Down in Racine an Alderman is working to make it legal for retired police officers to carry a concealed weapon. Am I missing something here? What makes a RETIRED police officer deserving to carry a concealed weapon when no other member of the public can?

For the record I am for a concealed weapon program in Wisconsin. However, I don’t believe the right to carry a concealed weapon should be restricted to select groups. A lot of people wrongfully assume that the right to carry a concealed weapon is rare. There are concealed weapon programs in 44 states. Wisconsin is in the minority. Opponents to concealed weapons like to scare the public with the threat that concealed weapons lead to violent rampages. That’s not true. There’s no doubt that there has been an increase in gun violence in unexpected areas, such as campuses or shopping centers. In all those cases, the perpetrator did not have a permit to carry a concealed weapon.

I believe the idea that retired police should be able to carry concealed weapons stems from the idea that police officers are not part of the general public. The police love to refer to the public as ‘civilians’. What exactly does that make them? They are civil law enforcement officers, commissioned by civil authority. Police are civilians and should be treated as such. They do not deserve and should not receive special treatment by the legal system or be granted special rights.

I’m sure one argument in favor of granting retired police the right to carry concealed weapons is that violent criminals may seek to exact revenge on a particular police officer. That threat is no different for witnesses to crimes. If there is a perceived threat, the retired police officers should have the same options as the rest of the public, such as police protection.

The date of my departure overseas is approaching steadily and I’ve found that some people have made no effort to spend time with me. It’s kind of depressing and liberating.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t want a “going away” party. Anyone that cares that I’m leaving will have made time to hang out already. I’m not going to waste one of my last nights in the country with part-time friends and empty gestures.

Yesterday I went to Milwaukee with Emma and it was great. We went to the Milwaukee Public Museum to see the Body World exhibit and the Human Body IMAX. Body World wasn’t as impressive as I thought it would be. I found it to be more disturbing and bizarre than interesting. I had high expectations I guess. I thought the displays would appear more lifelike, but they seemed artificial rather than real flesh and bone. I don’t regret going to the exhibit though. I wanted to see it and now I have.

The Human Body IMAX show was interesting. I learned that extreme close ups and time-lapse cinematography can produce unsettling results when displayed on an IMAX screen. When the show first started I became a little dizzy. I feared I was going “express my illness” onto the people seated in front of me. Thankfully the feeling passed quickly and I enjoyed the show.

We also went to the Milwaukee Art Museum. The modern displays were much more interesting than the classics. I guess I’m a product of the technology age. I can acknowledge the skill and creativeness of some classical pieces, but I don’t appreciate it. One of the really interesting exhibits involved light and darkness. It was just a dark room with lights on strings set evenly apart in rank and file. When you walked through the exhibit the air flow created by your motion would cause the strings sway. To the left is a picture of Emma in the exhibit. She’s the void in the center of the picture.

I dedicate this song to my Nana.

The winter proved to be difficult on my plants. I don’t have many, just three, but only one made it through the season unscathed. My banana tree, which I called ‘Nana’, took it the worst. She started dying as soon as the weather turned cold. She basically refused to hibernate like the websites about caring for banana trees claimed it would. Before she flatlined she produced three new shoots. I don’t know if I make a mistake when I transplanted her or if I was giving her too much/not enough light or water. Either way, she’s in a better place now.

My paddle plant did much better, but is still suffering. Two new shoots developed over the winter, but almost all of the large leaves on the main stem fell off. You can see all the white scar-like marks on the stem are where the leaves fell off. The remaining leaves feel soft and delicate. I fear this plant is dying and I’m not sure what I can do. I’m going to start putting in on the balcony during the day to hopefully get greater sunlight and bounce back. It used to look so nice. It had huge leaves with deep red highlights. Now it’s mostly stem and pain.

My final plant and most hardy was my triplet of succulents. Granted in order for these to die you almost need to trying to kill them. They grew about an inch over the winter and still look and feel healthy. When I bought them they were packed tightly together in a very small pot and I was worried that when I transplanted them and separated their roots that I damaged them. It turns out they enjoy their space and they still remain very close friends. I’m not sure how large these kids will grow, but they have plenty of space. If they decide they want to grow closer together, I’ll leave them. If they grow that large I can’t imagine how I could transplant them without causing too much damage to their roots.

I have a neighbor that has a very unusual habit and I can’t figure out why. Before and after driving his car he checks the gas cap. He doesn’t just open the hatch to see if the cap is there. He cranks on it to make sure it’s secure. I hear the loud clicking noise the cap makes when it’s at the fully closed position every morning before he leaves to work. Does my neighbor have OCD or does he have a bad gas cap that gets loose?

He’s not my strangest neighbor though. That award goes to the 50-something year old cross-dressing man. Dress how you like and be who you are, but at least put in some effort. This guy grew his hair long, but he’s balding and thinning so it looks terrible. He wears basically the same outfit every single day with some color variations—tennis shoes, a solid colored knee-length skirt and a long sleeve tight fitting blouse. At first I thought he was just a guy that liked to wear a tight kilt, but then I noticed the incredibly ugly earrings.