Another Virus


It might be the only up-side to the pandemic.  For awhile, there were no mass shootings.  Of course, as soon as humans with access to guns gather together it can quickly go sideways…and it has.

Not only do a lot of Americans have a lot of guns, but we seem to be particularly unable to handle conflict.  Something more than limiting access to guns needs to happen to fix this, but that’s where it needs to start. 

While Democrats are trying to tighten up access to weapons, some Texas Republicans want to allow guns to be carried without a license. It’s hard to pick the most ridiculous thing to come out of Austin on a daily basis, but this one takes the entire week.

How do we address the stressors that lead to these horror shows?  At what point do anger or feeling disconnected require a mental health intervention?  

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62 thoughts on “Another Virus”

  3. the hill:

    The Supreme Court on Monday denied appeals from three people who sought to have their right to own guns reinstated after being convicted of nonviolent crimes, a move that disappointed gun rights advocates.

    The denials, which were issued without comment or noted dissent, left intact lower court rulings which found that the lifetime bans did not run afoul of Second Amendment protections. 

    [continues]

  7. Maybe, just maybe we should begin to focus on the mental health of the elected. Republicans seem to be filled with hatred of “other” (phobia) and to be living in an alternate world (delusional).

  8. https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/20/us/indianapolis-shooting-fedex-tuesday/index.html

    “Despite the temporary mental health hold in March, Hole was able to legally purchase assault rifles in July and September 2020, Indianapolis police said.”

    “Mears said the state didn’t have access “to anything to indicate that (Hole) had had a history or documented diagnosis of mental illness.”

    “We have 14 days under the statute and because we have 14 days our ability to have access to meaningful medical history, meaningful mental health records, is severely limited.” Indiana law allows a person 30 days to respond to a subpoena, Mears said. The sad reality is that during the pendency of these matters there’s nothing prohibiting someone from purchasing a firearm…”

  9. “maybe we should focus on the mental health of the elected”

    BiD, better to focus on treating the mental ill health of those who elected them (or allowed them to be elected by not voting).

  13. Musings on a nice spring day.  Mondale.  Humphrey. Carter. Dukakis. Biden. Nice people. Johnson. Clinton. Special people.  Obama, staid person.  Nice people are not on the winner list.  Carter won at a very special point in history, but not the second time. 
     
     

  14. https://reasonstobecheerful.world/black-churches-are-preaching-mental-health-care/

    “Across the country, mental health needs are soaring. And Black Americans are experiencing significant strain: A study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this summer found 15 percent of non-Hispanic Black adults had seriously considered suicide in the past 30 days and 18 percent had started or increased their use of substances to cope with pandemic-related stress.”

    Non-denominational (white, evangelical) churches seem to be doing just the opposite. They preach fear from the pulpit.

    Fixing white folks would be a starting point to good national, mental health. The scam used to be “limited resources” to get votes. Now, it’s the notion of being “replaced.”

    How do you solve a problem like MTG?

  17. Jamie – Howard dissolved the classics department and spread the profs to other departments.  A massive dilution.  Like what happened to the old liberal arts departments.  The push to make colleges and universities trade training sites is difficult to fend off.  I have a serious issue with the All STEM, All The Time.  There is a huge need for those who are interested in other areas of human development.
     

  18. craig, yeah what BiD asked you –  any fond/fun stories of fritz during your time at the WH?

    See the source image

  19. back in ’78

    THE MONDALES: MAKING THE MOST OF BEING NUMBER 2 – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

    He wields more power than any other Vice President in recent history. She—avoiding the despair of a politician’s wife—has carved an independent role with more power than any Second Lady.
    […]
    Less driven than the Carters, the Mondales seem more comfortable with people, less threatened and less threatening. They live with humor, and without pretense. The Vice President displays an intellect as stunning as the President’s, but more compassionate. But while Jimmy Carter is tempered steel, forged in the heat of battle, Fritz Mondale has carefully cultivated a far less bruising talent : allying himself with those in power who first appointed him to every office he has ever held, except the Vice Presidency, and in a sense Carter appointed him to that. He has always given his mentors full value, but there has always been a recurrent question of softness at the core. Some have been harsh enough to suggest that Fritz Mondale is a professional protege. Others argue that it would have been hard, for example, to be truly independent of Hubert Humphrey, ….
    Fritz Mandate’s public career poses fundamental question: Does a basically decent man who is not possessed by inner demons have the stamina and drive to make it to the White House and become an effective President?
    [continues]

     

    what NYT says about that old article in case you wondered about the proofread problems throughout it:

    This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them.
    Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions.

  21. Blue Bronc

    I’m such an old fogey at times that I think a central piece of the Infrastructure budget should be a recreation of the New Deal Arts programs of the great depression.  The music, literature,  plays, and art that came out of those programs are ones we still draw upon today.  

    Certainly trade education and STEM programs are necessary for survival and for many fields great pleasure, but the life of the mind is what produces advancement and cooperation within a society.  

    My High Schools in the late 50s still taught Latin.  To this day, I can often figure out the definition of words by their roots even without checking with Google.

    BTW Google today is great with a musical salute to Luther Vandross.

  22. Jamie, yep, Latin in the late 60s in HS.  I hated it but cave canis (1st Latin phrase I learned) is my 2nd job now.  As a liberal arts product, I bemoan Howard’s decision to dissolve the Classics Department.  We had a Modern Languages and Classics Department at Bama when I went there, and I partook of two years of French (and precious little of what little I “mastered” – Où se trouvent les toilettes? –  or as I learned it from my Belgian French professor Ou est la salle de bain? – remains).  When we were in France in 2019 I couldn’t understand more than about 6 words watching the news.
     
    After watching a bit of the summations in the Chauvin trial, I think second degree manslaughter is a slam dunk, third degree murder is a distinct likelihood and second degree murder is a stretch, so I’ll go with third degree murder as my choice.

  23. Pogo

    I’m with you on the verdicts.  I think the jury will split the difference and go for the middle charge with its possible 25 year sentence.

    On the classics front, I must confess to a rather extreme bias since my only request for HS graduation was a Hope Chest and The Great Books of the Western World.  That little 17 year old brain had some idea of being Mrs. somebody circulating in intellectual circles.  HA!

    Oh well, I still have the books.

     

  24. Most of my Mondale encounters were in his 1984 presidential campaign when I was Georgia field director. One time we arranged for Carter to meet him at the airport and go to an event. Mondale was notoriously late for events, which always irritated Jimmy. In my briefing about the logistics, Carter agreed to go to the airport first but said, “Alright but I’m only waiting 15 minutes”. When I told Mondale he heartily laughed. “Let’s make it 20, he said”

  25. Another Mondale encounter I’m not proud to recall. Also in the 1984 campaign, I got into a fight with Bella Abzug and NOW president Eleanor Smeal over their plan to spend $50k of our limited Georgia budget for a feminist bus tour of rural counties. I stupidly told them in a meeting we weren’t paying for a “Revenge of the Hairy Legged Women” tour. They complained to Mondale, wanting me fired. Instead he took me to the woodshed for a reprimand, and approved the tour, which probably lost us more votes than it gained. (He laughed as he reprimanded me btw).

  28. Just remembered another Mondale moment, at San Francisco convention, me and a friend wore paper bags over our heads at a meeting on southern strategy. The unknown comic was a thing at the time. Our point was his promise to raise taxes meant we couldn’t show our faces in the South. He laughed, his senior staff not so much. 

  29. Jamie, I don’t think that the 2nd degree murder (aka felony murder) count will fly since the felony that would underlie it is the assault on George Floyd, but I could be wrong.  The classic 2nd degree murder scenario is perp intending to rob a store, clerk pulls a gun and perp shoots and kills the clerk.  The intended felony was robbery.    In Chauvin’s case, his intent was to arrest George, the force he used, though excessive, was under color of law, so it’s hard to make that the underlying felony for a 2nd degree murder charge.
     
    Well, the East Bumfuck PD is busy today.  Road construction has the Rte 50  I-79 overpass backed up a mile or so and the locals pull through the “Authorized Vehicles Only” breaks in the Rte 50 median to avoid the 10 minute delay to get to Chick-Fil-A and the EBPD  shift into high gear in their revenue gathering role and chase the offending drivers down and give them tickets for pulling through the median.  Life here is never dull.

  30. From my White House memories. My only Mondale encounter in those days was when he sometimes substituted for Carter in a briefing with “outside” media in the Cabinet room, mostly local columnists from around the country. My job was to collect information about the participants. Carter always wanted to review a memo on their writings, which he memorized in a matter of minutes, as I’m pretty sure he has a photographic memory or something close to it. He would then proceed to stun them with direct quotes from their own columns. Mondale was very different. He wanted to know about their families, children, backgrounds. Which he would recite in equally perfect detail. I actually think his approach was more effective.

  31. The possible verdicts as they have been given to the jury are second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.

    I’m pretty sure of second-degree manslaughter and hope they will get to the third-degree murder, but just can’t see that this jury will go for the severest in second-degree murder even if unintentional.

     

    WaPo discussion

  34. Those are interesting stories.  Glad they are at least written down here, Craig.
    I’m nervous about the verdict. I hope the short deliberation means they agreed to convict.  

  41. What’s the PSI the judge was talking about?
    There is so much to fix in this country.  When a murder is recorded and it’s a big deal that there was a conviction, we’ve got a long way to go.  Glad for the verdict.  

  42. So, I am remembering Shelby Foote’s  twinkling eyes in Burn’s “The Civil War” .  Where in he quotes a witness  to the signing of the constitution , and how they overcame  the question of slavery , by punting it into the future. 
    A rough quote  ……………..
    “When the signers assigned their their names , the snake of slavery was still curled around the foot of the table.” 
     

  43. The fetal sanctuary city prop here has a push back , I’ve gotten 2 of their  giant postcards vs one from the proponents  . 
    Their counter arguments ………….
    A city ordinance  cannot  supercede state law .
    City will spend millions defending  it. And lose because of point #1. 
     

  44. I got my supermarket circular  today , and saw something that blew my mind. 
    Avocado / Bacon / Guacamole.
    One of those real , “Why didn’t I see that ?” moments. 

  45.   I’m not sure about those peanuts……all I remember is planting, and then walking along by the old Gravely pulling them out of the ground, shaking off the dirt, throwing them into the trailer, and then picking the peanuts off the plants under the shade of the old oak tree. I was just a kid and I thoroughly hated everything having to do with peanuts.
    And I remember eating lots of roasted and boiled peanuts.  Pop probably gave them away to friends and such.  Probably also gave a bunch to Annabelle to sell at her corner store. 

  46. Bob, the only thing bacon doesn’t improve the taste of is bacon.  Gonna have to Google that recipe and take it out for a drive.

  47. A couple of doses of a psychedelic drug may treat depression as well as one of the most commonly prescribed antidepressants, a small and short study published Wednesday shows.
    A Phase 2 clinical trial, conducted by researchers in London, was the first randomized trial to compare therapeutic doses of psilocybin — the psychedelic compound found in so-called magic mushrooms — with a daily medication. The results were released in The New England Journal of Medicine.

    https://www.nbcnews.com/health/mental-health/psychedelic-drug-worked-depression-well-common-antidepressant-small-trial-finds-n1264093
     
    I took this twice , this drug turns the world into “Candyland”. 
    I highly recommend it.  The problem is a “baggie” of dried shrooms looks like dried, chopped newspapers.

  48. oh yeah, Silly Simon…..really cool way to spend many an afternoon,  can make a guitar sound like the organ at St Patrick’s……..   

  51. Val is 23 year police vet , ran the Orlando Dept. for 3 years. 
    Jordan  on the other hand  is a wing nut weenie, who doesn’t own any  a coat . And never served his country in anyway .

  54. the hill:

    “We can leave this moment or look away thinking our work is done,” Biden said in remarks from the White House hours after the jury returned a guilty verdict in downtown Minneapolis. “We have to listen, ‘I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.’ Those were George Floyd’s last words. We can’t let those words die with him.”

    “We must not turn away, we can’t turn away. We have a chance to begin to change the trajectory in this country. It’s my hope and prayer that we live up to the legacy,” he continued. “This can be a moment of significant change.”

    […]

    “Nothing can ever bring their brother, their father back, but this can be a giant step forward in the march toward justice in America. Let’s also be clear that such a verdict is also much too rare,” Biden said. “This takes acknowledging and confronting head on systemic racism and the racial disparities that exist in policing and our criminal justice system more broadly.”

    […]

    “There are those who seek to exploit the raw emotions of the moment – agitators and extremists who have no interest in social justice – who seek to carry out violence, destroy property, fan the flames of hate and division, who will do everything in their power to stop this country’s march toward racial justice. We cannot let them succeed,” Biden said.

  55. Lake Mead, the country’s largest reservoir and a key water source for millions across the western US, could sink later this year to its lowest level since it was filled decades ago.

    Despite the agreements, Lake Mead sits at just 39% full today. And Lake Powell, the river’s second-largest reservoir, is just 36% full, according to an April water supply report.

    The reservoirs along the river system were created to serve as a buffer to store water and ensure a reliable supply even in times of drought. But experts say that due to climate change and a 20-year drought, there is now more water being taken out of the river system than flowing into it, leading levels in these key reservoirs to fall.

    https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/19/weather/western-drought-colorado-river-cutbacks-study/index.html

     
     
    Trump, 400 years of krama,  and the virus have buried the led story. 
    Climate change does not pay attention to us , and raking our forests to scoop up pine needles.  Won’t stop this drought.   Or the fires. 
     
    Vegas, LA, and Phoenix  have a real problem on their hands.  Empty water pipes. 

  56. Thanks, Mr. S- i wanted to plant some peanuts but the garden is full already, trying corn🤷‍♂️

  58. It’s actually a pretty cool plant….just yank it up out of the ground and boom— buncha green peanuts.  

  59. Mimi nailed it on Mars , she has been at NASA for over 30 years. 
    America means this above all. 
    In America, one does lay down and give up. 

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