HOW TO TALK ABOUT THE MASS SHOOTINGS

It's time to have a somber national discussion about the [insert shooting tragedy here] tragedy.

Before we get started, let's go over a few basic ground rules.

1. In the wake of the __________ tragedy it's time for us all to come together as a nation and not assign blame. This is not the time, for example, to talk about how it's easier to purchase a gun in America than it is to vote (or buy French cheese).

2. And we won't tolerate any second guessing of the Second Amendment right to carry assault weapons, or questions about how the Framers could have possibly envisaged an assault rifle over 200 years ago, or why a "hunter" needs six thousand rounds of ammunition, or kevlar, or smoke grenades to kill a pheasant.

In his post at the link above, Chris Andoe at Americablog lists the rest of rules for discussion here in the United States of the most recent mass shooting and those that may follow.  People in other countries are not bound by our rules for discussion, so you may read or hear words that you find offensive and politically incorrect, such as, "America's gun laws are insane."

At the time of the Colorado shootings, I'd forgotten that the previous mass shooting was only two months before in Seattle, Washington.   The time lapse between the two most recent mass shootings was two weeks. With the grief over the Colorado shootings still fresh, it's a wonder that most of us go on as if nothing unusual has happened.  Two mass killings within two weeks...  I am stunned. One of my Facebook friends commented on a thread on my page which included gallows humor.  I responded that gallows humor is one way of coping for me, because the horror is too much to take in.

And now, on to the discussions, as we remember to follow the rules as laid out by Chris at Americablog.  

SEVEN DEAD IN SHOOTING AT SIKH TEMPLE IN WISCONSIN

Police and fire departments are handling a shooting at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wis., south of Milwaukee, where at least seven people, including the gunman, are dead, according to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel and other news organizations. At least three people, including a police officer who exchanged shots with the suspect, have been injured and taken to a hospital.

Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

MISSING YOU, MARILYN - 50 YEARSAGO TODAY

"In remembrance of Marilyn Monroe who died on August 5th 1962...fifty years ago"



krisbkk says in the accompanying notes at YouTube:

Most of the song in the film is Monroe's own voice but she needed help in two phrases -- "These rocks don't lose their shape, diamonds are a girl's best friend", and at the beginning with a series of high-pitched "no's", all of which were dubbed in by the soprano Marni Nixon.

The song was listed as the 12th most important movie song of all time by the American Film Institute.

Monroe's rendition of the song has been considered an iconic performance and has since been copied by other entertainers ranging from Madonna and Kylie Minogue to Geri Halliwell, Anna Nicole Smith and Thalia.

Thanks to Doug.

MODERN TECHNOLOGY

Coming to grips with the New Technology

I was visiting my son and daughter-in-law last night when I asked if I could borrow a newspaper.

"This is the 21st century, old man," he said. "We don't waste money on newspapers. Here, you can borrow my iPod."

I can tell you, that bloody fly never knew what hit it...

(Thanks to Doug.)

MITT, ABOUT YOUR TAXES...

Mitt Romney states that the substance of Sen. Harry Reid's claim of what he was told by a good source at Bain - that Romney did not pay taxes for 10 years - is not true and that Reid should "put up or shut up".  A better response would be for Romney to make public his tax returns and settle the matter once and for all.  The questions about Romney's taxes will not go away, and people will continue to wonder if he has something to hide.

Harry Reid did not back down and put out a statement which includes the following quotes:

There is a controversy because the Republican presidential nominee, Governor Mitt Romney, refuses to release his tax returns. As I said before, I was told by an extremely credible source that Romney has not paid taxes for ten years. People who make as much money as Mitt Romney have many tricks at their disposal to avoid paying taxes. We already know that Romney has exploited many of these loopholes, stashing his money in secret, overseas accounts in places like Switzerland and the Cayman Islands.
....

When it comes to answering the legitimate questions the American people have about whether he avoided paying his fair share in taxes or why he opened a Swiss bank account, Romney has shut up. But as a presidential candidate, it’s his obligation to put up, and release several years’ worth of tax returns just like nominees of both parties have done for decades.

There are those who say that Reid should not have made the claim, because he admits he's not certain it's true, that therefore what Reid said is no more than gossip.  Perhaps so, but Reid is nobody's fool, and I'm pretty sure he thought the matter through before he made the claim and before he released his subsequent instatement.  If the claim is not true, think how foolish Romney could make Reid look by releasing his tax returns.  So.  Will he, or won't he release his tax returns?

Photo from Wikipedia.

H/T to Juan Cole.

ANN ROMNEY'S RAFALCA IN THE OLYMPICS

Never for a second during her seven-minute performance did a hoof stray dangerously mouthwards, nor did she do anything at all to offend or upset the host nation. From the moment she entered the Greenwich Park equestrian arena at 12.15 on Thursday afternoon, the most famous political horse since Caligula toyed with making a consul of Incitatus seemed in her element.

She bowed her neatly plaited head on cue, trotted diagonally across the sand, did the jogging-on-the-spot thing, the skipping thing, the rhythmic boogying thing, the controlled trotting thing: in short, Rafalca did everything that the occasion and the peculiar rules of the dressage demanded of her.

Rafalca didn't win a medal, but she entered into the spirit of the occasion with poise and éclat, in contrast to the spouse of her owner.  She's a beautiful horse with splendid markings.

Her part-owner seemed equally delighted. Ann Romney, who was in the VIP section of the equestrian arena, rose to give Rafalca a standing ovation and a wave. "She was consistent and elegant," said Mrs Romney. "She did not disappoint. She thrilled me to death."

Is Ann prouder of Rafalca's performance in England than of Mitt's?  I expect so, but she'd never say.

Update: Mitt Romney deducted $70,000 from his tax bill for Rafalca.

BOBBY, WE HARDLY KNOW YE

Governor Bobby Jindal joined the Republican governor rogues gallery in a debate at the Aspen Institute.  Michelle Millhollon reports on the gathering which was mainly a closed affair, but...

For a $15 admission price, the public could grab a seat on the Aspen Institute’s campus Wednesday night to listen to a panel discussion featuring Jindal, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. The talk was broadcast on Aspen’s public radio station and was streamed on the Internet.

Ha!  How about that lineup?

Jindal apologized several times for talking fast during the event, explaining that he wanted to fit in several points. Christie ribbed him for his bullet-point approach.

I've heard Jindal speak, and I vouch for the fact that he talks fast.  After a while, I stopped trying to keep up and switched off.

Jindal rapidly described the changes he successfully proposed for Louisiana’s public school system, racing from teacher tenure to the scholarships that use public dollars to send children to private or parochial schools.

“Basically vouchers,” Isaacson interjected to put a new name to the scholarships.

“We call it scholarships. The teacher unions call it four-letter words,” Jindal retorted.

Har-de-har-har.  Jindal made a funny.   And then is it back home to Louisiana for the governor?  Indeed not.  Jindal is off to Washington DC for meetings.  Bobby, we hardly know ye. 

ONE OF THOSE DAYS

Yesterday I was in funk for most of the day. In the morning, Grandpère found the notice to the left hanging on our front door. Encephalitis in the neighborhood! On my street?  In my town?  Panic began to rise. Then I read all the fine print.  "Mosquitoes that can carry ENCEPHALITIS have been found in your neighborhood and we need your help."  The local newspaper published the news that West Nile virus had been found in mosquitoes in Lafourche Parish, where I live, and it's a good thing to remind people not to leave standing water around where mosquitoes can breed, but the notice could have been worded in a way that would not frighten people so.  Still, my first panicked questions would not have come up had I read the fine print.

 Here's how West Nile fever works.  Humans contract the virus from a bite from an infected mosquito.  Most people who are infected with the disease either have no symptoms at all or suffer a very mild illness.  However, in rare cases, and we have had a couple around here, the virus "can cause encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) or meningitis (inflammation of the lining of the brain and spinal cord)."  It does not matter where in a community the cases of serious illness develop, because the disease does not pass from person to person.

What the notice did was push me to decide that so long as the threat of West Nile lasts, I will walk in daylight, when it is hot, but when the mosquitoes are not so much on the move, rather than after sunset, when it is cooler.  

Later in the day, I called the Circulation Department of the Times-Picayune to cancel our subscription. I have not been reading the paper since the announcement of the cutback to three days a week for the paper edition beginning in October and the layoff of half the staff.  The newspaper is already turning into a shell of itself, and I don't want to watch the decline until October.   I thought we'd do better to get our refund from Advance Publications now rather than wait for our subscription to run out.  The customer service rep asked why we were cancelling, and I said one word, "Newhouse," and she understood.  I felt so sad after I cancelled, because I've been reading the Times-Picayune my whole life since I could read, starting with the comics, or the funnies, as we called them in New Orleans. I missed the paper for three years while we lived in Mobile, but as soon as we moved back to Louisiana, we subscribed again.

We also subscribe to the Baton Rouge Advocate, which will place permanent staff in New Orleans to cover the news there. Several groups and individuals, the latest being Tom Benson, owner of the New Orleans Saints, have offered to buy the paper from Newhouse, but they refuse to sell.  We will surely support any worthwhile effort to set up a rival daily newspaper, and we will not subscribe to Newhouse's pathetic web version.

As you see, the day was already a downer when I read that Kenneth Roop, the man who shot Nick Rainey, the door-to-door meat and seafood salesman, had been on trial for pointing a gun at a meter reader some years back, but he was found not guilty of improper exhibition of a weapon.  The prosecutor at the trial said Roop was a ticking time bomb.  The bomb ticked for quite a while, but it finally went off.  Not long before reading the account, I saw the meter reader for my neighborhood pass by my window to read our meter. It made me think.  A jury of his peers did not think pointing a gun at a meter reader and terrifying her was an improper exhibition of a weapon, and Roop was permitted to continue to own a gun, with the result that another innocent person is dead from gunshot.

Some days I just want to give up, and yesterday was one of those days.

A GOOD PUN IS ITS OWN REWORD

A pessimist's blood type is always b-negative.

Freudian slip. When you say one thing and mean your mother.

A hangover is the wrath of grapes.

I used to work in a blanket factory but it folded.

Sea captains don't like crew cuts.

When a clock is hungry, it goes back four seconds.

Every calendar's days are numbered.

He broke into song because he couldn't find the key.

His photographic memory was never developed.

When you've seen one shopping center, you've seen a mall.

Those who jump off a Paris bridge are in Seine.

Santa's helpers are subordinate clauses.

Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead-to-know basis.

Acupuncture is a jab well done.

Local Area Network in Australia. The LAN down under.

Without geometry, life is pointless.

Dreaming in color is a pigment of your imagination.

Reading while sunbathing makes you well red.

A bicycle can't stand on its own because it is two tired.

A backwards poet writes inverse.

Definition of a will. A dead giveaway.

Pay your exorcist, or you'll get repossessed.

A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.

I like the puns, so I will thank Doug rather than blame him.  I've probably posted some of them before, but who's keeping track?  Not me.

LENT IN SILK AND LACE

We've seen Cardinal Raymond Burke wearing splendid red and green vestments, and now we see him arrayed in purple Lenten vestments.  Once again the cardinal wears the tall, gold mitre.  After clicking on the link above, scroll down to see all the posts on the Cardinal Burke.

Orbis Catholicus Secundus reports that American Cardinal [Raymond]Burke celebrated a Pontifical Mass at the Lenten Stational Church of San Nicola in Carcere  (St Nicholas in prison) with outdoor penitential procession and chanting of the Litany of Saints. San Nicola in Carcere is one of the traditional stational churches of Lent.

For the procession, His Eminence wore a very tall golden mitre (mitra aurifregiata), and a penitential purple cope bearing the coat of arms of Pius IX. For the Mass, he wore another tall white mitre and a purple chasuble and Pontifical gloves (chirothecœ). The use of episcopal gloves became customary at Rome probably in the 10th century. Most of these liturgical vestments have been rarely seen after the Pauline changes of the last ‘60s. The revised Caeremoniale Episcoporum no longer imposes on bishops the use of episcopal gloves.

 I wanted you to see the gloves, which all too often seem to be not quite the right color and tend to clash with the other vestments.  These chirothecœ are the best match I've seen yet.  The vestments may seem  somewhat splendiferous for the Lenten period, but think of it this way: Lent is a time of fasting, so the people who attend the services at least get to feast their eyes on colorful silk and beautiful lace during the penitential  season.

Cardinal Burke explains the attraction of masses with elaborate pageantry and lavish vestments in the video below which was posted on the website of the National Catholic Reporter.