http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/20/opinion/charles-blow-has-the-nra-won.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-top-span-region®ion=c-column-top-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region&_r=0
Unalaska, a town out near Dutch Harbor, has a until recently little-known author(ess) in the Sargent in charge of writing the activities of the police department.....a bit of her work:
Or this one, about a routine animal complaint:Domestic Disturbance
A grown man asked an officer to tell his grown dipsomaniac son to go beddy-bye. The officer helped the drunk to bed, but declined the request to feed the family cat on the way out.
a bit more:Petite piles of poo prompted protests to police.
Public Safety (01:46 hrs, 11/9/11) — Officer watched three extremely intoxicated and giggling louts urinate on the road, on themselves, on one another, and on a taxi in front of the Harbor View Bar. The wet-legged men abashedly explained to the admonishing officer they had been kicked out of the bar before having an opportunity to use the restroom there.
Domestic Disturbance (00:26 hrs, 12/30/11) — Drunken boarding house tenant reported that his equally drunken nemesis had taken his cell phone, and he wanted it back. Officers told both sots they would go to jail if they continued behaving toward one another in such a fashion.
We should all have such LEO's, eh? Oh, and thanks to the esteemed, recently-married Mr. Gray from a remote outpost in Wales for the tip some months ago about the site.
Now, gentle readers, tell me this: Why, in the name of all that's good, do gun sales in the US increase dramatically after such things as school massacres, mass shootings, etc? Why do we believe crime is on the increase when it's shown to be at a 20 year low? Why, after proclamations that the racial issues in our country are all but past, does it seem like they are just surfacing?
Why oh why are we like this?
It's in the Constitution, Mike - pursuit of liberty and all that.
ReplyDeleteSucks, eh?
Well, it shouldn't be...history has shown that the beloved constitution can be amended, changed, you know, match up with life.
DeleteMaybe we really are getting dumber as a species.
ReplyDeleteSomething is happening here.......
DeleteWhat it is ain't exactly clear......
There's a man with a gun over there....
Tellin' me, ..................
One of those times I wonder if we're not doomed as a species...
ReplyDeleteWell, eventually, yes, Robbie. But not in mine or your lifetime.
DeleteIve adored the clever writings from this little Alaskan town for ages now!
ReplyDeleteIm glad you posted this my friend
Jx
The Sergeant is quite funny, eh?
DeleteAs we used to say in yorkshire
DeleteShe is as dry as a nun's chuff
I worry about the gun culture. Not in my life but in my kids and grandkids. Some of whom are armed, gawd knows why.
ReplyDeleteyeah, our kids will have to bear the brunt of the NRA's malfeasance.
DeleteCould it be because 'blood and gore' leads the news? The Fifth Estate bears much blame - except for the Unalaska paper.
ReplyDeleteEh, I don't know that we can lay the blame there. It's always been printed in the news, but now any of us can read 20 newspapers a day and have the news seek us out on our smart phones. If we have to lay blame for that part, it's the internet.
DeleteI avoid any article with the letters N.R. A. involved as they tend to make me sick to my stomach.....
ReplyDeleteDitto, TB
DeleteAuthor isn't a gender-specific term, so if the writer is a woman, she's still an author. Just like sh'e snot a writeress. But I like her writing - more interesting than the usual.
ReplyDeleteI can't read about the NRA.
Correction noted. I always knew you couch monitors were good for something.
DeleteI shouldn't read about them, it does my BP no good.
The way you write is such flowing. Keep writing. www.bellofpeace.org
ReplyDeleteThere aren't big riots the police can't control, aren't millions marching in the streets threatening mass upheaval, isn't as much crime, but people feel insecure. The article speculates on some reasons and some are speculated on here.
ReplyDeleteThere have been some big economic changes in this country but no one's pointing that out. The parties compete to see who can make more budget cuts. On economic issues both have adopted Reaganomics, which has meant stagnating incomes, declining living standards and gross inequality. The expectation that each generation will be better off than the last has been turned on its head. The media shows the stock market figures and says the economy is OK, it's growing, but it's all going to the rich, who don't chip in like they used to -- their taxes are one third what they were when Reagan came along, hence governments and schools are always in crises mode, which hardly contributes to a general sense of well being. A social contract was in effect before Reaganomics and it's been broken. People look to make sense of the world, can't, and go get a gun. An alarm system. Some ammo. Another gun. Better ammo.
Economic insecurity is funny. It affects you no matter what your status is because you don't see it in terms of absolute numbers but relative to other things, and it is, after all, a feeling. It doesn't have to have reasons you're consciously aware of. There have been other changes in society, too, and it all contributes, but economically this isn't the same country it was. With each round of factory closings our sense of who we are unraveled a little bit more, and with each round of layoffs, each news story about someone having to take a job at McDonald's, the psychological processes one goes through that end up with one getting a gun advanced a little more.
Damn that was a long comment.
DeleteA cogent one though, F. And it makes sense. Is it correct in this case, dunno.
DeleteYou're right on spot with both parties adopting raygun's economics.