Music Friday: "Thoughts and Prayers"

Another week goes by and another mass shooting because of people's insane and fundamentalist interpretation of the second amendment that was written in 1789. 

So I'm presenting this DBT song yet again. 

Random Notes from a Crank

 As a follow up on the my Music Friday post, here's an op-ed from the Daily Eastern News: "Thoughts and Prayers Isn't Enough." 

Fuck your thoughts and prayers.

This is a fun video to watch if you're a Spurs fan. 

Here in East Central Illinois, the candidates for the GOP primary for governor and  House reps are trying to out-crazy each other. The TV political ads are nonstop.

Darren Bailey is a ultra-conservative moron, and Richard Irvin is a scam with well-endowed backers. And Mary Miller, she's downright nuts. 

Representative democracy can do better. 

You realize how often you wash your hands when you have a band-aid on one of your fingers. 

Music Friday: "Thoughts and Prayers"

The GOP representatives and senators are fucking cowards.

They need to stick their useless thoughts and prayers up their asses. 

Random Notes from a Crank

I'm not surprised by the report that Jake Fromm texted folks that guns should be expensive and only "elite white people" should have them: "Jake Fromm Apologizes..."

I would imagine the reaction of police officers would be quite different if the groups protesting over George Floyd were packing handguns and rifles like the protesters who went to statehouses over two weeks ago at Moscow Don's egging on. 

Some people think the 2nd Amendment only applies to certain people. 

Regardless, those folks are not a "well-regulated militia," a key phrase in one of the most poorly worded sentences in the English language. The early Republic relied on militias because the founders were wary of large standing armies. Militias were also used to quell slave rebellions. 

As we've seen via social media, how can people still be upset over people taking knees during the national anthem? 

Read "Colin Kaepernick Was Right, and Pro Athletes Won't Stand Down." 

Random Notes from a Crank

In the wake of the mass shootings in Dayton and El Paso this weekend, I'm sure the apologists for Moscow Don and the NRA will cite the "troubled minds" of the shooters, send some worthless thoughts and prayers, and do absolutely nothing. 

Three writers for the Washington Post get it. 

The first is Philip Rucker's "'How Do You Stop These People?": Trump's Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric Looms Over the El Paso Massacre."

The column by EJ Dionne Jr. is spot on: "On Guns and White Nationalism, One Side Is Right and One Side is Wrong."

Here is most of a ¶ that is worth a read: "But may God also judge Trump for a political strategy whose success depends on sowing racism, reaction, and division. May God judge him for stoking false and incendiary fears about an immigrant 'invasion,' the very word echoed by the manifesto that police suspect was the El Paso shooter's. May God judge the president for cutting programs to fight white extremism at the very moment when the FBI is telling us that we are more at risk from white-nationalist terrorist than Islamist terrorists." 

The title of Jennifer Rubin's column coheres with my thoughts exactly: "There Is No Excuse for Supporting this President."

Her last ¶ is trenchant: "In sum, we are awash in hate crimes and white nationalist-inspired mass murders. We have a president whose words inspire and bolster perpetrators of these heinous acts. That makes Trump not only a moral abomination, which no policy outcome can offset, but a threat to our national security. Those encouraged by his words in recent years kill more Americans than Islamist terrorists. If that is not justification for bipartisan repudiation of this president and removal from office at the earliest possible moment I don't what is. Those who countenance and support this president for his white-grievance mongering are not merely 'deplorable' but dangerous."

I don't care whom the Democrats nominate for president. Hell, I'll back Biden even though I've never been that impressed by him, and his policy stances are somewhat wishy-washy. 

We need to get that pathologically lying, white supremacist, sociopathic con man out of the White House. 

Random Notes from a Crank

The Atlantic has a couple of articles worth a thinking person's time in the April issue. 

The first is "The Nancy Pelosi Problem," an article that demonstrates that the vitriol spewed against Pelosi by various people has a gendered proclivity. As the article shows, she's been pretty darn good at her job as Majority and Minority Leader. But a lot of what she's up against (and the Democrats for that matter) is showcased in the study that presents how people react to "John Burr" and "Ann Burr."

Another good piece features Julie Washington's work and research. She's a linguist who is trying to use AAV to help students succeed. Check out "The Code-Switcher: Julie Washington's Lifelong Quest to Change the Way We Teach Young Speakers of African-American English." 

"More Guns Do Not Stop More Crimes, Evidence Shows" by Melinda Wenner Moyer in Scientific American should be required reading. I read it when it came out in October. The article won the American Society of Jounralists and Author's Excellence in Reporting Award.

In a more recent article in Scientific American, "The Number of Americans with No Religious Affiliation is Rising," the author reports on how the number of "nones" is getter larger in the US. I tend to agree with Shermer's statement that "This shift away from the dominance of any one religion is good for a secular society whose government is structured to discourage catch basins of power from building up and spilling over into people's private lives." Also, like the author, I find some of the beliefs of these non-religious people puzzling and downright silly.

Random Notes from a Crank

After the horrible slayings in Orlando, the gun control/assault rifle debate is back again. And yet again under the influence of the NRA, no new legislation was passed. A person on a terrorist no-fly list is able to buy a gun. 

For a Canadian's take on the United States' gun problem, check out "The #1 Factor Experts Say Accounts for High Number of Mass Shootings in US."   

Then again, here is an article that provides good news for gun-control advocates. 

As a well-known introvert, I have to share these comics that help explain us: "10 Comics Explain What It's Really Like To Be an Introvert." My favorite is the shirt that asks, "Why are you still talking?" 

The work of one climate-change denier didn't go so well. 

DuPont is not a company I'm fond of because of its environmental pollution record, but they are working hard at trying to transform corncobs into fuel. I hope their research and innovation works. 

Portal to Post-Massacre Links

If there is ever going to be a time to enact stricter gun control laws, that time is now. Below I've provided some articles that hint at possible solutions.

"After a 1996 Mass Shooting, Australia Enacted Strict Gun Laws. It Hasn't Had a Similar Massacre Since." by Will Oremus on Slate. 

"The Geography of Gun Deaths" by Richard Florida from The Atlantic. 

"Viewpoint: If We Want Gun Control, We'll Need to Compromise" by Adam Cohen from Time.

"Joe Manchin: Time to Act on Guns" from The Washington Post.  

Common Sense Gun Laws

To bounce off my previous post that linked Roger Ebert's column after the shooting in Colorado ("The Body Count"), one of Clarence Page's recent op-ed columns discusses the options we might have to  revise gun laws. If you're interested, here's "My Quest for Commonsense Gun Laws."

Below is the video of al-Qaida spokesperson/recruiter Adam Gadahn that Page mentions at the end of his article.





For a less scary set of points about gun laws and gun control, one that comes from an unlikely source, is  "The 4 Most Meaningless Arguments Against Gun Control" on Cracked.

To take Cracked's lead, we might be able to boil it all down to a concise and snarky maxim that is a tweet from the comedian Rob Delaney: "Guns don't kill people. People who say 'Guns don't kill people' kill people. With guns."

"A Shot in the Dark" by Roger Ebert

In "A Shot in the Dark," I like the way Ebert points out his opponents' beliefs and how they don't cohere with their stance against universal health care, Romneycare, Obamacare, and the Affordable Care Act.

As he says, "Many of the opponents of Universal Health Care identify themselves as Christians, yet when you get to the bottom of their arguments, you'll find them based not on Christianity but on Ayn Rand capitalism. Financial self-interest and the rights of corporations are more important to them than loving their neighbors." 

A recent study also indicates that the expansion of Medicaid in states is probably saving lives. However, Kevin Drum, a blogger for Mother Jones, has a good take on the study with graphs and a link to the original study.

And here's another of Ebert's blog posts titled "The Body Count."

"Reloading..."

Linked HERE is an interesting op-ed from The Chicago Tribune.

The author provides a personal yet political look at the Supreme Court overturning the D.C. handgun law along with the political shenanigans in the Windy City. 

While I agree with a lot of what he says, I also think there need to be somewhat stricter regulations on gun ownership, especially the loopholes that people use to buy arms at gun shows.

What I'm struck by is the question of how exactly do we create a more family-focused culture? Mr. Box articulates that we need stronger parental structures in our country, so how do we go about doing that? Do we return to stay-at-home moms and dads? Have we fallen into what one Harvard economist has called the "two-income" trap? 

The op-ed, strangely enough, reminds me about what one of my favorite writers Wendell Berry has said about the environmental crisis we have before us: it's a "crisis of character."