Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Empty Holster Week - Part 2

Breaking News - I Go To Work!

I'm still feeling puny, but my voice has changed from a croak to a growl to a really sexy basso profundo.

Maybe I'm being overly generous to myself here, but after a week of being unable to speak at all (Laryngitis caused by, according to my physician, "a combination of two or more flu bugs" which I prefer to call a "Flu Cocktail") it's really nice to be able to speak intelligibly ... if softly, very softly. Talking too much or being too active still causes coughing jags as it breaks up the bronchial congestion.

Um... okay, that's what they call a 'digression'.

Empty Holster Week
I did get to walk around on campus for a while today. I saw not one single student prominently displaying an 'empty holster'.

I'm disappointed. I thought this was going to be A Big Thing, and I was beginning to consider my home university campus to be more 'socially conservative' than most. Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps it's a matter of the local university student body being more caught up in 'practical' matters, which might be expected in an institution which was originally named an 'Agricultural College'.

Or it may be a matter of ennui.

To summarize, here's the plan:
This week, you might see students around campus wearing empty holsters on their belts. Don’t be alarmed – it’s part of a harmless Rights Awareness protest. You'll probably see Ladies and Gentlemen both.

The point of any empty holster presence is to call attention to the gun owners whom you may not know. This is important for those who believe they are ‘uncomfortable’ with another adult student carrying their personal weapon on campus anywhere near them.

But one’s fellow student is the same person now they were before one found out they are a gun owner.

The thing non-gun owners can do is to inquire. The gun owner is usually well informed on U.S History, sovereign rights, personal authority, personal liberty, and tactics - and is a superb source of information on how it relates to heads of household who would like to learn more about household safety planning and considerations.
IFAW
I'm still hoping that the local University Students will jump on the bandwagon, so I'm thinking ... maybe they've been distracted by the (inconveniently timed) "Islamic Fascism Awareness Week".

During the week of October 22-26, 2007, the nation will be rocked by the biggest conservative campus protest ever – Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, a wake-up call for Americans on 200 university and college campuses.

The purpose of this protest is as simple as it is crucial: to confront the two Big Lies of the political left: that George Bush created the war on terror and that Global Warming is a greater danger to Americans than the terrorist threat. Nothing could be more politically incorrect than to point this out. But nothing could be more important for American students to hear. In the face of the greatest danger Americans have ever confronted, the academic left has mobilized to create sympathy for the enemy and to fight anyone who rallies Americans to defend themselves. According to the academic left, anyone who links Islamic radicalism to the war on terror is an "Islamophobe." According to the academic left, the Islamo-fascists hate us not because we are tolerant and free, but because we are "oppressors."

Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week is a national effort to oppose these lies and to rally American students to defend their country.

So I'm wandering around the campus looking for flyers, demonstrations, protests and counter-protests.

Hmmm ... nope. Nothing to see here folks. Move along.

Campus Activism: Not Entirely Absent
I'm disappointed. Last year I was walking to lunch and ran into a battallion of Lyndon LaRouche supporters. As I passed by, they shouted "Hey, are you ready to impeach Bush and Cheney! Let's put them in prison. Better yet, they should be executed for treason!"

I admit, I was fascinated by their fascist fanaticism and spent a few minutes talking to one of the rabble-rousers. I asked him "Hey, is he out of jail yet?" The guy was a case-study in campus activism. As we talked, his eyes began to gleam and he started panting. Finally he shouted "It's you and your generation who are responsible for all that's wrong with the world today!" Too much for me, I went on to lunch and was happy to escape without punching the young gentleman in the nose. Or being punched in the nose myself, as in "Operation Mop-Up". Funny, I thought LaRouche was dead. No such luck, I guess.

Where are campus activists when we need them? They're never around, and I still haven't figured why Lyndon LaRouche campaigns were being conducted in a non-election year. Well, that's Campus Life for you --- fickle, peripatetic, and either spontaneous or a non-event.

DAY-BY-DAY:

Moving on, looking for a reason for living, I discovered that early editions of Day-By-Day cartoons are available as FREE downloads by Wowio.com, which you can find by going to the DBD website. I downloaded the first three 'books' (4th quarter of 2002, 1st & 2nd quarter of 2003) after establishing a Wowio subscription. It's a lot faster than going through Muir's website and accessing each individual day's entries. Wowio.com only allows 3 downloads at a time, and six 'books' are currently available.

UPDATE on "Empty Holster":
The Real Gun Guys has (have?) a bit more information.

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