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Mr. Keillor, Your fluid writing style makes you especially dangerous. It is your own weapon. With your gift comes responsibility, and you are provably irresponsible. I know that you have access to discover the truth, yet you are willfully ignorant. I think that your intransigent bias keeps you handicapped. As ridiculous as your suggestion is that transgenderism is a virus, it is, indeed, a movement that is really being aggressively promoted, encouraged, and affirmed. How do you explain the clusters of teenage girls who decide to “become” transgender? FYI, the FBI does tap our phones for metadata. It’s called the Patriot Act. Really. George Soros is a communist and has stated his goal to destroy our country. Read up. Really. It’s neat that you think that your picnic among the rhodies and laurels will have a bucolic ending if a crazy person who wants your delicious picnic goodies shows up with a weapon. But since you have no guns, you’ll lose your picnic basket and maybe a family member. It’s really a good decision on your part to have no way to defend yourself and your loved ones. Gun fetishists (what a revealing term you’ve used) own 50 senators. What does this even mean? Your logic AND math are really flawed. Yours is not a good life; it is a miserable life. If your goal is “gaiety at 80,” you are missing the mark, unless, of course, you are happy targeting half of your fellow Americans. Your article was dark, destructive, yet sanctimonious! So disturbing. You are responsible for promoting disinformation. What a negative world you have been manipulated into. Really. Jean I assume you are a real person and that your name is Jean, so here you are. I write what I think and so do you and here we are. I’m going around doing shows in red states to crowds that (I assume) are somewhat on your side of the aisle and I don’t say a word about politics, they enjoy the stories, and we sing the national anthem together and the Battle Hymn of the Republic and “America” as a way of showing that we’re one country. What are you doing to achieve this, Jean? GK We have a cat named Angel and she has some wild friends you might not believe unless you saw them come to visit! When she is on my desk in her box by the window, the hummingbirds come to visit at the window, and they visit beak to nose through the glass. If we are in the living room, the gecko comes to tap on the sliding glass door. I have no idea how they communicate, but they seem to have a way. She runs over to see him. Perhaps the glass is a safety shield — I don’t know, but it reminds me of Rodney King and his comment, “Can’t we all just get along?” Bobbie A lovely story, and I hope you manage to figure out how they communicate. The intelligence of animals, their sense of the world, their sensibility, is a realm that’s getting more attention these days in the biological sciences. And maybe they do have something to teach us. I’d guess that the hummingbird does not fall into the Prey category for your cat, but that the gecko might, absent the glass, be a competitor. GK Dear Garrison Keillor, The Rabbit …… “Don’t shoot!” said the rabbit “It’s such a bad habit. Although you may think it fun. But you’d think it less funny, If you were the bunny, And I were the chap with the gun.” by Sharon D. Roslund age 8 – 1943. Alma, MichiganMy father worked for Dow Chemical and secretly for the FBI for our small town during the War. His black pistol was tucked under white handkerchiefs in his top dresser drawer. I would sometimes peek; horrified. It influenced my writing! Thank you! Sharon R. Lovely poem. I’m not aware that rabbits have aggressive tendencies, but maybe I’m wrong. I imagine your father lacked those tendencies too and simply was required to have a pistol handy, like my dad, who worked for the Railway Mail Service. He thought the love of guns was rather ridiculous. GK GK, Clay Blasdel and others justifying AR-15s for civilians should be reminded that proposed bans and restrictions are for assault-style weapons, which should cover any future workarounds. We agree that body armor should be banned and that the age for gun purchase be raised to 21. The possibility for single shot .22s to be used as a sniper weapon is ludicrous, even with .22 long rifle ammunition. The lack of range and accuracy to get off one shot makes it a lousy sniper weapon. Same for the Mossad’s weapon, only good for single assassinations, not for mass killings. The use of assault-style weapons for hunting is ridiculous. That’s not sporting. My family only used a single shot .22 rifle and a single shot 16-gauge shotgun for hunting. If we would have gone deer hunting, we would have used a single shot 30-06. Use of an AR-15 for home defense is also ridiculous. Bottom line: there are no legitimate uses for assault-style weapons by civilians. Bob Buntrock Thanks for clearing this up. I’m ignorant of weaponry, thanks to my father’s lack of interest in it. I had a dear friend who, in middle age, became enamored of guns and stocked an arsenal of them and got deeply into right-wing conspiracy theories and our friendship disappeared. I still feel bad about it. He was a good guy. He wasn’t a hunter; he kept them around because he admired the technology and also they made him feel powerful against an invisible enemy. GK Garrison, There are ten million or so AR-15-type weapons in this country, many of which are owned by folks who vow, “You’ll only get my gun when you pry my cold, dead fingers from it.” So, even if the Feds mandated melting them all into plowshares, there would still be many thousands hidden away. With the NRA and politicians desiring re-election, it ain’t gonna happen anyway. How about this? Make assault rifle ammunition at least $1,000 a round and possession of more than three a federal crime. Tim TerMeer You’re suggesting that wealthy people are less likely to commit mass killings and you may be right about that. GK Dear Mr. Keillor, In regard to the question of when to use “who” or “whom,” here is what I was taught: When the person referred to can be called “he” or “she” then use “who,” as in “Who left the milk out?” “He did.” When the person being referred to can be called “him” or “her,” then use “whom,” as in “Whom do we have to thank for this bottle of spoiled milk?” “We can thank him.” An easy way to remember is that “who” goes with “he/she” (note that all three words end in vowels) and “whom” goes with “him/her” (note that “him” and “whom” both end in “m”). As an avid reader and former English major from a small Midwestern college, I may be considered a reliable reference on grammar. I also have a trick to remember the difference between “stalactite” and “stalagmite” if you ever need help in that direction or a lost in a cave. I hope this helps and does not hopelessly confuse the matter further, but in any case, using all those quotation marks has made me dizzy and I’m going to lie down for a bit. Your friend, Dave Thank you for the elucidation. After all the gun talk, it’s good to get onto the solid ground of grammar. GK Dear Garrison Keillor, Thank you for the good wishes. My wife is quite happy, deeply engaged with her relatives and friends, playing viola, gardening, enjoying long walks in the city, and I think she enjoys being married to me. She manages our life very well. She is the sociable one and I sit for hours at a table and tap on a laptop. I have a picture of her when she was seven, with a huge grin on her face, and every so often I see that grin on her face and it makes me happy. Being an old fundamentalist, of course, I am wary of pleasure, but I enjoy her pleasure a great deal. GK Garrison, You have a massive bully pulpit very well earned but your cynical comments at the end of great reviews lessen your credibility about the gun issue. Pushing people to move out of Texas is one example. We do need to gather over 80 percent nationwide support with a definite challenge that all will sacrifice deeply to get a sensible law enacted. Push that hard until we get it done through the U.S. Congress!!! Bill McCarron I only said I don’t care to go to Texas, Bill. I would never ever seriously tell other people where they should or should not live. Really. I have sometimes written about Minnesota as an earthly paradise but that’s called humor. GK Garrison, I am 64 years old and just finished reading your book Serenity/Gaiety. What a delight! I plan to pass it around to as many people as I can to spread the good news! I was beginning to fall into the same old pit of despair over aging as most do but this book has helped change my perspective and I am writing to express my gratitude! And PLEASE finish that screenplay about the five funerals of enemies! Lori Voss I’m working as hard as I can, Lori. A screenplay full of funerals is not easy to make into a comedy but I’m trying. GK Poor Garrison. No wonder he is bewildered by the state of the world he once-upon-a time relied upon to provide a reliable compass heading toward a commonly shared sense of orderliness. We, he, are now beset by both those we have always considered the natural enemies of our shared sense of an orderly set of social arrangements, but, much worse, we must now also contend with those who we formerly took for granted as allies mounting a rear guard action against us because of our egregious failure to absolutely and perfectly avoid the slightest hint of insensitivity toward anyone, anywhere, at any time. Quelle Horreur!!!!! My reply to a friend’s email of your recent missive. Stephen Thein Appreciate your concern, Stephen, though I’m not a victim of anything. Life comes with bumps. But I’m almost 80 and enjoying work and doing shows and tonight I’ll walk out on stage and sing: I come from a town called Lake Wobegon Where spring comes in June and doesn’t last long. We do not tell lies for it wouldn’t be right, And we don’t talk to strangers, but I will tonight.It’ll be a mature crowd and for intermission, I’ll have them stand and I’ll hum a note and sing “My country, ’tis of thee” and they will pick it up and we’ll sing some old songs for twenty minutes. We’re the last generation who knows the words and enjoys singing with strangers. I sing bass, women take the melody. Believe me, I am not to be pitied. GK GK, I attended your Bend, Oregon, show tonight with my wife and kids 8 and 5 sitting in the back row and I wanted to express gratitude for giving them a taste of what my life was like growing up in the great town of Odin, Minnesota, in the amazing Watonwan County. They may be too young to take it in, but as a Midwesterner in Oregon I felt understood for the first time in a while even if it was to gets laughs out of people. I am always amazed how the people in the stories are different real people to everyone in Minnesota. What a strange bunch we are. Thank you and as a true Midwesterner male I don’t know how to properly express myself and am now trapped in the long goodbye … OK, thank you buh-bye now … drive safe and watch out for deer. Zach Nordby I’m sorry you were in the last row, sir. Maybe you thought the kids would get restless and probably they did. If I’d known they were there, I’d have made the show shorter. Thanks for coming. GK GK, We have a clear Republican voice here in Central Texas who has declared the primary reason we need to hang onto our assault rifles and automatic weapons. Our U.S. Representative, Chip Roy, finally told the truth about why Americans need to arm themselves. He noted that gun controls “is all a pretext to ban weapons,” so they can lock us up in apartments like they do in China when a pandemic hits. If they pass laws to take our guns away, he asks, “Then what are the citizens supposed to do if the government is tyrannically trampling their rights?” Surely, we can’t trust those pinheads in Washington who can’t balance the budget and are now driving up the price of gas to punish the Russians. I know it’s hard for you to speak out on these things when you have so many readers who don’t want to know the truth about what’s really going on here. Scooter Larson Creedmore, Texas Sometimes reality and satire intersect and one crosses over into the other, and this is one of those times. GK
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