Recent acquisition

Even nonlethal retrotechnology can be beautiful. This $2 example followed me home from a recent auction. It was a hot item for its time, with a fast f6.3-f32 lens, and three speeds (25 - 50-100) plus B and T on the shutter. Most of the old Kodak folders are plentiful and cheap, but I decided to give this one shelf space because of its condition -- mint. It may never have had a roll of film loaded. I'll look at it for a while, then announce its availability in barter for a modest something that might shoot lead.

It was an amateur camera, but not nearly so amateurish as the three-volt cockroach I just used to photograph it.

For retrogeeks: Kodak Vigilant six-20; Kodak Anastigmat f : 6. 3 105mm; Kodak No. 1 Diomatic

(Did you ever notice how much easier it is to keep a blog active by posting a picture and BSing about it? I mean, like, y'know, compared to thinking up an important topic and analyzing it with great care?)

Making a Home Unsalable

Brigid reports photographically on turning a powder measure into a lamp. Since her ranch is on the market, that leads to a funny discussion of the predicament shooters face when they decide to sell their homes. I've been there, and it isn't fun to get your butt all culture shocked by suddenly having to deal with the general public and a particularly objectionable subset of it -- the dreaded real estate peddler.

They +always+ insist that you change your house around to a sterile nothingness that would bore even a Nebraskan. I guess the idea is that any personality evident in a home scares the bejeezus out of house lookers, and that even a hint of gun grizzardry sends them screaming madly for their mommies.

So, as the photo suggests, I'm in trouble if I ever decide to leave Camp J. The "good" weapons are vaulted up, but I have a hard time living without reminders of the American frontier close by. For as long as I can remember I've had a lever gun hanging purdy in the living room, and sometimes a six-shooter keeps it company.

What you see is what's current in my Cowboy Corner, though I must apologize for the bland white behind the BL22 and the 94. The drywall is doomed, firmly scheduled to be replaced by honest pine very soon.

A very naughty two-word response is available for house peddlers and tire kickers who find it useful to tell me all this is offensive. (Actually, I need to trot it out for a couple of cousins every once in a while, too. It is a family curse that too many of my extended kin get their ideas -- decorating, manners, politics and all -- exclusively from Redbook, HGTV and Oprah. )

(APPENDIX 1: The framed item left is a copy of a Kentucky land warrant for direct ancestor John __________, a three-percenter who earned it as a soldier in the Virginia Continental Line. The stuff hanging is another self-conscious coup-counting device -- credentials from national political conventions and junk like that. The little revolver is one of Bill Ruger's early products, in the family for 41 years.)

Murder weapons

They're already registered, regulated, and heavily taxed. You need a federal permit to operate one. Don't know what we ought to do. Maybe a national one-plane-a-month limit?

The Tea Party Folks

They are a great public blessing. I think of them as a backfire shielding the citizenry from the grossest manifestations of current government stupidity and tyrannical intent.

I also hope I am being realistic in hoping the movement has a grounding in the Constitution and an informed dedication to repairing the abuses against it. Would these folks fight for ending no-knock entry? Civil confiscation of property? Traffic checkpoints? Would they reject substituting "reasonable suspicion" for "probable cause" in Fourth Amendment matters?

I purposely omit mention of gun control, abortion, classroom prayer, gay marriage and similar three-alarm issues.

Discussing the lower-temperature matters first might lead to greater clarity on where they stand on the crucial point: Government by laws which do not offend the Constitution and which are administered by men and women who take their oath of office seriously and literally.

Detesting the works of President Barack Obama and most of our current legislators is an admirable stance and a good start. But it is not a substitute for policy.