And now there's Dayton....

A few hours after I wrote about the mass shooting in El Paso, there was the shooting in Dayton, on a busy street with people enjoying their Saturday night.

The shooter was killed by police within a minute of his starting to shoot--yet he killed 9 and wounded 20. Within a minute.

Within a minute!

Who needs a weapon like that except to kill people?

No one that's who.

A weapon that can do that much damage in under a minute should be consigned to the 7th level of hell---and anyone who owns one should go there too.

NRA should mean "No Responsibility At all".

Guns have to go.

Do Democrats in Congress and Senators with a shred of a conscience have to courage to get rid of guns?

And would the President sign that bill?

I just want to find out.

I talked about El Paso and Dayton before my sermon today. No one is without guilt and stain from this as long as we don't DO SOMETHING ABOUT GUNS!

The blood is on all our hands until we have the courage and conviction to DO SOMETHING ABOUT GUNS!

How long can this be 'normal'???

How long, O Lord?

Fifteen, at least, dead in a shooting in an El Paso Mall. Another mass shooting. How long, O Lord, until we do something meaningful about guns in America?

Just a few days ago, three dead in the Garlic Capital of the world in California. Ages 6, 13 and 22. Given an average life-span of 80 years that was 199 years of life for people who may have made the world a better place that was taken away in a matter of moments.

I've had people who I know ask me, "would you take away my guns?" And I always smile in a friendly way and say, "you betja!"

Anything that isn't obviously for hunting. Those you can keep if you can show you regularly hunt. But even guns 'for self defense' I would take because I'd be taking 'all guns' away and making life in prison the penalty for having one that wasn't for hunting--so why would you need one for self defense?

I'd do it to protect innocent people and the police. I'd do it to make this a non-hunting gun gun-free nation. Criminals with guns would automatically spend their life in prison and though I'm deeply opposed to the death penalty, I might consider it for having an illegal gun when committing a crime.

I would put gun manufactures and the NRA out of business.

I might even lock those people up for a good long time.

Don't give me that shit about 'guns don't kill people'--GUNS DO KILL PEOPLE!

If the horrible people involved in all the mass shootings hadn't had guns they would have to beat people to death or stab them to death or hit them with rocks. None of which is terribly efficient.

GUNS KILL PEOPLE!!!

For me, they have to go away.

I mean it.

How long, O Lord, before we, as a nation, come to our senses about guns? How many have to die?

Just tell me that--how many have to die?

Why is that?

I don't know about you, but my fingernails grow much faster than my toenails. I've been pondering why that is so. More blood to the hands than to the feet? That doesn't make sense.

I've been pondering why my fingernails grow so much faster than my toenails.

I cut my fingernails every 10 days or so. (As I'm typing this, I realize they need cutting now.)

My toenails get cut every 3 or 4 months. Actually I get a pedicure three or four times a year. It is my one giving into needing to be pampered.

The only thing that bothers me is I can't find a nail shop in Cheshire that isn't run by Asians. Having an Asian woman urologist is one thing--even though she looks too much like my daughter-in-law to make it comfortable. But having an Asian woman who barely speaks English wash my feet and cut my nails and pamper me makes me ache about white privilege.

Do your fingernails grow much faster than your toenails?

Do you have any idea why?

Let me know if that's true for you and you know the reason.

Until then, I'll just ponder the whole conundrum.

Screen saver

I was about to write about my screen saver but decided to see if I'd done it before. I had--over a year and a season ago. So, I decided just to forward that again. It doesn't dwell on all the pictures of Bern and Mimi and Cathy and Josh and I holding the infants, Morgan and Emma. And it is pre-Tim, so he's not in any of them. Five dead creatures--three dogs and two cats are in those photos, as well as photos of Block Island when we used to go there. Wondrous memories. Sometimes, when I come to my computer and those photos are on, I'll watch them for many minutes, remembering,

Tuesday, May 8, 2018

Favorite pictures

I have a screen saver on my computer of photos from the past. Some of them are from before Josh and Cathy were married. Some are from slightly after their twins were born--but all over a decade old.

Two of my favorite photos of Josh and Mimi are of a visit they made to us along with Cathy (Tim wasn't in our lives yet.)

Mimi is prone on a bed upstairs using our dog Bela as a pillow. She was the only person Bela would have let do that. Bela loved Mimi with a love beyond bounds. Mimi is smiling broadly in the picture. Bela is full of joy to be her pillow.

Josh is in our dining room looking down at the chair beside him. I know from another photo just before that one that our cat, Luke, was on that chair rolling over to show Josh his stomach. Josh's look is of love and bemusement.

Animals do that for us--they bring out the best of the best in us.

There's also a picture of Bern asleep in our bed with our previous dog, Sadie, up against her back and Luke sleeping between her feet.

Animals, you got to love them....

Too Many Candidates, too little time

The last two nights have been like being shell shocked.

Too many still there. Need to narrow the field.

Warren and Sanders were stars on Tuesday, shutting down moderates and especially crazy, almost Republican sounding John Delaney and stage-fright Tim Ryan.

Here's who I'd like to see left on the stage: Bernie, Warren, Biden (because he should be), Mayor Pete, Julian Castro, Kamala Harris and Gov. Jay Inslee (who I think was the star on Tuesday).

I'd be happy with any two of them being President and Vice-President. My favorite ticket would be Warren/Harris--imagine the debates with the President and Mike Pence!!!

Biden and either Warren or Harris would be good.

I love Mayor Pete but can a gay man be elected President. South Bend, Indiana is a lot different than the USA.

Bernie is great and I'd love to see him debate the President.

However after tonight, I really have to keep space for Gov. Inslee of Washington State. He's the best on environment and really good on everything else--health care, education, housing, race.

Keep those 7 and let's have some debates that give people more than 30 seconds to talk. Or, to make it even more informative, keep Biden, Bernie, Harris, Warren and Inslee.

I could buy that.

Baltimore

The President (WWNBN) is all over Rep. Elijah Cummings from Baltimore about how horrible his district is.

That Cummings is Black, we are told by Trump staffers, doesn't make the attacks 'racist'. Only reactions to Cummings' attacks on the President.

Right.

It just so happens, Jarred Kushner owns dozens and dozens of apartment buildings in John Lewis' district and has had hundreds and hundreds of complaints about mice and rats and not taking care of the property.

Ironic.

My son and daughter in law and three granddaughters live in Baltimore. Josh is a partner in one of the largest law firms in the city. Cathy, a former prosecutor for Baltimore, is now a Judge of the first District of Maryland--Baltimore city. Morgan, Emma and Tegan go to a private school near the Episcopal cathedral, where the family worships.

Baltimore, like any city of that size, has problems. But the President's attacks on Rep. Lewis aren't about the problems of cities. They are about Cummings' attempts to get information and testimony from the Administration as head of the House Oversight Committee--which is that committee's job, according to the way the country is run.

I love Baltimore. There are bad places, sure, but there are bad places in any city and the Administration should be creating policies to make those places better rather than giving tax breaks to the ultra-rich, breaking agreed upon international agreements, cutting back environmental regulations, cosy-ing up to dictators in Russia, North Korea and Saudia Arabia, and undermining the rule of law of the country.

This President is a joke, a mistake and a problem since he has divided the country problematically.

2020 is all about defeating him.

Pray and work for that.

Please and pretty please.

Something from long ago

I searched 'Kudzu' in my posts to see if I'd ever mentioned it before.

I had mentioned the plant that takes over the verge of highways in the southern states in a post about Ireland. Here it is.

Friday, April 15, 2016

Gorse and magpies

Two of the things I marvel at in Ireland are Gorse and Magpies.

Gorse is a yellow flowered shrub, not as tall as wide, that seems omnipresent in Ireland. It is along all the major roadways. I was riding to Dublin on Wednesday with an Irish nun and an academic from Austria. The academic asked what the yellow flowers were and I answered "Gorse!" before Fionnula could.

She laughed. "Jim loves gorse, Georgi," she said.

And I do.

If kudzu looked like gorse people wouldn't complain so much about it.

And then there are magpies.

I went on line to see if they lived in CT and a website called 'Connecticut Critters' listed them. But on the same page their territory was listed as only on the west coast and Texas. I know I've never seen one here. They are huge birds, related to crows and as big as our crows, but with white chests and white on their wings. The rest is black and gray.

They are as common in Ireland, it seems to me, as robins in Connecticut. They always seem to be in pairs or threes. They are very fast for such large birds. I enjoy watching them.

The Irish tell me magpies are very smart, so I looked them up as well and read a couple of articles that suggested they may be the smartest birds.

They are playful and cunning.

If you are of a certain age, you might remember Heckle and Jekyll. Two magpies that were in comic books and cartoons.