Blindhogtruffle

BLOG #4

Like clockwork (assuming your clock is broken), the hog blog returns. This time, we take a swinely look at one of many controversies swirling around our educational system: the growing drumbeat for arming schoolteachers. But the Hog leaves aside the usual blather about safety, making killers out of teachers, and the possibility that if little Snavely is clever enough to place an unnoticed tack on a teacher’s chair, he might conceivably get his grubby little hands on Mr. Fiordinoorts’s Smith & Wesson. No, with all the electrons and newsprint being wasted on these facets of the issue, the Hog focuses on the one thing none of the political yahoos mentions: the cost.

Let’s be clear: the Hog is neither pro nor anti-firearm. A gun is a tool, and a darn useful one in the right hands. But the right hands are guided by a brain that understands the responsibilities, training, practice, and expense involved in firearms ownership. To hear your local legislators talk, you would think that all we need is to do a little screening and a little training of teachers, and they’ll be ready to go all Rambo on the next Charles Whitman, Adam Lanza, Harris and Klebold, Seung-Hui Cho, etc. And, like most politicians, they seem not to have considered the cost of this little endeavor, let alone who will bear it. So let’s look at some numbers: 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 11… OK, some relevant numbers.

First, each teacher involved will need to acquire, or be furnished with, an appropriate sidearm for defense. The U.S. Army has chosen for its new standard issue pistol the Sig Sauer 320 in the 9mm configuration, replacing the Beretta M9. And in a live fire situation, most authorities would agree that a semiautomatic pistol is preferable to, say, a revolver. While there are many choices, a reasonable possibility for “educational” purposes would be the Glock 17, a light, reliable 9mm weapon that has the added advantage of simplicity. It retails for between $499 and $726. Although bulk discounts would likely be available, á la U.S. Army, for entire states equipping all their school districts. Problem here being, not every handgun is right for every hand. The choice of a sidearm is highly personal, and you must be comfortable with a gun to be effective with it.

But one doesn’t just lay down five C-Notes for a naked, ahem, gun. Proper use requires accessories (“gear”, in the male argot) such as holster, hearing and eye protection, extra magazines (or “mags”), a good case, a lock, a safe (an absolute necessity), and supplies. All told, the initial expense would be around $1000, possibly much more, depending upon the safe.

Next, we have training. The typical expense for an hour of handgun training in the private sector is roughly $75. Your mileage may vary. However, we are talking about a situational training course for someone who is likely a novice. For any such course to be worth its salt would require a seasoned instructor and a goodly number of hours. Not to mention significant immersion in simulated live-fire situations (oops, mentioned it). Proper reactions require force-on-force training (Google it). Even considering bulk discounts, $500 per teacher seems reasonable.

So now we have the gun, the gear, and we are all trained-up. Anyone who has tried to hit the broad side of a barn door with a bigger pistol than a .22 knows that it requires practice. To hit the bull’s-eye consistently at any distance, lots of practice. One soldier of the Hog’s acquaintance says it requires 16,000 rounds of practice to become consistently accurate. These rounds aren’t cheap. The least expensive online bulk 9mm ammo is over $0.30. Per. Round. That’s over $4,800 worth of practice ammo. You can save money by reloading, but that requires an additional initial investment in the equipment, ongoing cost of supplies, and even more time invested in the enterprise.

BTW, if you’ve ever actually fired one of these beauties, you know that they kick. Hard. So, between the kick and the expense, most practice sessions are limited to between 100 and 200 rounds. Let’s say 150 rounds per practice session, that’s a cool $45 up in smoke.

Ah, but you need a place to practice. Most spouses, not to mention neighbors and local authorities, frown upon the installation of an improvised firing range in the basement. (“But Honey, think of the money we’ll save…”). While it is still possible during the warm months to drive far enough out in the country to find a mound of dirt suitable for a backstop (“Look, Forksnort, there’s one!” “Dude, that’s a cow.”), the time involved makes it impractical, and there are still the winter months to consider. So what’s left is membership in a local shooting range, at an initial cost of roughly $250-$350, with an attendant monthly nut of $30-$35. (Or you could choose $25 per session).

And now that you have the gun, ammo, gear, training, and place to practice, now all you need is a spare couple of hours per week to develop and keep up your proficiency. The Hog doesn’t know about you, but two hours per week is but a drop in his proverbial trough. Perhaps not so much for teachers who actually have lessons to prepare, homework to grade, and other educational activities peripheral to their newfound soldierly duties.

Speaking of time, a handgun is a machine, and requires periodic maintenance and repair. This is typically performed by the owner, who must become familiar with the procedures involved in disassembly, cleaning, lubrication, and reassembly. If regular maintenance is not performed, the gun will become unreliable (and useless for defense), if not downright dangerous to its owner. Some tools and supplies are also required, at an additional expense. A reasonable estimate would be $100 to get started.

We would be remiss not to note the additional expense to the schools and the states of the inevitable litigation that will result from thousands of guns (in hands of amateurs of varying expertise and temperament) roaming the halls of academia. Whether the schools are self-insuring or have to purchase insurance, increased expense is foreseeable, if not immediately quantifiable.

A quick tally:

Gun: $500.
Accessories: $500.
Training: $500 (conservatively).
Ammo for proficiency: $4,800.
Range membership: $350.
Annual range dues @ $32.50/mo.: $390.
Maintenance tools and supplies: $100 (up to unlimited for gearheads).
Additional insurance and litigation costs: best addressed by lawyers and actuaries, preferably in a padded room.

“Grand” total: $9,900, plus $390 a year in monthly expense. $10,000 of expense, per teacher. The next question, then: who will pay for this munificence?

Well, this is where the proverbial substance hits the well-known appliance. You see none of these sultans of safety adding to their pontifications, “of course we’ll need a tax increase to fund the $10,000 per teacher expense.” Better yet, “sorry, but we’ll need to lower the thermostats to 50° to fit teacher peacekeeping implementation (bureaucratese for strappin’ up schoolmarms) into the budget.” No, in typical American fashion, the soundbites fly thick and fast, making considerable political hay, not to mention the byproducts thereof after digestion by bulls. But with no mention of expense.

The decision to own a gun entails considerable changes in lifestyle. It is not something one picks up as easily as a frozen dinner at the supermarket. So, the proposal to arm teachers carries with it all sorts of expenditure of time and money. Before anybody buys into this trumpery, so to speak, make the bastards tell you how much, and who will pay. Let’s see them soundbite their way around that.

Next time: trumpery?

“Honesty is the best policy.” – B. Franklin (a.k.a. Poor Richard)

“The unspoken truth is a lie.” – Anon.

These aphorisms are probably inapplicable to cocktail party etiquette (Duuuude, spandex shorts, mismatched socks, and sandals? Really??). But they have stood the test of time in other contexts. They came to BH’s fertile mind in the kerfuffle over the, um, assets of a certain presumptuous nominee of the GOP (Le Parti des Oignons Grands). You know who we’re talkin’ ‘bout, but some explanation is in order.

In the Blind Hog’s sty, the man known to the late, lamented Spy Magazine as “the short-fingered vulgarian, ” whose name rhymes with “dump,” is referred to only as “he who must not be named.” The Hog refuses to further an advertising campaign masquerading as a presidential candidacy by allowing an obnoxious brand name to pollute domestic tranquility, much less this blog. But HWMNBN doesn’t make the nut: it’s awkward, and wastes time on the inconsequential. And it seems only fair to find a more suitable sobriquet for a man who traffics almost exclusively in ad hominem attacks centering on pejorative nicknames (Lyin’ Ted, etc.). So, the public-service-minded Hog takes on the task, as he is all about the ad hoginem, and more than happy to get down in the mud.

As it happens, there is a fortuitous confluence between the question of the substantiality of the nominee’s junk and the need for a proper moniker. But, if only for the sake of propriety, there must be rules. Rule #1: No reference, even by rhyme, to the brand name/surname. Rule #2: It must be catchy, accurate, and lend itself well to slogans. And Rule #3: Maintain a suitable level of dignity (readers, all two of them, can decide what on that).

Having ruled out the last name, we are left with the first: “The Donald.” Don for short. A little free association: Don Johnson (oooh, but already taken), Don Giovanni, Don We Now Our Gay Apparel? The last has a certain perverse appeal, but it’s kind of a slogan unto itself. No, we need something more descriptive, more adjectival, more… short-handed, if you will. Little Don? Getting closer, but also already used (“Little Marco”). Petty Don? Trivial Don? Minuscule Don? Don Who Can’t Fill His Briefs? Let’s see, let’s see, something closer to home. Got it: Piddling Don, PD. PidDon. Donald of the Piddle (DOPE?). And we’ve followed the three rules. Followed them back to the topic, which was: honesty, and the unspoken truth.

During what passed for GOP primary season, Marco Rubio made an awkward attempt to piggyback onto Spy’s ingenious description, by implying small hands, small…you know. Although empirical observation confirms that things are often proportional, PD took the bait, guaranteeing “there is no problem.” Now, it being the political season and all, PD has said all sorts of unverifiable things (build a wall, make Mexico pay for it, I can be as presidential as the next guy, etc.). But this business of there being no problem is not one of them: it’s eminently verifiable. The evidence, or lack thereof, is as plain as the nose on the candidate’s face (but 2-3 feet lower, and obscured by the pants). Ordinarily, common decency would forbid further inquiry. But common decency and PD don’t belong in the same sentence (“I guarantee there is no problem”). And there they are in the same sentence. Irony is still not dead.

What’s a skeptical Hog to do? In the spirit of the philosopher Reagan, “trust, but verify.” Or Fra. Franklin: “Believe none of what you hear, and only half of what you see.” If PD wants to lose his newly minted pseudonym, he can no longer keep his D&B on the QT. No more unspoken truth. BH says: Drop Trou, Piddling Don! DTPD.  DTPD on TV! There is no problem? Then dispel all doubt!

Now, you may say this is beyond the pale, even in this foul political season. But hear the Hog out. This man (we assume) has run a campaign on the cheap, by layering the outrageous onto the appalling, knowing that the media will gladly give him free coverage, and that the public will eat it up. (And if man ist was man isst, well, best not to even think about it). So far, it’s worked, but now he’s graduated from the bush leagues (so to speak) to the bigs, the presidential erection, er, election (sorry, Freudian typo). He needs a new level of offensiveness, catapulting him to new depths of tastelessness. Something that will simultaneously horrify and engross the voyeuristic masses. And here it is, on a silver platter.

Think no one would watch? Then I’ve got a bridge over some swampland in Arizona I’d like to sell you. It could be an hour-long special, liberally sprinkled with ads for Jockey, Viagra, Jack Daniel’s (“I could use a good stiff drink!”) and Ipecac (“if you haven’t gagged yet, try an Ipecac attack!”). The ratings would rise steadily, yea, even turgidly, until the moment of truth, the climax, as it were. The world would finally know for sure whether there was a problem or not. And all within the aforementioned rules, especially the one about a suitable level of dignity.

It’s a win-win, folks. The truth would out, and, regardless of whether it was huge or somewhat less so (the truth: get your mind out of the gutter! Oops, too late!), and there’d be more publicity for Piddling Don. And for the American public, which can’t get enough of bread and circuses, not to mention “reality TV?” Well, it just doesn’t get any better (or bigger).

Worth a try, don’t you think?

Some would say I was a lost man in a lost world
You could say I lost my faith in the people on TV
You could say I’d lost my belief in our politicians
They all seemed like game show hosts to me

–Sting, “If I Ever Lose My Faith in You.”

The Stingerino got that one right. Although the Hog suspects there wasn’t that much belief to begin with. In fact, the comparison is an affront to game show hosts: I knew Wink Martindale, I worked with Wink Martindale, and sir, you are no Wink Martindale. At least when Wink said you’d won $1000 on Tic Tac Dough, you could take that to the bank (heh, heh). By contrast, skepticism of a politician is warranted only when his lips are moving. This is at least partly because pols spend so much time promising something they have neither the ability nor the intention to deliver. But political promises are not the only bushwa clogging up our lives.

No, all the media present both speculation and opinion as fact. Whitehead said: “Everything of importance has been said before by somebody who did not discover it.” And so the Hog is on board with the wag who stated he wished the media would confine themselves to reporting things that had undergone the formality of actually having taken place.

O, halcyon days of a half hour of Huntley and Brinkley, and another 30 minutes of local news, instead of 18 godzillion channels devoted to “news,” 24/7. But no halcyonism (halcyonosity?) for us. So, to fill up the other 23 hours, we’ve got a bunch of modern-day Cassandrae and Nostradami blathering about what might happen tomorrow, next week, next year, or even better, some time in the future. (That way, if it hasn’t happened yet, it still might, so don’t touch that dial…). Guess it’s only right that the media should have a medium doing the predicting. Or, waxing factual for a change (but only as a last resort), reporting the news that some prediction either did or didn’t come true.

Can we, in this day and age, tolerate this kind of uncertainty in our news? The Hog says nay, nay, one thousand times nay (well, oink, actually: this ain’t no blind pony blog). And so he offers for your consideration, to allow us all to live in the present moment while obsessing about the future, Blind Hog’s Alternative News (BHAN). Guaranteed to be at least as accurate as anybody else’s.

How does it work, you may ask? (Or, in the spirit of BHAN, you might not. But you got this far, so let’s assume you did). Ripped from today’s headlines: “Dish Customers Could Lose KRDO.” The Hog’s Alternative News: “They Might Not.” (Whew, we might not lose our news!). It’s just that simple. “Caucus has some Springs voters excited.” BHAN: “Others sprain jaw muscle yawning.” “2016 might bring recession,” or better yet, “Economy might be in recession now.” BHAN: “Or not.”

Oh, but surely the business section will be speculation-free. “Oil prices to double by 2020: growth in production to decline in next five years.” Really? News about what’s going to happen in five years? When they can’t seem to get it right about what’s going to happen tomorrow? You know the response. Actual quote from the article: “Nobody saw the shale-oil boom coming…” No kidding.

Msn.com: Debate may offer last, best chance to stop Trump. BHAN: Might not be best, might not be last. Might not be last best. A free threefer (threefreefer)? Yikes, we’re going off the rails here…

But for true substance, try sports. Once you’ve spent five minutes reporting the actual scores, there is nothing more left than to spend the remaining 55 minutes of the hour speculating about future results. The entire season is plagued by pundits telling us not only who is going to win this week, but also who’s going to win it all at the end of the year. Will the Porcupines have the first pick in the draft next year, and, if they do, who might they pick? A prickly pickly question. The two weeks before the Super Bowl featured sports talk hosts interviewing other sports talk hosts about what still other sports talk hosts thought about who would win the Super Bowl. Now, the Hog likes the media covering the media covering the media as well as the next pachyderm, but there’s only so much swill even a hog can take.

And don’t get the Hog started on the weather. Too late, he’s already there. 30% chance of rain tomorrow. BHAW: 70% chance of sunshine. El Niño might bring drastic changes in the weather. Or, might make no difference whatsoever.

The beauty of this system is that most news, whether factual or pre-factual, is bad news. Truly, no news is good news. But now, courtesy of the old Blind Hog, we can just direct our feet to the sunny side of the street, in the words of a song that predates Gordon Sumner. The key is to remember that this obsession with the future serves only the needs of the media, their corporate masters, and their political clients. Shots in the dark about future disaster help keep the people in fear, glued to their screens, and looking to a product or some government to save them from what hasn’t happened yet. (See Sting on politicians, above).

Try it. Pick up the paper, turn on the TV, or fire up the Internet, and look for signposts of speculation, harbingers of doom and gloom: “might,” “may,” “could,” 50% chance,” ‘Snavely Fiordinoorts says X will happen,” “Blind Hog asserts’ it won’t,” etc. Flip them on their heads, smile, and think of your preferred pig.

No need for thanks; it is sufficient that the Hog might have been of service.

Well, here we are (finally). The first question is: What took you so long? It’s only been a year and a half since this BHT enterprise was announced, so what’s the rush?

I guess the answer is that the old Blind Hog (BH to his porcine pals on the golf course, as in: “ya rally strahped thet one, BH,” to which the self-deprecating Hog responds: “Waaall, even the blahnd hawg” etc.) has been rooting around in other truffle patches. Fertile as those other tuber troughs have been, though, we finally found our way back here, if for no other reason than to answer the next burning question:

Why Blind Hog Truffle?

Why not, for example, Blind Squirrel Acorn? Or Blind Squirrel Nut? Or Blind Pig Nut? Or Blind Politician Truth?

Although the last has an indubitably perverse appeal, the Hog needs something more cliché, with reference to something that happens at least once in a while. And as for Blind Squirrel, those initials won’t cut it on the links. As they say in Texas, that dawg won’t hunt. Come to think of it, neither will that squirrel, But I digress.

Regarding acorns and nuts, the Hog fancies himself worthy of more upscale quarry, as befits one who refers to himself in the third person. So let’s see: good initials, adequately banal, but ending on a high-end note. Yep, passes all the tests.

Having put that issue in the ground, so to speak, one turns from the sublime to the ridiculous. I refer, of course, to Donald Trump. The leading Republican candidate for the presidency has achieved that status by also being the leading media darling. Of course, he has other qualifications. He’s rich (and not only fiscally…). He’s been a star of reality TV (one of my favorite oxymorons, right after “jumbo shrimp” and “honest politician”). He’s got great hair (just kidding!). And he’s going to make America great again (maybe at least better than the hair=). And he’ll replace the Affordable Care Act with “something terrific.” Who wouldn’t vote for that package?

Well, the Hog, for one. Because Trump is a bully. Debates with him are like street fights without shivs and baseball bats. No common denominator is too low for the man. “Ad hominem” to him is Latin for “is there any other way?” (Full disclosure: the Hog recognizes the irony of making an ad hominem attack on another while criticizing his ad hominem tactics. Perhaps we need a new term: ad hoginem. A sty by any other name, and so on.) But, as Steve Allen used to say, all seriousness aside: Trump’s bullying tactics appeal to a large swath of the electorate, one that feels bullied by political, economic, and social forces beyond its control. Experience with bullies tells us that they are typically bully-ees themselves. Since they are basically coming from fear, they have a tendency to back down when confronted. Neither bullying nor backing down from confrontation when the bluff is called is something we want in a president. And Trump’s black and white approach feeds the authoritarian direction the country is already taking.

But then, take the alternative: Sen. Ted Cruz. Please. (Where else will you see references to both Steve Allen and Henny Youngman in one post?). Upon learning of the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, Cruz’s response was to insist that the Senate block any appointment by President Obama, so that the appointment could be made by his successor. Imagine this scenario: Cruz and his allies in the Senate agree, on the record, that they will block any Supreme Court appointment made by Obama. They sign a pledge (perhaps authored by Grover Norquist). Obama appoints Cruz. Imagine the backpedaling: Tour De France, here we come!

Okay, never gonna happen. But a hog can dream…

Anyway, welcome to the blog. Next up: Blind Hog’s Alternative News.

Howdy Folks! You may have arrived here thinking that the site concerned swine or gastronomic delicacies. Not so (though both may make a periodic appearance). The ramblings contained herein are certainly the product of the mind appreciative of both things porcine and fungic. A range which pretty well covers the gamut of reality as we know it. Welcome to my hogblog!