A Merry Christmas 2014

The Cows Are Getting Tipsy on Christmas Popcorn

Hey, they're not my cows. And no, I have not been shopping drunk down in Harvard Square again. Merry Christmas!

You Can Still Get the MAG5-60 for Christmas

The $179 100-round magazine is out of stock due to tremendous demand and heavily backordered, but SureFire wants you to know that their $129 60-round mags are available now. At 2 pounds each fully loaded, that's a little lighter load than the 3.3 pound 100-round mag. Or you can get two, for 20% more total firepower.

Both magazines are compatible with M4/M16/AR-15 variants and other firearms that accept standard STANAG 4179 magazines. Best of all, FREE HOLIDAY SHIPPING! That's free ground shipping on all orders of $40.00 or more. To ensure delivery by Christmas, orders must be placed by:

Noon on Wednesday, December 13, 2012 for Standard Ground shipments
Noon on Thursday, December 20, 2012 for 2nd Day shipments
Noon on Friday, December 21, 2012 for Overnight shipments

Actually, December 13, the day before the killings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, was a Thursday. The shooter is reported to have had 30-round magazines, which some of us might be excused for thinking is already way more than enough. But if 30 is not enough for you, SureFire will ship overnight to 41 states (not including Massachusetts).



The Bushmaster .223 semi-automatic rifle shown costs around $1,391.48. You have to pass a background check to get one of these, unless you buy one at a gun show, or find one your mother left lying around the house. It comes with the standard 30-round magazine. I've shouldered an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle like this myself. It's kind of fun, although the friend whose gun it was commented on my poor marksmanship by suggesting I buy a shotgun.

What about ammunition, always a great stocking stuffer? The Ammunition Depot has this notice on its website:

Dear Customers - If any particular ammo is listed on our website, it is in stock. Due to dramatic increase in ammunition demand, please allow 7 to 10 extra days for us to process, ship and email your tracking information. Please understand that the reason we've had to raise prices is due to sharp increases in replacement costs in the wholesale market, which we hope will be temporary.

All of these purchases are protected by the Second Amendment right? Wrong.

Now don't get me wrong. I believe the Second Amendment means what it says, "the right to bear arms shall not be infringed." But no less a gun nut than U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia ruled in District of Columbia v. Heller (554 U.S. 570 (2008)):

(1) The majority of the 19th-century courts to consider the question held that prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons were lawful under the Second Amendment or state analogues.

(2) Nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.

(3) We also recognize another important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms. Miller said, as we have explained, that the sorts of weapons protected were those "in common use at the time." 307 U. S., at 179. We think that limitation is fairly supported by the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of “dangerous and unusual weapons."

You see, most of what you hear about Second Amendment rights, including that old chestnut about having to join a well-regulated militia (don't have to, never did), is actually wrong. Yes, you have a right to keep a loaded handgun in your nightstand so that an intruder has something to shoot you with in your sleep or point at you when you wake up, but that's about it. Owning a semi-automatic handgun or rifle is a privilege, not a right.

I'm glad to see that the National Rifle Association has said it will offer meaningful contributions to the national debate on what we should do now. I've been to their headquarters in Virginia. They gave me a copy of Wayne LaPierre's book Guns, Crime, and Freedom. I read it. On the other side, the proponents of gun prohibition need to rethink whether their equally hardline positions just reinforce the not-so-erroneous perception that any proposal for needed regulation is a pretext for infringement of the Second Amendment.

I'm not saying it's time for all semi-automatic weapon owners to stack arms, although under the Second Amendment all you are really entitled to is a revolver, breech-loading shotgun, and bolt-action rifle. Anything more is a privilege that can be taken away anytime enough Americans are ready to do so. If we don't get better background checks and screening in place, and get gun owners to lock these semi-automatic weapons with high capacity magazines up tight when not in use, it is going to come to that.

There's a little thing about "life" and "property" in the U.S. Constitution too. And, dear gun owners, if you want to get yourself something for Christmas, may I suggest a very good gun safe. You'll sleep better and may live to see Christmas morning.

Christmas Season in Harvard Square

Pictures from the days leading up to Christmas in Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Bonny's near Fresh Pond

Salvation Army bell ringers at the Harvard Coop

Harvard Square Business Association feeds the multitudes latkes


Joe Kessler and the Klezwoods dedicate this one to the Arab Spring

Outside the William Brattle House

Cardullo's window display

Harvard Coop window display

Poinsettias at the Brattle Square Florist

Harvard Square Theater on Christmas Day

Occupy Wall Street May Be Home for Christmas

The big question about Occupy Wall Street and the other Occupy movement cities around the country is how long they plan to keep their tent cities doing. My prediction is that they will be home for Christmas.

Now of course, the police may clear the various parks and squares where they are now camped. But they could of course relocate and set up new tent cities.

December is significant, as Congress typically adjourns for a few weeks over Christmas. This year the U.S. has set a December 8 target for the Christmas adjournment. We saw that date extended further into December in 2009 for the Senate ObamaCare vote and in 2010 for the tax cut extension compromise. This year spending cuts are on the agenda for December, with the Super Committee set up in August scheduled to report the day before Thanksgiving.

The Super Committee may be the real target of the Occupy movement in the U.S. The Occupy protests are modeled after protests in Greece, Spain, Italy and Britain over austerity budgets. And what the Super Committee has been charged with is coming up with an austerity budget that will have bipartisan support in Congress.

If you go to the Occupy Wall Street website, you'll find that they've scheduled general assembly meetings through September 23, 2013 (internet working group meetings are scheduled into the 2020s and beyond). On the other hand, this was the original call for protesters in July:

"On the 17th of September, we want to see 20,000 people to flood into lower Manhattan, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades, and occupy Wall Street for a few months."

How long is a few months? "Few" often means "three" and three months from September 17 brings you up to a week before Christmas. Christmas Day on December 25 is exactly 99 days from September 17. "We are the 99%" is their slogan so that could be the magic number.

Of course, the Occupy movement is an army, an army of activists to be sure, but still an army. And many an army has been told they'll be home by Christmas only to find themselves camped on the frozen ground through a bitterly cold winter.

Just What Was Evangelicist Pat Robertson Smoking?

There are some headlines that you just don't expect. Here is what Pat Robertson actually said a couple of days ago on The 700 Club:

"We're locking up people that take a couple puffs of marijuana and the next thing you know they've got 10 years. They've got mandatory sentences; the judges throw up their hands and say there is nothing they can do. We've got to take a look at what we're considering crimes, and that's one of them. I'm not exactly for the use of drugs -- don't get me wrong -- but I just believe that criminalizing marijuana, criminalizing the possession of of a few ounces of pot, that kind of thing is just costing us a fortune and ruining young people. Young people going to prisons, they go in as youths and come out as hardened criminals, and that's not a good thing."

A later email added this clarification:

"Dr. Robertson did not call for the decriminalization of marijuana. He was advocating that our government revisit the severity of the existing laws because mandatory drug sentences do harm to many young people who go to prison and come out as hardened criminals. He was also pointing out that these mandatory sentences needlessly cost our government millions of dollars when there are better approaches available. Dr. Robertson’s comments followed a CBN News story about a group of conservatives who have proven that faith-based rehabilitation for criminals has resulted in lower repeat offenders and saved the government millions of dollars. Dr. Robertson unequivocally stated that he is against the use of illegal drugs."

Let the punishment fit the crime. I don't know, that still sounds kind of progressive. Or is it just the spirit of Christmas?

Stephen Colbert Wishes You a Merry Christ-box 360

"It hurts me to say this folks, but if Jesus really is a liberal, it is time to get the Christ out of Christmas.
...
You know me, I am no fan of the term X-mas or X anything, I make my kids play Christ-box 360. And if they break a bone they get Christ-ways.
...
Because if this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are or we've got to acknowledge that he commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition, and then admit that we just don't want to do it."

2010 Clarinda Lighted Christmas Parade

The Clarinda Lighted Christmas Parade commerates the Page County Courthouse fire, which was put out saving the historic courthouse with help from the volunteer fire departments of several neighboring communities. The pararde is held in Clarinda, Iowa annually on the Friday after Thanksgiving, this year November 26, 2010.

Wicked Hardcore Christmas Partiers Have Broken Into My Condo

I leave town for a weekend, and some wicked hardcore Christmas partiers break into my condo and film a music video. My apartment is having more fun than I am!



My favorite line: "Shopping drunk, down in Harvard Square. Or was it Davis Square? Who cares."

You can purchase the classic song Wicked Hardcore Christmas along with the Wicked Hip-Hop Christmas remix featured in the video and a few bonus treats for the low, low price of $3.99 (so low I get no kickback).

Boxing Crate and Barrel

The Crate and Barrel store at the corner of Story Street and Brattle Street has closed after almost 30 years in Harvard Square. Since the late 1970s, this was the place for Cambridge yuppies to stock up on their housewares. They had the coolest stuff. Designer glassware imported from Europe. Kitchen gadgets for uses you had never imagined.

If you went to a wedding, a shower, a birthday party, or even an office party with gifts, there was sure to be at least one white box with the black lettering from Crate and Barrel. And year in and year out the staff was always incredibly nice, an endless train of young brides to be who would take the jobs there for the employee discount on their wedding registry.

It was business as usual through Christmas, but in mid-January they announced they were closing and sold the place down to the display cases. On the last day, the store had plenty of people, pawing through the last of the red Christmas and blue Hanukah plates in stunned disbelief.