So, the area around Fiji was hit with the strongest cyclonic event ever to be measured in the southern hemisphere last weekend.
Let me repeat that. The STRONGEST STORM EVER RECORDED IN THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE laid waste to the Fiji region last weekend.
And... how many of you knew about it?
The only headline I found about it? Tsunami not a Threat to Hawaii.
So... bad things happen... somewhere else and all we get is that the bad thing is not a threat to us. Nothing to see here. Move on.
The fact that these events happen with increasing frequency and severity is not, in and of itself, newsworthy, apparently. From what I've seen over the last week on-line, stories of this disaster would just elicit a bunch of barely literate references to Al Gore profiteering or some crap. Because... people.
Is it because violent weather events are so commonplace now? Imagine if televised benefit concerts continued to be held for every one of them. That shit had to stop! Noone would be able to go on tour or into the studio!
How many MORE versions of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah would we have heard by now?
Someone decided, ENOUGH with the concerts and the benefits, because they would have lost their emotional impact, viability and significance by the 42nd time......
Or is it an issue of bad timing? Something far juicier, and far closer (can't get any closer this time) to home happened at roughly the same time.
Somebody, for-as-of-yet-unknown reasons, shot up my hometown a week ago. 15 minutes from my driveway, he driving around, picking up UBER fares. And in between times, he'd stop his car, get out, shoot random people, get back in his car, and drive off. Six people, so far, have died.
By the time most of us woke up sunday morning, it was all over the news and social media.
It's the 42nd mass shooting so far this calendar year. For those who like math, 42 mass shootings in the United States in the first 51 days of the year. Anyone got a problem with this?
The usual responses were also immediate. Because...people.
Why, if everyone carried a gun, this guy wouldn't have been able to...
f there was more gun control and stronger background checks, this guy wouldn't have been able to....
That's ENOUGH.
I expect I'm a tad simple-minded on the subject, but I've news for all of you.
Guns DO kill people.
With speed, efficiency, from a safe distance, and with very little exertion of physical effort. If this were not the case, a 3 year old would not have been able to accidentally take out grandpa a couple weeks back.
Killing so easy, a three year can do it.
That's why the bad people use this tool to carry out their bad people intentions. That's why you don't hear about nearly 4 dozen mass... knifings, slingshottings, clubbing or stranglings so far this calendar year.
You buy them, so you say, to protect yourself from bad people with bad intentions. And how would you use it, in that situation? Would you use it to club at the other person. You would not.
Shoot. To. Kill. See how that works? Be HONEST.
Any tired-ass argument you want to put forth to negate this, cars kill people, alcohol kills people...
Enough.
That's ENOUGH.
And the good guy with the gun saving us from the bad guy with the gun... Still waiting for that to happen.
Enough.
Lest you think I'm simply on an anti-gun rant.....
And THIS time, it was it some guy with no history of mental illness nor a police record. So those who use these tragedies to pontificate about the need for more gun control....
Enough.
That's ENOUGH.
The surprising thing that happened this time? It seems our elected officials have finally gotten the message that we, as a people, are tired of their meaningless thoughts and prayers.
Apparently, some wise PR person whispered in their collective ears, that their thoughts and prayers combined with absolutely no effort to keep it from continuing to happen, seems less than genuine.
Finally, someone decided.. ENOUGH. Your words will have lost emotional impact, viability and significance, the 42nd time...
And it's a good thing, because there've been at least two more mass shootings since what happened in Kalamazoo last weekend.
Ironically, until I woke up last sunday, I was going to write a nice column about weekend getaways; reintroducing myself to the awesomeness that is To Kill A Mockingbird; and then slip in something snarky about parents who take their kids to the playground, but stay in the car on the phone the whole time.
(I've pushed a lot of other people's kids on the swings in the last 8 years, while they sit in their cars and watch. I'm cool with that. I like kids....)
Then I started this article, and it just got longer and longer and longer and I've edited the hell out of it just to get to what you see here.
I don't know the answers. I just know that as a nation, we've veered off into some dark, paranoid hate-filled place. Turn on the news any day of the week, and you'll immediately see this.
And I'm tired. Tired of people dying, tired of hearing politicians gain in popularity for saying they're going to build walls or keep refugees out, or just for saying they'd like to punch someone who's protesting their hate-filled message.
Tired of friends and family members throwing out blatant untruths they heard someone say on the news, as support for their own opinion.
Tired of the goddamn echo chamber that is what passes for polite discourse.
So I ask you, my friends - what are we to do? What can we do to fix this? To be constructive instead of destructive?
