Culling the Herd

Recently, I have been dickin around with trying to finish or at least move forward several stories I have had on my "to write" list. They all have promise I think, but I haven't been able to make much progress on any of them lately.

I awoke this morning determined to work on one story. I brewed some coffee, poured a cup, and came back here to what I call my "office". It is really just another hoarding hot spot where I keep just enough junk out of the way to use the computer and listen to music.

Sadly, my morbid infatuation with bad news followed me in. The TV had been on while I brewed my coffee and of course the channel was set on a news channel. Morning TV in our house is almost always tuned to the news. The bad news of this day was another mass shooting at a mall in Texas, Trump's ongoing legal troubles, blah, blah .......blah.

On the tube, a state senator who lives near Uvalde, Texas was interviewed. In the last year since the Uvalde mass shooting, he had proposed at least four new laws to pump some common sense back into the bi-partisan nonsense that is Gun Policy in this country. He was asked about one of his legislatin' shoot from the hip com-padres who invoked God's Will to support his take on pro gun views. The State Senator replied, "He should be removed from office." 

Various gun control odds and ends filled out the news piece, but the point was made that all good and God fearing Texans were for guns without restrictions. Texas continues to keep its pedal to the metal supporting no gun control at all, while at the same time, pushing hard to force every woman within the state's borders to birth children no matter the cost.

I could feel my BP going up. I knew I should just walk away from this latest morbid infatuation, but I couldn't. I began to rant out loud to nobody particular and I created a fictional scenario. In my best, which ain't very good, Texas accent, it panned out something like this:

"Yes Sireee Bob, ... Buckaroos, the great state of Texas is gonna continue to support all ya'll's God given rights to own a gun, shoot a gun and go anywhere with a gun, especially to Church, ... Praise the Lord! "

"Now I know some of ya'll are a tad miffed that some misguided folks are abusin' our sanctified and legally protected gun rights by occasionally raising their 30 shot automatic Deer rifles against their feller citizens. We here at the Austin Statehouse, well sir, we got a plan to fix that."

I paused here as I had not yet thought up the plan my imaginary Texas legislator already had in his pocket. I sipped on some more coffee, sparked a doob and sucked on it  until it came to me. I stood back up, faced the TV and continued:

"Now, you have to believe me when I tell you we legislators take gun safety and the safety of our citizens who carry guns seriously. On the subject of Guns and the unborn, we ain't all hat and no cattle."

"We sat up late with some chaw, a few long necks of Lone Star, and came up with a bunch of plans. Some were, right out of the gate, tossed because well, we knew those whiny Libruls in our state would raise more Hell than it would be worth fighting. Arguing with a Librul is like hollerin' down a well."

"We finally settled on two proposals that had serious support."

"The first proposal came from the good legislator from East Texas, Billy Sol Estis Jr. He said, ......well what he said wern't quite polite; but essentially in a Texas nutshell, he said we ought to have regular sanctioned hunts. Everyone's so fired up about over populatin' the planet, well, free range, no holds barred, sanctioned hunts could help to bring the out of control populations under control and at the same time, fill every Texan's need to shoot something." 

"Just like the deer we cull to keep the herds healthy for the next hunting season, trimmin' down segments of the over populatin' losers in the state would make life so much better for the rest of us. He went on to say a series of well thought out controlled hunts would cut back on those certain segments of the population's need of needing abortions and sucking off the public teat, meaning we would most likely piss away even less money on Welfare than we do now. Win, win. He was sure of it ."

"Well folks, his plan created some serious discussion. In the end it was not to be. Some bleedin' heart Librul lawmakers from down Brownsville and Houston ways pissed and moaned about how it might be a smidgen racist. So we came up with a compromise, kinda."

 "Our plan is a low cost solution that addresses head on, the overblown issue of gun safety. Folks, it will allow our gun totin population some safe outlets for when they feel threatened, sad, or in need of just shootin' something, anything. You know, ........ we've all been there."

"The Great State of Texas will put out bids to all the in-state sign makers to come up with replaceable, cost effective targets, backed by bullet proof logistical materials. The targets would be found at malls, main streets, residential neighborhoods all over the state. We would only use the classic red-white circle targets though. No representative images of any critter, human or otherwise that might piss off those Nancies over to PETA, the ASPCA, or that crazed cat lady at the end of the street."

"Remember Folks, in Texas we's all equal, only gun owners and the "unborn" is more equal than others."

At this point, I ran out of breath, stood down, turned around, and sat down.  I immediately felt better. All the recently pent up anger over American Stupidity vanished for a moment or few. I had purged and tossed out ugly thoughts while some light began to slip in.

Ya'll keep your powder dry now, ya hear?

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The image up top right is the album cover of a self titled first album I think from a Metal band right here in Maine. I took their name as my post title, but could not find a tune from them that made my metal hairs rise up and be happy. They're not bad, just not my cup of Metal.

So, I had to look elsewhere. The song I found is from a Scottish group, "The Real McKenzies". It is called "Culling the Herd". Rockish, Punkish, it doesn't matter. They wear kilts and have a bagpiper on board. This tune has a " Turn up to WOW" designation.