A little of this, a little of that

True to the title of this blog, this entry will be several rambling thoughts. Hope you can follow it.

I have one final short thought on this whole gun control debate. The Second Amendment was adopted in 1791. I don't pretend to be very good at American history, but I'll bet there weren't too many 31-clip, semi-automatic handguns or Uzis floating around the colonies. I'll also bet there were no major cities with scores of law enforcement people or any army with hundreds of thousands of folks to protect them.

We consider the people who framed our constitution and helped found our government as national heroes and visionaries. In that light, I would hope that if there was some way to magically transport some of those heroes to today, once they recovered from the shock of seeing skyscrapers, computers, cell phones and vehicles, they would ask us, “Why haven't you repealed that amendment yet?”

That's my two-cents worth on the subject for this edition. Now on to a few other things:

I now live in Davenport, within about a half-mile of a very busy, and rather upscale shopping district. I shop at a Hy-Vee on a regular basis and more often than not, I park next to a Cadillac, Mercedes or Lexus. This afternoon, when I returned to my van, I was parked next to a Cadillac Escalade. I've always thought that if I could own my dream vehicle, it might be an Escalade. It's a good bet that if I had one, I'd never consider putting a bumper sticker on it – not even a Bears or Hawkeye sticker.

But the sticker on the car parked next to me might make me reconsider. It read, “My dachsund is smarter than your honor student,” an obvious jab at rightfully proud parents who display stickers informing the world that they are the parents of an honor student.

One of the features I enjoy watching on CNN on weekday afternoons is the Cafferty File, compiled by former Des Moines TV newsman Jack Cafferty. He asks a question, then invites viewers to send in their opinions. He gets thousands of responses in less than a half=hour. One day last week, he had a question about Tea Parting darling Sarah Palin. One of the responses referred to her as “Caribou Barbie.” Sounds appropriate to me.

I'm getting a bit worried that if we have the kind of gridlock and non-action in Washington for the next two years that many are predicting, at least some voters will view their duty to cast ballots in the next presidential election as a joke and instead of writing in “Mickey Mouse” or “Alfred E. Neuman” for president, they might vote for Sarah Palin. Maybe if they write in “Caribou Barbie” the Palin camp will claim those should be counted in their woman's favor and the Supreme Court will have to elect our president again. Stay tuned.

As I write this, the Steelers have beaten the Ravens in the first playoff game and the game between the Falcons and the Packers is underway. I'm pulling for the Packers tonight, undoubtedly much to the surprise of some of my Packer Backer friends. But if they can win tonight and if the Bears can beat the Seahawks tomorrow, it would set up the third meeting of the season between the two arch-rivals next week in Chicago. Once again, stay tuned.