on the news that Kim Davis "met with" Pope Francis---
KIM DAVIS’ SITUATION IS NO DIFFERENT THAN THE HONEY BOO BOO FAMILY’ S SITUATION…A LITTLE SPOTLIGHT, PROBABLY A LITTLE CASH and A LOT OF PEOPLE WITH AGENDAS BEHIND HER, PROPPING HER UP WHILE SHOVING HER FORWARD FOR their BENEFIT, NOT HERS, MAKING HER THINK SHE’S A STAR WHEN, IN FACT, SHE’S REALLY JUST A SAD, UNEDUCATED, UNSOPHISTICATED WHO CANT HER HEAD AROUND THE SIMPLE CONCEPT THAT BELIEVING THAT GOD and/or JESUS HAVE SHOWN HER A WAY TO LIVE HER LIFE DOESN’T ever QUALIFY HER TO INSTRUCT, let alone force, PEOPLE AS TO HOW TO LIVE THEIR OWN….
on the gun issue---Rosanne Cash's eloquent posting on Facebook---
"...For ten years, I was on the board of PAX- an organization whose sole purpose was to prevent gun violence among children. (PAX merged with Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence several years ago.) After ten years of meeting grief-stricken parents of children killed by guns, I had to quit. I couldn't take the endless parade of innocent people with shattered lives. It was eating at my soul. More pre-schoolers die by guns every year than police officers in the line of duty, and people seem to accept it as collateral damage for 'freedom.' Whose freedom are we talking about? Certainly not a classroom of first-graders lying in a pool of blood. And we're not talking about the freedom of their parents either, whose lives are utterly destroyed.
In 2000, as a representative of PAX, I attended the Million Mom March in Washington, DC with my husband, my year-old baby and my 11 year old daughter. I had a lot of hope that day-- the energy was powerful and the thousands of parents holding pictures of their dead children was a mandate in itself.
At the end of the day, my friend Patty Smyth, who marched alongside me with Bette Midler, Emmylou Harris, Raffi and many, many more, said 'if nothing else, we helped carry the burden of the grieving mothers for one day.' I wrote an article for Rolling Stone about that day. I was full of expectation that our elected officials would rise to the occasion and enact basic gun safety legislation like background checks, safety locks and a ban on military-grade weapons.
It turned out that, in fact, all we did was help carry the burden for a day. Nothing changed.
Several years later, my precious daughter, Chelsea, was held up at gunpoint in the jewelry store where she worked. The gunmen held her for twenty minutes. I'm so grateful she was not killed and I'm also so acutely aware that the difference between me and the moms carrying the photos on the march is a split second. Do NOT tell me that Chelsea 'should have had a gun.' If she had, she'd be dead. She is not physically or mentally able to coolly aim a gun at someone who is already pointing a gun at HER, and fire sharp-shooter style at another human being while terror-stricken. Nor am I. Nor are millions of other people.
The logic that 'if more law-abiding citizens had guns, there would be fewer mass shootings' is confounding to the point of nihilism. What's the end game? Every first grade teacher should have a gun in her desk to prevent another massacre like Newtown? Every pastor in his pulpit? Every movie-goer, mall shopper, night club patron and mom pushing a stroller, until we are reduced to anarchy and violence in every social venue of this country?
If you can make a compelling argument why we have laws requiring safety locks on medicines to protect children, but no law requiring a safety lock on a gun, I'd like to hear it. If you can make a compelling argument why a mentally disturbed youth should be able to easily stockpile military-grade weapons because of loopholes in the law and no background checks, please-- go ahead. I'd like to hear an articulate and reasoned logic behind that thought.
The Constitution is a living document-- if it hadn't changed since its inception, I personally would not be allowed to vote. The language 'well-regulated militia' doesn't equal 'mentally ill person with stockpile of automatic weapons' in my interpretation, but if you believe the amendment extends to that, then I believe Congress needs to amend the amendment, as it has done before in other cases.
Personal handguns and hunting rifles will never be banned in this country. Not a single person talking about the gun issue, that I have heard or read, has suggested that.
If one classroom of first graders can be saved just by requiring background checks and a ban on military style weapons, wouldn't it be worth it? One teenager in a movie theater, one student nurse, one pastor in the pulpit, one little pre-schooler? If the answer is no, or the answer is just more vicious rhetoric, then we should be ashamed. That child could be yours. It was almost mine. So don't tell me to keep my mouth shut...."
on Rosanne Cash's comments---and my two cents---
every practical suggestion these folks make is reasonable, do-able and sensible....my personal concern, a concern I have voiced many times on air and in print, is the conundrum we have faced, and continue to face, every time a triggering event (pun unintended, but somehow, I think, meant to be) occurs....simply put: when it comes to issues like this, we too often find ourselves not moving forward as if on a vehicle of change as we do going round and round as if on a hamster wheel because, if for no other single reason, human nature and psychology perpetually exhibit themselves in this manner:
"those who will take the time to read, reflect and seek a way to be a part of the solution don't need to do so....and those who need, desperately need, to do so, will, inevitably, not bother with reading, reflecting or seeking..."
America has allowed the "babies" in our culture free access to the cookie jar for years and years and years.....
now, we need, desperately need, to get them to eat broccoli...
the gun culture is not the accomplishment of a free society exercising its rights in a manner that makes one proud to be an American....
it is an addiction more powerful, and dangerous, than the drugs America spends billions of dollars to "treat"...
if and when, and only if and when, the majority of voting Americans accept that premise and wield the only power they really have, the power to elect or defeat, support or impeach, only then will the fever break and the cure begin to take hold---
The "debate" about "gun rights" can, and will, go on until the end of mankind.
Unless, we stop trying to reason with addicts.
on the tone and texture of campaign 2016, if you want to call it that---
it
occurred to me this week that this whole presidential campaign, so far, is, for
us, the voter, like a really, really, really bad dating site…where we have to
pick somebody from the profiles they offers us and ONLY the profiles
they offer us, but the profiles they offer us are , at best, lame and, at
worst, well, the worst-----in other words, like an arranged marriage, we have
to “settle” for whoever turns out to be our partner instead of seeking and
finding the perfect match for what we want, and deserve, our lives to be…..
AND---the
style and substance of the “campaign” so far has NOTHING to do with raising the
bar, lifting the spirit, inspiring Americans to be the best they can be….it’s
entirely about vote for me, because I don’t suck nearly as much as everybody
else…and the entire tone of what these people are offering us brings out the
WORST in US….they are inciting us to hate and demonize and lynch, if possible,
instead of calling on our better angels to get us back to where we once
belonged---the haters want to throw Obama in jail for whatever bonehead reason
they come up with at any given moment….the haters want to throw Hillary in jail
pretty much because she’s Hillary…
well, okay, I won’t argue the should or
shouldn’t of those cries for justice…what I WILL offer you is this….first, for
the bazillionth time, Obama isn’t running anymore and those who insist on
whining about him are the same people
still bitching that the Seahawks passed instead of running last Super
Bowl---let it go---and to those who still insist that Obama is cleverly going
to wait until the very end of his EIGHT years in office to spring the ol’
“AH-HA!, I was a Muslim terrorist all along”, I’m gonna assume that most or all
of you were the same people who predict that the Apocolypse will occur
September 23 of this….oh WAIT….that was like TWO WEEKS AGO!!...so, seriously,
God bless..and shut up----
meanwhile, as regards the actual candidates
running….if we’re talking jail, let’s just cut to the chase and put ALL of them
in jail for impersonating thoughtful, inspiring, motivating, intelligent,
dynamic, educated, sophisticated leaders who will make our schools better and
safer, make our streets better and safer, treat our veterans with ALL the
respect and rewards they deserve ALL the time, deal with world leaders in a way
that will make ALL of us proud that they ARE a world leader, too and, in every
way possible, make us ALL proud to be
Americans…or you know what, let’s put em in jail because they’re not even
bothering to do the impersonation…they’re just telling you why you should love
THEM…. and hate the OTHERS…..
walking
into your polling place on Election Day in this country should be a day filled
with excitement of knowing that the
candidate that inspires you just might be the next President of the United
States but even if your candidate isn’t chosen, the candidate that IS chosen
will still inspire and motivate and challenge us to do what we do better than
anybody in the world….EVERYTHING….when we’re not wasting so much time in our
lives finding EXCUSES TO HATE ---and wasting so much time in our lives
listening to those who have nothing to offer us but REASONS TO HATE….
two kinds
of people in the world, it’s said….leaders and followers---the big problem this
time out is that it can be really, really hard to tell the difference between
the leader of a great nation….and the leader of a great big lynch mob---
join us Sunday nights at 7---talk radio redefined---on Delaware 105.9FM News/Talk
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