Can we find balance between "freedom" and "safety"?

America is a paralyzed nation in many ways, with our leaders (whom we almost always don't trust) unable to make rational decisions and living in fear of not meeting their most rabid supporters' expectations.

What could be a more convincing piece of evidence supporting this statement than the fact that about 90 percent of Americans (including all political views) support some sort of reasonable waiting period to obtain a gun. Our latest killer walked into a gun store on the day he turned 18 and was able to buy a semi-automatic rifle. He could not buy a beer at the tavern next door. 

Doesn't that say everything about our collective insanity?

We can have no hope for any action that creates an immediate turnaround on guns -- after all, there are over 400 million already in the hands of our citizens -- so we need to work on some "little" actions that can get through Congress and start little changes.

I was reminded of a truth just today: change happens slowly and then all at once. The latest example of this might be gay marriage, which was not on most peoples' radar until it was suddenly the law of the land. Small victories for the right to marriage piled up. 

That is the proposed way forward when commentators like Nicholas Kristoff advise us to avoid "triggering" phrases like "gun control," and instead discuss "gun safety." The tactic of exploring more safety is what keep cars on the road. Yes, lots of Americans continue to die on our roads but we have produced much safer vehicles and those increased safety measures have reduced deaths.

Could people be persuaded that all gun sales should require some sort of waiting period, much as many states demand a waiting period for women desiring abortions? Could people be persuaded that a basic gun safety course be required prior to purchasing a gun of any kind, much as we require some sort of training before people receive a drivers license? Could people be persuaded that creating a national age requirement of 21 is as reasonable as our drinking laws?

Could people be persuaded that it is OK for the FBI or some authority to gather data on gun violence, not just deaths, and thus provide some data we can work from in finding new ways to honor Second Amendment advocates while minimizing massacres of children?

The religious fanatics -- and I use that adjective because worship of the gun in a peculiarly American cult -- will still object. But there is a reason we can call those folks "fanatics": there aren't all that many of them.

Kristoff admits that small, reasonable restrictions around the edges of gun ownership will only reduce gun deaths by a third, but 14,000 lives is worth something, wouldn't you say?

There are dozens of regulations about ladders, of all things, and the total number of deaths connected to faulty ladders is about 100 per year.

If I had total power, I would destroy most of the guns (full disclosure). But I don't. 

It's time to explore "gun safety" and for industry and scientists and legislators to start producing some regulations/laws that show that there is still hope for the U.S. We can never be completely safe, of course, and death waits for all, but reasonable people try to avoid flaunting death.

It's tough to be optimistic about a nation that is OK with dead kids just to continue a fetish. But even cult members can be convinced to leave the cult.

Can we find ten Republican senators who feel strong enough to explore additional gun safety?

America values "I" over "we" and the powerless continue to suffer

In order to make any progress on a problem, it is a good idea to be able to clearly identify just what the problem consists of and examine history and traditions.

Thinking about exactly what America's problem is with guns and murders and suicides (and school shootings, of course) is how I have tried to avoid feeling overwhelming shame and despair about my country. Of course, to call it "my country" is not very accurate, I suppose. America belongs, and has always belonged, to the rich and powerful.

This is not unique to the United States. I would imagine Romans from 57 CE would have said the same, as well as tenant farmers in Ireland and Wales, and Okies in the depression. 

I saw a basic argument today that stated that the gun problem is actually a gun culture problem, and that makes sense. Many Republicans have adopted the principal of individual freedom as being more important than collective freedom. That is, MY right to buy guns, no matter how many or how lethal, along with giant stockpiles of ammunition, is far more important than the rights of young children to attend school without fearing being murdered.

I am disgusted by all politicians at this point, with nobody willing to really try to make changes in our national dystopia, where the country just shrugs as one million fellow citizens die from Covid -- hey, we're all going to die someday! -- and 18-year-olds murder in cold blood. 

I'm certain the NRA convention this weekend will offer "thoughts and prayers," while drawing attention to almost anything that takes our minds off the fact that there are over 400 million guns in the U.S. "How dare you play politics after the latest mass shooting?" the worst hypocrites will say while knowing that they have created a system where there will never be a time for that discussion.

If there are cheap cigarettes available everywhere, one solid prediction is that there will be more smoking. If there are cheap fast food outlets everywhere, a solid prediction is that people will eat more food that is not all that good for them. If there are cheap guns available to anyone with a pulse... you get the idea.

The Republican Party is filled with hypocrites, but we all are part of the problem. I anticipate that I will attend church this Sunday and the minister will light the "compassion candle," and "lift up" the slaughtered innocents in prayer, as if that will do anything. Heaven forbid that anyone display any anger in a house of worship. We all just need to breathe and trust in God. 

Just a few weeks ago, the scripture reading included the 12 plagues of Egypt, which included God massacring every first-born male in the nation to convince the pharaoh to let the Israelites go. Not a word was said about how appalling the very thought of worshiping such a god is. 

Dead, innocent children? That's just how it goes. Over 45,000 gun deaths last year? The price of "freedom."

The very essence of Christianity is that the collective is more important than the individual. Why else do we celebrate one man's sacrifice long ago to redeem everyone? 

The two teachers in Uvalde who died trying to shield their students from a deranged gunman will be praised as "selfless" and "models we all can aspire to be." I would guess that many ministers will focus on their sacrifice for others, and that their actions were "Christ-like."

And then they, and all their congregation, will go right back to taking care of themselves first. "America First" is a slogan that appeals to our country these days, as it excuses our own glorification of individual rights over the common good. 

Those two teachers were heroes, or maybe just hapless victims caught in the hail of bullets, but they are most certainly dead, as are many of the students they attempted to save. 

Many Americans will go to church Sunday and congratulate one another on how bad they feel, how many prayers they have offered, how THEY can protect themselves and their families with their own guns. They will be praying to a God who is fine with children being butchered, so why would the congregation change any behaviors?

Hey, I heard that same milquetoast minister proclaim a couple weeks ago that "God stops wars." Really? Can any evidence for such a claim be presented? Wars do eventually end, when the rich and powerful have had enough and lots of innocent children and powerless citizens are dead and cities are razed. If that reflects a clear strategy from the deity, I want a new deity.

It's tough to stay perpetually angry, unless you are the former president who obsesses over his own lies about a "stolen" election. And even he likely knows it's all just a game, the sort that the rich and powerful can have fun with.

And the massacres continue in the land of the free.

We all should be mad as hell

Various studies on why America is the undisputed leader in gun violence on the planet agree on a couple causes: the sheer number of guns in this country and the loose laws about obtaining and using them.

In the latest American carnage, with 19 elementary kids murdered along with two adults in Uvalde, Texas, the terrorist was an 18-year-old from the town. In Texas, you can purchase a gun when you are under 21 simply by buying it privately. 

I don't have all the details on the shooting, which naturally produced chaos and fitful fact-sharing by authorities, but I suspect most if not all of the victims were Hispanic. Ten days ago, in Buffalo, the victims were mostly Black, and that was intentional. In Uvalde, the shooter appears to have been Hispanic, so at least white supremacy isn't the related topic of the day.

No. Uvalde keeps it simple: one kid (I know, an 18-year-old is an adult in the eyes of the law in many cases, but I have known too many 18-year-olds to swallow a legal fiction that they are adults), one or two weapons, and a collection of available victims. 

It appears that there were some guards who attempted to stop the gunman at the school but ended up outgunned against the young man wearing body armor. If only all the teachers at the school had been armed, say the lunatics among us, everything would have been different. Madness.

I have been playing with the idea of using this clip from the 1976 film "Network" in summer workshops but it seems appropriate today, of all days. The clip will clue you to my post headline for today.

This film was provocative those 46 years ago and remains both riveting and revelatory today. It is likely a good idea to share this clip with current high school students who must think they are living in a special sort of hell right now, between Monkeypox and Covid and the Ukraine war and supply shortages and community members who couldn't give a damn about individual students and teachers attacking schools and educators. 

I am hoping to do something with the energy from being angry and encouraging students to use that energy to report on what matters and to advocate for change, even incremental change.

I looked up the inflation rate in 1976 and it was about 5.76 percent, not far from today's rate. I keep reading that it's inflation that will sink the tentative Democratic majority in the federal government, and that may turn out to be true.

I also looked up how many school shootings there were in 1976, and it was 10... in the entire country. This year there have already been 135. In 2021, there were 240, the highest number ever, by far. There will be a break over summer, as schools shut down, but we have a great chance of beating last year's record before January.

Record deaths from guns will create zero impact on politicians. As a nation, and to our shame, we have simply given up.

I'm sure I will hear about the need for prayer and forgiveness at church this coming Sunday, though nothing of note will be said by the minister. Taking a stand or being provocative? That is the sort of thing that wrecks churches these days. Don't rock the boat. Everybody breathe. Trust in God's plan. Check the screen for our next hymn.

America has decided that it is fine with a high level of death, poverty, and suffering, as long as it is not predominantly white people... but even white people will need to die from gun violence. The gun has become our religion, our focus, our idol.

All hail the holy bullets.

The country has lost its ability to be shocked

I know we are supposed to be properly shocked by the new independent report detailing many years of the Southern Baptist Conference suppressing information on sexual abuse of church members by clergy. 

But are we, really? 

We are living in the aftermath (with some cases ongoing) of the gigantic Catholic priest scandals and massive payouts to victims. We have a large percentage of prospective Republican legislators and governors and state officials proudly lying about the 2020 election. We have the wife of a Supreme Court justice lobbying for a coup while her husband bemoans the loss of status of the Court. We have justices now about to overturn Roe v. Wade, despite proclaiming it "settled law" during confirmation hearings. Who would have guessed that people would lie so blatantly?

Mass shootings continue to occur with numbing regularity, and gun suicides are reaching record levels. Deaths from auto crashes are soaring. Drugs are killing Americans at ever-higher rates. 

I know. I should take a breath. After all, there are so many great things going on across the planet while all the crap is continuing, and most of us may not be directly affected.

I am sitting in my comfortable Highlands Ranch home, grading some papers and planning some summer workshop sessions and looking forward to a lunch break to watch some shows with Kathleen this afternoon. And then, off to see the newest Downton Abbey film followed by dinner.

What, me worry?

I did get a notification on my phone this morning that someone I had been around has tested positive for Covid, but the information is so nebulous that I wonder what I am supposed to do with it.

We just were in Seattle and we wore masks on the plane, etc., but isn't it a virtual guarantee that if we are out among people we have been in close contact with someone with the virus? It would be more helpful to receive a notification that I have NOT been in close contact with someone with the disease.

So learning about the latest outrage or illegal or immoral or unethical actions of a religious group or a federal institution or the gun/death lobby? Shrug.

H.L. Mencken once wrote: No one in this world, so far as I know—and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me—has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby. The mistake that is made always runs the other way. Because the plain people are able to speak and understand, and even, in many cases, to read and write, it is assumed that they have ideas in their heads, and an appetite for more. This assumption is a folly.

He wrote that 100 years ago.

Yes, this attitude is a bit elitist, but isn't it basically just a truth that observation confirms over and over? I suppose the only question is about how to define "plain people."

Certainly not you and me.

No one can keep up with everything in pop culture, but teachers need to know a little bit, at least

Yesterday I had a somewhat embarrassing moment at the first rehearsal for a quick musical review our Wesley Players Theatre Company is presenting the last Sunday of June.

We were not given the music prior to the rehearsal, but that is normally fine. The music director assigns parts and there is an accompanist to support everyone as we struggle through everything.

One of the seven songs for our Act I part of the show turns out to be "You'll Be in My Heart," from the animated film Tarzan, from 1999. I have never seen that movie and I swear I have no memory of the song at all.

Of course, THAT'S the song the director wants me to sing lead for (tenors are in short supply). I had to admit I did not know the song at all.

Others in our cast of 17 were astonished that I did not know the song, but I gamely tried to sing the lead, but it was not good. On the other hand, I am certain that I will be able to learn the song in plenty of time.

Later I looked it up and it won the Academy Award for best song as well as the same award from the Golden Globes... and the song won a Grammy, to boot. In other words, this is not some obscure tune.

That's not really the point. The point was that I must have been doing other things as the last century was ebbing away (I had moved from teaching to an assistant principal position that year, and I blame my ignorance on that added stress/learning new things).

I can make myself a quick "expert" on almost anything if I am given a heads up and a little bit of time to practice or read more or just think about the topic in more depth.

But I don't read music, in this case, so if I don't "hear it" in my head, it's not happening. I need a little prep.

The teaching point for me was that I do better by staying in touch with the zeitgeist, even if my knowledge couldn't be more superficial. That is why I will "waste" an hour or two on some movie or TV show that is a current hit among people (usually) younger than I. 

It's nice to be able to participate in even the smallest part of informal conversations and not just stand there at the party with a glazed look of total confusion when someone brings up the latest SNL episode or the newest Downton Abbey movie.

Kathleen and I are in a little weekly discussion group and we meet on Monday mornings, and today that new Downton film came up, with several in our group already having seen it and loved it. We are Downton fans, BTW.

I was only able to participate in any way because I had listened to an episode of the podcast "Pop Culture Happy Hour" while flying home from Seattle yesterday morning. BTW, the panel of "experts" were not big fans of the film, which was not the way the true-blue Downton fans were responding. 

At least one couple attending our discussion today has not seen Downton Abbey in any form and I noticed that they were not able to participate in even small ways during that portion of the discussion. Perhaps they will find time to watch some old episodes on Netflix and they may become avid fans. Or they may simply accept that they missed this little blip in the cosmos and go on quite happily with their lives.

But teachers need to maintain connections with where their students are, not matter how much they may question current musical or dramatic trends. 

Without some common knowledge and some shared cultural touchstones, classrooms can lose their necessary cultural ties. Teachers should consider paying attention to such things as a job requirement, albeit without pay.

But we sometimes can be pleasantly surprised.

My quick take today: That 1999 song is pretty good. I look forward to learning it and the challenge will be to make sure that audience members who, like me, must have been busy back then and missed it, can enjoy the message and the music.

Most of life is not a problem to be solved, and that's OK

We are off to Seattle for a very quick trip to visit daughter, son-in-law, and grandsons, and I am taking Friday off. We will miss a late-May snow storm, evidently, with some predictions of up to 10 inches of snow early Saturday. The temperature in Denver today is going to top out at 90 and will drop to under 30 at night within 36 hours. 

Reporting on the weather qualifies as one of those things I would call "predicaments," meaning there is not much anyone can do about the situation. We can take precautions, like bringing in some plants, covering some others, and turning on the heat while we are away. By the time we return, we will likely see no trace of the snow, however much falls.

By next Tuesday we can turn off the heat again, and I hope for the last time until next fall.

We will drive to the airport, looking to park in a commuter lot for the first time in over two years. DIA shut down shuttle buses during the pandemic and only restarted them in December. There won't be as many as pre-pandemic, so we need to build in a bit more time. In related news, DIA's security lines have been growing longer once again as people (like us) return to flying. 

We invested in a five-year TSA Pre certificate, so we may miss the worst of the lines... and that is a choice by us to mitigate a predicament, which boils down to overcrowded airports and inefficient practices, by investing a bit of money.

And we will drive ourselves to the commuter lot, which will burn some gas, recently purchased at $4.05 a gallon. We can whine about the high gas prices but there's clearly not much that can be done about them. We can drive less, and we do. We are down to one vehicle and it is a 2010... still under 50,000 miles. You control what you can control.

High school is a predicament, in my mind, rather than a clear problem to be solved, and that is unsatisfying to many students and parents, not to mention educators. Progress as a learner or teacher can't be measured in small bits of time, or even in one year. We don't learn in a steady way, but in fits and starts and stops. 

Sometimes I wonder how we managed prior to all the standardized tests to decide what kids were learning and how they measured up. I suspect we managed by not engaging in all the national comparisons at all. We just trusted teachers and schools to do their jobs. 

Sure, people complained and disagreed, but mostly people retained an overall confidence in the worth and success of public education.

High school media programs are predicaments. How do we train, motivate, and organize a significant number of students of various skill levels and interest levels to inform, entertain, and persuade a complex community? And how would we ever know if we have "succeeded"? 

We are at the point in the school year when many states and national organizations offer critiques of media over the summer... as a way to rank and rate and confirm and question and suggest new ideas. I have written such critiques for many years, and here's why I know student media is a predicament:

I could copy and paste many of the same comments I was writing 20 years ago into almost any publication critique today. Change is incremental, at best.

Education and student media are moving targets, much like Colorado weather or gas prices. There is a constant turnover of teachers and students, with each new group needing to be taught. I saw that late snows in Colorado are hardly unusual, and I guess that helps a bit when we worry about how the peony bushes will fare in this quick storm.

They will probably be fine. So will be all.

Our choices often bring unintended consequences

Cause and effect is always the key logical connection that those in authority need to consider. It's also at the heart of most argument writing.

I was listening to an NPR program this morning and caught some of the conversation about the need (or the opposite) of universal Medicare for all. Many of the experts and callers saw "single payer" to be the obvious choice to solve a large number of health problems, and it is so tempting to want ONE simple solution to be the cause of an effect almost anyone would like to see.

Alas, the world rarely turns out to offer easy "win-win" situations. If solutions had clear cause and effects, with a change in policy or procedure leading to great things for everyone, wouldn't we just go ahead and do those things?

The NPR "1A" program evidently focused on the need for better mental health services in America and one reporter whose beat is health mentioned that a challenge if "Medicare for all" were ever to be approved would be that there are not enough mental health professionals to handle all the patients.

If it's tough to find a mental health professional right now, it's likely that a nation that will support universal medical care of any type would be producing more users/patients. Cause and effect. Right now many high school students, for instance, could use some mental health support, but the lack of professionals and high costs keeps those numbers down.

A sudden change in policy would not produce a sudden change in the number of professionals, the reporter pointed out. It takes quite a while to bring more people into psychiatry, for instance. But wait times would predictably get longer, a natural effect of supply not meeting demand.

Having a large number of qualified mental health professionals might be the cause of an increase in people taking advantage of their services, but who is willing to invest years and thousands of dollars in education and training "just in case" there will be a need for those services in the future? 

It's a chicken and egg situation, where a country having more mental health professionals, for example, might be able to handle increased numbers of users. But anyone trying to build new models would be faced with the challenge of balancing, probably slowly, health care providers with user needs.

I read recently in the NYT that a trend is for young people to purposely NOT save for retirement, preferring to enjoy life to the fullest while they can. After all, the future looks bleak, at least from their point of view, living in a nation that doesn't offer them all that much (their POV) and that doesn't seem to care about them.

It's not that different an attitude from we might see if scientists proved to us that the planet would be destroyed by an unavoidable collision with a large asteroid that will hit in one year. There is no possible escape. 

That "cause" would produce some logical effects, from people NOT saving for retirement to engaging in dangerous pursuits to thrill seeking, to unethical and immoral behavior.

Over 42,000 Americans died in car crashes last year, a huge increase over even the worst pre-pandemic years. Young people who are bored and/or without much hope and all sorts of people who just didn't drive much over the course of the pandemic's worst days are back on the roads. They are driving too fast, perhaps impaired.

It's a pretty clear cause for increased deaths on the roads, even as vehicles get safer and safer. 

I was thinking that the numbers would be even worse if vehicle manufactures had not continuously moved to make cars safer. But you can't guard against every potential stupid or aggressive or ignorant choice drivers can make.

Our society is a complex organism that creates complex cause-effect relationships. Nothing is simple.

But at some point, choices must be made.