I read tragic news of my ancient brethren on the Isle of Kipling, of Cromwell and the Cavaliers. Having a common Scottish last name, I would gloat if the people of my fathers were any better. The flag of once great Britain was the standard of courage around the world – from Quebec to Cape Town to Calcutta, the Battle of Trafalgar to the Battle of Britain, from Henry V with longbows at Agincourt to Churchill with the RAF on the bombed out streets of London. Those were not only Americans who ran into the mouths of German guns on D-Day, a bare sixty-five years ago.
From page 99 of the November 2009 American Rifleman magazine comes a brief article entitled “Now Will Britain Draw the Line?”. It seems that back in 2005, the British Medical Journal called for a ban on pointed kitchen knives throughout the nation lest while carving the Winter Festival tofu goose or, perhaps, cutting the cheese, a poor, repressed bloke would be overcome by the urge to perforate a family member in a Freudian way. This led some to ask if cricket bats, axes, and butter knives might be added to the list at some point. Alas, satire now hangs as a historical relic in the British Museum. The British Home Office has a new campaign called, “Safe. Sensible. Social.” It has commissioned a new, safer design to replace the traditional pint glass in pubs. The classic glass pint can be used (gasp) as a weapon.
Americans should not laugh too hard at the Super Nanny state’s requirement for shatterproof plastic pints. If the do-gooders can subdue the land that produced the defenders of Rorke’s Drift, can the land of Crockett, Bowie, and Travis be far behind?
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5 comments:
I guess they already forgot that "Sensible" is the core of their slogan. Or was.
Fun while it lasted, though!
Now I understand word veri. It's so we forget what real words are.
Goody.
That's a good point.
Have you been to American Digest today? There's a new Pat Condell vid there. He gets it.
Just as an update: The doc says I have this rapidly advancing and thickening cataract on the backside of my left cornea. He is willing to operate on it right now. The one on the right eye is not over the field of vision yet and isn't eligible to be removed. By boosting my eyeglass prescription, I can have good vision without surgery for a few more months -- so I'm going to do that. It's not like it hurts or anything. My wife is a little unhappy -- she wanted me to go ahead and get it fixed. She says, why delay the inevitable when the surgeon is willing to do it. If it were my right eye, I'd agree.
I guess when it comes right down to it I think even a useless cornea is still something God-given as opposed to a piece of acrylic, however functional. I would say that it is God's will for me to be one-eyed or blind -- except for the fact that He has put me in a time, place, and situation that I need not be.
You’ll always be in my prayers, Mushroom.
I hope you’ll change your mind though.
My father-in-law needed to replace a valve in his heart about five years ago. So of course, that comes to mind. And something Bob told me once about his insulin.
But I respect your decision, even though I sound like I'm trying to talk you into something.
Promise me this then: that you’ll get the valve.
Deal?
(And you can use this against me if I need one. So print it out or something..)
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