I picked up my son from his elementary school just after I learned about the mass shooting at a similar school in Texas, and I realized how lucky I was to be doing that. I thought of the parents at Uvalde, who were waiting ...
No one can hear that news and not be moved. And pretty much everyone reacts by wondering if we can "do something." Unfortunately, there's not much "something" that we can do that will have any effect at all in the near term.
Gun control doesn't work, and won't be possible in a crime wave. Democrats can't have it both ways: you can't spend a whole year demonizing police and cutting their funds and then make it harder for citizens to protect themselves.
Mental health is a real issue, though it's not a quick fix. I tend to believe we have something wrong in our popular culture, when young men (they are almost all young men) seek fulfillment in these dramatic, murderous shooting episodes.
If I were to do anything -- and I wouldn't actually do this, because it's not constitutional -- I would ban first-person shooter games. I think that while most people don't enact their fantasies, there are always a few who will.
Meanwhile... much of the shrieking from celebrities and politicians is just that: shrieking. It's narcissism at best, and exploitation of tragedy for political purposes, at worst. Democrats need an issue, and they are desperate.
The story of Noah is familiar; the details, less so.
Noah is often seen as an ambivalent figure. He was righteous -- but only for his generation. What was his deficiency?
One answer suggests itself: knowing that the world was about to be flooded, he built an Ark for the animals and for his own family -- but did not try to save anyone else or to convince them to repent and change their ways (the prophet Jonah, later, would share that reluctance).
Abraham, later, would set himself apart by arguing with God -- with the Lord Himself! -- against the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, saying that they should be saved if there were enough righteous people to be found (there were not).
Still, Noah was good enough -- and sometimes, that really is sufficient to save the world. We don't need heroes every time -- just ordinary decency.
Hi all -- as I noted last month, I'm going to be closing down my Locals page, at least for tips and subscriptions -- I may keep the page up and the posts as well, but I'm no longer going to be accepting any kind of payment.
Look for cancelation in the very near future. Thank you for your support!
An interesting weekend -- one of the last of Daylight Savings Time -- in which there is much to celebrate, much to contemplate, and a bit to worry about.
The Gaza peace deal is shaky, but holding, after the living hostages returned; the shutdown is still going on, with no end in sight; the China trade war is heating up; and the confrontation with Venezuela continues to escalate.
The "No Kings" protest was a dud, despite the media's attempt to inflate it. What I find fascinating is that the Democrats have basically stolen the rhetoric and the imagery of the Tea Party protests, circa 2009. They claim they are defending the Constitution -- just like the Tea Party did.
On the one hand, this is good. How wonderful to have a political system in which both sides, bitterly opposed though they are, articulate differences through the Constitution -- and not, as in so many other countries, outside it.
On the other, this is sheer hypocrisy for the Democrats. Not only did they malign the Tea Party as ...
