EDITORIAL

Thanksgiving

David A. Lombardo

It is Thanksgiving morning and it's pretty easy to be pessimistic and depressed.

In the big scheme of things we're saddled with four more years of a narcissistic dictator. Within 24-hours of reelection, the Messiah went on record supporting the United Nation's Small Arms Treaty and he wasted no time in unleashing his Hellhounds Pelosi and Feinstein. The two wicked witches of the West have set out to vanquish the non-believers who would dare to be armed to protect kith and kin from denizens of the deep, social unrest and potentially a government out of control but the loony's are not limited to the land of the fruits and nuts.

New York's idiot savant Mayor Bloomberg, whose brilliance for getting rich doesn't translate into caring about the safety of his citizens, has renewed his determination to disarm every law abiding citizen in the United States because it works so well for New Yorkers. I don't wish to cast dispersions on fellow boys in blue but when a handful of innocent bystanders are riddled exclusively by cops engaged in a shootout with bad guys - something's out of whack even if it's only New York's finest tactical training budget.

And all that is the fetid frosting on a half-baked cake that includes open gang wars in our city streets, high gas prices, a surging illegal immigrant problem, an impending economic disaster, numerous states forwarding petitions to secede from the union, and the demise of the Twinkie.

On a far more personal level I'm entering yet another holiday bereft of significant other, my two beloved golden retrievers both died within 11 months of one another, my radio show still lacks enough sponsors to sustain it over the long haul, my checking account is threadbare, and there's something infuriatingly wrong with my garage door opener that causes it to raise 18-inches then drop closed again.

Morose thoughts festering in my head, I was headed to bed last night when I passed a framed piece of Batik. Seeing it catapulted my thoughts back to Indonesia 1986 and the woman, squatting on a cement floor in a dimly lit factory, who had made it. In two days she would be finished and they would deliver it to my hotel. It was the beautiful portrait of the goddess of fertility spreading seed across the land; admittedly, a somewhat disconcerting image in a bachelor's house. I recall seeing the woman's legs scarred by years of dripping hot wax - the wax being part of the painting process used on the cloth. It was a two week, obviously painful effort to produce and for $10 one could only wonder how much she would be paid.

Over the years I have fought a widely unpopular war, been to places where people lived in huts, had slit trenches in the jungle for toilets, begged for food and were subject to being jailed for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. All that and more would be bearable if there was the slightest glint of hope that they might, through their own determination and hard work, rise above it but there was none.

As I began to nod off I pondered about how fortunate I really am to live in a country where people can readily rise above their station if they have the determination and willingness to work hard. All the big government and social ills notwithstanding, we are truly the masters of our own ship and failure has much less to do with external circumstances and far more with personal issues. In the United States we can travel freely, our stores are stocked to the ceiling with goods, we can say what we think and everyone is only one good idea away from being the next Bill Gates. For that, there is reason to give thanks and I'm off to a family gathering for a bountiful dinner assuming I can get the garage door to open.

Update: Wounded Warrior Project

Last week we reported that Tom Gresham had been rebuffed by the Wounded Warriors Project when he asked them to be a guest for Veteran's Day on his Tom Gresham's Gun Talk radio. Gresham, trying to give some air time to what most would consider a worthwhile program, was told by WWP's public relations director Leslie Coleman: WWP does not co-brand, create cause marketing campaigns or receive a percentage or a portion of proceeds from companies in which the product or message is sexual, political or religious in nature, or from alcohol or firearms companies. After the incident went viral on the Internet WWP's CEO Steven Nardizzi contacted Gresham and said he'd be on the show to clear up the misunderstanding. I suggested a wait-and-see position before smearing the organization globally online. Gresham explains what happened on the show in an article titled "A Self Inflicted Wound" as the last item of the November 21^st issue of The Shooting Wire. After reading his piece I suggest listening to Nardizzi on the program. He starts off reassuring, gets vague and turns hostile. Judge for yourself but personally I'll be headed in a different direction in the future.

Henry Repeating Arms on Way to Full Recovery

Henry Repeating Arms' Bayonne, New Jersey manufacturing facility reports substantial progress toward a full recovery from significant damage sustained during Hurricane Sandy. More than 100 pieces of manufacturing machinery damaged by salt water are on track to be repaired or replaced by December 1st. The company expects to be fully operational by the beginning of December and has already begun shipping Henry rifles to its distributors. Anthony Imperato, Henry's president, said, "This is a painstaking process. We've had to replace motors, circuit boards, pumps, coolant tanks, and more. Some of our most expensive sophisticated machinery was damaged beyond repair and had to be replaced outright. We are getting through this with the help of some very talented people including our own staff and we're on track to emerge stronger with increased manufacturing capacity." Hurricane Sandy killed scores of people, turned off the power for about 8,000,000 people from South Carolina to Maine and canceled 15,000 flights. Over 6,100 New Yorkers swamped the city's shelters, the ocean, rising to over 13 feet, flooded New York's Battery and seven subway tunnels. In total, Sandy warranted over $3.6 billion in federal aid.