention, and verbal commands.  Verbal commands is one area I never really worked on, and probably should if I’m going to carry a pistol for self-defense.  Despite the fact that I never shut up here, I’m not the most vocal person you could ever know in person.

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Quote of the Day

From Clayton Cramer over on Volokh’s comment thread about the VPC deception:

I have this fantasy of a world where gun rights scholars get to work full-time at it, and gun control advocates have day jobs to slow them down.

I’m sure Clayton has even less free time than I do.  I say this still at work at close to eight because taking a day off on Tuesday to go to Harrisburg put me way behind at a critical time for our company.  I’m missing Silhouette tonight, which doesn’t make me happy.

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