Althouse: "He’s not excusing Loughner, just describing what an isolated lifestyle in Arizona can do to people."

January 15, 2012

"He’s not excusing Loughner, just describing what an isolated lifestyle in Arizona can do to people."

"The state ranks 48th among places where 'people trade favors with neighbors' and 45th among places where people eat dinner with their families.... The murders make Arizonans wonder if they’re leading mean, unexamined lives.... Isolation is slowly ruining Arizona, and ruining the rest of the country at a slower pace."

Link.

75 comments:

Anonymous said...: Oftentimes the Big Lesson to be drawn from a bad event is that there is no Big Lesson.

Peter; 1/15/12, 2:28 PM
Chip S. said...: Things I'll only say once:

I didn't think Dave Weigel's writing could get any worse.; 1/15/12, 2:36 PM
Synova said...: Oh fer pity's sake.

Sometimes crazy is just crazy.

Perhaps the pathology is that we demand to know the reasons so that we can fix everything. Fix the crazy, fix mourning, fix trauma, fix moods, fix everything uncomfortable about being human.; 1/15/12, 2:44 PM
Ron said...: so if being from the 45th state leads to a kill crazy rampage....what do people in the 50th state do, drag out bazookas?; 1/15/12, 2:51 PM
Paddy O said...: "Perhaps the pathology is that we demand to know the reasons so that we can fix everything. Fix the crazy, fix mourning, fix trauma, fix moods, fix everything uncomfortable about being human."

Well, this is certainly the mission of the California legislature.

Gotta keep fixing the pathologies so as to keep avoiding fixing the economy.; 1/15/12, 2:56 PM
john said...: When I order Pizza Hut delivery or go thru the In'nOut drivethrough, does that count me as 45% eating dinner with my family, or 55% eating out?

This wouldn't confuse me if Arizona wasn't also 49th in education spending, or so they say, and if I wasn't so fucking dumb.

And I can't even go ask any of my neighbors, cause we hardly know them and they're eating out anyway.; 1/15/12, 3:11 PM
Bob Ellison said...: Arizona also ranks 3rd among places where "people refuse to answer stupid questions from pollsters like 'do you trade favors with neighbors?'".; 1/15/12, 3:13 PM
Synova said...: It's all the fault of air conditioning.

If we'd just outlaw air conditioning the vast swath of Southern states would suddenly, once again, become places where people knew all of their neighbors.

And if we made people ask permission and get permitted when they wanted to move across country for a new job, the whole nation would benefit by keeping people closer to their roots and their families.

And then idiot columnists would write about how the insular nature of our stagnant neighborhoods was destroying the nation.; 1/15/12, 3:19 PM
MarkD said...: The nerve of those introverts, wanting to be left alone. They must be crazy.; 1/15/12, 3:20 PM
Wince said...: Did Loughner really suffer a lack of someone to talk to?

The possibility of physical and mental collapse is now very real. No sympathy for the Devil, keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride.

And Johnny Depp was just at the White House!

Voices in My Head

I want you to get a gun
And head on down to Washington

I want you to climb up high
High in the sky
And shoot them all

Th-Th-They d-d-don't deserve to live
What did they ever give to you?
Nah-nah nah-nah nah-nah nah

You know what I want you to do? I want you to go upstairs to that
apartment where that guy keeps playing that Barry Manilow record
"Copacabana" over and over and over again. I want you to ring the
doorbell, and when he answers the door. I want you to stab him in
the neck with a number 2 pencil over and over and over again
because he must pay! Chop him up and put him in the freezer and
as you leave the apartment, light the place on fire!

Voices in my head
These are the
Voices in my
Voices in my head
These are the
Voices in my

You should dress up like a clown
Arf Arf Hoooowwwwll

(Spoken as a mother)
Hi, you never called me back. I got the pictures back from
Thanksgiving. I don't know why you wear that earring. If your
father was alive I don't know what he'd say. I was talking to
Mrs. Corelli yesterday. You know Bobby Corelli who was in your grade?
He got promoted again in his law firm. He's making $175,000 a
year now. Are you on drugs? Why don't you ever call me back?
When are you gonna get married son? Isn't it about time you
settled down and got yourself a wife and got yourself a house
and got a kid, and got a car, and got a dog, and got a lawnmower,
and got a nice picket fence . . .

Why, why is it every time I gotta
Wait on fuckin' line

Why is it every time I turn on my television set I gotta see
Sally Struthers and those starving kids? Why can't somebody just
send her a check and shut her and those God damn kids up?
Where's Rob Reiner when you need him?

Why, why don't they drop the bomb
Right on top of everyone
Nah-nah nah-nah nah-nah nah

Voices in my head
These are the
Voices in my
Voices in my head
These are the
Voices in my

Stop, stop, stop with the singing!

Whew.; 1/15/12, 3:20 PM
john said...: I understood "trading favors with your neighbors" to mean something like having a "key party".

But that doesn't make sense because if they are your neighbors, you probably wouldn't drive over unless the weather was bad (like an ice storm), which rarely happens in this state.; 1/15/12, 3:23 PM
Henry said...: It's not often that navel gazing engulfs a whole state.; 1/15/12, 3:24 PM
ricpic said...: Arizona is a bad bad state and must be punished by lefties everywhere for wanting to "isolate" itself from an invasion.; 1/15/12, 3:27 PM
Henry said...: Arizona is the home of the Navajo nation.

I think it's fair to say that Navajo like open spaces. Nomadic sheep herders are like that. Isolation is a blessing.; 1/15/12, 3:29 PM
Michelle Dulak Thomson said...: AZ ranks 48th among places (NB: not "states"; why not) where "people trade favors with neighbors"? Why can't I find an online source for that? Enquiring minds want to know who placed last.

Judging by 25 years living in CA and a year and half living in OR, I am betting on CA for No. 50, and NY at No. 49. Except that's unfair: Californians and New Yorkers who don't have massive amounts of money, or don't like to pretend they do, are perfectly nice people. To meet them, you look up the average Zestimate of the properties wherever you are, divide by two, and keep searching until you find a place that matches the adjusted number.; 1/15/12, 3:44 PM
Michelle Dulak Thomson said...: john,

I understood "trading favors with your neighbors" to mean something like having a "key party".

But that doesn't make sense because if they are your neighbors, you probably wouldn't drive over unless the weather was bad (like an ice storm), which rarely happens in this state.

I understood it to be more like "Are you heading my way? I'll give you a lift." Now, I don't drive, and my neighbors often see me heading out to the two-mile walk to the nearest grocery store, and they offer me a lift.

But, see, that never happened in CA. I was equally carless there; I lived in Berkeley, and Emeryville, and Oakland, and San Rafael, and Emeryville, for 25 years, and never, ever got offered a lift from anyone I knew only as someone living on the same street. The culture here is different. Unimaginably different, for someone who initially assumed OR was going to be "Bay Area, with more rain." It's not.; 1/15/12, 3:55 PM
robinintn said...: What an incredibly foul, steaming pile of crap that article is.; 1/15/12, 3:56 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: Weigel must have gotten a press release about some obscure study by a think tank or social services business. That is probably why he wrote this story.

It is a revered tradition among NYT columnists. I think they even have a name for it... it is called "doing the Bob Herbert".; 1/15/12, 4:00 PM
edutcher said...: What he wanted to say was that Crazy Eyes would have been just fine anywhere else.

AZ made him like that.

Well, maybe. After all, GA has Hatman.; 1/15/12, 4:03 PM
Anonymous said...: But, you know, if Arizonans get together with their families in a religious way, help their neighbors, buy guns, oppose illegal immigration, oppose liberal programs and Mexican Nationalism lurking beneath multicultural lunacy along the border and in Tucson...well...

...that probably wouldn't be civil.

Blah, blah, blah. civility bullshit, blah blah.; 1/15/12, 4:33 PM
Anonymous said...: And you know where the folks at Slate will find meaning after such a tragedy...looking to fill the void such as they are:

Politics, political ideology, postmodern gender equity,...more government, more equality (how much is enough?)

Blah, blah blah.

It's sad, really.; 1/15/12, 4:36 PM
GMay said...: Must be Journolist 2.0 floating some trial balloons before some damning information goes public that disconnects him with the left's fantasy of his TEA Party/Palin inspired rampage.; 1/15/12, 4:39 PM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: But Jane Fonda, via Huffington Post, assured us that Loughner went to Sarah Palin's web site first. It didn't happen, but in leftwing liar land, false accusations are real.; 1/15/12, 4:45 PM
virgil xenophon said...: Following on Synova@3:19 you might just as well blame the inventor of the micro-wave (NAZI Germany, btw, to feed troops in the field) frozen foods, TV dinners, TV itself and ginormous refrigerator/freezers--all of which allow oneself to cocoon oneself w.o. going to market every day for food or to the movies every week and thus interact w. the neighbors on a daily basis...; 1/15/12, 5:04 PM
ken in tx said...: The microwave oven was invented by a US defense contractor when a worker noticed that a candy bar melted in his pocket when standing near a radar set.; 1/15/12, 5:33 PM
n.n said...: Isolation is a problem, but it is not the problem. The source of progressive corruption of individuals and society is dreams of physical, material, and ego instant gratification, principally through redistributive and retributive change, but also through fraudulent exploitation. It has been the marginalization or rejection of the two known orders in our universe: natural (e.g. instinct, reproduction) and enlightened (e.g. consciousness, individual dignity). Our society has gone to extraordinary lengths to devalue human life and to denigrate individual dignity. It's ironic that the civil and human rights movements have incidentally or purposefully produced that outcome. They have rightly acted to correct legitimate past disparities, only to pursue another extreme justified by their selective recall.

Furthermore, policies which promote or defend converged migration and immigration, especially unmeasured immigration, have necessarily resulted in the displacement of American men, women, and children, have placed a progressive burden on our infrastructure and societal organizations, and have lead us to exceed the holding capacity of communities, cities, states, and nation.

It is not isolation that is the causal factor of our decline, it is a selective rule of law, history, science, dignity, and reality, which are the root cause of our progressive dysfunction.

The contemplative cuckoo, Loughner, is a product of a dysfunctional ideology which has in recent decades asserted its influence over our culture and society.

The cuckoo met with Giffords, didn't receive the response he preferred, then chose to run amuck.; 1/15/12, 5:35 PM
mariner said...: Henry,
It's not often that navel gazing engulfs a whole state.

But navel gazing engulfs media types in every state.

Too bad they can't see their own belly button lint.; 1/15/12, 5:57 PM
d-day said...: That is the fucking stupidest thing I've ever read, and I used to live two blocks from that Safeway.

If Arizonans rank lower on some bullshit neighborliness, it's because most of our residents moved here from some rotten blue state to retire without their fixed income being eaten by taxes. In Tucson, the whole thing is a college town, with people coming and going. We don't have the same family/church/social networks. It's the frontier, of course it's not the same as some inbred NY neighborhood.

But that's bullshit as far as Loughner was concerned, because he was a native, a local, and if he alienated all of his friends and family, that's on him. Lone psychos who alienate their networks aren't driven to do that by the perceived lack of neighborliness in their neighbors.

@Synova:
If you outlawed air conditioning in Arizona, we would all know each other because we would all be fighting for shade under the same scraggly palo verde tree. Do not want.

/I survived 122 degrees.; 1/15/12, 6:47 PM
NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...: Ok; so as a Arizona resident I hereby apologize for Arizona being the only state with crazy people in it.

/eyeroll

wv:hootherr - Believes Hooter's girls are responsible for 9/11!; 1/15/12, 7:07 PM
Synova said...: I don't think anyone would like to do without air conditioning.

But it IS the reason anyone with the choice isn't on the front porch in the evening talking to neighbors.

In any case, I was mostly trying to make fun of the misplaced nostalgia. We're mostly isolated from our neighbors because we live in the laps of so very many people we can chose who to associate with. We aren't forced to, or limited to, those who just happen to live in our little town or next door to us. We don't have to borrow our neighbor's ladder or lawn mower because we're wealthy in absolute terms.

Grow up in a town of 300 and you know the reality of what everyone is having nostalgia for.; 1/15/12, 7:16 PM
Simon Kenton said...: My first wife was episodically psychotic. Talking to her and others on the wards where she was committed did nothing whatever to make them saner or crazier. It's really kind of insulting, or at the least completely jejune, to fuss about "isolation" and failure to do favors for neighbors, as if that could explain or trigger or abate the monstrous chemical and electrical torrents that the insane suffer. The major antipsychotic drugs helped some of them. None of them were helped by "I hear you" or offers to feed the cat and mind the door key the next time they were going to be institutionalized.

It's a minor thing, but he shot Giffords first or nearly first, depending on your sources. You could ban 33-shot mags, or 10-shot mags, or all but derringers and single-shots, and not have saved Giffords. Others, yes, but not the target.

The schools and the father could have done more. I also recollect the local Sheriff - who was and is not Arpaio, and came across as a superannuated democrat hack - had people out there 3 times and they too did nothing about Loughner.

I was exposed early to the Kesey/RD Laing mythos about how the insane in an insane society are the true sane, and how the insane just need an Einsteinian interlude (a little more space, a little more time, a little more of the space-time continuum) and they just ... recover. That shit doesn't survive contact with the inhabitants of the ward. To quote Synova, "Sometimes crazy is just crazy."; 1/15/12, 7:23 PM
As my whimsy leads me.. said...: Why do journalists write ridiculous articles like this, with silly strings of analysis, instead of addressing what Loughner's real problem was? He has schizophrenia. Have we seen any articles about schizophrenia and how recognize it, or what to do about it if it turns up in a family member, or about how difficult it is to manage, or how immense the tragedy of this disease is, or are we, as a society, ignoring this illness due to stigma?

This is a disease that affects about 1% of any population. It starts, usually, in young people--often soon after they've reached adult age and their parents no longer have any legal authority to have them treated. These people often live in fear, due to their delusions, and are more likely to be victims of crime than to execute a violent crime. They have much higher rates of homelessness, cancer and heart disease (due to nearly all of them being smokers), diabetes (due to medication side effects, poor diets, and poor self-care), and suicide.

The course of the disease will usually be much better if it is detected and treated early.

Any of those issues Mr. Weigel could have written about, and possibly done some good. Instead, he wrote a stupid, fluffy, meaningless "analysis." Disgusting.

Toy; 1/15/12, 7:44 PM
Michael K said...: The writer is obviously unfamiliar with Arizona, especially Tucson. There are lots of military families and retirees, among other things. The shooter's mother was plugged in to the local Democratic machine, which is why he was still on the street.; 1/15/12, 7:50 PM
d-day said...: @Synova:
Gotcha.

@Everyone else:
Sorry for the profanity.; 1/15/12, 8:29 PM
paul a'barge said...: Loughner wasn't alone. His mother lived there. She is a big Demcrat in local Tucson circles.

So Weigel and the Liberal who wrote the original article are morons.; 1/15/12, 8:47 PM
rcommal said...: I think the theory is the book author's (go read the description at, for example, Amazon); Weigel is writing about the book and its author's theory.; 1/15/12, 8:59 PM
Phil 314 said...: Will this never end!

Did Virginia have to put up with this crap after the V. Tech shootings (or CO after Columbine)?

Why do we struggle so much with meaningless acts by crazy people?

mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa

Now if I say three Hail Mary's and an act of contrition, will that take care of it?; 1/15/12, 9:20 PM
Dust Bunny Queen said...: /I survived 122 degrees.

But! It was a dry heat.

:-D; 1/15/12, 9:39 PM
The Crack Emcee said...: AprilApple,

But Jane Fonda, via Huffington Post, assured us that Loughner went to Sarah Palin's web site first. It didn't happen, but in leftwing liar land, false accusations are real.

Indeed. We are talking about Jane Fonda, aren't we? She who is made of a field of energy? ('This is not just new-age hogwash,' she said, 'It is actually how reality works.' )

And also about Jared Lee Loughner - the man known as The NewAge Assassin?

I take issue with Synova's characterization that "Sometimes crazy is just crazy." No - NewAge is crazy - and to keep insisting Jared Lee Loughner wasn't a NewAger, and that fact isn't at the center of his pathology and the events that followed from it, is just as damaging as anything Jane Fonda or Dave Weigel are attempting:

Everyone - everyone - is trying to hide the truth.

You want to talk Arizona? Arizona is known world-wide as a NewAge "power spot." It is where my wife made regular pilgrimages - she killed three people. It is where three people died in a fake "sweatlodge" with NewAge guru, James Arthur Ray. Oh, man, there's more going on in Arizona - and in this entire country's culture - than either Jane Fonda or Dave Weigel want to admit or have investigated.

But nobody does. I did 8 posts before Glenn Reynolds conceded I was right about the obvious clues that showed Loughner was a NewAger, but it took Robert Stacey McCain discovering it that finally forced Reynolds' hand in admitting I'd said it all along.

Now Reynolds won't acknowledge when I'm right before anyone else - about anything - because I've also been right about him. The man is a coward.

There is a conspiracy of silence surrounding a lot of things, but, to me, that which exists about NewAge is the worst. Part of the reason for my feelings, of course, is that I am at the center of this story - from witnessing and enduring my wife's actions, to trying to expose the overall picture of the cult(ure), to enduring the behavior of almost everyone to deny the obvious - even after a woman is shot in the head before our eyes. The conspiracy of silence is louder than trumpets and just as deafening. And I blame everyone.

What are you ALL trying to hide?

Jane Fonda just walked on stage at the Golden Globes.

One day I will spit on her grave.; 1/15/12, 9:56 PM
Phil 314 said...: Crack,
It doesn't feel any better when you shit on Arizona.; 1/15/12, 10:04 PM
The Crack Emcee said...: Phil 3:14 said...,

I'm not shitting on Arizona:

Arizona shit on itself by allowing and creating the environment that made this all happen.; 1/15/12, 10:07 PM
The Crack Emcee said...: I've said, many times, that NewAge is about sitting in shit and calling it golden.

Don't blame me for stating the obvious - I'm the one fighting this nonsense. If anyone had listened to me, and taken my message seriously, Giffords wouldn't have been shot - and the others wouldn't be dead - don't you get that?

It's not my words that are hurting anything - it's your own intransigence that's allowing these things to happen.

Fuck Arizona and their NewAge enclaves, their U.F.O. festivals, and all the rest. They're doing it. You're allowing it. This is reality.

Blame yourselves.; 1/15/12, 10:13 PM
HT said...: What are the physiological markers of schizophrenia? Loughner did what he did because he was violent. And a thug.

To many people, I'm sure that that description of Tucson (in the article) rings true, it's just that it doesn't have to be that way and to many others it's simply not.; 1/15/12, 10:18 PM
The Crack Emcee said...: Now you're all rooting for Romney. I'm saying, "No - make it stop!" and you act like I'm mad. Well I'm not mad - you are for even entertaining such a crazy idea as handing the most powerful office in the world over to a(nother) cultist. Yes, the second in a row - or do you consider a friend of Oprah's and someone who thinks U.F.O.crazy and now Scientology follower Louis Farrakhan could be anything but?

You're all willfully insane, I tell you. You're insisting on it. Mitt in 2012?

You might as well admit the Mayans had it right after all,...; 1/15/12, 10:20 PM
HT said...: Um...I'm just commenting on a blog post, not worshiping at the alter of heathens.

(Worshipping has a red underline. But worshiping does not. What have you done to this comments section crack? Have you put some kind of spell check hex on it? That can't be how you spell it!); 1/15/12, 10:24 PM
bagoh20 said...: No only should we have freedom of speech and assembly, but it should be mandatory, with severe penalties for avoiding it for more than 12 hours.; 1/15/12, 10:24 PM
HT said...: or maybe I have lost the ability to spell all by myself.; 1/15/12, 10:25 PM
The Crack Emcee said...: HT,

Did you look at my links to Loughner? If not, here's another one for you.

Or let's just cut to the chase,...; 1/15/12, 10:26 PM
HT said...: yeah but according to you, new age interests are a result of schizophrenia (what is that to you anyway?) and not necessarily the cause. You say you think new agers are schizophrenic. So accordingly, the so-called schizophrenia came first, and the interest in new age is secondary. I won't spend much more time trying to understand it. As I say, I think he killed those people because of a tendency toward violence and not because he was mentally ill.; 1/15/12, 10:30 PM
The Crack Emcee said...: HT,

Um...I'm just commenting on a blog post, not worshiping at the alter of heathens.

Bullshit - you all are - you just don't know it or can't admit it. It's what passes for NORMAL to you. You laugh when you see it in others, but you? Never.

You're no more likely to change your mind about what you do and think than Tom Cruise.; 1/15/12, 10:31 PM
HT said...: And what exactly is my offense this evening? What am I not likely to change? (BTW, I am not going to vote for Romney); 1/15/12, 10:32 PM
The Crack Emcee said...: HT,

yeah but according to you, new age interests are a result of schizophrenia,...

No, you have it backwards:

NewAge causes schizophrenia. In individuals and society.

I like how you'll even inform me of what I'm saying,..; 1/15/12, 10:36 PM
The Crack Emcee said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 1/15/12, 10:37 PM
The Crack Emcee said...: HT,

As I say, I think he killed those people because of a tendency toward violence and not because he was mentally ill.

But that doesn't fit with the story his friends told, of a nice, even shy guy, who grew weird over time, becoming obsessive over the NewAge conspiracy theory film Zeitgeist and the like.

You're making this up as you go along. Why? What is so hard about accepting NewAge as a negative?; 1/15/12, 10:39 PM
HT said...: Ok, last one I hope.

No, you have it backwards:

NewAge causes schizophrenia. In individuals and society.

I like how you'll even inform me of what I'm saying,..

From one of your 18 blog links linked:

NewAgers have mental problems - and, though they don't admit it openly, they know it - that's why they take all these courses, and seminars, and workshops. There's something missing in their personalities that they're trying to fix. I think they're schizophrenic. At least, those I've encountered seem to be,...and these NewAge "therapists" are waiting for them.

Got it? "That's why they take all those courses" you say. Mental illness came first.

You say that. You. "I think they are schizophrenic." You say that.

The (so called) schizophrenia PRECEDES the taking of new age courses.

Tell me where I misread it.; 1/15/12, 10:46 PM
The Crack Emcee said...: HT,

Look at the dates - and the posts - I was sorting it out myself back then.

I showed them to you to say I've been down that road. I'm waaay ahead of the rest of you on this, which is why, for the longest time, I barely even bothered explaining shit on my blog anymore. It seems pointless sometimes, because as events keep happening, the game keeps changing.

It's like this Romney thing - until someone admits Romney fucked up by carpet bombing Newt with negative ads, when Newt was trying to run a legit above the norm campaign, then there are no rules and they can't complain about anything Newt does about Bain or anything else - and can only blame themselves (again) for creating the unethical environment the cultist may win in. Romney's supporters - here and elsewhere - are now the problem because they've already proven, like any cultist, they don't know right from wrong. Walking away from Romney - or at least chastising him - is the only way to right the wrong. You don't reward people for that.

Anyway, I'm drifting off course,...sorry.; 1/15/12, 10:56 PM
HT said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 1/15/12, 11:01 PM
The Crack Emcee said...: Mothra?; 1/15/12, 11:04 PM
HT said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 1/15/12, 11:07 PM
HT said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 1/15/12, 11:09 PM
Donna B. said...: Crack.... NewAge BS is a negative. Schizophrenia is a negative. But one does not cause the other.

HT.... Being schizophrenic does not mean one cannot also be a violent thug.

About the only things that are clear to me is that Loughner didn't have just one problem and that there is no one person/group/locale responsible for not recognizing his problems or stopping him from shooting.

Synova: Perhaps the pathology is that fixing blame seems to be so enjoyable to some.; 1/15/12, 11:31 PM
d-day said...: @DBQ

dry heat

Everyone always says that, usually when everyone else is always really sweaty and gross. :); 1/15/12, 11:43 PM
vet66 said...: Living in Arizona is a joy, even though the temps can vary 100 degrees over a year. Wide open spaces, solitude, natural hiking trails, snowbirds welcome here to avoid lake effect snow, relatively cheap prices on gas/diesel, wonderful mexican food, spirit of the old west, helicopters flying over our house on the weekends as celebrities fly in to Miraval or some other world-class spa, and the list goes on.

We routinely dress up in our Single Action Shooting Society clothes and head on out to Old Tucson Studios to mingle with the visitors from near and far. Typical visitors are europeans from Germany, France, Netherlands and other places where self-defense is frowned on. For them, nothing like holding a .45 caliber single action pistol (unloaded) to remind them of times past and present where there was no law west of the Pecos.

Love the snowbirds who come back every year. By the way, we have potlucks on our street and barbecue pretty much most days of the week. Heading to Tombstone this weekend and while making reservations at the RV park was reminded to dress up and bring our weapons to add to the ambiance and celebrate our second amendment rights. Might even say the Pledge of Allegiance, and reference GOD occasionally as the urge moves us benighted souls to welcome our military folks there from Davis-Monthan and Fort Huachuca and other visitors.

As for Loughner, he fell through the cracks of a permissive and non-judgmental progressive, politically correct establishment that failed to protect us. When he went berserk, we were at a nearby park. Rounded up the kids and those of us who carried side-arms set up a perimeter until the all-clear. The only person carrying a defensive tool at the Giffords rally was at Walmart next to Safeway. No guns blazing, he assessed the situation and put his defensive tool away helping to keep the deranged Loughner secure until the police arrived.

A lot can happen "UNTIL THE POLICE ARRIVE!"; 1/16/12, 7:19 AM
SGT Ted said...: Hmm, when I was in AZ the bars and restaurants were packed with people socializing. There is a certain type of Arizonan that lives there for the isolation, but...Methinks the writer is wanting to see only what he wants to see, then uses 'Laughner" to get a rise from an otherwise ordinary screed about the alleged perils of not wanting to interact with people you don't know.; 1/16/12, 8:18 AM
SGT Ted said...: Funny that Az is 49th in education spending, yet there are piles of colleges and trade schools in the PHX valley. Funny how allegedly ecucated people use tax dollar expenditures as a baseline for quality, when the opposite is usually true, unless they have a purpose and mission that puts country over party or unions.; 1/16/12, 8:21 AM
SGT Ted said...: Hey crack,

The newage part of AZ is only a small part of the State, very definately in the minority of influence. Most of those types are kooky transplants from the coasts, come to become one with nature by killing themselves in the heat or by a flashflood.

It'd be like judging all of Texas based on the libs who live in Austin.; 1/16/12, 8:26 AM
HT said...: Download free today of an account of a woman who received a diagnosis of schizophrenia and is recovering without the harm of the psychiatric "community."

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Surviving-Schizophrenia-Tale-Sound-ebook/dp/B0057P6M46#reader_B0057P6M46

For those who are interested in another point of view.; 1/16/12, 8:54 AM
Synova said...: "dry heat"

It really does make a difference, but once you're past 100 it's hot, no matter what.; 1/16/12, 12:09 PM
Michelle Dulak Thomson said...: Synova,

It really does make a difference, but once you're past 100 it's hot, no matter what.

I read a Catherine Aird short story yesterday in which a woman was roasted alive because her husband figured out a way to cut off the steam in the sauna and make the input pure hot air. Of course, he also made sure the door was locked from the outside.; 1/16/12, 6:33 PM
Theranter said...: Crack nailed it: "Oh, and another thing: They're having this court case because this woman killed herself. But, if she'd run home and destroyed her marriage after taking this idiot's course - or even if she'd divorced her husband because this asshole took advantage of her psychologically and had sex with her - everyone would think that was fine-and-dandy, and would probably blame her husband for the break-up, because he tried to "hold her back" from life or some other bullshit excuse for her madness. That's how goofy, sick, and creepy, the thinking is out there."

Kind of analogous to the cigarettes v abortion bizarre scenario. It would be much more socially acceptable to say i am leaving work for the day to have an abortion than it is to say i am leaving to go have a cigarette.

Or consider the nasty, nasty, looks I get when smoking and very pregnant. But if I were getting an abortion at 9 months -- no problem! It's my body=my choice. Not advocating smoking or abortion--just demonstrating how baffling the thought process is of so many people.; 1/16/12, 6:46 PM
Bob Loblaw said...: Arizona is a bad bad state and must be punished by lefties everywhere for wanting to "isolate" itself from an invasion.

Yep, that is what's going on here. Blue staters need a reason to believe they're superior over the morning coffee.

As to the favor trading... if you live in a state where taxes are high it makes a whole lot more sense to swap favors. When a lawyer does work for the local dentist in return for work the dentist does on his kid's teeth with no money changing hands and nothing declared, is that a sign of community or tax evasion?; 1/16/12, 6:53 PM
rcommal said...: Crack:

You do no good work for those inclined to agree with you by simply attacking the place where they live, much less by attacking them on account of where they live, and so very much less by assuming what their thoughts, opinions, strengths, weaknesses, focusing or lack of focusing are by virtue of, simply and simplistically, where they live.; 1/16/12, 9:38 PM
rcommal said...: Where do you live, again, Crack Emcee?

Why do you live there?

Why haven't you moved?

Why don't you move, this very week or month or quarter?

I mean--as you, of all people, ought understand a query--WTF?; 1/16/12, 9:41 PM
rcommal said...: I am interested in your specific expectations, Crack Emcee. Live up to your name, and be a Master of Ceremonies for them. Tell us precisely where we are supposed live, how we are supposed to live, and in what way you would like us to deport ourselves. Be specific in terms of the deportment (you've been plenty specific philosophically, so that's not what's needed).

Also, to where ought we all move?; 1/16/12, 9:52 PM
Anonymous said...: Jesus, Crack, let's not get carried away condemning Arizona for the sins of a few whackos in a few very limited spots. The New Age stuff thoroughly permeates the relatively small city of Sedona-- true enough-- but elsewhere in the state there is nothing particularly New Agey except some shops on Mill Avenue in Tempe, 4th Ave. in Tucson, and a few blocks of downtown Flagstaff (all college towns.) The rest of Arizona is pretty much as rock solid normal as you could ever hope for. I suspect you could find more New Age hocus pocus in any square mile of west LA or the East Bay than in the entire state of Arizona including Sedona.; 1/17/12, 12:50 AM