Monday, December 17, 2012

After mourning, action

This was something I posted on Facebook, but I'm putting it here to give it a more permanent home and to perhaps breathe some life into the blog again:

"The NRA is a mighty thing. But as mighty as it is, it is no match for the political power of the 'parent lobby' in this country. If we parents ever decided to take a stand between our children and the gun lobby, we would perhaps be shielding thousands of our kids from the deadly bullets yet to come."

If this is like other shootings, all of us will eventually abandon our rage and return to our day to day life, abandon this issue for others, and meanwhile the NRA will be on the hill and their zombies will emailing, writing letters, and calling their representatives every time the most innocuous gun legislation comes up for consideration. The politicians, both Republican and Democratic, will feel that it is not worth it to take on the gun lobby. And so it will continue until another twisted tortured young man decides to see if he can do even worse than Newton. And then we will wring out hands again and say, "why"?

Unless we grab this moment. The gun nuts know this is a dangerous moment for them. The NRA took down its Facebook page. Pro-gun senators were afraid to go on the Sunday talk shows (is it a surprise these people are cowards?). Let's keep them on the defensive. Let's be there when legislation comes up. Let's get the facts out there. Let's let those people who are not gun nuts but just misinformed know the real facts. Let's dominate the discourse by our numbers, our passion, our knowledge of the truth and what's at stake, and our love of our children. Let's save our country from the bloody gun culture which has soaked our homes, schools, and streets in innocent blood.

Who's with me?

Monday, February 27, 2012

SHAME

I said I would blog. I have not blogged. But here is an image from a medieval manuscript of monkeys on stilts (which I found googling images for "medieval illumination shame").

Monday, February 13, 2012

a return?

Liam and some others vowing to blog more.

It has been almost two years since my last blog post, and that one was only a complaint about being busy and a photo of a stave church. It's quite something that I found the time to blog in grad school yet can't now. Of course, when it comes to devouring one's time, babies win, and so that's a factor. I also have fallen into the general trend of using twitter and facebook more and more -- we gradually reduce our expression into more manageable bits, and some day soon I know twitter will be replaced by a site that limits us to grunts and monosyllables. Yet there are other factors. Still, let me vow to blog just a bit more. I promise something in the next week.