So Many Cold, Dead Hands

Are we all sick enough yet of headlines like “One of the Ten Worst Mass Shootings in Modern History?” Are we all tired enough yet of our so called “Leaders” who send worthless “thoughts and prayers” to the victims and their families? Are we sick enough yet of having to read articles and blog entries -especially from people who would rather be writing about funny things- about mass shootings in schools, churches, theaters, and night cubs. Are we finally tired of explaining to these bought and paid for politicians that guns are only designed for one thing, and the idea that they make any environment safer is like saying that having people sneeze in your mouth is the best to avoid catching a cold?

I’m so sick of so many things connected with this heartbreaking topic, friends and neighbors, and I can’t imagine how anyone isn’t ready to make an actual effort to end these things. How could they not be? So many people, so many, many people, being murdered by some person with a weapon they had no business having. Surely no one in their right mind would allow this to go on, right? Surely only a short sighted and callous idiot would still be spouting that “cold, dead hands” rhetoric, right?

I’m tired of hearing people who are supposed to be representing and protecting us ramble on about how there’s nothing we can do to prevent it, ignoring completely the fact that they have the power to at least take some steps. I am sick of people like State Senator Debbie Mayfield, who had the gall to tell a student that “we can’t stop the crazies.” They instead suggest things like putting armed guards in the schools, or armed drones, even. Or installing hardcore metal detectors, like in airports, which we all know never miss anything.

No word I can find on how they would pay for those detectors, but maybe they need to think and pray on it. Maybe they can donate some of the tens of millions of dollars the NRA gave them? More likely though they’ll cut funding for school lunches for poor kids, or quality assurance on textbooks, or some other unnecessary thing.

And speaking of the NRA, I’m tired of how these red faced gun worshipping cowards get more influence on the way our country is run than the people do. When most of the country is in favor of a thing, shouldn’t its leaders be taking steps to get it? That’s how we got such great healthcare and education systems, right?

Wait. Nevermind. Obviously what we want doesn’t mean anything compared to the Billions of Dollars these politicians get to avoid doing their jobs. Which I guess is why our nation’s teenagers are doing it now. Teenagers, for god’s sake! These young people are supposed to be worried about pointless standardized testing and accidental pregnancies, not about which bulletproof backpack they should buy. They shouldn’t have to be out there demanding to know why nothing is being done. They shouldn’t have to hear from someone whose job it is to make this country better that the AR-15 is a “legitimate hunting rifle.”

By the way, if you need something like an AR-15 to go hunting, you have no business hunting in the first place. If you’re going to insist on killing an animal for self gratification, or because it’s some tradition or whatever, you at least owe it to not just the animal, but to yourself, to get good enough at it to do the job in one merciful shot. Otherwise, buy your meat from the grocery store like the rest of us.

Anyway, back to the teenagers, who as near as I can tell, are pretty much being ignored. Well, except for this one school district I heard about in Houston, which didn’t ignore its students, but instead threatened to suspend any of them who protested in support of their fellow American Children who don’t think it’s fair that they should die so that a bunch of morons can have absurdly dangerous weapons.

Ah, the capriciousness of youth.

But you know what I’m most sick and tired of, friends and neighbors? I’m sick and tired of how these people somehow manage to stay in office. Obviously we can’t vote them out, but maybe we can bear our financial arms, like the NRA does. Maybe we can stop spending our dollars at the nation’s largest gun seller (Wal-Mart), until they start spending more money lobbying for gun control. Maybe every time we hear the phrase “thoughts and prayers” we’ll send some money to gun control lobbyists, Americans for Responsible Solutions, or maybe Everytown for Gun Safety, or perhaps a more localized organization. I’m just spitballing here really, but it’s pretty obvious we can’t rely on our current government to fix this. Surely, if we follow the example being set for us by our children, we can stop this group of crazies, right?

-John

So What's in a Number?

     Fairly recently, for reasons that are exciting to me but very few other people will really care about, I deactivated my old mobile phone account, thereby releasing my hold on a phone number that had been near and dear to me for basically all of my legally adult life. In all actuality, it is something I should have done long before, but I couldn’t bring myself to let it go. Virtually everyone who has known me for any significant length of time has used that number to reach me. Party invites, emergencies that required my attention, break up calls and text messages, drawings for free cruises I’d won without ever actually entering, you name it. In an age where people are rarely more than five feet away from their phones, that number was almost as much a part of me as well, maybe not my first name, but perhaps my middle name. When I moved away from the large one starred state in which I was born and raised, that number was how my friends and family reminded me that I was still loved and missed, via harassments and demands that I return so we can die together in San Antonio as planned.
     Letting something like that go felt like one too many steps away from those people and that part of my life. Like somehow I was going to forget all those late nights and totally worth it poor decisions, or all those times I went to see some of my more musically gifted friends perform. I’d already moved across the country and gone from seeing most of them multiple times a week to maybe once a year, if that, and I didn’t relish the idea of furthering that gap.That was what I told myself for months, despite the immediate access most of us had and still have to social media and email, because those are less private, less… authentic. You can look up anyone on those sites, but when people choose to share phone numbers, it just means more.
     At least, that’s the kind of stuff I was telling myself as I shelled out a bunch of money every month for something I never used anymore. The truth is, letting something like that go doesn’t really mean anything. The people who really mean to keep you around will do so, and vice versa. Even if you go a while without talking, you’re still connected through your history. If our experiences make us what we are, then those people are a part of me, and I’m a part of them, even though a great deal of them may rather that wasn’t the case.The connection isn’t going to go away just because the digits change.
     Really though, disconnecting that number reminded me about all those times I spent with the people I’ve been rambling about, and what they meant and still mean to me, and how invested in them I will always be, no matter how far apart we are or how long it’s been since we talked or saw each other. Some of them have kids I still haven’t met, some of them got married and/or moved away to their own new part of the world, and most of them won’t even read this.
Which is fine, and I’m not bitter about it at all.
     I guess what I’m driving at, friends and neighbors, is that getting rid of this number made me think about how long it’s been since I saw so many of these people that I love, and I need to make a trip back soon, and apparently I’m a big old mushy sap now.
     Or whatever. Shut up.
-John