2.5 More Random Thoughts

OK, I’m not even going to try to apologize for the short interval between my last post and this one.  A few quick thoughts, one that I should have included in my last post, one that’s an update on an item mentioned there, and one that’s new.

Should have mentioned last time:

One of the great stories of the just-completed Olympics is that a bunch of athletes complained that a competitor who is an amputee and runs on two prosthetic legs would have an unfair advantage over them.  That’s right. . .an ADVANTAGE.  It wasn’t long ago that we took it for granted that prostheses slowed people down.  If this isn’t a testament to science and engineering, I don’t know what is.  And the runner in question, South Africa’s Oscar Pistorius, doesn’t even look like Lee  Majors.

Update from last post:

A grand total of one of my loyal readers clicked through to see The New Yorker article on the history of the debate over the right to gun ownership in America (that’s right, I can see what you do).  For everyone else, here’s the most interesting revelation in that article.  Apparently, from the adoption of the Bill of Rights until the mid-1960s, it was widely accepted that the Second Amendment established a collective right to gun possession specifically in relation to the state’s interest in maintaining a militia for the common defense.  Only in the mid-60s did it start to be interpreted as an individual right.

You might wonder who started that transition.  The NRA?  Nope.  A bunch of camo-clad militiamen in Montana or Michigan?  Nope.   OK, then, who was it?  The Black Panthers.  According to the article, the Panthers made the right to arm themselves part of their platform, and the extension of the Second Amendment to individuals became part of the 1960s “Rights Revolution.”  So what’s become a touchstone of what we now call conservatism got its start about as far to the left as you can get.  Go figure.

Enough silliness for now.  Next time, we’ll discuss sleeping our way to lower healthcare costs.