Group, The Killer, Guns, Politics, Stories - The Past 2 Days

Friday:

I went to the group session, then did my grocery shopping. I had another one of those attacks of energy loss. I napped for two hours when I got back here. No writing done, but I did join Peaccok. I read an article announcing John Woo had remade The Killer. So, I watched it. Very good, even if it does not remove the original from my mind, and it does indulge a few too many of Woo's tropes. On the plus side: it complicates the plot, deepens the characters a bit, and stars Nathalie Emmanuel and Omar Sy. What impressed me about the original, and Woo's films generally, was the moral complexity of his characters - the good guys and the bad guys are like funhouse mirrror images of one another. Face/Off took this idea to its extreme. It was worth signing up with Peacock (which otherwise, reminds me of Tubi).

Another review from YouTube:

I plan a sepeate post on the group session.

 Saturday:

A bad night - too much ice cream - and a late-rising, which led to me being behind the eight ball this morning.

Did I catch up on my email? Slightly.

Did I crash Chrome? Several times.

Did I go to the Farmers Market? nope, I spent enough on groceries yesterday.

Have I left the apartment yet? Once to get to smokes at the old VP.

Then what else have you done? I washed up the dishes from yesterday, fixed breakfast, looked at replacing my word processor, and started on my submissions. Oh, I worked on this post. "Problem Solving" went to The Garlic Press and to  Wallstrait: A Literary Journal of Hard-to-Define Fiction. Out of a sense of perversity, I sent "The Sloe Gin Effect" to Money Chronicles: A Story Initiative,  which has a contest:

Principal Foundation believes talking about money empowers people and communities to build more financially secure futures. It’s time to bring our experiences – positive and negative – out of the shadows.

We want to read your imaginative and meaningful short stories (fiction and creative nonfiction) touching on themes related to money and personal finance. Introduce us to protagonists whose relationship to money may be on the verge of unexpected or needed change. Your tale may be the inspiration someone needs to reimagine their relationship with money. 

But the story was too long, so wasted time.

An interesting story about cats and spirituality, I think, by Angela Townsend: The Phenom. Published by Wallstrait.

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds: Wild God review – this masterpiece will make you fall back in love with life (The Guardian). Not a guy I listen to often but I always like what I hear. The review, I think, explains why people listen to him.

I agree with this editorial from The Los Angeles Times, Opinion: We’re living under a flawed Constitution. Let’s start fresh and rewrite it. Look for a separate post.

My ears started bothering me, so I took a blog.

Al Jazeera asks Will Kamala Harris succeed in becoming America’s first female president?

Politico states the obvious to me: It’s a New Race. Harris’ Acceptance Speech Showed Why.

It is hard to imagine anyone who started watching the speech with an undecided but genuinely open mind — surely there are a few such people left in this agitated age? — who finished by thinking, You know, I see what Trump was getting at about her.

Everything Harris has done since Biden removed himself from the election undercuts, if not outright refutes, every criticism made of her since she came on the national scene. She has adapted to the race, and then she made the election her own. She picked a vice presidential candidate who is capable of enduring the limelight. This is what any president needs to have  - the capacity of dealing with the stress of the job, which includes not being poleaxed by changing circumstances. 

Necessary Fiction sent me a link to Elissa Cahn's The Human Heart: A Topographic Map and Guidebook  - light on its feet, unique metaphor, it moved me.

Bang, bang, from Aeon, Why America fell for guns:

o understand the real origins of the exceptional gun culture of the US, we needed to look further back in time. Our research reveals a puzzling new trajectory: a remarkable 45 per cent increase in the household gun ownership rate from 1949 to 1990, peaking during 1990. To our surprise, more than half of this rise occurred before 1973, a period previously obscured by the lack of systematic data on gun prevalence. These new data provide a crucial historical perspective, showing that the surge in gun prevalence started before the period marked by rising crime and falling trust. In fact, our measure shows an uptick in gun prevalence beginning in the 1950s, a period defined by low homicide rates and peak trust in government, prompting questions about why and how more households acquired guns during a period of relative calm.

***

Of all the potential explanations we tested, we discovered that the post-Second World War economic boom and relaxed federal gun regulations most drove the surge in demand for guns. As unemployment rates decreased and incomes increased, firearms – once deemed a luxury or practical necessity – grew within reach for more and more Americans. Simultaneously, cultural attitudes surrounding gun ownership may have shifted, as multiple generations of Americans returning from the Second World War, the Korean War and the Vietnam War became accustomed to owning and using guns.

And unfortunately:

Hofstadter believed Americans armed themselves against tyranny from above, but today’s reality is different. Guns, primarily used for hunting and sport in the mid-20th century, became largely owned for protection against fellow civilians – a reflection of a modern fear, the tyranny of uncertainty from each other.

***

Today, Americans stand at a critical juncture, facing the consequences of a nation armed against outsiders and one another alike. To tackle this issue, individuals must reject the premise that more guns equate to greater safety. Guns, lasting for more than a century, extend their impact beyond individual households, affecting the collective wellbeing of communities. The prioritisation of individual gun rights in the US over community safety has become a danger to innocents. Americans are locked in a self-perpetuating arms race that makes all of us only less safe. The exceptional gun culture of the US demands a critical reassessment of the nation’s priorities and policies to ensure a safer future – one in which it’s known for something other than guns. 

Amazing the pro-life party in American politics is the pro-gun party and what kills most of America's children is guns.

I listened to part of First council of Nicaea. If you do not know the history of the Christian Church (which means most Americans), this is a good place to start. The narrator is a bit low-key, has not slavish attitude towards the material.

For the ongoing discussion of trying to understand MAGA.

Now, to do my laundry!

sch 4:23 pm