Enough

 Who is exactly responsible? 

Well, to hear the NRA lore tell it, guns don't kill people. People kill people. Although I feel the need to point out that giving people guns has made that task much, much easier. 

Which is probably why so many of these stories include a section describing how the killer of people managed to get hold of said gun. Or guns. Because having access to more firepower than many small countries is a right we stuck in our Constitution right after the right to complain about it. Furthermore, it is the potential for putting an end to someone's life, liberty and their pursuit of happiness that someone got it into their heads to sue the merchants of death. Pardon me, gunmakers. 

This past week, the Nevada Supreme Court ruled that gun manufacturers and distributors cannot be held legally responsible under state law for deaths caused in a 2017 massacre in Las Vegas. Sixty people were killed then. By another person who just happened to have a hotel room full of guns and ammunition to help him out. Though the court said the companies were immune from the wrongful death and negligence civil claims brought by the parents of Carrie Parsons, on of the victims, Justice Kristina Pickering wrote: "We in no way underestimate the profound public policy issues presented or the horrific tragedy the Route 91 Harvest Festival mass shooting inflicted. We urge the legislature to act if it did not mean to provide immunity in situations like this one." 

If you sensed a buck being passed there, you're pretty savvy. "We don't make the laws, we just interpret them. Go make some different laws so we can give the people what they want." The trouble is, there are still a lot of people who are completely comfortable having all those guns in our country. Last time someone did a count, there were more guns than people in this great land of ours. I don't own one, so that means that someone else has two. Or three. Or a hotel room full of them. 

Which brings us to the Crumbleys of Oxford Township in Michigan. James and Jennifer are the parents of a person who used a gun to kill people. The gun was purchased by James and Jennifer as a Christmas gift for their son. On Black Friday. That same gun was most likely being carried by their son as the family sat down in the principal's office for a discussion of the drawing young Crumbley had made depicting a handgun, a bullet, and a bleeding figure, with the words "Blood everywhere" and "The thoughts won't stop - help me." 

After this meeting, mom and dad headed home. Young Crumbley went back to class and shortly thereafter killed four of his classmates and wounded several others. And shortly after that, mom and dad went into hiding. When they were found, they were charged with involuntary manslaughter, because children under eighteen are not allowed by law to have one. Unless they are hunting with a license. At the meeting, no one bothered to mention the gun that had been purchased. Because that would have spoiled the surprise. 

The surprise came later. When their son killed other people. With a gun. 

Had enough? 

iContact

 If you are reading this, put down your phone. This may make it difficult to read if you're in the habit of catching my personal brand of telling it like it is via your cellular device, but I'm just asking you to set it down for a moment. The same with your keyboard. Push away from the desk just a bit to give you a chance distance yourself from the words you are reading. 

These are my words. My thoughts. You are free to have your own. You can feel free to share them. I would go so far as to encourage it. But first, read the whole thing, and then respond.

If you've got a gun in your hand, put it down. As a matter of fact, why not go ahead and take the time to unload it and lock it away someplace safe for the duration of this interaction. 

If you're in a car driving somewhere and trying to catch up with me on your way to buy a new phone or gun, pull over and read this all the way to the end before continuing on your way. Please do this safely. There is no rush.

What you are currently reading is a group of words assembled to incite a reaction. It is not to be ignored, like the instructions to an IKEA dresser. As long as you're here, stick with it for the duration.

Everybody comfortable? Everyone set?

Here it goes:

Pay attention to the things in life that matter. Spend more time with flesh and blood human beings than the avatars and electronic friends you maintain. Take the time to talk to your family in meaningful ways, and by this I mean somewhere outside the auspices of the comment section of their Instagram feed. If you're in a car or plane or bus or train, take the time to make eye contact with someone. It might be a little scary at first, but I promise you it won't hurt. 

Those people are someone else. They are not robots or computer game images. Their minds are doing things that yours may be doing. Their minds might have all kinds of things to share with you. You could try something really old school: have a conversation that doesn't involve typing with your thumbs. Or Caps Lock. Again, this could be frightening at first, because they sound you hear won't be just that of your own voice rattling around in your head. 

If you've followed this prescription and it doesn't bring you any relief from the urges to buy a new phone or gun, continue on your way. It's a free country, after all. These are only suggestions. 

Now if you'll excuse me, I am pushing away from my own keyboard to go look at other people in the eye. 

Sticks And Stones

 Whoever said that "sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me" did not grow up on my street. Nor do they live in my head where I can still recall the epithets that were hurled my way as I grew up. One particular "friend" had a rehearsed litany of nicknames for me, none of them complimentary, that he used to greet me on the off chance that I might have forgotten them in the hours since we had been apart. I was comforted on numerous occasions by the comparison of sticks and stones to words by parents, teachers and peers. Each time I took this sage wisdom and went out to do battle with the casual slings and arrows hurled in my direction. Not the physical, but the verbal. 

Something I learned along the way: There are those who, once they are ignored, will resort to physical abuse once the verbal has missed its intended target. That idea about turning the other cheek is great if you have more than two, or if you're a real fast healer. Otherwise, you end up with a lot of bumps and bruises. And scars. 

Inside and out. 

Now it's my job to try and mitigate the damage done to the self-esteem of elementary schoolers as they seek to assert their dominance over one another. At my school, I am fully aware of just how much our kids have lost in the empathy department after being away from one another for a year and a half. During that year and a half, they have been witness to models of the most egregious sort of behavior. From adults. Our elected officials seem quite content to make their case for their side by degrading and demeaning the other in the most aggressive way possible. And all the while, the wife of the twice-impeached former president and game show host used her lofty position to run a campaign called Be Best. From their website, regarding their second pillar of "online safety" comes this assertion: “By teaching our children uplifting, positive, and respectful online interactions, we take them one step closer to the safer lives and incredible futures that await them.” This might be a good place to point out that her husband's online presence was redacted because it was neither positive or uplifting. 

And yes, I understand that I am walking a very thin line by talking about a former chief executive and his wife in this way. I am not able to simply ignore or diminish such hypocrisy. In the same way that I am not able to ignore the ugly way that partisan politics is being carried out on a national stage with members of Congress calling one another names and posting threatening videos and generally behaving in a way that would get them suspended from any public school in this great land of ours. 

So, maybe it's not so great. Maybe the path to making America greater does not come from diminishing one another and wearing red baseball caps. We need to dig a little deeper and try to hold off on that pithy putdown, even if it comes as a response to being poked even harder. We have lived through a dark time where the War of Words turned physical. We are scared of one another and our reaction to that fear is causing that gulf to widen. 

We need to show up as better role models for our children. Before they discover just how devastating words can truly be. 

Not Again

 Okay, it was a pretty sick joke at the time, but it's starting to feel even more grotesque: The suggestion that the best thing about kids going to school online for a year meant that there weren't any school shootings. For a year. 

We were so focused on protecting children from the deadly coronavirus, we completely overlooked the potential lifesaving potential of keeping them out of the crossfire. The shooting at Oxford High School in Michigan this past week took the lives of three teenagers, wounding eight others. The killer is fifteen years old and was taken into custody moments after the shots were fired. 

This is the part in the story where those in the community start to wonder how "something like this could happen here." But at this point, why would anyone imagine that a high school is a safe place for anyone? What is especially troubling in this case is the number of signs pointing to trouble ahead of this. Oakland County Undersheriff Mike McCabe downplayed the significance of an incident in early November when a deer head was thrown off the school roof, which he said was “absolutely unrelated” to the shooting, this was in addition to allegations circulating on social media that there had been threats of a shooting. 

There were reports of numerous students who chose to stay home and submit their assignments online rather than head back to a place they felt held danger for them. These were not the students who were making what are now the somewhat commonplace texts made from behind barricaded doors, underneath desks, assuring their parents that they were okay. 

Okay? 

How can fifteen to twenty shots from a semiautomatic handgun fired in anger inside a school be construed in any way to be "okay?"

At least they had masks on? They were all vaccinated? Somebody help me out here. I get that we are all struggling to reenter society and that we are having a tough time of it. Homicides are up twenty-five percent across the country, even while the overall crime rate is going down. 

All of which makes me reconsider taking all my business, retail and otherwise, to the relative safety of Al Gore's Internet. Is there a vaccine for this? 

Settlement

 Alex Jones would like you to hear his side of things. The Free Speech side of things. It makes sense that a man who has bludgeoned the Constitution in every way imaginable would come slithering back to the First Amendment for salvation. His conspiracy laden world view has been sprayed across the country in a way that might best be described as "liberally," but that word does not seem to apply here. 

A Connecticut judge ruled this past month that Jones was liable by default in a defamation lawsuit brought by relatives of some of the victims of the Sandy Hook Massacre. The Sandy Hook Massacre that occurred in 2012. The one that Alex Jones began describing way back then as "a hoax." The parents of the children who were shot and killed that day would beg to differ. They would also beg to have Alex Jones and his minions to shut up. If you know anything about Alex Jones, you know how that plea might be ignored. He is far too busy speaking freely to hear anyone else in the room. Listening is not one of the man's strong points. 

If you have filed Sandy Hook away with so many other mass shootings over the past few decades, remember that twenty of the twenty-six victims were small children. First graders between the ages of six and seven. It was Alex Jones' assertion that this was all a made up "false flag" event, created by those who might attempt to undermine the insane vision he holds of the world. It's not the maniacs with guns we should be worrying about, it's the Clintons and the Obamas. He clamed that the parents who appeared on the scene of the murder of their children were "crisis actors," all a part of some bizarre theater presentation designed to take our freedom away from us. By "freedom," of course, he means "guns." 

There is not currently a statute on the books that suggests an appropriate penalty for being a soul-sucking leech on the belly of society. If there was, there would be a whole lot more lawsuits clogging up an already overstuffed legal system. The name of Alex Jones' podcast is Infowars, which might as well be Realitywars since the ongoing battle seems to be between him and the world in which we all live. Is he free to spin his yarns to those who might listen? From inside his own house, or on a busy street corner, but not with a worldwide web of a megaphone that shoves his rants into the faces of rational folks, some of whom are grieving parents. Once again we find ourselves confronted with an arsonist who insists that he is entitled to yell "fire" in a crowded movie house. 

I suggest taping his mouth shut and taking away his matches. 

Ladies And Gentlemen...

 This past weekend, the planet lost another soul. This one was not COVID-related, so it won't go into a specific count, but it will affect me and those around me for a good long time. It is possible that you are familiar with Al Kolwicz from his regular appearances on various forums and conservative outlets for his persistent views on voter fraud and other right wing issues. His was a voice that would not be stilled. 

Now it is. 

But Al's conservative views are not the reason for me to laud him here. I could be praising him for being one of the first voices for a cashless society, working in the mines of data that would eventually produce the Plus System, a way of connecting you to your money with a magnetic strip on a card. Ironic, considering his eventual distrust of networked computing for counting votes, but this is also not the reason I am taking the time to eulogize the man.

Al was nearly my father in law. Once upon forever ago, I thought I was going to marry his daughter. And all the intimidation that came with that distinction was felt keenly by me at that time. What exactly were my prospects, when it came to being part of the family. The truth was, as a college freshman, I had little to offer in this vein beyond those offered by being a studio art major. I was not, in so many words, a good catch. I was also terrified of the prospect of having to impress this man who had grown his own business out of his start at IBM. Al had prospects. 

And the reason I didn't just run and hide was that I knew this story: Al's ex-wife was a huge Elvis fan. He took his wife to see The King. She was lucky enough to be handed a stuffed Teddy Bear that Mister Presley used to wipe some of the sweat from his brow. She kept it wrapped in plastic. It was one of her prized possessions. What she never knew was that Al had made arrangements, paid arrangements, for Elvis to bestow this keepsake on his wife. As far as she knew, The King had singled her out for this special honor all on his own. She had been picked out of the crowd by some magic. The magic of a man bringing joy to his wife in the form of a sweat-stained stuffed animal. A romantic gesture to which I still aspire.

I can tell this story because Al has left the building. He goes with the beating heart of a romantic, no matter what else he might have done in his life. He will be missed. He stomped on the Terra. Aloha, Al. 

Band Of Brothers

I spent the back end of my Thanksgiving holiday watching the Peter Jackson Beatles documentary Get Back.  Like so much else that Mister Jackson has done, this is epic and expansive and maybe even at times excessive, but being a Fab Four Fan forever I was immediately drawn to it. This is a behind the scenes look at the behind the scenes documentary Let It Be. That one ran one hour twenty-one minutes. Compare that to the nearly eight hours presented by the Lord of the Rings auteur. 

The one made back in 1970 showed the slow disintegration of the world's greatest rock band. It concludes with the iconic rooftop concert, the last time the lads would play together as a band. Bittersweet hardly begins to describe it. Peter Jackson's film winds up with the same show, but the path to that gig is made so very much more clear that deciding to come together (see what I did there?) one last time on top of the Apple Headquarters was healing and inevitable. 

Spending three weeks with the Beatles as they tried to bring the vision of their next project to fruition gives us a chance to see the love and respect they shared. Not the divisive grumbling that would eventually become canon. George Harrison, history tells us, became a Beatle when he was only thirteen years old after John and Paul who were only a year or so older invited him. Ringo was comparatively old when he joined the band at twenty-two. Still, he got in at the ground floor and took the ride with the other three to the top of the pops. They were elevated beyond what they and the rest of the world had ever seen before. 

Expectations were high. This brought tension that could only truly be felt by the boys in the band. It is important to remember that their manager, Brian Epstein had died only a year and a half prior to this, and no one was minding the store. The Beatles were amazing musicians, not businessmen. You can see them struggle with suggestions from the director of the film within the film, Michael Lindsay-Hogg, for an enormous extravaganza set in the ancient amphitheater in Sabratha, an ancient Roman city in Libya. 

Somewhere in the midst of all this hoopla, George decides he's rather just quit. Only a couple of meetings with just the lads convinced him to come back and give it one more go. Watching the results of the sessions, not just the ten songs captured that would become their penultimate album, but all the noodling and jamming and silliness that took place in that basement studio brings joy to the session on the roof that closed things down. That was January 1969. Eight months later, The Beatles were finished. 

More than fifty years later, they are together again. One last time. And it's an amazing thing to watch fall apart.