Americans Don't Learn

My daughter Kathy says, other races don't learn either. I have begun to think of Americans as a separate race of people. Otherwise, we would have known without thinking not to go way across the world, as the
most powerful nation on the face of the earth, to attack a weak country- thereby proclaiming ourselves
to be unimaginably dangerous to all of humankind.
Both Gulf Wars were horribly ill-advised, yet we barely mention the first one at all any longer.
According to Kathy, then, humans have not evolved or grown naturally into their intellectual gift. They are the newest species to have evolved so far, and if we measure their time on earth in millenia, they are infants.
Some of them, especially in America, seemed steeped in the id of the human psyche. Some have schema
blunted from  having received almost no stimuli save that inciting the infantile rage described in textbooks.
Our circumstances change.
Settings change.
Social and emotional environments vary.
Yet the desire to be armed to the teeth never seems to shrink or dwarf here.
Our gun desire is oddly directly proportional to the capacity.
Guns rule all. The more weaponry available, the more we want.
We have no shortage of weaponry.
And we have no shortage of armed services to use to exercise our aggressions.  We have Army, with loads
of weapons and weapon systems. We have Navy with different sets of any number of weapons and weapon
systems. We have an Air Force with state of the art top secret systems in planes and helicopters equipped
for war. We have a marine force which trains the most efficient fighting men in the world to use a plethora
of the most efficient weapons in the world.
So is there a waiting list to join any or all these units where men, women, and nearly children can be legally,
helpfully, mightily armed? No. No there isn't. Americans want to shoot Americans. Americans want to shoot
American civilians. So odd.
Americans do not have small or narrow availabilities for obtaining weapons.
Still, we never get enough of our obsession with them.
One congressman wondered aloud if someone in the theater in Aurora, Colorado had had a gun besides the armed perpetrator. Everyone should possibly have had bullets ricocheting off everything then?
What part of the man threw a smoke deterrent into the crowd, having protected himself with bullet-proof
throat protector, groin protector, flak jacket, head and face protection, and leg armor does that congressman not understand? Would he have had everyone shoot at a gunman prepared to kill with small risk to himself?
If you had not  come to the movies to kill in Aurora, you were automatically in a defensive position when the man who already had his gun out began to shoot.
When everyone is shooting, only the original gunman has freedom to get to cover and take aim.
I always found it hard to believe David Koresh could take down an Attorney General in his aims. He
always intended to invent the world, be king of the world, and incinerate the world if anything threatened his   kingdom. I don't think it ever for one minute crossed Janet Reno's mind that she was not to attempt to disarm an illegal militia. But in America we don't actually need the ATF because 'illegal militia'  is a term which has become an oxymoron.
Our President is right. We don't need citizens having thousands of rounds of ammunition. NO citizen needs
thousands of rounds of ammunition. The most difficult question to answer, though, is where to start.
I recall that John F. Kennedy Jr. had pages in his magazine, George encouraging black men to teach their
boys to shoot for their own self-protection. I knew he was right. Why would he lie?
When the Honorable Coleman A. Young was mayor of Detroit, he was admonished by many city governments in Michigan to enact more restrictive gun laws. His reply: 'Are you kidding? Don't you know
Detroit is surrounded by the militia?'
And when I asked my beloved uncle why he had rifles and handguns, and slept with some of them close by,
he said- 'Baby, as long as that man has a gun, ama have a gun.'
It sent a chill through me. I had no comeback.
And so here is the question: Who is going to disarm who? And does it have to begin with ammunition?

Sally Ride

In 1983 I had four little girls. 'Ride Sally Ride' was a montra for me, and I tried to instill the ideas
behind it as a reality for my girls. I really miss the great feelings of inspiration I got from Sally Ride
in the days of her space exploration, and after. I don't miss them because they are gone. I miss them because
they did the job I needed them to do. I don't refer to them  or call them up so much any longer. The four little girls are women now, and they  know a woman can do anything, with or without notoriety. Thank you so much Sally Ride.

Bulgaria

We don't need Iran getting desperate now, but I guess this is how they react to being desperate. The sanctions the west has against them are obviously getting to them, so they want everyone to suffer
more anguish than we have already born by knowing they insist on developing enriched uranium.
Why go all the way to Bulgaria to attack civilian Israelis? What can that do but make the
situation for your entire country much less stable?
I can't wait for July to be over. Israel has warned Iran more than once, but what good is it doing?
One problem Iran faces is that if Iraq can stay relatively stable, they have only Syria to rely upon
to be available or an increasing development  of Hezbollah going forward. Perhaps that part of
Hezbollah most heavily influenced by Iran will scatter if the current Syrian regime falls.
So many civilians have died in Syria, though, that there is no way that regime can ever be considered
legitimate again. Iran has to accept that. So how can blood aid the acceptance. Iran, at this point, has
an ethos which will not permit reasoned goals, only defensive or offensive goals can pierce the
reasoning skills of Iranian power brokers. My opinion only, of course, from digesting multiple news
sources...
In the meantime, I guess we should stock up on food. Drought in our corn crops is real, and more
troops going overseas isn't going to ease our economy if things come to that.

The UAE

What is going on? The U.S. Armed Forces have struck a vessel of the United Arab Emirates, after  an ignored warning by the American vessel in Mid-east waters
This happened days ago. Please let's hope nothing will escalate.

Verona

Finally I see why a person might travel far from home. The photos I see from Verona are amateur, but stunning. This is a place to visit and to study, especially if you won't stay too long, and you have an eleven year old with you.

Book Time: Showdown

This is the first thing by David Corn I've ever read. Even at the start, I see he's a versatile writer. His
dedication is from an Ernest Hemingway novel, then the title of chapter one seems to allude to the 19th century abolitionist, Theodore Parker- who as it turns out was right about North American slavery.
The book advertises itself as the story of how our president fought the tea party and its allies after the
2010 mid-term elections.
The chapters' names then include many words used in fighting; shellacking, win, victory, strategy,battle, etc. etc.
I love the set up, right out of the gate.

I Am Reminded of The Movies

Who saw  Charles Laughton in The Big Clock ?
I could see many presidential candidates ( except for our current POTUS)  who could be the villain in this movie.
The Big Clock was later mad over into a Kevin Costner, Gene Hackman, Sean Young movie- No Way Out.
Both films were riveting. 
Who saw Charles Laughton in Witness For The Prosecution? W.M. Romney -not Marlena Dietrich is
the person I'd love to see on the witness stand when Laughton says: "...were you lying then,or are you lying now, are you not as a matter of fact a chronic, habitual LIAR?'
I'm just sayin'- I learned 'word is bond'.
Did you sign SEC forms or didn't you, Mr. Romney? Did you sign for a truth, or didn't you?
If some are confused about how W.M.Romney made his money, rent the movie Bonfire Of The Vanities, and look for the cake scene where the character Tom Hanks plays has his money sources
and his work products reduced to a degrading metaphor.
Happy popcorn!