Terrorism in the Old West

The murders at the offices of Charlie Hebdo didn’t surprise me, because of an odd personal coincidence. One of the very first movies I remember affecting me deeply as a child contained a similar incident. I have replayed this act of onscreen brutality many times in my mind.  When you’re a child, you believe what you see. To me it was history, a real incident, not drama. As a result, I have understood since then that there are “bad guys” who will kill because someone prints things they disagree with.

Irrationalities

I’ve been hearing a lack of reason in the current debate over how to deal with our violent culture, including through gun control.  I can’t go very deep with this subject, because the flaws in these arguments are so obvious, but I still feel the need to give some simple reactions.

Fear Not: For, Behold

The Gun Control petition I reprinted yesterday went viral.  It gathered more than 200,000 signatures in support, and the author, Staci Sarkin, will be going to Congress in person to present it.

There’s some current woo-woo about the world ending on December 21^st, because that’s when the Mayan calendar “ends”.  I wouldn’t put much stock in the prophetic abilities of the Mayans.  They stopped calculating their calendar because they were too busy dealing with the invasion of the Spanish, and two centuries of drought, both of which decimated their culture, neither of which they saw coming.

Cast These Words Into Unseen Waters:

I really do not know if the signatures of ordinary citizens on a petition can ever equal the clout of well-paid lobbyists, but I’m willing to give it a try.