I presume that you all, being incredibly "hep" and "groovy," as the kids say, know of the satirical website and erstwhile (thanks, Jake) magazine called The Onion (and why can't I use italics in the post title?). It is a satirical entity; three headlines from today's site, for example: "Area Man's Intelligence Probably Just Too Intimidating For Most Women," "Lonely Nation Gathers Outside Window Of Happy Family Eating Dinner Together," and "Hell Now A Thriving Epicenter of Gay Culture," and it is still in existence. But it has to be getting more and more difficult even for those clever folks to write satire in our crazy, mixed up ol' world.
To wit: raise your hand if you knew that the state of Iowa is issuing gun permits to blind people. Oh, you did not. Really, though, it's true. I read it somewhere I can't recall last week, and had it confirmed by my cousin in a dinner conversation last night. Pretty hard to imagine anything weirder or more outrageous, isn't it? Careful, though: that bar is constantly being lowered.
I figured that it had to be the work of Wayne LaPierre and all those right-wing gun nuts, or right-gun wing nuts. So I prepared to get on my high horse--or maybe I got high and got on my unicorn; I can't really recall--and fire a salvo in their general direction, as is my wont, and although they're far out of range of this peashooter. But then I started to do a little research and, according to a story put out by AP, denying blind citizens the right to carry a firearm would violate the Americans with Disabilities Act, which became law in 1990 and was authored by Democratic Senator Tom Harkin of--wait for it--Iowa!
I...I...I...I just don't know what to say. I'm not speechless, as anyone who knows me would attest, but I don't know exactly what to say. My little world shifted on its axis, or something. The Democrats are responsible for this idiocy, even inadvertently? Yep, seems so. Some Law Enforcement folk in Iowa are reluctant to issue these permits, but say they're handcuffed--well, no, they didn't say that, exactly: I did--by the law, and can't refuse a permit for that reason alone. Presumably, if the blind applicant had a record, for, say, Grand Theft Auto, then they could be refused.
I guess that, in the face of another brilliant, self-serving Tea-Party-initiated threat to shut down the government unless the Affordable Care Act is de-funded (yeah, I know, that was a couple of posts ago), we should rejoice: we have found Common Ground at last! Here is something on which we can all apparently agree; never mind unimportant stuff like the economy, healthcare, climate change, immigration, crumbling infrastructure, and on and on, let's just arm blind people and let 'er rip. Yeehaw! But why stop there? What about the rights of unborn Americans to keep and bear arms, even while their own arms are developing in utero? Or the dead: Chuck Heston be damned, we shouldn't even be able to pry 'em from their cold, dead fingers. What reasonable True American, of any political stripe, would disagree?
Oh, that pesky Law of Unintended Consequences....
Here's some songs I'll be playin' this week, on Tuesday from noon till two on wool.fm:
What Makes Me Blind? Winterpills
Unblindfold The Referee John Gorka
Temporarily Blind Built To Spill
See You In Hell, Blind Boy Ry Cooder
Ride Stone Blind John Stewart
River Blindness J. Geils Band
Love Is Blindness Cassandra Wilson
I Must Have Been Blind Tim Buckley
I'd Rather Go Blind Rod Stewart
I'd Rather Go Blind Etta James
I'd Rather Be Blind, Crippled & Crazy Derek Trucks Band
The Ghost Of Blind Willie Johnson Tony Furtado
Eyesight To The Blind The Who
Eyesight To The Blind Mose Allison
Double Blind Pat Metheny Group
Deaf, Dumb And Blind NRBQ
Blindsided Bon Iver
Blinded By The Light Bruce Springsteen
Blind Willie McTell The Band
Blind Willie McTell Dylan
Blind Man Traffic
Blind Man Gregg Allman
Blind Man Aerosmith
Blind Hope Son Volt
Blind Child Levon Helm
Blind Boy Rag Taj Mahal
Blind Talking Heads
Arrested For Driving While Blind ZZ Top
Sweet Blindness Laura Nyro
And all of you deaf listeners, remember: no one can legally keep you from tuning in....
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