Randy | February 17, 2013
“Never go to clubs with metal detectors. Sure it feels safe inside. But what about all those niggas waiting outside with guns? They know you ain’t got one.” ~ Chris Rock Chris Rock uses the word “nigga” the way I use GU (Great Unwashed). All considerations of race, social status, or job description notwithstanding, an […]
Randy | February 13, 2013
In last week’s edition of Worldly Wisdom Wednesday, I spoke of the The True Arte of Intelligent Discourse, and identified it as but a subset of the larger Discipline called Manners. Moving forward from there, let’s dig a little deeper. Why are Manners important? Because they garner approval from society, as well as from individual […]
Randy | February 8, 2013
Tomorrow marks the anniversary of an event for which I will be forever thankful to the Universe – the birth of my Beloved Diana, half a world away in Poland. Nearly a year ago, I commemorated her birthday with a poem. One of many she’s inspired, and will come to inspire. Yet this year of […]
Randy | February 6, 2013
She taught me the art of conversation. How to listen, and how to appropriately respond. She taught me of social rank, and how one must be deserving of it. Of discretion in all things. I learned the importance of a cup of tea, and that it must never be refused if matters of any size […]
Randy | February 4, 2013
The blade strikes more primal fear into the hearts of men than the bullet. Possibly this is because few people have ever been shot, but sooner or later everyone will cut themselves to a greater or lesser degree. Thus there is a clearer understanding of just how bad things can get when the blade is […]
Randy | February 3, 2013
The most recent article in my Short, Easily Digested Firearms Education Lecture series referred the reader to the first two items in this parallel one. If you haven’t read any or all of that material, I suggest you do so before you continue here because those articles explore the historic and practical precedents for the shape […]
Randy | January 26, 2013
This is the second in my Short, Easily Digested Firearms Education Lecture series – the first being my article on the clip and the magazine. If you’ve read the first two installments in my What in the Name of Hell IS an Assault Rifle Anyway? series (part 1 here, and part 2 here), you will know […]
Randy | January 25, 2013
T’is said that a man in a kilt is a man and a half, but whatever faith ye subscribe to, today is Robert Burns’ Day, whether ye like it or not. If you’ve ever belted out your drunkest rendition of Auld Lang Syne as the clock struck midnight at the climax of a New Year’s […]
Randy | January 23, 2013
Misleading Vividness is a fallacy in which a very small number of particularly dramatic events are taken to outweigh a significant amount of statistical evidence. This sort of “reasoning” has the following form: Dramatic or vivid event X occurs (and is not in accord with the majority of the statistical evidence) . Therefore events of […]
Randy | January 22, 2013
Yesterday we looked at how lessons learned in the course of World War 2, the ingenuity of German military weapon designers, and the whims of Adolf Hitler gave birth to the first “assault rifle”. In bestowing the name, Hitler was referring to the concept of “assault” in the military meaning. As in assaulting an enemy […]