December 2007 Archives
Ron Paul is a candidate for President of the United States. His campaign has adopted this question on their web site and in other printed media. Those of us in the know, that is, anyone who has ever read Atlas Shrugged, recognize this as an homage to Ayn Rand's classic novel and the character she created (who is John Galt?) who saves the world. For anyone else, it is a simple interrogatory aimed at those millions of Americans who have not yet had the pleasure of being introduced to this man.
I have been familiar with Dr. Paul for several years now, and I even had the chance to meet him at the 2003 Freedom Summit. He is an inspiring speaker. Not because he is particularly eloquent (although he can hold his own with any of the candidates currently running), but because his ideas are so clear and appealing, untainted by the rhetoric of political campaigns. His campaign's tagline is "Hope for America" and he truly does represent that, but not by himself as a person, or as a cog in the political machine, but solely through the ideas in which he traffics.
Many of his critics contend that he is unrealistic, that his ideas are, at best, impractical, and at worst, impossible. As far as I am concerned, ideas have to be big to be worthwhile. And if they are difficult to implement, that probably means they are even more valuable. Robert Kennedy was once lauded for his speech in which he paraphrased George Bernard Shaw and said:
Why should Dr. Paul be disparaged for dreaming and asking why not? Who is Ron Paul? Ron Paul is just a man, but he is a man with enough courage to have big ideas and to ask why not? His ideas truly do represent hope for America today. We should all give the man a chance to be heard.
I've never been a fan of The Wizard of Oz but Wicked is not only a clever re-imagination of the L. Frank Baum classic, but it also very funny and entertaining. There are, of course, plenty of references to the original, and they are done in such a way that if you are a fan of Oz you will view them as an homage, and if you're not a fan, they work equally well as satire.
I can see why this musical has become so popular -- the characters are already familiar to most, but they appear in new and parallel scenes to the original story, with imaginative sets and catchy but witty songs. And where the original told a morally ambiguous tale fit for consumption by children, Wicked tells the familiar tale of a misfit's (the Wicked Witch of the West) quest to fit in with her childhood peers and the consequences as an adult when she does not.
Wicked is currently playing here in St. Louis at the Fabulous Fox through Jan 6.
I enjoyed last year's card so much, I've decided to make this an annual tradition. I hope you enjoy the second annual Pipes family christmas card.
A story in this week's Post-Dispatch prompted me to observe that the only time you ever hear stories like these is when a 63-year-old grandmother is the one toting the gun:
The Jasper County Sheriff's Department said a woman and a 16-year-old boy were arrested after the foiled break-in Friday and charged with first-degree burglary.
The grandmother was at home with her grandchild when the burglars broke down her back door.
She grabbed a handgun and stopped the pair, but they ran away when the woman went back inside to call the sheriff's department.
Deputies arrested the suspects about three hours later in Carthage.
Lt. Aaron Richardson of the sheriff's department said first-degree burglary charges have been filed against Faith Barrick, 39, of Carthage, and a 16-year-old male accomplice.
This must seem like such an oddity to newspaper editors that they feel compelled to report the story just for its novelty value alone. But the mainstream media does a disservice to the public when they choose to ignore these types of encounters, focusing instead on stories where guns are used to commit crimes, rather than preventing them. It leaves us all with a false sense about guns.
Statistically speaking, few of us will ever be directly involved in a gun-related crime, so our only firsthand knowledge of this area is what we hear in the news. Anecdotal evidence can be a very powerful thing, and for most people it carries more weight than raw statistical data. But these data show, documented in books such as John Lott's More Guns, Less Crime, that hundreds of thousands of people every year use guns to prevent crimes. Sometimes it is a 63-year-old grandmother. But more often, it's a shop owner protecting his wares, and his life, from a armed robber. Or it's an assistant principal protecting his students from a gunman.
The stories about crimes committed no doubt provide more interesting reading, and sell more newspapers, but they continue to reinforce the already distorted view that most people have of guns and those who carry them. Grandmas and thugs are not the only people carrying guns, but you sure wouldn't know that from watching or reading the news.
