NRA goes from bananas to ape crazy
This week's firearm legislation in New York might seem like a good idea to some of us, but that mild-mannered gun safety club the NRA certainly doesn't agree with that. But the NRA has become a special kind of crazy, at least those sitting at the top.
I heard head paranoid gun nut Wayne LaPierre say on NPR this week that the government confiscating guns was actually a strong likelihood following a national gun registry. That's the sort of thing unhinged white people worry about when they get their minds off "city dwellers" and other varieties of dark-hued individuals that are coming to invade their homes. Always vigilant against bogeymen!
Even their regular paranoia doesn't come close to matching that on display in this new video that makes the claim that your children need the same amount of security as the president's do, and because the president is out to stifle your God-given right to have the same firepower as a team of Secret Service agents surrounding a world leader.
It really speaks for itself, and when someone does bother to talk about it, it's usually accompanied by words like "crazy," "whacked out" and other varieties with the same meaning. Is there anyone out there who wants to start of an actual national gun safety advocacy group, or do we all prefer the distinct Jack D. Ripper-styled concerns of the current group?
Ignore
It's okay, though, because if science comes through for us, it's all going to turn out to be bunk, anyhow. I mean reality; I mean how we perceive it.
This Slate article not only examines the idea that we don't live in a real universe, but rather a Matrix-like simulation, but says this is something that can be tested.
Not only that, the Daily Galaxy is offering the research of string theorist Erik Verlinde, who is working to show that gravity and the Big Bang, like temperature, is not what it appears to be to us, but an illusion based on circumstances in the quantum level.
Without going into all the hubbub, the basic idea is that there is no "nothing": The smaller you go, the more you find something that is imperceptible to humans and therefore makes the human perception of any force of nature to be far from the reality of what that force is.
Kon nichi wa, Jesus
A force people can quantify a little better is that of some kind of god -- not me, of course, but that's what makes such stories as this Smithsonian coverage of the Jesus legend in Japan so amusing and, well, charming.
The little burg of Shingo offers itself as "Christ's hometown" and has a funny little legend to go with it:
Apparently, Jesus was not crucified. That was his brother Isukiri. Jesus had come to Japan during his famous lost years and returned after he faked his own death, taking the name Daitenku Taro Jurai, marrying and having a daughter. Jesus' remains are buried there. He has descendants. Every spring there is a Christ Festival. The town has the Legend of Christ Museum.
You didn't know all this and you call yourself a Christian? No surprise really. You're only just now accepting Mormonism, and even that is tough because you're doing your best to ignore its update of the Jesus story, so I understand if the Japanese addition is challenging to embrace.
John Seven is the Transcript's arts and entertainment editor.
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