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About That Militia

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Evzones: Traditional Uniform of the Elite Greek Guards

Everyone I know is sick to death of the multiple shootings appearing in the news every day. I look back at the text of the Second Amendment, so beloved of pudgy aged 50+ Texans and Midwesterners, and I wonder how we have come to this. Here is the entire text of the amendment:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Well, I say let them buy guns, but with one proviso: They must form a well-regulated militia, with frequent regular meetings, preferably scheduled during major sports playoffs, bowl games, and championships. Oh, and they must have a uniform. Otherwise, they can’t really be said to be a well-regulated militia, no?

As for the uniform, I prefer that of the Greek Evzones, illustrated above. Now although the uniform doesn’t look butch enough to most Americans, the Evzones were elite mountain and light infantry units that were tested in battle against the Turks in the 1920s and Communist insurgents of the 1950s.

Since I am opposed to cultural appropriation, I suggest that the skirts worn by the pot-bellied gun-toting militia be rainbow colored; and the pom-poms on the shoes should be pink.

The guards in the above photo are serious soldiers, which our NRA-loving militia would not be. But, by God, they would be well-regulated … to the point of complete exasperation and utter abashment.

One Night in Santa Monica

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The Apartment Building at 1323 11th Street

During most of the 1970s, I lived in a two-bedroom apartment on 11th Street in Santa Monica. I was on the second floor, with the bottom floor being a carport. On the way up the back stairs to my apartment (#10), I had to pass #8 and #9. I am giving you this detail so that you will be able to better see what happened to me on night around 1978.

I was returning from Von’s Supermarket with a bag of groceries. As I walked down the alley, I saw two young Armenian men crouching behind a car with a trailer loaded with furniture. They motioned for me to take cover. I surmised that they were moving into one of the apartments (the building owner was Armenian), but I had no desire to wait for man indeterminate time in the dark, cold alley. So I continued on.

As I turned to mount the stairs, I saw my alcoholic white trash neighbor Merle standing at the top of the stairs with a rifle. I greeted him: “Hi, Merle. How’s it going?” He complained that those damned kids who were moving in made too much noise and giving him a headache. He added: “You’ve always been a good neighbor to me, Jim.” So he moved to one side and let me pass.

As I turned my back to him to go to my front door, I was conscious that I had just done something irrecoverably stupid and that I might be shot in the back. I turned the key, entered my apartment, and fell on the floor, breathing heavily.

Within minutes, the Santa Monica Police arrived and arrested Merle. I never saw him again. Shortly thereafter, his wife Ursula moved out. One neighbor had told me that once, when he knocked on the door of #8, Ursula answered the door stark naked. I, however, was deprived of that experience.

Actually, except for that one incident, Merle and I got along all right.

Thoughts & Prayers—Pfffft!

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AK-47 Insides

After the mass killings in California this weekend—in Monterey Park and Half Moon Bay—I am tempted to make an immodest proposal. Every time N number of innocent victims are killed by a shooter, the same number of NRA members (and their families) are slaughtered in the same fashion.

It would have the effect of thinning the herd.

Insofar as the Second Amendment is concerned, in exactly what way do gun buyers constitute a “well-regulated Militia”? (Answer: In no way.)

New Uniforms for the Uvalde TX Police

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Yes, Pink Tutus Would Be Perfect!

As the NRA has claimed so often, the best way to stop a bad guy with a gun (BGWG) is with a good guy with a gun. Well, the cops in Uvalde, TX were supposedly good guys with guns (GGWG), but instead of breaking the door down, they cowered in safety while a BGWG wiped out a classroom full of elementary school students plus two teachers for good measure.

Well, it’s time to get new uniforms for the Uvalde cops. How about pink tutus with a matching pink cowboy hat? Maybe their squad cars should also be painted pink. Mind you, I have nothing against the color pink, but I think those gentlemen would—and it would make them think. (Hell, I could have thrown in a yellow stripe down the back, but pink and yellow don’t match).

After listening to the right wing media blame everything but guns for the shooting, I seriously wonder whether the NRA enthusiasts of Texas have a screw loose in their noggins.

Thoughts + Prayers = 0

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Crosses Memorializing Victims of Vegas Shooting

Here we are with yet another mass shooting, and more thoughts and prayers—especially from people who do not intend to do anything about it. Sure, set down those Teddy Bears and lit candles and be photographed hugging other people. Let’s take a look at ourselves in the mirror. We are seen as being barbarous because of the things we allow to go on in our country. Selling automatic weapons to lunatics and children! And merely shaking our heads when those weapons are put to deadly use.

Sometimes, I think the thoughts and prayers of the families of shooting victims are not as strong as the thoughts and prayers of people who are members and fellow travelers of the NRA.

 

When It All Began

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This Is the Earliest Shooter Incident That I Can Remember

August 1, 1966 came during a strange period in my life. Within six weeks, I would be in a coma at Fairview General Hospital in Cleveland while a team of doctors tried to figure out what was wrong with me. My family physician, Michael J. Eymontt did not have access to CAT Scans or MRI, but he was an endocrinologist and figured that something might be going on with my pituitary gland.

He was right. I read about the Austin, Texas shooting incident in the Cleveland Press and Plain Dealer. Never before had I or my family seen such a gratuitous act of violence toward the innocent. Charles Whitman first killed his mother and his wife, and then took guns to the tower on the University of Texas campus and opened fire at random people who were just going about their business. In an hour and a half, he killed thirteen people and wounded thirty-one. Too bad he didn’t have access to the hi-tech military weaponry that was used in the Las Vegas mélée by Stephen Paddock.

When I was recovering from surgery in the hospital, the news came out that Charles Whitman had had a brain tumor. Okay, so did I, but I didn’t kill anybody. That’s a pretty lame excuse.

The Tower at the University of Texas from Which Charles Whitman Fired His Shots

So now we’ve come full circle with another Texas shooting—one in which half the victims were children, at a church no less!  Between the two incidents, I would have trouble counting how many mentally twisted gun collectors decided to take it out on innocent people. It’s becoming a very popular way for gun freaks to commit murder and suicide at the same time. Thanks to the NRA, there is no danger that Hell will ever be underpopulated with American sickos.

Things I Don’t Really Want to Write About

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Subject A

Subject A

It is difficult for me not to write about certain subjects, especially when I am so upset about them. But then, I have to think about you, my readers. However strong I feel about certain things, what if I really don’t have anything to add about what has already been said?

Anyhow, on to the list, in no particular ordure [SIC]:

  1. Presidential Elections. Let’s face it: Even the pundits whose job it is to opine on the political scene either have nothing new to say, or else they are in the business of influencing opinions.
  2. Donald Trump. You know what I think about the Cheeto-haired beast. ’Nuff said!
  3. Awards. Whether it’s the Oscars or the Nobel Prize for Literature, it’s all about politics, usually who hates whom.
  4. American Conservatism. It seems to be segueing into National Socialism (Nazism).
  5. Police Violence. Black lives do matter! All Americans matter!
  6. Terrorism. Everything we do emboldens the terrorists, so let’s just get on with our lives.
  7. Guns. Since when does a “well-regulated Militia” mean that crazy people get to play with Bushmasters?
  8. Ecology. Even if the Earth is on the point of being irretrievably poisoned, we gotta dig coal and chop down trees, no?

There are probably a handful of other subjects which aren’t worth ranting about, mostly because of the seemingly irresolvable split between the Union and the Confederacy. Occasionally, I will still blab out a post when I know I should keep my mouth shut. Please forgive me in advance!

Fast and Furious

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Too Many Tragedies

Too Many Tragedies in Too Short a Time Frame

It seems that flags have been at half mast for so long— beginning with the Dallas police shootings—that one no longer knows which disaster is being commemorated. With the 24-hour news cycle, the shootings are coming fast and furious, and the border between events is being blurred.

When one big news event happens, it triggers a news orgy in which the particular story fills all the news time until it is abruptly replaced by the next disaster. I cannot help but think that all the breaking news stories work on the minds of disturbed individuals, making them think that a mass shooting would be a good idea.

I don’t think the perpetrators do it with suicide in mind, but, hey, their minds don’t work all that well anyhow. The San Bernardino shooters, for instance, thought they could stage a getaway. If one is unable to reason well, one gets a certain amount of magical thinking going that, once “the point” has been made, an escape path is possible. Killing multiple human beings with a Bushmaster, however, is so traumatic that it isn’t likely that the shooters could waltz out of the slaughterhouse they have created.

So I never ask why the flag is at half mast any more. It might as well always be at half mast. I wonder if the person who raises and lowers the flag even knows.

 

The United States of Fear

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Kalashnikov AK-47

Kalashnikov AK-47

When we won the Second World War, we changed as a people. It’s like the gunfighter who’s gained such a fearsome reputation that everyone comes gunning for him. And, indeed, as a nation we got our asses kicked in Korea, Viet Nam, Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya, and a number of other places we never heard of before our famous victory. (Besides, truth to tell, the Second World War was more of a Russian victory than one for America and Britain: Stalin did far more to destroy the German war machine than we did.)

Sometime later, after we clumsily started being the world’s policeman, we discovered that we were not liked. For me, it all started in Caracas, Venezuela, in May 1958 when our Vice President, Richard M. Nixon, was met by an angry mob which attacked his limo. “How could that be?” I thought as a grade school student at the time. “Aren’t we the good guys?”

Then, shortly after I returned from Iceland in September 2001, the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were attacked by Al Qaida terrorists. Then we learned there are all these Muslims out to get us, people who revered the terrorists and decided to name their sons Osama. As recently as yesterday, I heard a Syrian refugee blame Washington and Moscow for destroying his country—as if ISIS, Al Qaida, and the Syrian Baath Party had no part to play in it.

With the world turning against us, we started to look fearfully at Afro-Americans and Mexican immigrants (whom Trump calls “rapists,” except for a handful of good ones). Among our own kind, there were these strange homosexuals who started attacking our cherished institution of marriage.

Well, I guess we should all buy guns, the more the better. Let’s all build ourselves a fort and blow the heads off anyone who crosses its perimeter. Or if we’re feeling particularly depressed, maybe we could shoot up our old school or our workplace. How dare anyone criticize us? After all, aren’t we the good guys?

Not any more we aren’t.

 

 

 

The Problem With Our Super Heroes

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There’s a Reason for Ferguson and Baltimore

There’s a Reason for Ferguson and Baltimore

Violence is woven into the warp and woof of American life. When we are young, it takes over our dreams and make us imagine a super self that can take revenge on the bullies that steal our lunch money and slam us into the hallway lockers. Even when we grow up and become strong, we want to have an edge over all the people we imagine could harm us. Perhaps these people are Black or Mexicans; they’re not our kind of people. Hence, they represent a threat to us.

Perhaps we don’t get into our superhero uniform and cosplay our way out of trouble. Instead, we get guns and use them when we are threatened. We go in for such nonsense as “open carry” and claim that we, in the spirit of the Second Amendment, constitute a militia. But we really don’t. Instead, perhaps our wives yell at us or make eyes at Ralph next door. We pull out our guns and blast away. Or Junior gets upset that Little Bobby stole his tricycle. He knows where Daddy keeps his loaded gun. He find it, and before you know it he’s on the evening news.

Notice that our superheroes are not interested in getting along with people, in negotiating calmly with them. It’s either blood, or you’re a wuss. We make fun of Europeans for being more civilized than us, but down which mean street would you prefer to walk? Laugavegur in Iceland’s Reykjavik? or Hough Avenue in Cleveland?

In his novel The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon depicted the cartoonists who created America’s superheroes as transferring the Jewish Ghetto hero that was the Golem to American streets. The problem is, things got out of hand. The translation went awry.

I’m not saying the superheroes are to blame: It’s just that they represent one of the elements in American life that symbolize the mess that we’re in.