A Bit of Social Commentary

Those of you who know me personally know I can be pretty vocal about my opinions. Despite that I have pretty much kept my opinions about the activities of the day out of this blog. I did feel the need to comment on something that has been going on recently. That is – all of these large scale shootings that have been taking place all over the country. Years ago it seemed that things like this didn’t happen that often. Now they seem to happen everyday. I read a fair number of news websites each day – CNN, MSNBC, US Today, etc. Each time I have read one of these sites in the last 2 weeks or so, there has been some mass shooting event reported. Has the country gotten that insane? Has the situation with the economy driven people to murder? Do we as a country care? It seems that we have lost touch with reality and that no one even seems to care about this carnage. We are approaching the 10 year anniversary of the Columbine massacre. Given that I live in Colorado about 12 miles from Columbine, I distinctly remember that day and all the following national news coverage that occurred. Nowadays these mass shootings don’t even seem to garner that much news coverage. Have we lost all sense of rationality? Why are we as a nation, not doing something to stop this stupidity. I saw in one news report that in the last two weeks 54 people had been killed in these mass shootings. Imagine if a salmonella outbreak caused 54 deaths. Imagine if an airplane with 54 people crashed. Think of the investigation that would take place to find out what caused the salmonella outbreak or the plane crash. Once the cause was identified all kinds of actions would be taken to prevent it from happening again. Why are we not doing the same thing about this kind of stupid, reckless gun violence? Last evening I had a lengthy conversation with a friend about this whole situation. The good thing is we were both in agreement and were utterly disgusted by the situation. But if the two of us are feeling this way, aren’t the majority of the people in this country also feeling the same way?

Here's the latest one I read today. A woman went with her son to a shooting range. There were both firing guns and everything appeared to be fine. For some reason the woman then came up behind her son and blew his head off. She then killed herself. What the hell is that? Why was that story buried way far down on the link list on MSNBC? Why isn't there a sense of outrage that a parent used a gun to kill their own child? I just don't get it. Yet if anyone were to advocate taking even minor actions to do something to control violence like this (i.e. make it harder for people to get guns, etc) there would a major outcry against the attempt. And so the carnage will continue. Are we just too stupid of a nation to resolve problems like this? Sorry for the opinionated post – but it is something that I just hate to see. I have nothing against guns per say, but I just think that this stupidity has to stop. It is now time for me to exit the political soapbox. Today has been a pretty good day as I feel like I am getting back on top of the situation at work. I have been working my butt off and feel like I have made up for the week lost to vacation. Additionally, our cleaning ladies came today – it feels so GREAT to have a clean house. Kathy and Kelly hadn’t been at our house in 4 weeks because of the blizzard to 2 weeks ago. So they had a lot to clean – but boy did it feel good to get things cleaned up! Zack had a good day of school today and had Sylvan this afternoon. So we have been busy. Our evening has been good and I am now just doing some writing now that my little man has headed to bed. We are looking forward to the weekend and holiday. I am hoping the weather will be good enough on Saturday that we can get out for a hike. It has been several weeks since we have gotten out for a hike – other than our Grand Canyon hike. So I am definitely chomping at the bit to get out and do some serious hiking. Well – we hope everyone had a great day. Thanks and peace to all!