If this blog were written in ink, it would be blotted with tears.
The photo of a school parent on cell phone crying says it all.
Tears over wireless. Tears over space. Heck, I am in Vietnam, and won’t be back after Christmas. But I feel the pinch, the lump in the throat (try to listen to Tears in Heaven, by Eric Clapton, while advancing the slides about Newtown memorial service).
Who is to be blamed? God? Gun? or (lack of ) Gut?
The First Lady has been hard at work to improve school lunch (healthier menu). She got some opposition there (how hard is it to add yogurt and sliced apple to the institutional menu? Just outsource to McDonald).
Now, the job is not to add fresh fruit to the school. It’s to take the guns out of it.
The upcoming battle in America is not from outside. It’s right there from within.
Hollywood has taken the path of least resistance (sex + violence = high revenue).
Porn sites were even lazier (just upload and watch your own).
Moralists are definitely not listened to (Cultural Literacy recommends the public to read Chaucer etc…) since they are way out of touch with mainstream conversation.
That leaves the World Wild West unfiltered.
In Back to Blood, Tom Wolfe painted an America of the future, with setting in Miami (giant projected porn flick on sail boats).
Each President got a four-year term, or 8 years max. Policies and politics don’t take the long view. They can not.
Career officers, of course, just do their jobs (until it changes again).
Meanwhile, no single person, well-meaning or not, can affect the outcome of the country. It’s natural selection. It always has been since its founding.
Checks and bounces. On the other hand, it’s this and that. When in doubt, we debate. Once in a while, we listen to Ron Paul, at least, out of courtesy, since it was his last speech before Congress.
But then, we move on. Short-term amnesia. Until the next tragedy. Aurora seems so far away. Now, it’s Newtown, Connecticut. Then, who could pro-actively prevent Newton, Mass? Wipe those tears away. Then, stand up. (as of this edit, there was a similar tragedy averted in Central FL University).
Those gun laws were written in their times within the agrarian Frontier contexts. Take the meaning, reframe it in new context. Yes, there are timeless stuff (right to privacy, right to self-defense and freedom of expression; all the good stuff that makes America what it is, a magnet to the world’s braves), but then, would you, as an Iraqi refugee, an Egyptian businessman, a French chef and Australian educator, think twice about coming to America, risking everything, including the young lives of your children? It makes for poor image as world’s leader.
Thang Nguyen 555 