Gun Control

Guns, Guns, and more Guns. I keep trying to get my head around this controversial issue. What do we mean today by guns? What did the Founding Fathers mean by arms in 1791? What did “the right to bear arms” mean when they wrote the Second Amendment? “To bear” means what one individual could carry, which in 1791 meant a musket or handgun, along with black powder and bullets. The speed with which one could load and fire a round depended on how fast one could insert the powder and bullet, I’m guessing about twenty seconds between each firing. The Second Amendment is such a slippery little devil, one for which the writers laboriously chose each word and comma to make sure their meaning was absolutely clear. “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” A militia then meant a citizen group which could be brought together to repel invaders or to fight against any leader who might try to enslave its citizenry. There was no standing army back then because the framers of the Constitution feared that the president or leader of the nation might use a supporting army to take over the government and the people. Such a militia would arm themselves and in time of need come together temporarily in emergencies or to defend the country. Thus, back then it was not only a right to bear arms but a duty for each male citizen to have his weapons handy in case they were needed for  bringing this well-regulated militia together. Today, we have a standing army as well as the other armed forces to do the defending, backed up by each state’s National Guard units. In 1791, the Founding Fathers couldn’t have envisioned the kinds of weapons one could carry or the speed with which those weapons could be fired.

Why do any of us now want to own firearms? I can think of only three reasons: for hunting game, for sports shooting and marksmanship, and for defending ourselves and our homes against bad guys, and for that we have rifles, shotguns, and handguns. Gun proponents argue, “If you take away our right to have AR15’s, only the bad guys will have them and how will we defend ourselves against them?” That’s why we have good guys who are allowed to have assault weapons. We call them cops. Gun proponents argue, “Guns don’t kill people; people kill people.” The counter argument is that people kill people in any number of different ways, but killing someone with a knife or a club or a bow and arrow pretty much limits the number of people killed at any one time. That limit with an AR15 seems to be somewhere just under a hundred before the perpetrator is caught or killed, and the perp doesn't even need to be a marksman. He just aims it in the general direction of those he wants to kill and pulls the trigger. And, yes, a car or truck driven into a crowd would kill quite a few. But banning cars and trucks is impossible. Others, who think we should have even more guns than we now have, say, “What’s the best way to stop a bad guy with a gun? A good guy with a gun.” In other words, as in the old West, we should all carry guns either concealed or openly to use whenever someone draws down intending to kill someone specific or kill large numbers randomly. High Noon, here we come. It seems to me we might have bullets flying all over the place with all kinds of people being accidentally shot. And then we have President Trump’s solution for stopping school shootings—to arm qualified teachers and administrators to protect their students. First, where would schools find enough teachers and administrators who were qualified in the use of guns? And where would these guns be kept? I can see it now: The sound of gunfire alerts all teachers and students that a bad guy is somewhere in the school. These teacher guns would have to be so securely locked up that no student could ever get to them. The teacher would have to find the key to unlock the gun drawer and then unlock the box inside the drawer, all the while hearing the sound of approaching gunfire. Would that teacher be nervous? You bet. This proposed scenario makes absolutely no sense.

Would we be infringing upon the rights of our citizenry if we disallowed gun ownership by any and all? I don't think any of those who wrote this amendment intended guns should be available to absolutely everyone. Would we be infringing if we disallowed ownership to anyone, say, under 21, or anyone with a history of mental instability, or convicted felons? And why not ban everyone from owning semi-automatic rifles like the AR15, which can very easily and inexpensively (but illegally) be converted into a fully automatic rifle and modified to hold a clip that can spit out as many as 100 rounds in less than a minute? Why would anyone need that many rounds fired at that speed if we were hunting game or shooting at a target? The AR15 and other rifles like it were designed as military weapons, not sporting guns. The capacity and speed made it an ideal weapon to kill as many of the enemy in as short a time as possible, but for hunting game, sports shooting, or defending our homes we don’t need that kind of weapon. Why is the NRA so adamant about protecting the sale and use of such weapons under the guise of protecting the Second Amendment? Almost every motive for almost any action comes down to money. The sales of guns of all kinds generate huge profits for gun manufacturers. Does money also motivate the NRA? Should we allow a lobby group like the NRA to so control our elected officials that we will never see any curbing of gun violence and mass murders? The kids all over the country who are now protesting the government’s lack of action about gun control have it right. And many of them will soon be old enough to vote. Too bad they weren’t old enough about a year ago.

Countdown: I might just as easily have called this a metronome. Countdown sounds too much like a Doomsday clock approaching a personal midnight. But a metronome keeps a tempo that can be made faster or slower. A metronome better describes how my days are going. The more things I have to do during the day, the slower the tempo. The fewer things I have to do during the day, the faster it goes back and forth. This illness has pretty much confined me to the house, so my activities are limited. I’ve found that during this two weeks of feeling not so good, my days go really fast. I’m now sleeping almost ten hours a night. I get up and do my juice and coffee, a piece or two of toast, read the paper. Bang! It’s now noon. Then I may nap a bit. Then I may write a blog and a countdown or read a book. Then another nap. Then it’s time for a cocktail before we decide what really simple meal we may have for dinner. Bang! It’s now 5:30 and time for the Nightly News with Lester Holt. Then on to the tv shows we love. Then, Bang! It’s time to go to bed. Another really short day has passed. I saw my cardiologist a few days ago. She told me, assured me, that when I was finally done with this virus I would regain most of the energy I had just a month or so ago. That was really good news because I want my days to slow down, to lengthen. I miss our trips to see a movie or our several dinners out each week, even my trips to the grocery store just to get out of here for a while. I want my metronome to slow down. I want my countdown to slow down. I’m not quite ready to meet my maker. I may not rage against the coming of the night, but I also won’t just lie down to a peaceful death in the night. I still have too many things to do.

Olympics & The Florida Project

             I have to say I’m getting really sick of the Olympics and can hardly wait for them to be over. There’s so much I don’t want to see and it’s almost impossible to locate what I do want to see. Mike Tirico keeps saying that we’ll soon see Lindsey Vonn perform her magic on the slopes and then she never seems to get there. And, yes, I’m mainly interested in only what the Americans are doing and not so much what the other nations are doing. And the Americans have been pretty disappointing. They’re too slow or they fall or they just can’t finish. Is this team less capable than those in the past or have so many other nations simply gotten better? I suspect the latter. The same might prove true in two years when we have the 2020 Summer Games. Meanwhile, I click off each day until we get to the closing ceremonies next Sunday. Then NBC and the other networks can get back to the shows I really want to watch.

          Several nights ago, when we didn’t want to watch the Olympics and all other channels had scheduled only reruns, we rented The Florida Project. This was a film that got much critical praise, even an Oscar nomination for Willem Dafoe for best supporting actor. Most of the reviewers called it powerful in its realistic depiction of its socially disadvantaged people living in the shadow of Disneyworld. The word “charming” shows up on many reviews. I’m bewildered. I didn’t find much of anything charming or heartwarming or praiseworthy about this film. I kept waiting for magic to happen and it never did. Here’s the setup: It takes place in a semi-sleazy motel near Disneyworld’s Magic Kingdom. It opens with two bratty children, Moonee (Brooklyn Prince) and Scooty (Christopher Rivera), screaming brattily just for the joy of screaming. Then Moonee, the lead brat, decides they should go over to an adjoining motel where from the second story balcony they can spit on a ratty blue car below. Why? It’s never clear why she decides to do anything. I went to Rotten Tomatoes and read some of the reviews to see what I seemed to be missing. Nearly all of the positive reviews said essentially the same thing—that The Florida Project was both charming and saddening in its portrayal of the semi-down-and-outers who reside in the garishly purple Magic Castle Motel. Charming? Not for me. Saddening? Yes, on so many levels I don’t have room for them all. The film is a two-hour lesson in irony, the ironic connection between the false magic of Disneyworld and the seaminess of the Magic Castle Motel. It might as easily been called The Nevada Project, substituting the false glitz of the Vegas Strip and the seamy underbelly of the roach-ridden motels on the edges of the old Vegas. Then there’s the irony of parenting and child-rearing in a normal household compared to that of most of the motel residents, especially that of the young mother Halley (Bria Vinaite) and her 6-year-old daughter Moonee. Halley makes ends meet (sort of) by panhandling (selling knock-off designer perfume to visiting tourists or wealthy patrons of more upscale motels nearby), begging, stealing and reselling the goods stolen, and even hooking occasionally when ends don’t quite meet. Meanwhile, Moonee and her running mates are free to gallop all over the place doing their Little Rascally things, like begging for enough money to buy an ice cream cone to slurpilly share, or sneaking into the motel’s forbidden power room to switch off the power to the entire motel (Oh, you little rascals!), or journeying to the forbidden abandoned apartment buildings waiting for demolition where they smash windows and mirrors and whatever else is smashable and then set a fire in one building before fleeing home to the Magic Castle (Oh, you little rascals!). At other times during her day, she goes to a fast-food place to pick up throwaway food handed out by Halley’s friend and fellow Magic Castle resident who works there, picks up a bag or two of bread handed out by a volunteer group, and accompanies her mother on her perfume sales trips. It’s as though she’s being home-schooled by a mother who doesn’t seem to know where her life is going, home-schooled in all the ways she will need to know when she grows up to become her mother, and the beat goes on. Maybe I’m being too harsh on Halley and Moonee and The Florida Project but I still don’t understand why this film is garnering such praise. All right, what about Willem Dafoe’s role? He’s the motel manager and surrogate father figure for the children and their parents. I also see him as a sort of elder catcher in the rye Holden Caulfield who protects the children from any perverts who get too close to them. He cares for the motel and its inhabitants. And he does it well. But I can’t see why his acting is deserving of a best supporting actor nomination. I think maybe The Florida Project has angered me in the same way that Beasts of the Southern Wild angered me when Quvenzhané Willis was so praised for her portrayal of that strange little girl in a devastated Louisiana. I pretty much hated that highly acclaimed movie from 2012. And now Brooklyn Prince will be hailed as the next great child star. I can almost hear Sean Baker, the director, telling her just to act as bratty as she can for the entire movie, and at the end, when Moonee needs to show some emotion in a full-face shot, he probably stood in front of her and told her to sob just as hard as she could until she can work up a tear or two. God, what a grouch I’ve become.

Countdown: I have to confess that I haven’t been entirely honest about my health. My countdown has been somewhat rapid because I’ve been battling a bug, not the flu bug because I’ve had no fever, nausea, or aching joints, but a bug of some kind that has me with a deep congestive cough and sinuses that keep me blowing and blowing. The countdown will resume, I hope, at a slower pace once I get rid of the congestion. Why do I still feel like I’m skiing on a downslope that keeps getting steeper and steeper? Because I’m in a Catch-22 trap—the more I just sit, the weaker I become, the weaker I become, the more I just sit. This decline is only physical, not mental. I still have almost all the marbles I’ve always had. But the activities I was able to do only a month ago without exhaustion I’m now unable to do unless I sit down for five or ten minutes to get my heart rate down and my oxygen level up. I won’t really know where I stand until I can finally stop the coughing and congestion. Soon, I hope.

News Bits

Only a few things in the news, the Winter Games and the killing spree in Florida. All the Trump news is becoming so predictable it’s not worth even a comment. These Games in South Korea are showing the world what can be accomplished in only six decades, to take a war-torn country from very primitive living conditions to a position as one of the world’s leading economic giants. Everything we see on television looks so pristine and modern. Maybe these games can help us avoid the dangers of hatred among nations and peoples. We can only hope so. And then we have that tragic shooting rampage in Florida. Again, we have a neon sign telling us we need to do something about controlling gun purchases. Why does an 18-year-old need an AR15? Why should he be allowed to buy one? For that matter, why should anyone need an AR15 designed for killing people? “I need to make this shooting/bombing ... infamous,” Nikolas Cruz wrote, according to the court documents. “I need to get the biggest fatality number I possibly can. I need to make this count. ... I’m learning from past shooters/bombers mistakes, so I don't make the same ones."  "I'm preparing myself for the school shooting. I can't wait. My aim has gotten much more accurate. ... I can't wait to walk into that class and blow all those (expletive) away.” What would drive this young man to want to randomly kill as many school students as possible? Sounds to me like winning some kind of notoriety, making a name for himself even if it has to be for such a horrendous act. Come on, Republicans and Democrats, you must now get together to put some sensible limitations on the Second Amendment.

         “Countdown”  I have to clarify what I mean by a countdown. First, I don’t have any idea what such a count would require. I could die tomorrow or live for another ten years. What makes me think I should start a countdown? I’ve noticed a perceptible dip in my energy levels. It takes me longer and longer after any activity to recover to acceptable pulse rates and oxygen levels. Now, just getting ready for bed exhausts me and I take ten minutes after getting in bed to come back to 80 pulse and 90% oxygen. My normal pulse at rest has always been around 60 and acceptable oxygen percentages should be minimally 90%, and 93% to 95 % for normal. However, I now realize I’m anything but normal. Another indicator is my equilibrium or lack thereof. My -librium isn’t even close to being equi-. I can no longer get out of a chair without some danger of falling before I can stand upright. I guess that means the next step down in the count will be to have a walker always in front of me when I want to stand up or go anywhere. How restrictive will that be? Very. And now when I go to the grocery store I can just barely make it to that of so welcome chair just outside of the pharmacy. Then I sit until my oximeter tells me it’s okay to move again. What will be the next step in this grocery count down? Shopping from one of the riding carts. I’m not being morbid just to listen to my whines. I don’t fear death and I probably would rather, contrary to Dylan Thomas’s advice, “go gentle into that good night.” In a recent obituary (yes, I’ve taken to glancing at them to see what the average ages seem to be) a woman in Phoenix “died peacefully in her sleep.” I find that a comforting thought. What a way to go, just go to bed, go to sleep, and then just keep on sleeping. No ranting or raging for that lady. She simply decided it was time to go. I hope when my times comes that it will be peacefully in my sleep.

Competitive Eating & Winter Games

News Item: Molly Schuyler, a competitive eater, recently won a contest by consuming 501 chicken wings in thirty minutes. Wow! That would be almost seventeen wings per minute, or three and a half seconds for each wing. That must have been a lovely sight, to see this woman shoving wing after wing into her mouth for half an hour. I wonder if she was growling or simply sighing with pleasure. Only in America. In places with extreme poverty, children starving to death, I wonder how many wings per day would sustain each child’s life. Five? Six? If as few as five, then Molly’s thirty minute total would save a hundred children from starvation for a day. Or keep one child alive for a hundred days. And what does a competitive eater do at the end of a contest? I’m pretty sure it would involve a finger in the throat to disgorge the wings, hotdogs, pies, burritos, steak, or whatever. Only in America. I then found on the internet that she had also taken up the Big Texan Steak Ranch challenge and had eaten three 72-ounce steaks in twenty minutes. Wow! And I thought that even one Big Texan steak meal would be impossible to consume in their time limit of an hour (the meal includes a shrimp cocktail, a baked potato, salad, and a buttered roll). Molly could probably go through everything in the kitchen in an hour, even the pots and pans. Wow! You go, girl! Only in America. Also on the net I found that there's an organization called MLE (yupp, that's Major League Eating and yupp, those are cannolis you see in the picture above) that oversees eating contests and set the rules for such competition. I also found that there are world records for consuming any kind of food you can think of (amount and time involved). Also, that nearly every nation has its own contests. So, America isn't alone in its gluttony.

          Winter Olympics: In a dictionary, you might find a photo of the 2018 Winter Olympics opening ceremony right next to the word “spectacular.” It was a hitchless spectacle. I’ve watched every opening ceremony of every summer and winter games for the last sixty years and this one was by far and away the best. I hope the entire games can live up to the opening.

          Countdown Mode: Every day I feel a little less alive, a little more fatigued. The increments of these changes is tiny but relentless. Therefore, I’m going to describe briefly how each day is a movement down or up (it all depends on which direction death will take me). I know that sounds super self-indulgent, too much like an examination of my navel, as though anyone cares what my navel looks like. So, whatever readers I still have, please feel free to skip all paragraphs in future blogs marked as “Countdown.”

Face book, Super Bowl LII, & Trump Joke

          Facebook seems to be more and more simply a place to expose oneself to friends and foes alike. Anything one says there can be seen by virtually anyone in the world. Be careful what you say because it may come back to bite you. It reminds me of a Dickinson poem, “I’m Nobody,” especially the last stanza: “How dreary - to be - Somebody! / How public - like a Frog / To tell one’s name - the livelong June - / To an admiring Bog!” I guess I might say the same thing about blogs and bloggers. And I’m one of them. But my admiring bog isn’t nearly as big as the Facebook Bog.

          Thank heavens, football is over for another year. The game between the Patriots and Eagles was one of the best, best-played Super Bowl games ever. And what a nice outcome, with the Eagles spanking the Pats’ backsides. At the end of the first half, the touchdown the Eagles made on fourth-and-goal, the trick play in which Foles caught a soft pass in the right flat for a touchdown to put them ahead 22-12, has to be the best, best-executed play I’ve ever seen. That was the play that won it for the Eagles. I hope that next season the officials will clarify the ridiculous rule about what is and what isn’t a catch. They spent ten minutes trying to decide if that last Eagles touchdown was legitimate, all depending on whether Zach Ertz was or wasn’t a runner when he broke the plane with the football. But I was disappointed by the commercials, which are supposed to be clever and funny. Most of them were neither. Then there’s Justin Timberlake’s halftime hoopla (which may have needed another Janet Jackson nipple to make it memorable).  Way too much dancing and too little singing. That seems to be the case with nearly all current songs and singers—too much emphasis on lightshows and choreography and too little on lyrics. One last thing about NFL football: the stats need to be redefined. Why should the quarterback get passing yardage when he throws a one-yard screen pass and then the receiver takes it another ninety-nine? I think the passing stats should include only number of completed passes and how many yards there were at the point of the reception. Receivers should get credit for the number of their receptions and the yardage when they caught it. All yards after the catch should count for his yardage as a runner. Also, deliberate passes thrown away or spiked shouldn’t be included in the passing stats. Also, the plays in which the quarterback takes a knee to stop the clock shouldn’t be included in number of plays or passing or rushing yardage. There. Are you listening, all you statisticians and rules-makers?

          Okay, just time enough for a Trump joke, cute and not vicious for a change:

 Just as Donald Trump is getting out of his limo at Mar-a-Lago, a man steps from a nearby doorway and aims a gun at him. One of his secret service agents screams, “Mickey Mouse!” The assailant is so shook up by the scream that he’s tackled and disarmed. A second agent asks the screamer, “Why on earth did you shout Mickey Mouse?” The screamer says, “I didn’t mean to. I just got flustered. I really meant to warn him, “Donald, duck!”