Saturday, October 28, 2023
In bed @ 10, awake at 6, and up at 6:15. Let Lilly out. 38°, high of 46°, mostly sunny this morning, then cloudy. AQI=14!, wind NW at 12 mph, 6-13/22. Sunrise at 7:21, sunset at 5:49, 10+27.
Stephen King on Mass Shootings: We’re Out of Things to Say in this morning's NYT:
There is no solution to the gun problem, and little more to write, because Americans are addicted to firearms.
Representative Jared Golden, from Maine’s Second Congressional District, has reversed course and says he will now support outlawing military-style semiautomatic rifles like the one used in the killing of 18 people in Lewiston this week. But neither the House nor the Senate is likely to pass such a law, and if Congress actually did, the Supreme Court, as it now exists, would almost certainly rule it unconstitutional.
Every mass shooting is a gut-punch; with every one, unimaginative people say, “I never thought it could happen here,” but such things can and will happen anywhere and everywhere in this locked-and-loaded country. The guns are available and the targets are soft.
When rapid-fire guns are difficult to get, things improve, but I see no such improvement in the future. Americans love guns, and appear willing to pay the price in blood.
Death and Destruction as Popular Entertainment. The only news I have seen on any of the big news channels the last few days has been about Israel's assault on Gaza and the mass murders in Lewiston, ME. If it bleeds, it leads. What's striking about the coverage of the Gaza disaster is the number and status of reporters on the ground in Israel reporting on activities. I think especially of CNN's Erin Burnett, Anderson Cooper, and Jake Tapper, but also of the 3 broadcast networks, each of which sent its news anchor to Israel: Lester Holt, David Muir, and Norah O'Donnell. And most of us watch 'the show,' including me. How good wars and mass murders are for ratings! The greater the slaughter, the greater the ad revenues and the bottom line. I'm reminded of the jokes about Waste Management Corp.'s company motto: Your shit is our bread and butter. And, One man's garbage is another man's gold.
Last night, after weeks of aerial bombardment, Gaza came under increased and sustained attack from IDF air, artillery, tank, and machine gun fire which has continued into today. The government described it as 'the next phase' of the war. The nighttime coverage showed all the 'flash bang' explosions in Gaza, reminding me of our 4th of July celebrations - "the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air" - and driving home in my head the fact that each of those exciting explosions represents some human beings killed, some wounded, some dismembered, some crushed under concrete rubble, some innocent children, some enfeebled elderly, some parents desperately trying to protect their children. Some ground troops have entered Gaza but it's not clear whether they are "special ops" troops or regular infantry. Many of them will be killed before it's over but of course, this war will never be "over." We're still fighting the Civil War and slowly realizing that, although the history books say the North won, the South and the 'values' it represented really won. The North won the war and the South won the peace. Look at the recent unanimous Republican vote for Mike Johnson of Shreveport, Louisiana for Speaker. So it goes.
LTMW at a flock of wild turkeys, numbered in the teens, strutting across our front yard, heading south. One makes a beeline directly to our bird feeders and looks in our window. . . . They come back an hour or so later heading north, the actual count is 19.
Geri returned from Arlington Heights before 3. Lilly and I are both happy to have her back.
Remembering old book title jokes: Race to the Outhouse by Willy Makit, Round the Mountain by Shelagh B. Comin, Taming Wild Cats by Claude Face, . . .
Let's not forget "For thousands of Palestinian families in the West Bank, though, the olive harvest is considered an important supplement to their income, if a potentially dangerous one. Israeli settlers regularly attack Palestinian farmers during the season and either steal their crops or prevent them from reaching their lands, in addition to destroying or cutting down olive trees. Since 1967, more than eight hundred thousand Palestinian olive trees have been illegally uprooted by Israeli authorities and settlers. Many were centuries old.
For the past several months, Israeli troops have been staging raids in West Bank cities, arresting suspected Islamic Jihad militants and seizing weapons. Meanwhile, Israel’s national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has begun arming the more than four hundred thousand settlers who live in the West Bank. As of July 2023, settlers in the West Bank hold some twenty-six hundred weapons issued by the Israeli Army.
The violence permeating Gaza has begun to erupt in the West Bank. Since October 7th, the Health Ministry has counted at least ninety Palestinians killed by Israeli troops or settlers. And, as in Gaza, Palestinians have been leaving their homes in the West Bank, out of fear of settler violence. According to B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, eight communities—home to four hundred and seventy-two people, including a hundred and thirty-six children—have been vacated. In six more communities, at least eighty people have left their homes."
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