Silversea Water Cooler: Welcome! Part Five

[mysty]

 

8 minutes ago, turtlemichael said:

What's wrong with a holiday for a horse race - seems perfectly natural to me!  Sadly it is going to be rather wet, at least the forecast says so.  We need the rain. Therefore the damsels in their finery and haute couture hats may be rather sodden by the end of the day.  From my experience going to the track a few times many years ago most people are sodden on the inside whatever the weather! 

 

Absolutely nothing wrong with a holiday for a horse race Turtle!!!  Any excuse to celebrate is brilliant!  We need more of that in our world!  Enjoy the festivities and stay dry (at least on the outside )

[UKCruiseJeff]

Good Morning All ...

 

Many non-Brits will be aware that this last weekend we celebrated Guy Fawkes Bonfire night and all around the UK every town and city had at least one or several displays ... and even most villages would have a display.  Ours had a few. 

 

One of the most celebrated is the procession and fireworks in the historic town of Lewes.  It is a marvel that there isn't more injuries than there is and the display is more rustic than choreographed but non-Brits might be interested in seeing this years efforts and if you yearn for more Google has dozens ..

 

 

[mysty]

Greetings Coolers!

 

Spoiler alert:  Cross Counter (23) has won the 2018 Melbourne Cup beating Marmelo (9) and A Prince of Arran (17).  Not all sunshine and roses however.  The Cliffsofmoher, was euthanised at Flemington Racecourse – the sixth horse to suffer that fate since 2013.  He suffered a fractured shoulder. He was unable to be saved and was put down at the track.  There are mixed feelings about this race.  We have the same kind of concerns here in Canada with the Calgary Stampede.  The chuck wagon races sometimes lead to animal deaths.

 

Great video J!  Thank you!  It does look like all kinds of dangerous though!

 

Today's funny.....

 

 

Have a great day all!

 

Edited November 6, 2018 by mysty

[silkismom]

I changed my setting to "email instant alerts" (I think it was) and I got all the postings on my tablet while gone. Couldn't use the app, but was able to follow along anyhow.  Enjoyed

[Daveywavey70]

Great video Jeff,

here in Maenan we had 8 sparklers, 2 Catherine wheels and 8 burnt bangers. 

‘Might try Lewis next year. 

[UKCruiseJeff]

Hi Dave .... 

 

Yes there are some really good firework displays on Youtube this year.  One taken with a  drone at Burgess Hill  is remarkably good.  

 

We have arrived at Seaside after a very blowy rainy night.

 

 

[mysty]

Greetings Coolers!

 

Welcome back DW...you have been missed!

 

More fireworks!  Awesome!  Looks spectacular.  Thanks J!  Enjoy Seaside!

 

My funny supply has been depleted.  I'll go on a "funny safari" later today.

 

Happy Birthday Miss S.  Have a marvelous one!

 

Have a great day all!

[mysty]

Tumbleweeds around me sing their lonely song.  Along with the cricket chirps.  Very quiet here.

[jpalbny]

Home the past few days, really enjoying the darkness...NOT!

 

We have managed to get a short walk in every day after work in the last rays of light. Tonight it was pretty dark by the time we finished up and got home, though.

 

Time to make dinner; have to concentrate on eating light and drinking much less wine, until we purge that Southern cooking from our system. Thinking a nice pasta dish.

[mysty]

Greetings Coolers!

 

JP...I'm not a fan of the early darkness either.  Does tend to put a crimp on outdoor activities after people finish work.

 

My funny safari yesterday netted me a few specimens.  Today's funny relates to Seaside (courtesy of Meanwhile in Australia).....

 

Any resemblance to J is purely coincidental .

Have a great day all!

[UKCruiseJeff]

 .........  thanks M.  It’s really blowy and rainy down here at Seaside ... wifey is off for some supplies tomorrow and undoubtedly will return with some fresh fish for me to cook.  

 

It is somewhat weird and bewildering  to be observing from the sidelines the unfolding political events in the US.  Who’d have thunk ?  The older one gets, the less one can make sense of things. 

[mysty]

Calls to mind "If..." by Kipling.......

"If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;"

 

But more accurately...........

“Laugh whenever you can. Keeps you from killing yourself when things are bad. That and vodka.” 
- Jim Butcher, Changes

[UKCruiseJeff]

In my view Kipling may have made “Exceedingly good cakes” but he fails to capture how as one gets older and supposedly wiser one increasingly is confronted with how little one understands about anything.  😄

[mysty]

Doesn't that presume that everything is understandable?  With gained wisdom or not.....some things absolutely defy logic.  Simply because.....we are human and flawed.

[UKCruiseJeff]

No, I think is is the far easier presumption that one understands more with the benefit of greater acquired knowledge and experience that inevitably comes with age.  That presumption to me sounds incorrect in that the more one understands the more one realises one doesn’t understand.  The absolutes that one always relied on to navigate through life often gets tested by the actual facts that only emerge gradually.  

 

The belief that civilised societies are civilised seems to be a good example. 🙂

[mysty]

The problem may be that there are really no absolutes.  What we adopt as our personal absolutes are based on many things that we believe we understand.  When it develops that we don't understand it may be because what we saw as absolutes never in fact were.  

[MBP&O2/O]

This tickled my warped sense of humour ... just imagine you have had one too many and pop into the nearest bathroom .... beats your average floor cover. Amazing what you can do with a lick of paint.

 

Edited November 8, 2018 by MBP&O2/O

[UKCruiseJeff]

I think it involves our presumptions about what we sensibly believe might be commonly held values in civilised societies as well.  For example until one sees what actually happens, one might presume that a genuinely civilised society would put the need to protect it’s citizens and children against the proliferation and danger of firearms against the rarely needed right of a citizen to bear arms in order that the arms might be used in extremely rare and virtually unknown circumstances for self-protection.  The resistance to that change is counter inuitive and bewildering.  

 

Another example would be how in societies that believe that they enjoy the hard fought right of free speech and the presumed benefits of accountable government that free speech should produce, are in fact as badly misinformed by their governments  as those societies without those rights.  

[mysty]

Your points are valid J!  No argument there.  Unfortunately commonly held values do not win elections.

[jpalbny]

Gun control...If I may be forgiven for trying to simplify a horribly complex topic.

 

It is one of those things where there is a very significant urban/rural divide and the two sides might never see each other's point of view, because that view is entirely foreign to them.

 

First of all, the second amendment was put into the Bill of Rights during a very different time. A well-armed militia was pretty much all that we had in the new USA and we needed to preserve that. It was the basis of the Continental Army and I am sure that the founders realized that the American Revolution (sorry Jeff) would have gone very differently had the Colonial population not been armed and ready. Thus a fairly strong protection of the right to bear arms was a fundamental and necessary part of early America.

 

I hear (and mostly agree with) the arguments that the second amendment was meant to protect single-fire muzzleloaders and that automatic weapons, weapons of war, etc which are too dangerous for non-military use don't qualify for the same protection. But that's not the major point, I don't think. Last night's events show that you can do just as much damage with a legal pistol as you can with an AR-15. And good luck drawing the line of what's OK to own or not.

 

Similarly, the argument that having heavily armed citizens keeps the government in check may have been real at one time, but it has largely been rendered moot by a heavily-armed police force and standing armed forces, against which an armed citizenry has no chance.

 

In wide parts of rural America it is common to carry guns for hunting, recreational shooting (target practice), and personal protection (whether you believe that they are effective in this manner or not). I grew up in this type of environment. I learned to shoot as a child. I hunted as a teenager. I learned a very healthy respect for what guns could do and how to take care of them. They were a part of rural life and having them around felt totally normal. I was never worried that my neighbors would shoot me. We all knew each other, mutually respected each other, and the thought never even crossed our minds.

 

I live in a city now and I don't own guns. The city is a totally different place from where I grew up, and I don't think that there is much of a purpose for guns there. There is less use for a gun in the city, unless you think that it adds to your personal protection. But does it, on average? Clearly the toxic mixture of a high population density, a general loss of civility, and many people quick to jump to anger does not go together well with easy access to guns in today's America.

 

So I wonder if the widespread use of personal firearms for personal protection has lost its overall "average" effectiveness, especially in urban areas. Your gun may protect you in the limited case of a home invasion where it's you and an intruder, but you are probably overall less safe if you live in a city of 3 million people if 10% of them are carrying guns. Odds are better that you'll be a victim of random gun violence, don't you think?

 

How do you reconcile this? The rural population doesn't want their guns taken away, and for the vast majority of legal rural gun owners there really is no reason to do that. But the urban population most definitely wants the guns taken out of that environment, and the numbers are probably on their side! They both have valid points, FOR THEIR PARTICULAR SITUATION, but each side sees the other as unreasonable. Because the second amendment is nationwide, it becomes an all-or-nothing argument about a situation, when the problem and its solution is so much more complex. Sound bites will not work here.

 

The law-abiding gun owners are therefore leery of any restrictions on gun ownership proposed by urban lawmakers. It's probably not so much that they disagree with reasonable restrictions on gun control; I am sure that every law-abiding gun owner is just as sickened by these massacres as those of us who don't own guns are. And the law-abiding owners realize that these events reflect badly on them. But there are at least two big concerns about gun control from the POV of legal owners.

 

One, what if it's a gateway to draconian restrictions? Laws almost never get more lax over time. Two, how do you guarantee that criminals will give up their guns? For those concerned about personal protection, voluntarily disarming is anathema when the other side isn't disarming. I can't think of good answers to those questions. So I understand why the NRA will dig their heels in and cite the second amendment rather than engage in meaningful dialogue, even though it doesn't accomplish very much. But isn't that the way it is with any substantive issue here in America? 😉

 

In an ideal world rural and urban America could have different laws concerning gun ownership. But that's impractical, and probably not possible without modifying the second amendment. So we muddle along unable to do anything but offer thoughts and prayers while people die. It's horrible but I don't have any answers. Looking forward to yours.

[mysty]

Thanks so much JP for a reasoned, focused and clear observation of the complexities of the issue.  It does appear to be a Pandora's Box.  And yes, thoughts and sympathies to the recent victims' families.

[UKCruiseJeff]

Thanks JP,  you may have forgot but you very kindly laid out these arguments patiiently once before.  So thanks.

 

I perfectly understand the generalisation of creeping legislation but from a purely practical viewpoint a couple of observations/questions.

 

Firstly, as I understand it most armed killers are disabled by armed police and not armed public.  In fact I cannot recall reading of an armed killer being stopped by an armed member of the public, so does this actually happen?  

 

Secondly most citizens going about their normal daily business do not expect to be murdered by an armed person. I presume also that most people do not routinely carry weapons.  And certainly not in their hands. cocked and ready to go.  So,  Is it likely that even if a person is armed that when confronted with a person that has pulled out a weapon and is just about to shoot them that they will be able to draw a weapon and shoot before they are shot? I understand the desire to be armed, but does it from any practical purpose achieve any protection?

 

I understand the emotive arguments, but from a practical viewpoint I am struggling to think of a genuinely likely set of circumstances where someone is actually protected. 

Edited November 8, 2018 by UKCruiseJeff

[jpalbny]

Oops. I hope I was consistent. So many posts in the Cooler I can't remember...

 

There are definitely reports of armed bystanders stopping armed shooters, etc. They are as you state the minority of cases, but the number is not zero. The stories are readily available. Whether this makes enough of a difference to justify arming more people or not is an open question. If you are one of the ones who is saved you would have a different perspective, of course, from that of a victim of gun violence. We tend to put more statistical weight on things that we have direct experience with.

 

When discussing a situation as serious and irreversible as death by gun violence your perception of the probabilities tends to get skewed the closer that possibility seems to you. Anything that improves the odds of it not happening can be seen as a good thing by proponents and potential victims, even if it's not really likely to ever happen. Though the odds of an armed bystander randomly being present and stopping a shooting are very low, they are clearly not zero. But could you not argue emotionally that improving the odds is a good thing? Even if it's only part of the complete picture...again, I think you have to consider the other consequences of having a larger number of armed citizens around just in case.

 

Regarding your other question. No protection is absolute unless perhaps you can draw faster than Han Solo... 😄 Thus my acknowledgement that having a bunch of people carrying guns around your city probably makes you (on average) less safe rather than more safe. The more guns surrounding you, the more likely that one might get used against you rather than to save you. I think that applies even if you are carrying one. It's not like you'll have time to use it in the situation you describe above.

 

The argument for keeping guns at home for self-defense makes more sense in that you'd be more likely to have time to find and use them. But it raises other questions about keeping guns accessible in your home. How do you keep them safely away from children, yet quickly available in an emergency when you might need them? And those guns would also be accessible in heated situations (like arguments) which is likely not a good thing.

 

Ultimately we need to look at this in real numbers, kind of like we're learning to do in medicine. If you have a one in a million chance of dying by gun violence, and carrying a gun reduces that risk 20 percent, that sounds really good! Except when you do the math, you realize that you would have to arm five million citizens to prevent just one death. Will that actually work in real life? Will those five million citizens all use their gun responsibly, or will one of the five million accidentally shoot themselves or someone else, negating the benefit? Or will a few of those five million turn out to be unstable and do something much worse?

 

**NB. I don't know the actual numbers to plug in to the previous paragraph. But the principles of absolute vs. relative risk reduction are valid.

Edited November 8, 2018 by jpalbny

[UKCruiseJeff]

JP,

 

Thanks.  My instinct is to accept all of what you say because, I am a Brit, and you are a professional American who is closer to the evidence than me.  I am however finding myself remaining sceptical about all of the scenarios you outline as to whether the current situation represents an over all better risk for individuals and society.  I feel that I want to argue with each of the points.  So you will be relieved to read I won’t.  I’ll just highlight what I consider to be the real issue. It is my old theory of disparate converging tredns prodcuing predictable results if we recognise the early warning signs.

 

It is my instinct that society generally, but disproportionately younger generations are having greater and accelerating degrees of mental health problems largely caused by several trends.  The  pressures caused by increasing insularity alongside thr exponential advance of social medias place in youngsters lives makes mood swings and the feeling of being marginalised, unpopular, outside of mainstream, un or invalidated etc etc i think will produce a greater number of people sufficiently mentally ill to resort  to the type of terror we are increasingly witnessing.  I do not know what has caused the recent spate of shooting incidents  but how many are caused by well balanced people that were psychologically sound when they took the action they had taken. 

 

My point is that the base number of people who are currently sufficiently ill to do such terrible things is low by comparison to where I feel the trend might be heading.  i am suggesting that the current understandable but misplaced feeling that being armed provides some sort of immunity to these situations is totally illusory and ignores how great the risk may be increasing because of (from perhaps a small current base) the increasing numbers of people that will flip snd have easy access to the arms around them.  I’m not convinced I have done justice to the complex,point I’m attempting to make, but in simple terms I’m suggesting that as bad as it may currently be, I think you have seen nothing yet to the way the number of these events may be heading. In simple terms I think we will be seeing more kids, and adults who are having a bad day because people increasingly online were rude to them - going out and killing people. 

 

I hope I am wrong. 

 

 

Edited November 8, 2018 by UKCruiseJeff

[Lois R]

JP, you always have such thoughtful posts.  I was raised in a city and my family never owned a gun...…..I can't remember ever being around them growing up.  I agree with your assessment of each situation being different.   I have no answers either but I do know (just for me personally) every time I see something like this I want to break down and cry. (which I did multiple times over the past 2 weeks).  

Now, this is just my opinion, but I think 1600 Pennsylvania Ave has done NOTHING......after Parkland I was hoping something would change.....Sandy Hook, Pulse, Las Vegas, Pittsburgh and now Thousand Oaks...…..is this who we are?