Some More Odds and Ends

From the Department of Corrections:  in a previous posting, I made the suggestion that Arizona does not lock up people who are mentally unstable.  I was in error on that one.  I happened to catch the O'Reilly Factor on Fox News about a sesquiweek ago, and learned that Arizona does have an involuntary psychiatric confinement statute on the books.

My conclusion was based on an anecdote from two years ago, when I was dating Kathleen.  Her then son-in-law was on the receiving end of a marital breakup (for good reason I might add) when he called up Kathleen's daughter.  He begged to be taken back, and started threatening suicide.  He told Kathleen's daughter that he was going to slash his wrists.  Kathleen's daughter then hung up and called 911.

The Pinal County Sheriff's deputies quickly arrived, but son-in-law Mike told the deputies that he didn't really mean it, that he was saying that to try to get taken back.  He was not hauled off by them for a 72 hour hold like he might have been in some other jurisdictions.

As for Jared Loughner, he was told that he needed a mental evaluation, and it's obvious that there were plenty of warning signs and contact with law enforcement.  For some reason that threshold, wherever that was, was not crossed.

Although I agree that the legal definition of the threshold of when you're hauled off to the psych facilities should be revisited, I'm not sure that simply being told "you need help" is sufficient justification for that kind of action.

I guess what it all comes down to is, just where do you draw the line?  There's no obvious demarcation here, as that there's this gray zone around where that line is.  Try to define the exact time of when "daylight" ends and "nighttime" begins.  Sunset/sunrise?  That's a start, but does the sun have to be completely below the horizon, or does it have to be fifty per cent below the horizon?  What if it's just touching the horizon?

Where do you draw that line?

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Todd came down Friday night, and we were out hunting rabbits in Pinal County yesterday.  We were off state highway 79, north of Oracle Junction by a few miles at first, and then gave the area near the county line a try too.  We didn't see any rabbits but we saw evidence of them being there, as well as signs of javelina and deer.  Our late start didn't help matters any.

It wasn't a wasted trip.  I brought along a Beretta Bobcat .22 pistol that I acquired some time ago, and undertook some target practice.  Todd got in some target practice as well with his rifle.

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Workwise, I'm in a temporary job as a "property manager" on a project that's winding down.  My job itself is already winding down, as that I'll be doing that part time very soon.

I anticipate being assigned to helping to develop contract proposals, until an offer emerges from that group that wants to develop some new technology.  If that one comes thru, I'll be glomming onto that one something fierce.  An opportunity like that doesn't come around every day.

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A few weeks ago I got the wild hare to purchase a box of pennies from the bank.  

That's right, a box.

A box of pennies containing 2500 of them, all of them neatly machine-wrapped in paper rolls.  Fifty of them too.

That idea had been festering in my mind for some time.  As you know, I'm a coin collector, and I like searching thru my change to see what kind of neat little goodies are in my pocket.  Some days I get treated to a "wheat" cent, and on a rare day I might score a silver quarter (that's happened twice in the last few years).

I'm not all the way thru the box yet, but a few wheats have shown up.  The oldest so far are two 1944 pennies; one minted in Philadelphia and the other in Denver.  There are a total of eight wheat cents out of the 2000 that have been searched so far, and only one Canadian cent, dated 1964, has shown up.

I've searched rolls before, especially on those occasions when I've been back east.  For some reason the eastern rolls are more generous in giving up wheaties.  I scored a 1929 cent when I was there last, and when a friend of mine from Pennsylvania was out here last year he brought me some rolls, and there was another 1929 as well as a couple from the 30s.

For those that aren't wheats, well already some of them have been rolled up and taken back to the bank.  Well, a different branch of the same bank.  It's bad form to get a box, go thru them, and then take them back to the bank where you bought them from, so what you do is what I did:  talk to the branch where you want to take some coins back to see if they'll take them.

Mine does if the coins are rolled, and they were even kind enough to give me empty paper roll wrappers to put them in.

I'm like a kid in a candy shop as I'm going thru these pennies.  I think I might attempt a box of nickels next.

Meanwhile, I'm still working on those half dollars that I bought some four months ago.  I bought $80 worth of them in a quest for silver halves.  No silver turned up, so I've been spending half dollars in my everyday transactions, and I'm about halfway done.

Some cashiers I think are saving them for their grandkids while others are sending them back to the bank in the hopes that they'll be melted down into cannonballs or something.

I've also been asking for two dollar bills at the bank, and using them in my purchasing as well.  Some cashiers are delighted to get them while others are probably wishing I'd go somewhere else with them.

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That's going to do it for right now.

Don't forget to pet a dog or a cat.

The Events in Tucson

Unless you've been vacationing on Mars for the past few weeks or something like that, you have no doubt heard of the tragedy that we had in Tucson eight days ago, which is, as I write this, still reverberating around the news channels and especially in the local and state media.  When the story first broke last Saturday, there were lots of unknowns.  We would get one piece of information, only to learn a few hours later that it was incorrect because it was overcome by another piece of information.  There's still going to be plenty of Monday morning quarterbacking and analysis by self-appointed experts in the media, many of whom have never even so much as set foot in Tucson, yet feel qualified to lecture those of us here on how we ought to be doing things.

I guess in something like this, it's human nature to fix "blame" on something.  What do you "blame"?  Who do you "blame"?  I've seen and read all sorts of divergent viewpoints on this.  Some say that we need to repeal the Second Amendment.  Others want more restrictions on guns, but not an overturning of the Second Amendment. Some say that Congresswoman Giffords should have asked for some sheriff's deputies to accompany her (that was apparently not her style) and others say the sheriff's deputies should have known better in the first place to not provide security.  One person whose opinion I respect highly portends that the root cause of this is the breakdown of the family structure that we've had in the past forty years and a lack of moral baseline being instilled in our children, and I'm going to confess that I largely agree with that sentiment.

However, a situation like this is complex enough to defy any simple solution that we wish to apply to it.  Think of it as a symphony.  You go to a symphony, hear Beethoven's Fifth or Fanfare for the Common Man performed.  You enjoy the performance, but no single instrument executed the performance in and of itself to make it happen.  All things and circumstances worked together to bring it about, and from what I know of the shooter, he was mentally deranged and there were a collection of factors which contributed to it in some degree or another.

That said, I'm going to buck the trend here as far as assigning blame.  Well, if you know me well, you knew I would end up doing this, but if you don't, then sit down for a minute.

The single and sole person responsible for this is Jared Loughner.

It wasn't the Tea Party.

It wasn't Sarah Palin.

It wasn't the Second Amendment.

It was Jared Loughner.

From what we now know, he had had it in for the Congresswoman for three years running at least.  He had attended a previous meet, asked a question, didn't like the answer, and thus took the first step towards a series of steps that led to this.  Sure, we can look back right now and say that we should have seen this coming.  The Pima County Sheriff's Department had previous contacts with him.  They knew about him, they knew he was unstable, but did not act on that.  That likely is no fault of their own; state laws about what should be done to unstable people vary from state to state, and I can tell you that in ours that threatening suicide is not going to get you locked up for 72 hours like it would in California.  So blaming the sheriff isn't exactly accurate, even if you happen to think like I do that we have a cretinous ass for a Sheriff.

The Second Amendment?  The Supreme Court recently ruled that it's an individual right.  In so noting, they did not overturn existing restrictions on the mentally ill from possessing guns.  I am in no way ever going to opine that someone who is presently mentally ill should have a handgun, but the devil is in the details as they say, and again with fifty states we have fifty different legal definitions on mental illness.  I'm not going to suggest that we federalize a standard uniform definition, mainly because the higher up the chain you go for an answer, the further removed from reality that the person you're seeking the answer from is.

I will grant that the state of Arizona should re-evaluate what constitutes mental illness.  Arizona Revised Statutes make it clear that the menstally unstable are prohibited from possessing firearms (and rightly so) but there's a suggestion here that the threshold of what constitutes mental instability should be re-examined.

What about Sarah Palin?  There is nothing in Jared Loughner's profiles on the various websites that he frequented to suggest that he had read her books or watched her interviews on TV.  I personally think it's absurd for those who comment on the online forums here in Tucson to blame Sarah Palin for it.  I've also seen it suggested that Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh might have been a factor, but again, we have one of his high school friends state that Jared Loughner did not really follow politics or watch the news.  He was simply deranged, had a fixation for Gabrielle Giffords, and guess what?  He's a registered independent.  So am I.  So are a lot of us.

I will want to, at some point in the future, maybe the near future, come back and re-visit the Second Amendment, not in the context of this tragedy, but instead with a companion re-visiting of the First Amendment.  I could do that right now but I'm getting ready to slap a ribeye on the barbecue grill, and plus, there are other things I like to do too.

However, suffice it to say that from this resident of Tucson, there's only one person to blame for all of this.

His name is Jared Loughner.

Here Come the Republicans

This week the first session of the 112th Congress got under way.  As expected, John Boehner was elected Speaker of the House, and Nancy Pelosi as the Minority Leader.  First on the order of business was the reading of the Constitution.  Some view this as a nod to the Tea Party; others dismiss it as grandstanding, and still others (Democrats mainly) seem to be upset that it was read in the first place, and using the word "fetish" to describe those who approve of this reading.

Next on the order of business will be a repeal of Obamacare.  On this one there's also criticism from the Democrats, as well as some pundits who grandstand on how this is a wasted vote.  We even have Barney Frank grousing about the process, about not being allowed to offer amendments.....to a repeal measure, no less.

On these two events, I'm going to come to the defense of the Republicans, or more specifically, to the defense of the "House" Republicans.  First I'll look at the reading of the Constitution.

I'll grant that I don't know exactly what was on the minds of the leadership when they made this decision.  I could second-guess them as grandstanding or trying to curry favor with the Tea Party.  The perception of grandstanding, is of course, depending on your frame of reference as as you watch the reading, but the reality is that the House Republican leadership is going to have to keep the Tea Party as part of their base.  The Tea Party has demonstrated that they are a force to be reckoned with, and I'm going to tell you right now that if such an accommodation isn't made then the Tea Party will either try to hijack the Democratic Party or they're going to dedicate themselves to making the Republicans the next "third" party.  Reading the Constitution doesn't take up a whole lot of time in the grand scheme of things, and personally I would rather have all Congressmen tested on the Constitution before they're allowed to take the oath of office.

And for those who are throwing around the word "fetish":  what's your problem?  Right before the election, your party had that comedian, whats-his-name Colbert testifying in committee and asking that his colonoscopy be entered into the Congressional record.  So who's got the "fetish" here?  I'd rather have a reading of the Constitution on the House floor rather than some clown testifying before another bunch of clowns.  If you're upset about some "fetish" with the Constitution, then I'm going to respectfully suggest that you re-evaluate your priorities.

Next, the repeal of Obamacare.

First of all, we all know that the Senate will not act on the repeal.  So why do it?

Here's one reason:  many of the newly elected ran on campaign promises that they would fight Obamacare and vote to repeal it.  So now they have a chance to vote on it early on, and thus quickly uphold a campaign promise.

How often do you see a politician keep a campaign promise?  Aren't most of us ready to march on Capitol Hill with pitchforks because we feel that those bums up there on the Hill are out of touch with us?

Here's another reason:  if they don't vote on the repeal, then when the next campaign gets under way, their challengers are going to say, "hey, they promised you to repeal Obamacare, and they didn't so much as even vote on it!"  Of course the challenger isn't going to vote to repeal it either, but you won't be thinking about that  once it's pointed out that your guy didn't vote on it.  I don't see the House Republican leadership as having much of a choice, politically, in this matter.  They talked the talk.  Now they have to walk the walk.  Vote on it, send it over to the Senate, and if the Senate doesn't act, then the Republicans can make that an issue next year.

And as for Barney Frank upset about not being allowed to offer amendments......hello?  You're voting to repeal something!  You're going to amend a law that you're getting rid of?  Cheese Louise!  Write up your amendment and introduce it as separate legislation, or attach it to something else.  Do you really need an engineer from Tucson to give you instructions on how to do your job?

To be honest, I'm not really sure that Republicans in charge of Congress is really a good thing in and of itself.  I certainly am wary about giving them control of the Senate, when you consider that the elitists like John McCain and Lindsey Graham will be running the committees, while the Rand Pauls and Jim Demints are assigned to taking out the trash and changing the light bulbs.

But I'll have to say this:  week one of the new House session made a positive impression on me.  Let's hope that Boehner and his help are serious about reining in the deficit and and taking the time to actually read the legislation that they're going to vote on.

I would also hope that they keep one thing in mind.

The Republicans weren't given charge of the House of Representatives because they were the better party.

They were given charge of the House because they weren't Democrats.

If they go back to their previous ways, of drunken spending and working with the Democrats to give illegal aliens the right to a welfare check and the ballot box, then we'll have to rise up and vote them out of commission.

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I normally wouldn't add anything to a commentary, but I've got some odds and ends to pass along, mainly because I'm behind on my emails and having a few folks ask me if I'm all right.

Work-wise, I'm between assignments, as that my project had its funding cut off before we broke for Christmas.  I'm between jobs right now, but will be offered a part time assignment within the company by a program manager that I used to work for back in 2001.  I've got a lead on another part time assignment, which I'll pursue as well.

And, in six weeks or so, maybe eight, I'm going to be offered work helping out with some research, determining applications for some rather specialized components that I never heard of before until two days ago.  That sounds exciting as all get-out, and very promising.  The supervisor definitely wants me to work for him, but won't have funding for a while yet.  So, I'll be doing some odd jobs here and there until those higher up the food chain decide it's time to proceed.

On another front, State Farm has issued me one more check, as that the first one didn't cover the lodging and rental car in Lake Havasu City.  I split repairs and expenses between two credit cards and one bill has already been paid in full.  Now if the other issuer will only go ahead and send me their bill, I'll have that one paid off in one fell swoop as well.

And on another, I've caught up on a lot of reading.  I'm now working on Foundation's Fear by Gregory Benford, an Asimov Estate-authorized "Foundation" novel.  I am one third of the way thru it and it hasn't exactly been an easy read.  I think some of the backfill descriptions are superfluous, and I don't yet understand the relevance of the Joan of Arc and Voltaire "sims" to the Foundation story, but now I'm into a section where some political intrigue of the Galactic Empire and Emperor Cleon I is being explored.  This story may yet pick up, though most customer reviews of this book that I've seen online are negative.

That's all for now.

And.....(you saw this coming!).............don't forget to pet a dog or a cat!