Saturday October 28, 2023 temperature 80 deg. and sunny
Monday October 30, 2023 temperature 33 deg. with snow.
If we don't like the weather here in Maine, we just wait a day or two.
the Ol'Buzzard
Saturday October 28, 2023 temperature 80 deg. and sunny
Monday October 30, 2023 temperature 33 deg. with snow.
If we don't like the weather here in Maine, we just wait a day or two.
the Ol'Buzzard
We sit up
here in the northeast corner of the country and look down at the rest of the
states as superficial and a little nuts.
My wife and
I watched a recording last night then went to bed at about eight to read. It wasn’t until we woke up this morning a
six-thirty that we found out that there had been a mass shooting in Lewiston, a
town of thirty-seven thousand – the second-largest town in the state.
Maine is the largest state east of the Mississippi river, and one-third of our state is wilderness and unpopulated. Forty-four percent of Maine's population live in coastal towns that comprise only twelve percent of the states area. Excluding tourism, logging is one of our
largest industries. It is hard to drive
down any rural road and not be passed by a logging truck.
Because of Maine’s
rural nature and the surrounding wilderness, hunting and fishing have historically
been in the blood of Mainers. As a result,
we have one of the most lax gun laws in the nation.
Perhaps it is
time we address that.
Our culture
is changing. Over the last few decades
we have had more and more people moving to Maine and with them have come attitude
changes. We have a drug problem that is
supplied from out of state, and this year we had white supremacists
demonstrating in Portland, our largest city.
For most of people of rural Maine we have believed that mass killings can't happen here.
The man committing
the atrocity in Lewiston had a profound and known mental problem, but he could
not have accomplished the mass carnage that resulted without a weapon designed for the mass killing
of human beings.
We will hear
from Republicans' thoughts and prayers, and a diatribe about the need to
address mental illness. But it’s the gun.
No one needs
a semi-automatic assault weapon to hunt, and no one needs a pistol with more
than a six-round capacity.
When I came
to Maine sixty years ago everyone in rural Maine owned multiple firearms: shotguns
and rifles. You were allowed to
transport your rifle or shotgun in a gun rack or visibly in your car with the
ammunition locked in your glovebox or trunk, provided you had a hunting license
and it was open season. You could own a
pistol but could not transport it as it wasn’t considered a hunting
weapon. No one considered these laws constrictive. There were only occasional gun deaths, mostly hunting accidents: a woman shot by a deer hunter in her backyard
hanging out her clothes; a Navy man shot by his brother-in-law
while deer hunting (it was rumored he abused his wife) – hunting accident.
The gun
culture in Maine has changed. It was
only a matter of time before the carnage reached here.
The most
difficult class in my college experience was Logic. It was taught by a professor with demanding
expectations.
This morning
as I looked over some Logic notes I was gobsmacked by recognizing similarities to
Donald Trump’s diatribes and logical argument fallacies.
An argument
can either be true or false. The false
argument premises are named in Logic.
Argument
ad Populum: Everyone says it must be true; or true
because many people believe it.
Argument
ad Baculum: A threat of force or coercion; a negative consequence of holding a contrary
opinion.
Argument
ad Verecundiam: The opinion of an authority is used as
evidence.
Argument
ad Absurdum: Attempting to approve a premise by carrying
it to an absurd conclusion.
Argument
ad Ignorantian: A
premise that is true because it has not been proven false: is false because it
has not been proven true.
Argument
Misericordia: Appeal
to pity of self or others.
Argument
ad Hominem: Attack the character, motive, or some
attribute of the opponent.
Argument
ad Nauseam: If it is repeated often enough it must be
true.
Note that whenever
Trump opens his mouth one or more of these fallacious arguments will stream out.
the Ol’Buzzard