ON CHRISTMAS: IN THE USA

"Christmas in America"

brought to you by the

National Rifle Association

 "protecting your right to kill your fellow Americans since 1871"

Merry Christmas/Feliz Navidad

ON REPUBLICANS:KISS MY ROSY RED RUSTY DUSTY-PART II

These are my end of year, "oh, ain't it great to be an American," thoughts.

Click here: SENIORS AND VETERANS DESERVE A RAISE

Click here: KISS MY ROSY RED RUSTY DUSTY

If you have thoughts, please leave a comment.

 Have a Merry Whatever You Celebrate at This Time of Year

ON JESUS CHRIST AND HIS RELIGION: USA STYLE

There is not much you can say after the Rev. Jerry Falwell, Jr. told students at his christian-inspired Liberty University, located in Virginia, to go out and get concealed carry permits to carry guns on campus.  

I think the call to arms, however, does allow me to ask the question: What would Jesus do?

I guess these photographs provide us the answer.  Repent all you sinners...or, I'll shoot you.

ON REPUBLICANS: KISS MY ROSY RED RUSTY DUSTY

Thanks to the Grand Old Party, the party of angry white men, for the third time since 2010 the Cost of Living adjustment will not rise on Social Security and Veteran's Benefits checks.  

Oh, and guess which year I was eligible for Social Security?  You got it, 2010! 

For three of the last seven years I have received no increase in my Social Security or disabled Veteran's benefits.  Lucky me!  Evidently the cost of everything I use...electricity, internet, food, and more...has not risen a single dime.

Sure glad I volunteered to enter the Marine Corps in 1966 and serve when others got deferrals and fled to Canada. And, so happy about going to Vietnam when others, like Dick Cheney, were sitting at home playing with themselves.  Golly gee whiz!

What a scam.  While Cheney skipped going to war, he had no problem providing armament and logistics for later wars as head of Halliburton and Vice President of the United States.

Our own millionaire's club...also known as the U.S. Congress...doesn't seem to care what happens to the aged, the veteran, the poor, or the sick.  All they care about is feathering their nest.  

It should be a nest of doves.  Instead, Congress is a nest of vultures and gooney birds.

ON WAR: THERE IS ONLY ONE WAY TO FIGHT ONE

I have been in war. When I returned from war I was called a "baby killer" and "immoral."  

I did not choose where or when to be born. I did not choose on whose side I fought. I did not want to give up my citizenship rights because the draft would put me in harm's way. And, by fate, I participated in the first war fought on TV.

I learned much from that experience. One, war is brutish and life is cheap...the cost of only a bullet in many cases. Two, a war cannot be won if the state is worried about what others say, whether on blogs or on TV.

Our world politicians talk much about going after ISIS, or al Qaeda, or the Taliban, or Hezbollah. 

There is only one way to win this war. Take the war to the states from which these terrorists come. You cannot win fighting roaming figures who move from state to state to plan terror on the peaceful.

If someone travels from Saudi Arabia to bring war to Europe, bomb Saudi Arabia...perhaps Mecca should be first.  If someone travels to the USA from Somalia to bring destruction to the Americas, bomb Mogadishu...the heart of the city.  

Do not worry about civilian casualties.  Do you think the criminals who came to New York and Paris cared whether the casualties were civilians in the World Trade Center or the Bataclan Theatre?

If ISIS wants to reside in Iraq or Syria or Libya, bomb the capitals of these nations. Perhaps then the fire will be lit to force these countries to recognize they are responsible for their borders and their citizenry.

I do not think war is the answer to anything. However, war is either fought with the goal to win, like World War II or the first Gulf War, or it is not war. Set a goal and do not stop until it is met. 

Trust me, Europe and the USA, history will put you on the right side.  This tactic will also gain the attention of nations wanting to provoke us around the edges, like China and Russia.

Brute force, not targeted killing, will win this war for the survival of the peaceful.

ON HONESTY: IT'S NAME IS FABIOLA

I walked for miles in and around Plaza Botero. For hours I schlepped up and down streets filled with vendors and prostitutes, cafes and bakeries, churches and cheap hotels. My last area to search was just northeast of the plaza, taking me under the Medellin Metro line.

Amidst a crowd of poor merchants selling their wares on blankets spread on the sidewalk, directly under the overhead Metro, her face appeared.  She was selling the little things recicladoras find that might have value to another Paisa...a screwdriver, a pair of shoes, a string of lights.  My search was over. I found my angel.

In August I wrote [ Medellin Steals My Heart ] about being the victim of a pickpocket on Wednesday, only to be the victim of a random act of incredible kindness and honesty the following Sunday.  I wrote that my angel left before I could get her name. Because I had lost my wallet and cash, I could not hand to her a comparable reward for her act of generosity.  I felt guilty and incomplete.

Last Wednesday I decided to take the only clue I had, the whereabouts of her telephone call telling me she found my wallet. It came from Plaza Botero, a large square located in front of the Museo de Antioquia, the state art museum. Here large sculptures by Fernando Botero sit for all to see and explore. It is a very popular tourist attraction in this city of approximately 3.5 million people.

I know from watching recicladores that they perch in one location and go out in a three to four block radius to go through the trash put out by merchants, apartment building managers, and home owners. So, with that in mind, I set out on Wednesday to see if I could find this small, cherub-faced woman with a heart of gold.

When I approached her, I asked her if she remembered me. Her eyes said no.  I asked her if she remembered finding a wallet and walking to Laureles...after a brief second, her face alit.  She put it together.  She smiled and screamed, "amigo!"

I told her she had been in my heart since that day.  I gave her a small black plastic bag within which I had hid money for her, I said, "Este regalito es solo para ti, amor." [This gift is only for you, love]  She knew what it was and immediately placed it in her bra, the same place from which she pulled my wallet that Sunday in August when we first met.  She told me it was important to her to find me because she knew the papers in my wallet were important. "Papeles importante," she called them.

After many hugs and kisses...abrazos y besitos...I wished her, "Feliz Navidad" and went on my way, only to quickly return.  "Su nombre, amor?"  "Fabiola!" her reply. Fabiola, the name of honesty. 

I still have not been able to wipe the smile off my face.  Now that I know where she is, I will stop by now and again...on Wednesdays, of course...to see how she is doing and to give her some pesos to assure there is always something on her table.

ON GUNS IN USA: Federal background checks up 300 percent

Federal gun background checks were up 300 percent on Monday, March 16, compared to the same day a year before, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a gun industry trade group. [Newsweek] The surge strained the gun background check system in several states, leading to delays. [The Trace].



*The article below appeared March 11, 2015.  I thought the rise in gun sales due to the pandemic COVID-19 prompted a reevaluation of who really controls gun policy in the United States of America.



GunPolicy.org, Sydney School of Health, University of Sydney, Australia, estimates that by 2012 there were 310,000,000 guns owned by private citizens in the United States of America.  

In its latest published figures the Federal Bureau of Investigation claims there were 21,000,000 background checks performed on gun purchases in 2013. CNN reported last year that in 2013 more than 5,500,000 guns were imported into the United States.  It is, therefore, probably safe to assume the number of guns estimated by the Sydney School of Health is on the low side.   

The United States Census Bureau estimates there are approximately 320,486,000 people living in the USA currently; about 26% of those are under age 18.  In the United States one must be at least 18 to own and register a gun. One could extrapolate from these numbers that there are only about 237,158,000 Americans eligible to own a gun in the "land of the free and home of the brave."

In an Associated Press report on the 2014 General Social Survey, a trend survey conducted regularly by NORC, an independent research group out of the University of Chicago, surveyors found that only 22% of Americans own a gun and only 32% live in a household where a gun is owned.

I am not a mathematician, but I did pay attention in grammar school. If only 22% of Americans own guns, a grand total of 70,507,000 people own those 310,000,000 weapons.  

Taking NORC's survey a step further, since only 32% of Americans claim to live in a home that has a gun, 48,000,000 people live alone with about 4.4 guns in their possession.  Why?  

They are not protecting a family; they live alone! And, the survey found that only 15% of Americans hunt, so that cannot be the reason for gun ownership. It means 41,000,000 Americans own guns for no other reason than to feel safe in their loneliness? 

In the report cited earlier by CNN, 16,238 homicides were committed in the United States in 2011, 68.2% by firearms...or more than 11,000. 

As we listen, news report after news report, to a lead statement that begins, "Today a lone gunman...." perhaps we need to add one question to gun registration forms.  

The new question?   "Do you live alone?"