Guns of America

A serious one. Sorry. 

In yesterday's @TorontoStar, columnist Rick Salutin wrote an opinion article with the stark title "US gun lovers would rather lose their kids than their guns" (Friday, February 23, 2018):

State of the nation

I wonder if he had read the tweet I saw, posted by a self-described 'elder of the True Light Pentecostal Church': "It's sad enough that 17 students had to die in Florida and it further stings that the survivors are being brainwashed into hating POTUS Trump, the NRA and the Second Amendment. The Dumbocrats exploited this tragedy to secure a block of future voters. Oh well what else is new?😡"

I remember my own school-days, long ago in the Los Angeles Unified School District which at the time was mercifully free of shooters of bullets. We had only to duck flying rubber bands and the odd bit of chalk (not just the kids; also one really bad teacher that @LAUSD eventually caught). In particular I remember Miss Young, who taught eighth grade US history and required students to write and perform little skits to accompany her lessons. The exercise often felt excruciating (especially when I got assigned to the same group as Steven Lamb, who had cooties) but it worked, and much of what I learned stuck. 

One of those lessons involved the meaning of the Second Amendment, which, she told us, never intended to give all citizens the constitutional right to keep guns (let alone assault weapons), but instead, guaranteed the right of states to maintain independence within the federation by raising their own militias, or state-based military units. 

I looked it up:

"'Amendment II: 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."

By 'state', said Miss Young, the hallowed forefathers meant, literally, 'state', that is, the soon-to-be former colonies such as Pennsylvania or Virginia. Their priority at the time was forming a happy union on American soil by cajoling these newborn States to become a United nation, while assuring them that they would retain self-determination. State-run armed militias would guarantee it. Benjamin Franklin and John Adams did not--could not-- envision centuries later a boy with an automatic rifle entering a sunny high school in Florida filled with children and spraying them with bullets. If they had, that Second Amendment would without a shadow of a doubt have read differently. 

States' rights have been pretty much on an even keel since the Civil War, which ended in 1865. They do not rely on citizens' gun ownership. I'm pretty sure the Supreme Court has ruled on this matter with far greater acuity than I have, but they did so after I finished eighth grade, so the details have not stuck with me. Perhaps I should look it up and act it out. Apparently they disagreed with Miss Young, which is more than I dared to do.

What I do know, without the help of drama or teachers, is that the plethora and power of guns in America is untenable, unsafe, and unhealthy, and that the answer to the problem is not more guns. I am pinning my hopes on that block of future voters, the vocal and passionate survivors of the most recent (as of this writing) shooting and on their mature refusal collectively to lay the bulk of blame on the troubled perpetrator, instead aiming their fury and their fire at the troubled system. At the State.  

Happy Valentines Day, Anthropology

They asked, so I answered.

 It's Anthropology Day

Socks, Love, and the Secret of True Happiness

When my sisters and I were children, our mother used to tell us about her freshman roommate at the University of Michigan. This young woman belonged to a wealthy Midwestern family and arrived at the girls' dormitory with far more luggage than the single trunk my mother had shipped from her home in Brooklyn. The roommate's habit was to wear a pair of socks once, then to throw them out. Her mother or her mother's housekeeper would replenish the supply weekly, by mail. "And they were angora," my mother told us every time she repeated the story. We marvelled and laughed at the ridiculous extravagance.

Now, decades later, I often think of this erstwhile roommate. Now, these many years on, I think differently, very differently.  I have in fact come to believe that she, or her mother, or their housekeeper, had in fact discovered the secret of true, if costly, happiness: wear socks once and throw them out.

Do I dare?

There must be a better way. As my middle child completes his university applications, I ponder what advice I might give him when he goes. It just might be 'only ever buy exactly the same socks in the exact same color'. Brown, or black, or white. Doesn't matter. Choose one. Stick with it. Angora optional. Because, I will tell my bright and precious boy, I know that as you spread your wings and discover the world, you will have better things to do with your time than pair socks. You can't throw them out after every wearing because you unfortunately do not have a mother who will send weekly replacements. Plus, the environment.

Be assured, though, I shall tell him, that while your mother may fail on the hosiery front, she will, constantly and continuously, replenish your supply of love: every day, every hour, every single second.