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Define Humanity

January 20, 2024 by

What do you think gives us our “humanity?” Do you think it is our ability to use tools? Or perhaps it is our mathematical comprehension and ability to use logic and solve complex problems. Some would tell you it is our social organization and ability to work together. While others are convinced, it is our spiritual curiosity. Finally, there are those who would tell you unequivocally that the basis of humanity is our self-awareness.

I would argue that we are simply searching for ways to set ourselves apart and make ourselves better or on a higher rung on the ladder than other creatures inhabiting Earth.

We think very highly of ourselves, don’t we?

We use tools, as do Chimpanzees and many other members of the ape family. We simply took it a step further. Why? Because we were unable to survive without protection and thus had to create habitable conditions to preserve ourselves. Of course, given our rather aggressive nature, we also rather rapidly created weapons to ensure we could kill not just our food but others that looked slightly different; thus, murder and mayhem very rapidly ensued.

Humans have been, it seems, murderous and ‘eat our own’ species from the very beginning.

So, this leads me back to what defines us, specifically what separates us from other animals and makes us ‘human.’

We organize ourselves into ‘tribes’ and give ourselves rules to create socially acceptable conditions for our tribes to grow and thrive. Usually, these rules are constructed around “Gods” and religions, which men conveniently translate into laws for the masses. There is always a hierarchy within these religions: men who know all the rules and gather all the wealth for themselves. Within the hierarchy, there is always an enemy: the non-believer, the unrighteous, the weak, and those the believer could justify making war upon and enslaving at will.

Before we could make war, before we could enslave, before we could commit any atrocity, including rape, or murder for the amusement of the masses though we had to dehumanize the ‘other.’ We had to be convinced our ‘enemy’ was less human than us. We had to name them less than us and diminish them. We had to strip them of the essence of their humanity to enable and validate our cruelties.

This cycle has been pursued by the tribes of man since we have walked upright. We have certainly refined our cruelties; we have sought out different victims over the eons of man. Would it surprise you to know the word Slave has Slavic origins? Over time, as those boys over there in Europe became less pagan, well, they took a dislike to the enslavement of their own, meaning White Christians, so they had to search further afield for free backbreaking labor.

Again, I must ask what causes us to believe we hold some special place on the evolutionary ladder.

The atrocities we commit upon our fellow human beings are beyond the pale. Murder, mayhem in the name of what? Religion, state security, power, racial purity, borders, political ideology; all of it is incredibly ignorant. Honestly, what it boils down to is fear. Are we not so far up the ladder from the animals we pretend to be ‘better than’? We measure ourselves on dominance, not compassion, not empathy, but pure dominance.

We are nothing more than hairless apes with better and far more destructive tools. I frankly fear where this ends. As so many throw out even the façade of being enlightened, following the teachings of a faith that proposes kindness and loving others. We descend into the madness of pure anarchy and a return to the days when none were safe; I fear for all of us.

So finally, I return to my original question. what is humanity?

Filed Under: Sociology & Evolution Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

When

May 14, 2023 by

THUMP..^..^..^..^..^..^..^..^

THUmp..^..^..^..^..^..^

Thump..^..^..^..^..^

..^..^..^..^……………………………………. ……                        4,900,000,000

That is the number of children’s heartbeats lost in Uvalde. Just the children.

Heartbeats at the Covenant School in Tennessee their parents will never hear again:                                4,620,000,000

Heartbeats in Oklahoma, teenagers killed by a sex offender who was able to purchase a gun:                  4,200,000,000

Heartbeats of the MSU students murdered by a person who shouldn’t been allowed to buy a gun:            3,867,500,000

Lest we forget, another Texas murder of the nine-year-old with his family, another heartbeat stopped:     2,240,000,000

Then there is the sixteen-year-old at an Orlando park at Easter, a heart stopped:                                       1,995,000,000

Finally, the heartbeat stopped in Allen with his mother and father, two years old:                                       2,450,000,000

This is just a taste of how little we care for our children, how terrible and tragic this nation truly is. We are not numb; we are traumatized. We think this is the price of freedom. Those of us who believe the loss of even one child is one too many are afraid of offending those who hold up the 2nd as if it were holier than the Bible.

Do you want the Heartbeat math? I am more than happy to provide it.

The life span of the average man is 73 years.

The life span of the average woman is 77 years.

The average number of heartbeats in a year is 35,000,000

For every year not lived, that is 35,000,000, that person’s heart did not beat. For every year stolen from a child by guns, that child lost the opportunity to grow up and chase dreams. For every year stolen, parents, grandparents, and siblings must live with the trauma of the lost heartbeat of the missing child forever.

Victims are not only those who lose their lives. Victims are all those who remain behind, whose hearts continue to beat. Whose souls scream in the night, “Why?” Victims are those who demand answers from those who are indifferent to their pain. Victims live with the loss of their loved ones and must endure the endless empty place at the table. Victims bury their dead in small caskets, stare endlessly at the last pictures and ask, “Why them? Why not me?”

We are a nation of victims. Some of us have survived to tell the tale. Every time a thoughtless person in power sends another “Thoughts and Prayers” to the victims of another mass shooting, the survivors wonder when it will end. Then we retreat into our cocoon of trauma to heal ourselves because we still suffer and feel the bullets ripping into our bodies. No matter how tough we are on the outside, we still know what the latest victims felt as they died. We still remember the prayers we prayed. We still remember our parents, children, and siblings and their rage at what happened to us. We still know, and we are helpless in the face of it.

When will it be too much even for them?

24,272,500,000

That is the number of stilled heartbeats for just the small number of children I picked out. There are so many more in this year alone.

There have been 219 Mass Shootings in 2023

There have been 97 children under the age of eleven killed.

There have been 558 teenagers between the ages of 12 and 17 killed.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. It gets so much worse; murders and suicides are in the thousands. When do we stand up and say no more?

Gun Violence Archive

Filed Under: Guns & Violence, Society Tagged With: , , , , ,

Murder, Mayhem and a Reckoning

May 29, 2022 by

Do you know how things change? When enough people say enough. When the pain is bad enough, all the small differences finally melt away, and people find common ground and say to each other, “this shall not pass.” Things change when good people no longer turn away.

That is how things change.

We are currently a nation ruled by a vocal, heretic minority. They are mean-spirited, illiberal, unprincipled, power-hungry, and terrified. They are also violent and growing more so by the day.

When we, the majority, stop being weak-willed and selfish, when we the majority, become the genuine ‘Big Tent’ rather than the fractious, tribal-focused standard-bearers of our own self-interests that we are today, things change. When the majority stop infighting, stop name-calling and demanding absolute adherence to bullshit standards, that is when things will finally begin to change.

We, the majority, are always screaming bloody murder about one thing or another, the problem is it is usually directed at our own rather than those who are against us. Still, we can’t even put together a ‘true’ timeline of the crucial milestones, and how to define our messages of hope and victories. Nope, we only care about history if it suits our own beleaguered agenda, and losses that prove our point. We would rather attack our own President and those on our side, just to make a point. We would rather stand with the enemy, or stay at home because we didn’t get all we wanted then whine when we lose it all. 

The messaging is winning the day because those in the middle, the majority, don’t know how to confront the stridency of the Right or the Left and we are weary of both. Just some of the foolish things I have been confronted with since Buffalo:

  • Mass Shootings are due to a mental health crisis in America.
    • Oh, okay then. We are the only country in the world with crazy folk. So the solution to this crisis for the G.O.P. is to strip funding from Mental Health and put guns in the hands of the Mentally Challenged. Well, you know, that makes perfect sense to little ole me.

      Morals in America?

  • Mass Shootings are because parents are too lenient, children aren’t disciplined at home, there is a moral crisis with prayer being denied in school, Christianity is under attack, and schools have a leftist agenda.
    • Ummm, oh, okay. That might explain that whole Baptist thing with the entire conference sweeping decades of sexual abuse under the carpet, right? Or maybe it is the decades of proof that whooping your child with a belt doesn’t really do any good; it only makes the child resent you and grow more aggressive? The whole prayer in school? Yeah, you can still pray till your knees turn into a bloody pulp; you simply cannot force others do so in compliance with your selected faith. Despite your instance otherwise, America was not designed or intended to be a theocracy; it is not a Christian Nation; rather, it is a Democratic Republic with a citizenry that is a majority Christian, though this is rapidly changing.
    • I had to take this one separately because the entire issue of public schools and public school teachers having a Leftist agenda is both ignorant and insulting. Teaching true history, real science, accurate sex education, real social studies, and real political science all at the right time during a young person’s maturation cycle is not Leftist; it is called EDUCATION and Preparation. This education is vital for young people; it prepares them for the world they are entering; they are entitled to it, and your fears and bullshit stand in their way of becoming fully empowered and enabled adults.
  • It is our Constitutional Right to own Guns; we are a free nation because of this Right.
    • I think this might be one of my favorites. This one is close to an all-time high in the ignorance category. I can only shake my head at how truly myopic this sounds; these folks should get out of their Faux Hole more often. There are fourteen (14) countries that rank higher than the United States of American on World Population Review, Freest Countries. Guns make us free? This is by far one of the most asinine things I have read. Guns do not make us free; they force us to live in fear, our streets run with blood, and our schools are places of terror rather than learning.

There were so many more that I would spend the next week documenting them all and likely not even scratch the surface. Everything from the trite comparison between guns and cars to the regular refrain of “the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” There is always a piece of me that wants to slap the holy hell out of these fools with their talking points that seem to slip between their lips with such ease; they run from the truth, staring them in the face, dead people calling them from the grave demanding answers for their failures.

We, the majority, are the only ones who can give our dead the answers they deserve. We can do this thing that we have failed to do for so long. President Lyndon B. Johnson and his Congress did it in 1968 by passing and signing the Gun Control Act of 1968, driven primarily by the assassination of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King. The act prohibited mail-order sales of rifles and shotguns; it also banned most felons, known drug users and those found to be mentally incompetent from purchasing or owning guns.

“If guns are to be kept out of the hands of the criminal, out of the hands of the insane, and out of the hands of the irresponsible, then we just must have licensing. If the criminal with a gun is to be tracked down quickly, then we must have registration in this country. The voices that blocked these safeguards were not the voices of an aroused nation. They were the voices of a powerful lobby, a gun lobby, that has prevailed for the moment in an election year. But the key to effective crime control remains, in my judgment, effective gun control. And those of us who are really concerned about crime just must—somehow, someday—make our voices felt. We must continue to work for the day when Americans can get the full protection that every American citizen is entitled to and deserves-the kind of protection that most civilized nations have long ago adopted. We have been through a great deal of anguish these last few months and these last few years—too much anguish to forget so quickly.”

Lyndon B. Johnson, Oct 22, 1968 upon signing the Gun Control Act

In 1993, the Brady Handgun Violence and Prevention Act updated the Gun Control Act of 1968. This amendment was a direct result of the attempted assassination of then-President Ronald Reagan. The Brady Act added Background checks and created a list of prohibited individuals:

  1. is under indictment for, or has been convicted in any court of, a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year;
  2. is a fugitive from justice;
  3. is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance (as defined in section 102 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 802));
  4. has been adjudicated as a mental defective or has been committed to any mental institution;
  5. who, being an alien (a bunch of set-asides on this one I am not going to list);
  6. has been convicted in any court of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence.

What should we want? Where should we go from here? Honestly, we should stop with talking points to make all the crazy and fringe folks happy. We shouldn’t be taking all the noise into account; instead, we should be talking about reasonable solutions that make sense for the problems facing us today. I am a survivor of gun violence; many of my family members are gun owners and hunters. I argue with them about this issue because we talk over each other instead of listening carefully to each other. They sometimes forget I carry the trauma of gun violence every day of my life. I believe in my heart there is a common ground; if reasonable people talk with each other, there is a solution to what we face today on this issue. Here are my thoughts on the subject of Gun Safety and the incremental steps toward a safer Nation for all of us:

  • Raise the age limit to 25 for all gun purchases.
    • Exception: Honorable discharge from any branch of the military.
  • National Background Check database, with a minimum 24-hour waiting period.
    • Shut down internet purchases with the direct-to-home shipment. Must be shipped to a local handling agent who can validate I.D. and license.
  • Enact Red Flag Guidelines federally. This would trickle down to the state level, with states able to add to them, creating more effective solutions for their state. Federal Guidelines should simply provide minimums.
  • Safe Storage Laws this is critical to prevent the ongoing child accidents we see so often in the news. At a minimum, households with guns should have liability insurance against accidents.

For me, that is ground zero.

Today, in Uvalde, Texas, nineteen (19) babies are being memorialized, and two (2) teachers are being remembered. In Buffalo, NY, they are still burying their dead.
Buffalo May 14, 2022
Uvalde May 24, 2022

Today, we still don’t have the heart to do something. If not now, when?

Filed Under: Guns & Violence, Op Ed Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Does the Devil Pray

May 25, 2022 by

Do you think the Devil prays? What do you think he prays for, more pain, chaos, weeping families, dead children in the halls of schools? Do you think he dances gleefully through the fire of hate and passionless ‘thoughts and fervent prayers’ after every mass shooting, knowing that he is winning the battle of ‘hearts and minds.’

Nineteen babies lay dead in their elementary school, and two of their teachers died with them. This may not be the final count of this latest tragedy. Twenty-one human lives lost forever, and even more victims when you begin adding all the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th graders who witnessed the violence in what should be a safe and happy place, their school. Then you begin to add all the parents, siblings, grandparents of those nineteen babies, all the aunties, uncles, cousins, and the circle of victims grows. Nineteen babies who will never grow up, never finish High School, go to Prom, attend college, fall in love, get married, or have children of their own. Nineteen babies, children under the age of ten (10), lay broken and bleeding, dead before they had the chance to live.

Uvalde Victims Identified

In the course of killing babies, this sick and twisted killer also took the lives of two teachers, women who dedicated their lives to the young of this small Texas town. Both were gunned down while trying to protect their students. Both with families and children of their own, they leave broken hearts and shattered lives behind them.

How do any of us reconcile the horror of mass shootings with the indifference of the Pro-Life response?

“Inevitably when there’s a murder of this kind, you see politicians try to politicize it; you see Democrats and a lot of folks in the media whose immediate solution is to try to restrict the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens. That doesn’t work. It’s not effective. It doesn’t prevent crime.” Ted Cruz, to reporters Tuesday 5/24/2022

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“I’d much rather have law-abiding citizens armed and trained so that they can respond when something like this happens because it’s not going to be the last time.” Ken Paxton, Texas Attorney General on Newsmax, Tuesday 5/24/2022

Consider what we have done in Texas since Abbott became Governor; we have the loosest Gun Controls in the world. In fact, Abbott has signed twenty-two (22) pieces of legislation that make gun ownership and gun carry laws looser. In Texas, anyone above the age of 21 can carry a handgun nearly anywhere in the state without training or a permit. In Texas, any person above the age of 18 can buy any type of gun, handgun, long-gun, semi-automatic gun. Then there is my favorite, the Sanctuary Act which FORBIDS local agencies from enforcing Federal gun rules; this act goes even further and bans government agencies at all levels from doing business with or signing contracts with any organization that discriminates against the firearm industry.

Babies, we are talking about dead children who are still being identified a day later because of the horrible damage done to their small bodies by one person with a gun. But these PRO-LIFE lunatics would have you believe that guns don’t kill people. These same lunatics, here in Texas and beyond, will be at the NRA Conference in Houston just two days from now. Who will be there? Good question, Raphael (Ted) Cruz (Senator, R, Texas), Greg Abbott (Governor, R, Texas), Donald Trump (2X impeached ex-President, R). There are others they aren’t worth mentioning; what is important is these men have one thing in common: they pretend to care about children, yet consistently prove they have zero compassion or empathy for the lives lost. They vote consistently for death; even their stance on Abortion is a vote for death.

I am broken-hearted by the failure of this nation to stand up for our most vulnerable. We watch, we wring our hands, and then we turn away. We wait for the next tragedy; we fail to hold accountable those with the power to make meaningful changes. We fail to stand up to the ignorance of those who make the most horrific public statements and tell the most baseless lies (e.g., School Shootings are Left Wing False Flag Events because they are losing). We fail to demand truth from the fourth estate (media) rather than the propaganda circus we have today. We lost the race before we even took the first step.

Does the Devil pray? Or does he dance gleefully through the bloodbaths we create with our indifference to the dead? Donald Trump gave an inauguration speech on Jan. 20, 2017, that, at the time, insulted many of us; I now believe it was simple precognition:

“Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities, rusted out factories, scattered like tombstones across the across the landscape of our nation, an education system flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of all knowledge, and the crime, and the gangs, and the drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential. This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.”

In his four years in office, he enshrined Trumpism within the GOP. He uplifted the worst in us. He stomped empathy and compassion into the ground and what we are left with is nineteen dead children in Uvalde, Texas. Heartbroken families and a nation that hasn’t recovered from Buffalo, grieving again and asking, ‘Why?”

I have only one answer, why in the hell do you think?

Filed Under: Guns & Violence, Op Ed Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Wonder and Woe

April 28, 2020 by

Soapbox LogoI am caught between wonder and woe; nearly every single day, these warring emotions capture me and tangle me up. As I scroll through social media, the various news media I regularly read and television news, there are days I am simply unable to process the entirety of our national tragedy. I am seized by the images of where we are as a nation and as a people. As I said, I am stuck between wonder and woe.

Woe, what is it really? How to describe woe, I don’t use the word lightly or simply for effect. The word is one that describes profound sadness, grief or distress. Is this what I feel when I scroll through all my sources of information each day? Do I sink into a miasma of distress at the state of our union, the answer is yes I do more often than not. My grief at what is lost is deep and sits on my heart with great weight. All that came before this moment in time seems to have been for nothing, though I know this isn’t the truth; it is how it feels right now.

Woe, as if an assassin was sneaking in and burying a stiletto in my spirit. It is impossible to avoid the ugly. From the foolishness of elected officials placing dollars over citizen lives to the citizens practicing their 2nd Amendment Rights without a care in the world for their or anyone else’s life. While most of us watch in awe at the sacrifices of first Health care workers stand in the street as a counter-protest to those demanding the stay-at-home order be lifted in Denverresponders and medical care providers, some would stand before them and scream they are the problem; they are part of the conspiracy to destroy the nation and their right to a haircut. I am brought to my knees; I am terrified, sickened and heartbroken by the horrifying examples of heartlessness demonstrated in the halls of power and the streets of our cities.

Woe is all I can feel some days Hell most days. Where once we had giants now, we have simple boors, villains who were lucky enough to align themselves with the party du jour and take advantage of a corrupt system. We are in a feedback loop of massive proportions, one where we are the energy that feeds the terrible and keeps it cycling. We, the people, we have created the monster by turning our heads, tying on our blinders and not standing up to the corruption so blatantly before us. Now we are paying the price for our disinterest with a POTUS of massive ignorance, massive ego surrounded by obsequious toadies willing to say and do anything, including let us die to feed themselves and their need for ‘more‘.

Wonder, yes I always have those moments in a day where my heart stutters and I smile. Sometimes it is a young child singing. Thank you to everything Holy, young children 20200315_114015have not been corrupted by the world yet. Sometimes it is looking out my kitchen window and seeing my Lavender is still in bloom. Then there are those unique moments when I realize this will end and we will be together again.

Wonder at the resiliency of our human nature. We have been brought so low a pandemic is sweeping through this nation, through the world. A virus we have no control over is killing our loved ones and we are not able to offer comfort or even gain the comfort of true mourning. We have been overwhelmed; emotionally, financially and systemically. We are teetering on the edge of the abyss, yet there is hope in the everyday small things.

Wonder at the ability for humans to find thankfulness and grace even in the worst of days. I have read articles and watched mini-documentaries from the front lines. Each time I am struck by the compassion of those who must face the dying every single day, without aid or solutions. Every day I look for stories of kindness and I find them. The small restaurant that feeds those in need, despite being in need themselves. The coffee shop that gives away coffee and pastries to healthcare workers and first responders, despite operating in the red. The small clothing manufacturer that converted his operations at his own cost into making masks and scrubs, selling to hospitals at cost just so he can keep making them. I am uplifted every single day by these stories; by these proofs there continues to be good people in this world and most especially in this nation.

Wonder and woe follow me every day, piercing my heart. I often wonder what we will be when we finally conquer this virus and truly return to an open nation, not what we once were simply open. Will we be different in our spirit? Will we look at our behavior both before and during and shun the ugliness that brought us to that point that allowed our nation to be brought so low? Will we question our standards, morals and ethics as a screen-shot-2014-11-25-at-4-34-05-pmpeople? Will we demand better of ourselves and those who seek high office?

Me? I believe we must start now to consider what it is we want to be and how we want the world to view us as a nation. We will be starting over; we have been brought low and our recovery will not be the work of one man or woman but of all of us. It truly is the right time to demand sweeping change, not the type of change Bernie Sanders and his acolytes were proposing. Certainly not the type of change Donald Trump proposed. But real change to who is in government, how they govern and for how long they govern. The grassroots of this nation must step up, must see beyond all our differences and begin to build true alliances if we want real change in this nation. We must stop he said / she said and start the what do we want, together. The only way anything will ever change for the better for all of us is if we agree to look toward a better future and agree on what that looks like, we cannot fix historical injuries only agree they occurred and are the root of many of the evils this nation has perpetuated.

Wonder? Yes, I stand in awe and wonder at the towering strength of our shared humanity. I have a great belief in us, all of us that we can fix what is broken in this nation. I know it will be hard; truthfully, it will be the hardest thing we have ever undertaken. But I believe there are enough of us who truly want this nation to succeed that it is possible for us to overcome all the differences and make it happen.

Filed Under: Pandemic Isolation, Sociology & Evolution Tagged With: , , , ,

No Celebrations

February 7, 2020 by

tears_of_sadnessToday is my anniversary. If I could find a less ‘romantic’ word for today I certainly would, but today I celebrate twenty-eight years since I lived beyond when I should have lived, beyond the day three miscreants tried to take my life with three bullets. Today I woke up and it was my twenty-eighth year of life beyond the day they attempted to take my life and certainly changed my world forever.

I wish I could say today was just like any other day. It is not.

I wish I could say I do not feel it, that I do not know what today is. The truth is, I do know and it affects my outlook and my ability to see the world entirely positively.

I wish I could say today was just like any other day, but it isn’t. Today is different. Today marks the day twenty-eight years ago my world changed. It marks the day my sons, my husband, my parents, my siblings, my nieces and nephews, my friends everyone who knew me or would know me in the future had to embrace a different me and had to face that I might have died. Those are difficult truths.

Those early years, they were hard on all of us. The recovery was hard. The daily struggle to get through the day was hard. Pain sometimes brought me to my knees, begging God to please kill me, don’t demand I live like this with no recourse, no relief. Then, finally learning I could live with pain, it just required adjustments, some days without crushing nrm_1413410111-storm2pain or finally that pain was simply my new norm and we can learn to live with anything. The refusal to resort to pain medications, to live in a haze saved my sanity even when everyone around me thought I was crazy; maybe it was just that I was so damned mean and I was driving them crazy.

Then came the results of those strokes I had on the operating table, the gift that keeps giving. Epilepsy in two forms and the early medications that put me right into the fog I had tried to avoid. Medications I might add that did not stop the seizures only turned me into a drooling zombie incapable of even minimal adult functions. I was finally blessed with a doctor who weaned me off those killers onto something that allowed me to live fog free but mostly seizure free too, I only had to give up alcohol. Fair trade, I guess.

Twenty-eight years, today. There are days I am still furious at the series of events. There are days I am furious at a society that enabled those events to happen. There are days I am enraged at those three young men who are now all walking the streets, free having never shown remorse for their actions. I wonder though, what do they think of their actions, what are their thoughts after all these years? Do they think of their victims and the grievous harm they did in the name of racial hate and wanting to ‘kill white people’? Has their hate changed or was it solidified during the years they were incarcerated?

During the past twenty years I have spent my time trying to do right, trying to work toward peace for my soul and my spirit. Trying to create forgiveness even where there was no remorse. Trying to work for a better justice system, one of reconciliation and growth rather than simply incarceration and warehousing. One thing I have consistently justicereformfound, we are all of us human; there but for the grace of God go I. None of us are without our own choices, our own failures, our own sins. The difference is some of us have been more fortunate in our outcomes. I use to say there could be no forgiveness without remorse, that I did not need to forgive my offenders that was between them and the God they worship. I still believe this. The difference is now, I had to let go of their punishment. I had to stop demanding my pound of flesh and leave that to fate, this was a hard lesson.

Twenty-eight years, they got time but I got life. Their acts shortened my life so all the medical professionals tell me. This may be true. Yet their acts hastened my learning. I have found peace and accepted my truths much earlier in life than many of my friends. Perhaps this is the gift inside of the terrible. I struggle with this day even all these years later, maybe I will struggle with this day for the rest of my life. Today though I will try to be grateful I have had twenty-eight extra years.

To read more:

Crime and Punishment

Filed Under: Series: Crime and Punishment Tagged With: , , , ,

Fallen Apart

July 12, 2016 by

soapboxpileTo support one thing does not mean I am against another. I want to make certain all who read my words understand this, to support one thing does not place me at odds with another thing. I can be for both, I can be in support of two seemingly different things. How you might ask, it is simple and I will tell you in as simple as terms as possible.

I am for humanity. I am for human dignity. I am for justice, fairness. I am for all of us, together as a people, as a nation finding solutions that will move us forward toward sanity and peace. I am at a loss, not just for words but my spirit is seeping away, hiding in a dark corner and refusing to seek the light any longer.

We are a people of disquiet and terrible, tragic division. We are not a single people, joined together by our desire to become stronger through our diversity and our shared history. Instead, we have sought the lowest common denominator, sought the very worst in ourselves and celebrated these most terrible and violent traits that drag prejudice and fear. Some of us protest the violent and senseless loss of life, we march and raise our voices demanding justice and change, yet the only thing that truly changes is the divide widens, the chasm of mistrust grows between us and violence increases. In our demand for recognition, our voices raised seeking justice that has not been ours in the past we say with one word, allies and friends be damned and cheer as innocent blood runs in the street.

The language of divisiveness has torn us down and apart. A mirror has been held up and we have seen ourselves, the worst of ourselves and embraced it. We have forgotten that good exists in abundance. We have chosen instead to ratchet up the hate, the vile rhetoric that will incite fear and violence on both sides of the ever widening abyss. Our leadership, whether elected or otherwise,5-signs-from-last-night-s-game-of-thrones-that-point-to-the-rise-of-daenerys-the-derange-996054 uses every opportunity to politicize death and mayhem, to feed our fear and fury. We are spiraling down the rabbit hole toward anarchy and those who would be king, they sit and rub their hands together gleefully as we fulfill their mad desire.

We watch in horror as another Black man is gunned down in the street or in his car as his child watches. We listen in horror as amateur journalists put their deaths on Facebook live, rather than offer them comfort and we justify their actions, we understand their actions because we need to know we need to see the bad acts. We forget to weep, we are immune we have seen this all before replayed over and over, these deaths simply cause our fury. Another senseless death. Another child, father, husband murdered by those sworn to serve and protect, murdered by those who will not be held accountable.

We blame the victims, searching for any misstep they might have made in their past, smearing them in public to justify their death. We tsk tsk as their death is replayed, over and over and every pundit tells us what we should think of them, depending upon what side of the chasm they speak from. We see the pain of their family, the fury of their loved ones and the demand for justice sends us to the street, more and more often with terrible results.

DALLAS, TX - JULY 11: Dallas Police Chief David Brown

We pay men and women to put on the blue, to ‘protect’ and to ‘serve’ us, the people. We demand they do so and without them Anarchy would rein in the streets. Yes, we must demand they be held to a higher, more perfect standard. We must require they be fit for the job they perform. DPC David Brown had been doing that, going against what many believed would work in Dallas, he charted a new course.  Dallas has become a model city, proving community policing and modern ideas can work in large diverse city. We cannot ever be good with the mayhem, the chaos and misery they cause in our cities, our communities. We must not turn away, thinking just so long as it isn’t at our doorstep and so long as we can justify it with a good old fashioned smear campaign of culture, people or individual we can ignore it as ‘not our problem’.

Last week seven people lost their lives senselessly to violence. We do not know all the details surrounding the deaths of Alton Stearling and Philando Castile, but we know enough. We watched in horror as they died. We have also watched in horror as their lives have been dissected and their characters smeared.

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Their deaths have led to nationwide marches, demands for justice, demands for change and unfortunately in some cases demands for the blood of police. Which was finally met on Thursday night at a peaceful #BLM demonstration, with shooting of twelve Dallas police officers, resulting in the death of five. Not just any twelve, not just any five, but in retribution specific targets were selected based on race and their wearing of the Blue.

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Dallas mourns their fallen. I mourn the fallen. I mourn with the families of Alton Stearling and Philando Castile, their loss is devastating. I mourn with the families of the fallen officers, their loss is also devastating. In truth, how can we mourn one while celebrating the other? Yes, to all of those who have said ‘good’, to the loss of those five police officers I say shame on you and truthfully ‘fuck you’. We cannot mourn one without mourning both to do otherwise is ignorance on our part and shows a lack of compassion that strips us of our humanity.

Why don’t we know by now, we are one people born of struggle, fire, blood and tragedy. We are one people, born of spiritual poverty and horrify mistakes. But one people generations removed from our beginnings yet it seems still mired in the ignorance of our ancestors, still clinging like Velcro to our history it seems we will continue to refuse to climb out. If we do not learn to reach across the divide we are doomed. So yes, I can and do support both. I can and do see both and desire reconciliation, change, justice and the creation of a better more perfect nation. This, this tragic and terrible one, it has to end. But violence, bloodshed, hate and bigotry this will not end well for any of us.

Filed Under: Sociology & Evolution Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Save Your Prayers For The Living

October 4, 2015 by

angry-godThey profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work.

Titus 1:16

 

Your prayers are useless. Your prayers are insulting, always coming after the fact and as an afterthought. Want to pray? Pray for a change, pray there are no more victims of gun violence, pray the NRA becomes known as a criminal enterprise, and pray Congress finds their heart and starts to do something to change the vicious and violent nation we live in. Then when you get off your sanctimonious knees find your heart and demand change, do something, take action.

I am tired of it all. Aren’t you?

I am weary as hell of turning on the news and seeing another mass murder, another report of a school, church, theater or mall shot up and dozens dead. I am mind numb with the senseless death 11202102_486110584889188_3832410922166378229_nin every city, of the thousands of our youth, lying on cold streets in pools of their own blood. I am shattered by the number of guns bought and sold daily in this nation without a single thought to how they will be used, without a background check or any other validation or identification. I am stunned that we still can’t do even the simplest of things, a national background check versus what we have today the useless state by state checks that allow for loophole after loophole to be casually meandered through by those who would do grave harm.

I am exhausted by the excuses presented by the media, government Representatives and of course those spokespersons for the gun manufactures the NRA, for why yet another mass killing has happened.  Everything from ‘Beta Male Syndrome’, just what the hell is this anyway? Boys don’t feel they are getting enough female attention so they buy guns and blow shit up?  To the random, mental health issues; okay everyone has a bit of crazy these days. Then we have the easy to identify, my wife left me so I am going to kill her and everyone else around her, there are a few of these. Of course, we have the failing to make the grade so let me kill those professors and students who might be better than me. Finally we have the just plain old racist, bigot assholes who think there is a need to kill those ‘not like them’ out of what, fear and hate.

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The face of the mass murder from 1984 to today

It isn’t getting better, it is getting worse. This ignorance, the pure unhealthy love affair this nation has with violence is making our small bit of this world a terrible place to live and to raise our children. From mass murders in theaters, churches, classrooms and malls to the random murders on the streets; it is getting worse. Fear and violence, children lying dead, by the hand of a parent, classmate, cop or random drive-by. Truly does it matter how a child dies? I can tell you it doesn’t matter to the parents who must search for a small casket to bury that child.

Your prayers are useless. Who needs or wants your prayers? Surely, though they might be polite and thank you, not those who are left behind. Not those who must bury their beloved family members, their children, siblings or spouses because some asshole with access to a guns and more rounds of ammunition than a platoon needs on maneuvers decided today was the day they would kill human beings. Not the walking wounded who must live every single day with the nightmares and physical results of the shots fired by a random stranger or loved one, who must face their changed circumstances and the even in some cases their shortened life expectancy, not because of their poor choices but because they were in the were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

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Your offer to pray for any of us, yes us, without action is an insult. If I hear one more person tell the victims of gun violence they are praying I believe I will scream.

For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.

James 2:26

Let me help, please let me help your understanding if there is any confusion at all. Guns have no purpose but to kill. Killing is the only purpose of a gun. Don’t try to make it out to be anything other than what it is, those who want to paint lovely pictures about skeet shooting, range shooting and target shooting need to step off, you only do this so you are better killers with guns. Guns, allDomestic-Violence-9Women-1_Meme-noURL guns from the smallest ladylike pistol to the biggest cannon have one single purpose, to kill; whether killing people or animals for food. Guns are designed to kill as efficiently as possible, depending on their design they kill one thing or have the potential to kill many things with a single pull of the trigger. Guns are tools of murder and destruction, this is their single and only purpose. They cannot be compared to anything else, nothing else at all. I have seen in social media guns compared to many other things over the years as the debate for gun control rages, let me try to set the record straight:

Cars ≠ Guns

Knives ≠ Guns

Baseball Bats ≠ Guns

Explosives ≠ Guns

Fire ≠ Guns

Poison ≠ Guns

Water ≠ Guns

Narcotics ≠ Guns

Hammers ≠ Guns

All of the above have been cited as things people use to kill with, things people would use to kill with if they didn’t have access to guns. This is true, these are all things you might use to kill another human being with if you didn’t have access to a gun or guns. The difference between these things and guns? All of the above have a purpose other than to kill another living creature, all have a reason to exist, yes even poison has a purpose other than to kill a living creature, in some cases it is to kill weeds in your yard, in some cases it is to alleviate pain. It is impossible to make the argument that guns and any of the above are in any way, shape or form equal any of the above they are not.

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Save your prayers, they are useless pandering. Save your tears, they are frankly too damn late.

Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit.

Psalms 34:13

http://timelines.latimes.com/deadliest-shooting-rampages/

http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/

http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2015/09/us/the-loneliest-club/?sr=sharebar_twitter

Filed Under: Guns & Violence Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

The Names

April 29, 2015 by

This is stunning in its horror. Something has to change.

Filed Under: Society

Hope and Apathy

May 25, 2014 by

soapboxpilePlease read here for the best synopsis of Fridays mass killing, my friend Jueseppi has done a spectacular job of putting it all together: http://theobamacrat.com/2014/05/25/university-of-california-santa-barbara-isla-vista-shooting-rampage-7-reported-dead-including-22-year-old-shooter-elliot-rodger/

 

I had planned to stay silent over the killings in Isla Vista on Friday, what is one more voice after all. The truth is I planned to stay silent because it is impossible for me to write through my heartache at more young lives lost. As I write this, my heart is cracking, tears periodically leak from my eyes and stream down my cheeks. I cannot help but think of the families of those who lost their lives. I cannot help but think of those who will have the long road ahead of them toward recovery, the fears they will face, the triggers they will have to overcome, the nightmares that will awaken them in the future all because we failed them, because one man with a gun decided to take retribution for his failure with women.

I think this father’s grief says it best:

Twenty-two years ago, I got lucky. I lived when I wasn’t supposed to. Friday night six young people lost their lives. Yes, I am aware the killer also lost his life, frankly I do not care that he is dead. I am sorry for his parents, they lost their child but he took the lives of six others before he died, he attempted to take the lives of seven others. Had he been successful his minimum body count would have been thirteen, had he achieved his true aim it would have been much higher.

Already in much of the mainstream media, this mass murderer is being referred to as a ‘child’ with psychological problems, trying to excuse his behavior, trying to give him an out for his spree. Not only will I not name him, let the Devil do that while he burns in hell, I will not excuse him or anyone else I blame for the lost lives on Friday.

So let’s clear some of the excuses off the table, first this is not a ‘child’ this was a twenty-two year old man, a fully grown man, in college, living in an apartment, with a car (a BMW no less) and an income, albeit likely one he didn’t earn. The next thing we should be clear about is the childhood diagnosis of High-Functioning Asperger Syndrome, while he might not have been as socially adept as his peers due to Asperger Syndrome; his family had the means to provide him the very best treatment and education throughout his life. It is unlikely he was that far behind unless the diagnosis of High-Functioning was incorrect, based on his videos and his ‘manifesto’ he was simply selfish, spoiled and self-centered. I accept the diagnosis of Asperger, it appears he wasn’t a ‘normal’ twenty-two year-old, this does not however, make him mentally deficient, insane or otherwise incapable of knowing right from wrong.

Let’s be really clear, he was a twenty-two year-old man who believed the world and women in particular owed him something, in this case owed him ‘sex’, the fact that he remained a virgin at his age bothered him immensely. That he believed he was a ‘god’ compared to others who he saw with the women he wanted, as seen from a quote from one of his videos:

“I see so many beautiful, blonde haired girls. So many beautiful blonde-haired girls walking around everywhere. In your revealing shorts. Your cascading blonde hair. Your pretty faces. And I want one for a girlfriend… I’m 22 years old and I’ve never had a girlfriend. I’m still a virgin. I’ve never had the pleasure of having sex with a girl. Sleeping with a girl. Kissing a girl. I’ve never even held a girl’s hand,”

Or another quote:

“Girls gave their affection and sex and love to other men but never to me”

Now, six young people are dead and seven others will have to live with his actions, because this man, believed he was owed and took it in his head to follow through with his threat:

“If I had it in my power. I would stop at nothing to reduce every single one of you to mountains of skulls and rivers of blood,” adding “You deserve to be annihilated, and I will give that to you,” he said, speaking of what he termed his “day of retribution.”

When it all goes wrong, this is what happens. This is the aftermath, this is what happens to communities.

How many must die before we get right with our children? How many times does this have to happen before we stop the insanity of out of control gun laws that allow massacres on the streets of our nation to happen indiscriminately? When are we going to demand change and why aren’t we asking the relevant questions such as, where did he get a gun?

That last question isn’t as obvious as it might sound, as someone with a ‘disorder’, not insane but not entirely normal either, he would be on a list that would bar him from gun ownership in a sane world. We don’t live in a sane world though, do we?

Three Stooges

Three Stooges

We live in a world where Ted Nugent, Sarah Palin and Wayne LaPierre have more power to determine whether our children will be safe on the streets and in their schoolrooms than the majority of Americans.

Please note, none of them are elected officials, I can tell you what all of them have in common though:

RACISM, NRA, SYG and a complete lack of intellectual discernment.

Worse yet? Most recent polls show their messaging is getting through to the ignorant and uninformed, their constant flow of misinformation is having an impact and more citizens of this nation are leaping on the bandwagon. More Americans believe gun control laws should be ‘less’ strict rather than more strict, this coming from the most recent Gallup Poll. As gun deaths rise, as mass murder rises, as our children lay bleeding in the streets, the school yards and even in their own homes; Americans look and shrug their shoulders and say to themselves fuck it, open the floodgates.

Gallup
Gallup Poll

How many more must die? How many more mothers and fathers must bury their children in the cold earth?

Twenty-two years ago, my father got lucky. Mr. Martinez and the other parents of Friday’s mass killing were not as lucky. I am heartbroken for them, shattered for them. My friend said the following to me, knowing I sign my e-mail ‘helplessly hopeful”:

Well, in “Hopeland”, things are OK. Here in reality where I live, this shit ain’t ovah. There will be many more shooting rampages to come. Get yo popcorn and get ready for the show.”

It was somewhat cruel, I know the monsters are out there, he isn’t wrong though is he; until we, as citizens get up off our apathetic asses and demand change we are lost and the victims will continue to pile up. Hope, it isn’t enough and it will not stem the tears of all the parents who lose their children. We must take our nation back from those who would destroy it. We must stand up and say no more.

What soothes my heart at times like this:

 

http://everytown.org/

http://www.webmd.com/brain/autism/tc/aspergers-syndrome-topic-overview

http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/aspergers-syndrome/basics/definition/con-20029249

http://www.autismspeaks.org/what-autism/asperger-syndrome

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/05/24/the-nra-s-all-out-assault-on-accurate-information-about-gun-deaths.html

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2012/12/gun_death_tally_every_american_gun_death_since_newtown_sandy_hook_shooting.html

Filed Under: Guns & Violence Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,
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