Before talking about my first shooting experience today, I'd like to point out that Tuan and I witnessed illegal shotgun selling on the STREETS OF DOWNTOWN TALIHINA. A man pulled up with his pickup, loaded up some guns, put them on display, and started selling them to anyone who walked up- gun control anybody? It was totally illegal and Tuan even know all that he had to go through to get his gun permit in the state of Iowa (he's from Ft. Dodge but lives in Des Moines). How crazy is this? I know this is what the locals call 'God's & Gun Country (do those two two words that start with a 'G' belong in the same phrase?), but I was legit scared that any bozo hobo would get one and just start practicing in the city limits- like I said, I learn something new everyday in Talihina
I held and shot my first gun today. I've never had an interest until my buddy Tuan told me that he does it for sport at shooting ranges occasionally and not to kill anything. Was scared at first because I was holding an item that could take life from another being, but got over it once I actually shot the first bullet. The SOUND it releases is unbelievably loud and I'm glad I stuffed some pieces of paper towel into my ear to help avoid the ringing sensation. I now understand why Grady's dad, Ron, has hearing problems from hunting all these years. Hell, I could see how I could get it from just one day! Anyways, we shot in the middle of Ouachita National Forest. The park/forest is located half in OK and half in AR. We looked for a gun range that we found on google but couldn't physically located it. Soooo we went to a nice desolate spot in the mountains (literally no one for miles) and went at it. These are a low-rise range of mountains but beautiful. This road was the equivalent of the blue ridge parkway (in NC & VA) for Oklahoma & Arkansas. I have videos to post from our trip that I'll get up on here soon- some expletives in there just as a FYI!
We also went to a place called the Donut Depot in 'downtown' Talihina today cause we were told they had the best pizza in town. They definitely did- thin crust, well-done...as close as you can get to NY style pizza here in OK. We split a pie and then went on our adventure described above. If anyone is every interested in this route (and I'd recommend it if you're in SE Oklahoma for whatever reason) it is OK Route 1 take the road east into AR or west from Mena, AR and follow signs to Talihina. From there, you can also go to the Talimena State park. The videos from my flip cam will explain the rest of the day's adventure.
Right now, I'm drinking a nice wheat beer, CNN documentary on in the background and all windows open as well as the door. It's about 65 and clear skies out...beautiful. I know this is the kind of weather that they have in Savannah this time of year (if not a bit warmer) so I look forward to this.
Random, but the other part of my day was just browsing the web wikipedia, youtube, FB, gmail etc etc and I came across youtube videos from when Rosie O'Donnell was on the View. It was the infamous episode where she and Elisabeth Hasselback got into a flat out fight over foreign policy. I forgot about Rosie and wish I hadn't because she definitely represents a percentage of Americans in her opinions on the View. And I do agree with her comment that to the people of the middle east in Iraq and Afghanistan, we ARE the terrorists in their country- of course that is in to regards of all the people we have killed that have nothing to do with Al Qaeda. I think Rosie could've taken a little breather before the fight with Elisabeth (who I don't agree with on most things, but have a great deal of respect for sticking by her opinions around a table of women who generally don't agree with her on most points national conversation talking points- I give her a ton of credit cause I know that minority feeling when I'm around certain members of my family). It is hard to understand why she (Rosie) holds certain views so strongly. As a gay man, I can sympathize with several of her views and wish she was held with more public adoration for what she does for child adoptions and women's HIV awareness. Oh well, can't win them all- Rosie came off strongly and as an attacker and here she is a bit washed up- her show in the late 90's was great and she'll be starting one later this year under the Oprah Winfrey network.
On a separate note, I'm continuing my search for housing in Savannah and I think it's going to get more and more frustrating as time goes on- some places don't do viewings on weekends (some of the best ones actually!).
Scary things going on in Congress: The house voted to defund the following things...Planned Parenthood funding, money set aside for low-income heating in the winter, funding to pay for the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare), as well as other things. I completely understand that we have a budget to balance. However, I think we can cut back quite a bit on defense spending- it represents 70% of our budget! We never had a method for paying for the two wars right now, one of them was started illegally, and yet we STILL cannot come to terms with starting to defund at minimum, the Iraq War. We could save so much more money. I know several teachers who identify with the Republican party in my life...great news, they are cutting public teaching jobs- I hope you will reconsider your vote and pay attention to what is going on in the state of Wisconsin! I'm still waiting for this congress to get us the jobs they said they are going to create (even though a majority of them say the government should not be there to create jobs).
With regards to planned parenthood: They provide many non-abortion services to folks. Cervical cancer screening, family planning, birth control pills. I don't like abortion, nobody does. I'd hate to see people denied any of the above services. Currently, women cannot attain an abortion in the late terms unless there is a clear and present danger to the woman's life or in a case of rape and incest: and none of us can say we don't agree with the choice that is faced in those or who are raped by someone in their family or whoever BECAUSE we have not and we do not know what that situation is like. Congress is also trying to retract this and redefine rape in order to make these restrictions tighter. Take your sides, folks. Rape is rape- a horrific crime that should be denounced and support services should be provided (emotional and medical) to women in need of them.
My plan to balance the budget: Legalize marijuana and tax the HELL out of it. They would raise so much money and it could help pay for our social programs. Another thing, DEFUND federal tax exempt statuses of churches. They all have a political agenda and heavily influence voting blocs and campaigns in all 50 states (alright maybe not HI but hey!). These institutions should not be tax exempt- bring in that revenue as well. I also think that people who are low-income should not be allowed to be on medicare for more than 6 months at a time- this will provide an incentive to find a means to pay for their care and medications. Also, medicaid should still require a 10 dollar copay and not cover brand name drugs unless absolutely necessary- I see WAY too many brand name drugs that don't have better evidence than certain other generically available drugs in the same class that are 3.00 copay in NC.
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