Weekend Open Thread

I'll be heading up to the Appalachians near Harper's Ferry with the five year old.  He's pretty stoked about it, and I'm looking forward to it too. Y'all have a good weekend!

Comments

[Crissa]

Isn't it... Cold and wet there this time of year?

Of course, who am I to talk, I'm in the rainy redwoods experiencing our coldest week yet. It won't make it to 60F until next week!

[oddjob]

The weather in the Northeast this weekend is truly, freakishly warm. Believe it or not, here in the Boston area the temp. on Sunday is forecast to approach or maybe even exceed 60F.

[kathy a.]

west coast is cold. not by east or north standards, but still.

[Sir Charles]

l-t c,

Harper's Ferry is a great place for kids. Have a great time.

The return to civilization has been a whirlwind of work and socializing -- out to dinner on school nights with friends a couple of nights in a row. Not something I do that much of in my old age.

[Joe S]

LTC, Don't forget your broadswords if you're going to Harper's Ferry. It's a tradition for American leftists.

[nancy]

Winter wonderland here.

I much regret skipping a flu shot this year. Bad, bad, my bad. This season's version sounds darn dangerous. So, I'm hibernating for the time being. With books, Netflix, the post-holiday larder, and a yarn stash. (If I venture out for a shot now, I may bump into the kiddies whose parents think all vacs are suspect and optional. No MMR schedule for these kids -- possible shingles for me. No thank you.)

The ranting gun-crazed, 'ready-to-kill-if-necessary', now gone-viral youTube guy, James Yaeger, has had his license to carry revoked in Tennesee, according to TPM. He looks to me like the least of our problems. The interview at his kitchen table, utterly tidy background countertop set with blender, coffee maker, microwave, etc. is surreal. The setting is so positively American suburban middle-class. His advice: "pack your backpack and fill your mags." Yeah.

[paula]

We went to hear Cheryl Wheeler sing in Northampton last night, and heard a song that seems appropriate to the week, although she wrote it about 15 years ago:
text version:
http://youtu.be/Op7agdIFOGY

or for a more graphic if not nauseating version, go to
http://youtu.be/_S5CabGWsv4

[paula]

Re: flu, Harper's Ferry and open thread
It's great for a kid to be able to run loose, and that's such a beautiful area. He doesn't need to know what it's famous for.
Looking back, I may have had the flu before Christmas, two days after i go the shot. At least, I had a virus that came and went abruptly. Unfortunately, when it died down, it left me with a full-blown bacterial infx in my left ear, one I'm still doctoring. I've been careful to get a flu shot every year since I had to take 3 weeks off work, then drag myself through another three, thanks to the flu. Nothing like experience to drive home a good idea.
Apparently, a lot has happened to Yeager since his disgusting video went viral. He's not what he claims to be, for one thing. For another, HS and FBI are looking at him for possible charge of making threats on president. I don't see how that video is much different from yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater, but I'm not a a lawyer. If it had been made against George I, Ronald Reagan or even Bill Clinton, I bet it would have been taken seriously.

[nancy]

Re Yeager, former security contractor in Iraq, and his pals who earn their livings through the gun industry: Gun questions, left and right. We've landed about here. "Insisting on an Unalienable Right to Have Fun No Matter What".

I wasted some time in an on-line exchange with some local Second Amendment claimants. There is no civil discussion possible. I'm a *libtard*, pure and simple, ready to undo the Constitution and deny them God-given rights.

Nuttery. Of the dangerous sort. Sad. Sigh. But these folks believe they're Righteously Angry. How many of them buried a dead child riddled with gunfire recently? Impasse for now maybe. But I don't see this fight fading. NRA might meet its match finally. Or return to its original mission of gun safety training. There's a naive thought. On-line, they freely describe anyone who seeks gun control measures of any sort as 'the enemy,' which is chilling. As is the endless energy devoted to thinking of guns and their 'Patriotic' accumulation. So puzzling.