Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619

I haven't looked it up again, but I think that the independence of Ukraine was in fact agreed upon by Russia.

Your definition of a civil war is imaginative, but the US Civil War meets any reasonable recognized definition-- an intra-national war. Because it was rather precisely regionally-based doesn't change that. I think we became a country gradually, as a recognizable American outlook and self-designation began to grow in the latter 18th Century. It was strongly accelerated by the French and Indian War, culminating in the Revolutionary War, where the concept of United States arose, rather than just America. Then the Constitution. Then the process continued as gradually folks started to use United States in the singular, rather than plural. That took awhile.

I read an 'advice columnist' in a certain paper a few weeks ago. A gentle soul had come into possession of a revolver, as I remember through inheritance; maybe in a box of inherited miscellany. The person was ethically opposed to having such an instrumentality. Didn't want to sell it, because that would not get the wicked thing out of existence. There was much discussion about 'giving it to the police'. I remember thinking, why would the police want a gun that was not stolen and not evidence in a case? Just a lawfully owned gun the owner didn't want. What would they do with it? Do they have storerooms for unwanted guns? Do they maintain a smelting furnace to melt orphan firearms. Are they in the firearms business? Yes, I know there are so-called 'buy-back' programs but those are from time to time. They couldn't figure it out. The obvious: if you don't want the gun, won't sell or give it away, and want it gone, why not break it up with a maul and toss it? Too simple?

It's the 'type' part that I wonder about. Is a 'non-facebook type' tall, distinguised-looking and deep thinking, like me? After all, anybody can be 'non-facebook', but only a few can be the 'type'!

In the New Testament, written in koine Greek, the term is mysticos dipnos. The expression "last supper" does not appear. Dipnos can be translated as dinner or supper. Mysticos, of course, is mystery or mysterious. A mystery in the theological sense, not in the novelistic sense. To me, based upon my personal background, "supper" denotes a light evening meal, "dinner" a full, heavier meal, at evening usually but not always. Our Sunday "suppers" were things like toasted cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. I asked my wife what theirs were. She said breakfast cereal. The only time my dad would allow TV at the dinner table was for Sunday supper. Maverick was his favorite.

I think the answer would be that you don't own it, and finding it doesn't make you the owner, nor, I suppose, the default owner. Some states may have statutes that apply to the situation, but I don't know. There have been such laws as to treasure trove found on your land, or in a house you bought. As for lost lawnmowers and bikes, I don't think the police are in the storage business.

Interesting customs in different places. In my family (6 kids) other than the 'Sunday dinner' thing in the early afternoon, we always had a sit-down dinner when our dad got home at 6 pm. This is the 1950s & '60s. City life, in our case. In my own (5 kids), same thing. Dinner at the dinner table every night about 6 o'clock, with only rare exceptions. Saturday was different; less 'formal'. My wife and I still do the same. We're lucky in that many of our kids and many of our 12 grandkids are within a mile or two, and we nowadays have larger family evening dinners about 3 times per week, rotating households. Sometimes six or seven, sometimes 15, at the table, etc, depending, at any one time.

That I get. I'm not on FB, haven't been and won't be. But I haven't thought of myself as a "non-facebook type"!

These days (and for decades), for us, it's breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Both breakfast and lunch are casual. Dinner is always sit-down, whether it's the bride and me, or the larger family. My kids and grandkids reside close, we have lots of dinners together. There's no confusion. Dinner is the sit-down evening meal, no matter who is in attendance. Inasmuch as we have a larger family dinner 2-3 times per week, it's easy to maintain the distinction. Supper as such we haven't had for a long, long time. As I said before, for us it was a light evening meal on Sunday, because on that day, and that day only, dinner was in the early afternoon. I think this was because most people went to church, stores were closed on Sunday, so the mid-day ritual was natural. Gone with the wind...

When I was a kid, Sunday dinner was after church, maybe at 1 pm or so. So for 'supper' we had a sandwich and soup or such; light fare, in the evening. Other than that, it was always 'dinner' here, not 'supper'. Most of my friends also had Sunday dinner in the afternoon. Then, one day, it seems like the custom just vanished....

A very good movie indeed. I watched it again a few months back. Good acting all around, but Thornton is great in it. When you start down that path, you have no idea where it might lead.....

"Non-facebook types"?

And he's doing too many, too frequently. A problem with a lot of youTube guys. They need to wait for something actually interesting to transpire. I liked his sort of unassuming manner and his earlier videos, but I agree he bogged down, and I got bored with them pretty quick.

"Shop" does mean store here, too....

My wife was elected five times to the local school board, the second biggest in the State, and served 30 years, without any pay. She did get per-diems for meetings and such, which could add up to 2 or 3 grand per year. She devoted uncounted hours and years to the work without recompense. I ran twice for countywide office and, mercifully, lost twice, but I admit I take pride at having thrown my hat into the ring in my time and generation, and campaigned hard around a big county. The cynicism about public office, especially local office, and the withdrawl of middle-class people from the political process, is doing untold damage to this country. It also has emptied out the 'pipeline' to higher office of good people. A generation ago, local board and council positions were held by the lawyer, the insurance agent, the real estate agent, the car dealership owner, etc; i.e. solid responsible citizens. Now it's all people from the public and non-profit worlds. The rest of us have checked out. So we're getting what we deserve.

What a useless presentation. I watched the whole thing because I used to look at his vids on guns from time to time and I found them interesting, but he increasingly got bogged down in religion and politics and I lost interest. He says nothing about the seizures and the statutory reasons for them. So he implies that the ATF is just doing warrantless searches of ordinary private citizens, which obviously they have no power whatever to do. What I expect is that they are lawful administrative searches of Federal license holders, but in any event, he doesn't care to let us know. His suggestion that state authorities could have some power to prevent ATF agents from carrying out measures legal under Federal law is, in a word, ridiculous.

If you've served the term of a sentence, you are entitled to be released. "Rehabilitation" has nothing to do with it. I don't think we need a system where you've served your sentence but beauracrats get to pronounce upon your rehabilitation. Many criminals are lawfully out of prison, which doesn't mean they aren't criminals still.

Music OK. But got dragged to Mama Mia, the movie, and suffered.

How about a hamburger, a coke, and fries? I agree it's a plural noun. Not, I confess, the most important subject of the age. Seldom order "French fres". Just "fries".

Here's an Alpoish question that occurred to me a half-hour ago as I stood in line at the local drive-in. This is an old traditional drive-in, not a chain, and is the same as it was when I was in high school over 55 years ago. The guy ahead of me orders "a double cheeseburger, a cherry milkshake, and an order of fries." He doesn't say "an order of cheeseburger" or "an order of cherry milkshake". But he says "an order of fries", even though all of them are orders. Why not just say "fries" as part of his order. Would that be confusing? Don't see how....

I've wondered about him, too. A really weird character in Dirty Harry...

I've seen 'em both posted. But then someone has to watch the whole movie.....

True enough but "back in the days" that 20 bucks was as big as a blanket; it would get the family through the rest of the week many times.....

I've given up worrying about the movies. If you do, you'll never be satisfied. So, for the most usual example, you've just got to accept Winchester 1892s as the generic lever action of the Old West. Only when they put them in or before the Civil War can you get peeved. When they use an 1873, they get extra points with me. Somehow, the movies seem never to have heard of the Spencer, apart from a couple of rare examples. Westerns should be full of Spencers in the first decade or two after the War. But books are different. If you are writing mysteries and cop books, then you have to do basic research and some gun-handling yourself. Otherwise, why are you even doing it? It's all pretty simple, as we all know. To me, it really mars the story when they get it wrong. No excuses there.

To a Caribbean pirate king of the 17th Century and a Spanish princess he captured, on one side. On the other, one of the illegitimate sons of Charles II, who married a female descendant of a Byzantine empress. That's what grandad told me anyway, and I believe it. After all, don't we all go back to kings and aristocrats? Otherwise it would just be boring peasants....