12/17/24

 Tuesday, December 17, 2024

D+42

2012 10 girls collecting firewood are killed by a mine blast in east Afghanistan

In bed at 9:30, up and out to the TV room at 10:30, unable to sleep.  Big solo stag with antlers eating berries under the County Line trees. It was barely visible in the dark, unlike this doe enjoying berries during the day.  I was awake until 2:30 when I returned to bed, unable to sleep on the recliner.  I woke at 5:30ish, up at 5:50.  I went back to bed some time later and got up at 10:30.

Prednisone, day 217, 7.5 mg., day 32.   Prednisone at 6:00. Other meds later.

United States of Dystopia.  83 school shootings in 2024 alone, the latest in Madison by a 15-year-old girl student.   An unlikely suspect: Of the shootings on school grounds so far this year where gender was identified, only nine suspects were female compared with 249 who were male, according to the K-12 School Shooting Database, an independent research project.  I don't know why there is a disparity in the total number of shootings.

Why is the mass killing of school children so common, ordinary, predictable, what is the right word, in America?  Of course, the ubiquity of firearms is one of the reasons but that doesn't answer the question of why they are used specifically against children in schools, often by other children.  Sometimes a history of bullying or peer abuse provides a motive, but not always.  Why should anyone in 'the greatest country on Earth, in history' go into a school building and shoot kids?  Why so many?  So often?  Ditto church shootings.

England is a cup of tea.

France, a wheel of ripened brie.

Greece, a short, squat olive tree.

America is a gun.

Brazil is football on the sand.

Argentina, Maradona’s hand.

Germany, an oompah band.

America is a gun.

Holland is a wooden shoe.

Hungary, a goulash stew.

Australia, a kangaroo.

America is a gun.

Japan is a thermal spring.

Scotland is a highland fling.

Oh, better to be anything

than America as a gun.

Brian Bilston

I read a reader's comment on this poem:  "This makes me so sad. I can 76, and I weep for this country. I am grateful that I have no grandchildren. I have been sad since the Viet Nam conflict."