*sigh

     This week has had some horrible headlines.

49 people killed by an insane  axxhole who’s wife knew he was planning a mass attack and yet let it happen. She even visited the site of his crime with him several times and “tried to talk him out of it”.  …. She should be arrested. She should be on a terror watch list.  Oh wait..   HE  was on a terror watch list and had been investigated at least two times… and yet he had a permit go carry and buy guns.   He was employed.. as a security guard.   This time the axx was a homophobe.  And actually, now it appears he may have been secretly gay… maybe he just couldn’t stand himself and his reality and so he lashed out at a people who would have embraced him if he could have embraced himself.   Really, people, we all need to get over ourselves and even our chosen religions.  Before religion there were just humans. Before segregation there were just humans.  Before travel became a thing and we weren’t stuck to just one region where everyone looked the same, we were just humans.   The world was a kinder place then, despite the lack of all the convenient technology that is supposed to make life so much easier.  We all need to be – just human- again…

     The anti-gun restrictions people are full of hysteria over – it’s not the guns that kill, it’s the people.   Don’t take my guns away, blah blah blah blah.   We own guns in this house, to be clear.  We would pass criteria checking on our mental health status and our criminal record or rather, the lack of one.  I don’t mind someone checking into that.  If you have guns, I want you to pass that checklist too.  Why is that such a hard pill for gun owners to swallow?  It may not stop the madmen from their act, but it would sure make it harder. Doing nothing is not the answer.  It’s not any answer at all.  When the politicians and the religious leaders say “Let us all pray for the families of the victims”…    well prayer is nice and good and maybe even comforting, but it sure as hell isn’t enough.  It’s becoming a joke, that statement, used by those who have the power to do more about it, but don’t.

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     Last night a family was enjoying Movie Night on the beach at the Grand Fl*ridian Disney resort. Their 2 year old boy just yards away from them, was splashing around in less than a foot of water at the lagoons edge.  A sandy beach lagoons edge. You’ve probably read it already – he was taken by an alligator right in front of his parents.  They’re still looking for his body.  What a horrible, horrible thing.  Already, insensitive people are chirping about the ignorance of the family who lost their boy in one of the most horrific ways you could imagine..right in front of them as they tried to pull him from the jaws of the alligator.  Disney has “no swimming” signs posted along the beach, but they truck in loads of sugar white sand to encourage people to gather there.  No signs say “WARNING: ALLIGATORS”.   You can bet the ranch if any of us saw a sign that says that, we wouldn’t be chilling on that sugar white sand beach making sandcastles, right?

M and I, years ago along the shores of that same lagoon…. Look like alligator territory to you? Back then there were no “no swimming” signs either.

 

 I feel so badly for the families in Orlando today – all of them.