Arizona Group to Give Away Shotguns in High-Crime Areas

Holy mother of God:

Tucson residents living in crime-ridden areas could soon receive free shotguns.

Operating on the premise an armed neighborhood is a safer neighborhood, a group led by former mayoral candidate Shaun McClusky is raising money to purchase shotguns and provide training for anyone who lives in a mid- to high-crime neighborhood and can pass a background check.

The project is part of a developing nationwide movement to see if more guns really do translate into less crime.

Bonus: 2 Retired Cops Shoot and Kill Own Sons 4 Months Apart. (They both thought their sons were burglars.)

More: It's the same town Gabby Giffords and 18 others were shot, six of them killed, on January 8, 2011.

@GunDeaths

Loving, Part II [update]

In 1967 (1967!) the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in Loving v. Virginia, a case about marriage: marriage between a black person and a white person.

A lot of people HATED with a captal HATE the idea of some awful dirty black person marrying a white person.

How's your day going?

Update, Mar. 28: Wow - he even used the word "filthy."

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The View From the Pub

Christine took this shot on Monday while we were having an adult beverage or two at our local watering hole. She didn't get up or anything - this was from our table on the deck:

Ho hum.

Guitar Note: Last Night Something Happened

I've been playing guitar for 32 years. From early on I decided (or was forced to grudgingly give in to, whatever) that I was a strummer and simple picker kind of guitar player, the kind that plays to accompany lyrics. I love writing lyrics, I’ve loved writing the fairly simple guitar songs I’ve written, but I always wanted to play lead guitar. Or just much more dynamic and colorful guitar. And I just could not do it. I tried. A lot. I just couldn't do it. Nothing but anything simple, anyway. (I can SHRED a Neil Young one-note lead until the neighbors throw flaming cats through the windows.)

I don't play out anymore. My last gig was way more than a year ago, and there weren’t that many in a few years preceding. But I've picked up the guitar at home more in recent months, and I just play. I pick, I strum a bit, but more often I play - or try to play - lead-like stuff. And I just play.

Last night something happened. My brain, all of a sudden - and I mean I noticed it the way you notice you’ve almost fallen asleep and your car has left the road - my brain was all of a sudden doing something that I had never felt it do with me and my guitar. My brain was communicating with my fingers and my ears - most importantly with my ears - in a way that was, honestly, completely gobsmacking. And I was playing dynamic, colorful, lead guitar. And it didn’t suck! (Or at least I thought so. Maybe I was having a flashback?)

I know it's just me and my guitar, and I know there's a lot of hurt out there in the world, but hot damn. This is music. I am very happy and very thankful about this, and, well, there you go.

I hope I can play you a song some day that makes you feel a little better about everything.

Thanks for listening.

P.S. I'm very thankful Christine puts up with - and even seems to like - my noodling, too. Thank you, baby.

Michelle Shocked Vows to Show Up at Cancelled LA Gig

Oh dear:

Friday afternoon, the beleaguered singer tweeted that she would be appearing at Saturday night at McCabe’s in Santa Monica for a “speaking engagement” on the subject of “Effects of Gay-Bashing on the L.A. Mayoral Race.”

This came as news to the club -- and not good news. “She is not welcome at McCabe’s,” said the venue’s angry concert director, Lincoln Myerson, who had just learned about Shocked’s vow -- or threat -- to show up after he got calls regarding the singer’s mysterious tweet.

On Monday, the guitar shop and concert venue joined nearly every other club on her itinerary in canceling her planned show after the singer's alleged anti-gay comments at the opening gig of the tour Sunday night in San Francisco led to mass walkouts and media furor.

Michelle Shocked tour meltdown history:

• The cancelled shows
• Page II
• The statement
• The audio that proves she is not telling the truth in her statement.

Update: A tweet says she's chosen an alternative location:

7PM tonight A ram in the bush! 'Alternative' venue LA Mission on 5th "Can't Take My Joy" .99 cent Lemonade! See you there!! #truthvsreality
— Michelle Shocked (@MShocked) March 24, 2013

Here, I reckon: Los Angeles Mission. Here's a map. (Nowhere near McCabe's. Which is a good thing.)

Update II: I think I just figured this whole thing out: Michelle Shocked is doing a performance art take on this:



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Elementary Music, Art, Gym Teachers AXED in Lansing, MI

Following up on this post:

Lansing elementary students will soon say goodbye to all their art, music, and gym teachers.

They’re among 87 staff positions getting the ax this year. The district’s got to scrape together $6 million in savings, and what with the right-to-work law taking effect next week, teachers around the state are eager to ink new contracts.

Graphic: 98 Days Since Newtown: 2,238 Dead

Very powerful and fairly sickening graphic at HuffPo right now. (Link here. It actually plays, counting up the days and number of dead.) Screen shot:

The accompanying article.

Credit page says "By Jay Boice, Aaron Bycoffe and Andrei Scheinkman. Research by Jason Cherkis, Peter Finocchiaro, Adam Goldberg, Mark Hanrahan, Benjamin Hart, Alana Horowitz, Melissa Jeltsen, Chelsea Kiene, Brad Shannon and William Wrigley." Great work, gang.

@GunDeaths on Twitter.