National Emergency

I hardly think that migrants fleeing from violence in their countries, applying for asylum in the US, are our National Emergency.  Our mass killing are.

Today, Valentine’s Day, is the anniversary of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, although I wish they’d call these murders instead of making them sound like a day at the shooting range.  Seventeen students and staff members dead, seventeen others wounded.  There were ±307 mass shootings in the US in 2018, depending on how you define them.  This from Wikipedia:

Mass Shooting Tracker: 4+ shot in one incident, at one location, at roughly the same time.

Gun Violence Archive: 4+ shot in one incident, excluding the perpetrator(s), at one location, at roughly the same time.

Vox: 4+ shot in one incident, excluding the perpetrator(s), at one location, at roughly the same time.

USA Today: 4+ shot and killed in one incident, at one location, at roughly the same time (same as the FBI’s “mass killing” definition).

Mother Jones: 3+ shot and killed in one incident, excluding the perpetrator(s), at a public place, excluding gang-related killings.

The Washington Post: 4+ shot and killed in one incident, excluding the perpetrator(s), at a public place, excluding gang-related killings.

But all were executed by American citizens, most of whom were white males (no women).  As usual, little if anything was changed regarding our gun laws.  This also from Wikipedia re Stoneman Douglas:

Following the massacre, student survivors’ anger and frustration towards the perceived inaction of the Republican-dominated legislature on the wider issue of mass shootings and gun violence led to the founding of Never Again MSD, an organization formed by survivors and students of the shooting to demand legislative action on gun violence. On March 9, Governor Rick Scott signed a bill that raised the minimum age for buying rifles in Florida from 18 to 21. The legislation also established waiting periods and background checks for gun buyers. The law also allowed for the arming of teachers who were properly trained and the hiring of school police. [NPR had a bit on that today.]  So-called “bump stocks” would now be banned and some potentially violent or mentally unstable persons would be prohibited from possessing guns. The …NRA immediately filed a lawsuit that challenged the federal constitutionality of the age requirement clause.

Blah blah blah.  Or as the Onion headline says each time this happens,  ‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens.

My Garden

It is February and the night temps are going to dip below freezing for the third time; on Sunday I covered outdoor pots and my garden with sheets yet again.  But the mizuna has loved the rains.  (It tastes a bit like arugula but not as peppery.)  The spinach is just getting going.  I think I’ve gotten my last eggplant off my two-year-old plants.  But my brussel sprout plant (according to the map of what seeds I planted where) has yielded no sprouts, which are supposed to occur along its trunk.  (Mine v. what the plant  should look like.)  Then I happened to look at the top of the plant.  Huge cauliflower (dwarfed here by its giant leaves)!  Made cauliflower soup (for 4) with a quarter of it.

The Loft

You Tucsonans know The Loft Cinema, our art movie house.  Saturday went with friends to see Documentaries (Short Subject) nominated for this year’s Oscars.  Most were pretty depressing.

• Black Sheep was the story of a black kid who tries to be white (down to the blue contacts!) to hang with English thugs.
• End Game follows five people in San Francisco who are dying, who make different choices on how to die.  A few of them were at the Zen Hospice Project, which I have read about, but can’t remember when or why.
• The next was A Night at The Garden, quite an eye-opener, as it was footage from 1939 when 20,000 Americans rallied in New York’s Madison Square Garden to celebrate the rise of Nazism.  Rather spooky, these Americans giving the Nazi salute.  It’s very short; you can watch it on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/237489146.
• Then there’s Lifeboat: German volunteers sail to the Mediterranean to rescue refugees from sinking rafts off the coast of Libya.  It is horrible how many people are jammed into these wooded boats or inflatable rafts.
• The last was Period. End of Sentence.  In Hapur, a rural village outside New Delhi, where a girl’s period can mean the end of her education…  a sanitary pad machine is installed [and] the women learn to manufacture and market their own pads, empowering the women of their community.

The Estrogen Hour

Went to a fundraiser for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society with friends Sunday night, as we’ve done for a few years, to which we added hors d’oeuvres and a couple of bottles of wine.  It was at Laffs and billed as Tucson’s funniest females… for this stand-up comedy.  Best year yet.  They were all good, although not all cisgen – ‘guestosterone’ Tempest DuJour. 

“She” shall also host the Very Big Show (of Support) for Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona at the Rialto Theatre in downtown Tucson.

Saturday, March 9, 2019
VIP Reception: 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm
General Admission: 7:00 pm

You can look it up and buy a ticket if you’re interested (and I’ll go with you).