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Posts Tagged ‘Mass Shootings’

Let It Bleed

Posted in Current Events, Music, tagged , , , , on September 1, 2019| Leave a Comment »

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Yeah, we all need someone we can bleed on
Yeah but if you want it, well you can bleed on me
Yeah, we all need someone we can bleed on
Yeah yeah and if you want it baby why don’t ya
You can bleed on me
All over, hoo

—Rolling Stones, Let It Bleed,1969

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Hey, it’s Labor Day weekend! Let’s celebrate with another mass shooting!

It does fit into the theme of the holiday. It provides work for police, doctors, medics, nurses and rehab workers, not to mention newscasters, lobbyists, and the impotent politicians who will, on script, offer up once more their mantra of thoughts and prayers.

Plenty of work for everybody!

I don’t mean to make light of this event but it seems like we are moving more and more to a world where we will be watching a program one day dedicated to the Shooting of the Week. The scenes from the 1976 movie satire Network where the TV execs gave a weekly show to extremists that featured kidnappings and assassinations seems almost prescient now. Except in the film the radical extremists were based on the Black Panthers and the Symbionese Liberation Army whereas now the crimes are almost solely the province of aggrieved young white men from the conspiratorial edges of the far right.

There’s probably an algorithm out there that could have predicted that we would be at this point, if only we knew what data we should enter into the equation. But I think even a moron can deduce that adding more and more guns into this accounting would not lessen the number of shootings. I don’t think anyone feels any safer now especially when grade school children must face shooter drills and school lockdowns on a regular basis and public officials are advising that everyone learn how to administer first aid to shooting victims because it is not a matter of if but when that they will have to use it.

Like I said, I am not making light of this subject. I am angry at our stupidity and cowardice in facing the problem at hand. Until we decide that we must address this problem that weekly show will soon be on the a TV schedule in the near future. In the meantime, get out your first aid manuals, kids, it’s going to be a bumpy, bloody ride

Here’s this week’s Sunday morning music. It’s the Rolling Stones from 1969 with, most fittingly, Let It Bleed. Try to have a good holiday, folks.

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Every 60 Hours

Posted in Current Events, Opinion, tagged on February 15, 2018| Leave a Comment »

Every 60 hours.

There is a school shooting every 2 1/2 days in the USA.

Overall, there is a mass shooting every 36 hours. Every day and a half.

To be fair, not every school shooting is a mass event. Some are just guns being discharged in a school, sometimes without injury. But sometimes there are events like the 17 students murdered yesterday in Florida. And all mass shootings involve four or more people being shot or killed.

Apparently, the thoughts and prayers route isn’t doing too well for this particular subject. There doesn’t seem to be much thought going into stemming this tide of death and all those prayers fail to move a god whose silence seems to be replying, “You figure it out for yourselves.”

You figure it out for yourselves— that is ultimately the answer.

When you hear a politician offering thoughts and prayers on an every other day basis, what you are really hearing is, “I have no thoughts on how to change this without upsetting the special interests who pay me. And by saying I am praying means that it is not my responsibility and is in the hands of God.”

Ultimately, everyone says there is little to be done. It’s too big an issue and obviously too difficult to solve without sacrificing some divine right to own an assault rifle. Instead, we shrug our shoulders again and again and opt to instead sacrifice our children, ourselves and the society in which we live.

Some of us will go out and buy guns in response to these type of things, thinking that if we are armed to the teeth and feel a tiny bit of security for ourselves, it is now  okay.

But do we want to live in the type of world that this sort of thinking creates?

Apparently, the answer is yes because we continually choose to take no action whatsoever, thinking that all the multitudes of thoughts and prayers will magically kick in at last.

Thoughts and prayers? Stick that phrase where the sun don’t shine, pal.

Thoughts and prayers are empty words when real action is required.

We have to figure it out for ourselves and until we make that decision to do so, to take personal responsibility and sacrifice in the name of change for a greater good, we will go through this again and again and again and again.

Until it hits every school, every community, every family. Maybe then we will see what we have become and will decide that a change is needed.

Until that day comes, we have our  thoughts and prayers.

Sigh…

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A Continuing Mad World

Posted in Current Events, Music, Opinion, tagged , , , , on November 6, 2017| 12 Comments »

November 5, 26 dead so far in the Sutherland, Texas church shooting.

October 1, 58 dead in the Las Vegas shooting.

September 10, 9 killed in a Plano, Texas shooting. You probably don’t even remember that one.

And I’m not even mentioning the truck attack last week in NYC. Who knows what December will bring? I would like to believe that we won’t end the year with a bang but… well, you know.

I’m watching coverage of this latest shooting and I already feel that it is being pushed to the back of our collective consciousness. These events are normal now. They have their own pattern, their own rhythm and cycle that they follow, one that we have witnessed hundreds of times before.

So many times that the horror we feel is beginning to feel feigned, just thrown out there as an surface act of civility while in our minds we have already began the process of forgetting.

Unfortunately, even when we turn away, it’s hard to find evidence that we aren’t living in a mad world. And there is no solace in the empty words of our titular leaders, an administration that is treating this country like a company that it acquired in a hostile takeover. That’s where the new owners come in and liquidate any viable assets for themselves, leaving the company a broken shell.

You know, it’s going to be a year since the election in just a couple of days and I firmly believe that the actions of this administration have exceeded my fears. I thought they would be a little more discreet in their underhandedness but it seems like every day they reach a new level of audacity and corruption, both real and moral, that is breathtaking to behold.

And some of us still defend them. And this acceptance, this normalization, provides a perfect backdrop for our acts of violence against each other.

Just another day in this mad world.

I played this song six months ago in a different context but on the all too many days like this, I find it running on a loop in my mind. It’s Gary Jules’ version of the Tears For Fears song, Mad World. Interesting video. Have a good day and don’t let this mad world become your normal.

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“America- The Series”

Posted in Current Events, Music, Video, tagged , , , , , , , , on December 6, 2015| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- Two Sides Aww, change the channel.  It’s a rerun…

Wait, it’s not another rerun, just another mass shooting/ terror event in Anytown, USA.

Another episode of America- The Series.

Same basic script– crazy ideologue(s) with automatic weaponry goes into a school/church/community center and kills multiple people before dying in a firefight with responding police forces.  Insert a montage of non-stop cable news network coverage with “experts” and politicians  praying and posturing in clips of some saying there are too many guns and others who say we need to be even more armed.

You could even insert a clip here of a nutty bible college president — let’s have him played by Jerry Falwell, Jr. of Liberty College–saying he wanted the students on his campus to have carry/conceal permits so they could “shoot the Muslims.”  Because that’s the kind of measured rational response we expect from those entrusted to lead our kids.  Besides, nothing says safety like an arena filled with armed college age kids.  Kids with inflated self-images emboldened by being raised on a diet of action movie heroes who are somehow never hit by the hail of bullets from their enemies and in a culture of video games that cheapens life.

Seems reasonable to me.  There certainly won’t be any confusion or problems with law enforcement agencies when some of those young armed students are of  African or Middle Eastern descent.  I see a spin-off in the future.

The script plays out for a few days of hand-wringing and funerals but little real action before fading to black.  Hit replay and do it all over again.

That’s seems to be the gist of it.  I wish whoever is writing this crap would come up with a new storyline.

996-226 Elvis in the WildernesssmI am going to change the channel now.  It’s time for Sunday music and I’ve been singing this song all week.  It’s the Tom Jones version of Elvis Presley Blues which was written and performed originally by Gillian Welch.  I am a big fan of Gillian Welch and love her version but I really admire Tom Jones’ take on it as well.  It’s pared down accompaniment really highlights the power of his voice which is still formidable even at age 75.

The images shown here are from my Outlaws series from back in 2006.  The one at the top is Two Sides and the one to the left is Elvis in the Wilderness.  I thought they fit today.

Enjoy the song and have a good Sunday.

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