The headline in the NY Times read “Shooting Rekindles Issues of Gun Rights and Restrictions.” You know the old NRA line, defending the right of everyone to carry and use guns or all sorts, including assault rifles: “Guns don’t kill people; people kill people.” Yeah, and mostly in this country, it’s people with guns who kill people. (more…)
One of the problems with being a believer in the First Amendment right to freedom of speech (just one of the rights contained in that amendment, by the way) is that you sometimes find yourself having to defend those who utter indefensible words. Thus we find outself embroiled in the Don Imus situation, which seems to have taken on the same kind of life as Anna Nicole Smith’s death (no doubt to be knocked off the news channels once the next Anna Nicole “revelation” is made). (more…)
When my sister and I were kids, we would get invited to the family weddings, bar/bat mitzvahs and funerals. Now, there wasn’t generally much dancing at the funerals, but the other affairs (as they were called in the day) generally included dancing, usually accompanied by a live band. (This was in the era before DJs became the norm for such affairs, though I suppose some bands still reign). While we “kids” generally attempted ot dance, we were used to dancing to rock and roll. The bands attempted a few “rock” tunes, but Herb Zane and his band (who played not only my bar mitzvah party but also my sister’s wedding party years later) were about as far from rock and roll as you could get. (more…)