If you want to understand what a fall into authoritarianism looks like, a case in point is the vote to expel two representatives from the Tennessee state house who peacefully protested the Legislature’s failure to address gun violence after a school shooting that took six lives. Rather than tackle one of the most challenging issues we face as a society …
And so here we are again. Another school shooting. The American slaughter of innocents. Shattered lives, shattered communities. The massacres pile up — Columbine, Blacksburg, Roseburg, Sandy Hook, Parkland, Uvalde and literally hundreds more. Aurora, Las Vegas, Orlando, El Paso, Fort Hood, San Bernardino, Sutherland Springs, Boulder. And so we ask: When’s it going to stop? What can we do? …
It’s the same response every time. “We need to arm teachers. We need more police at school. We need to focus on mental illness,” which stigmatizes mental illness, as opposed to focusing on the real issues. It’s never “Maybe there is no reason to EVER have an AR-15 that isn’t about personal pleasure” or “18-year-old kids shouldn’t be able to buy guns” or …
In the wake of Dayton and El Paso, we flirt again with the idea of doing something to lessen or prevent mass gun violence in America. All the polls show the same thing. The overwhelming majority of the American people want reasonable gun regulation: serious universal background checks, the banning of certain types of advanced weapons of war, the right …
Jim Shaw wrote a column for ForumComm titled “We shouldn’t be afraid to shop, worship or go to school.” Shaw has issues with the high level of gun violence in our country, Donald Trump, and he speaks for millions of sentient Americans. ForumComm hack Rob Port couldn’t have that. Evidently unable to see beyond his yard in Minot, N.D., Port …
A little over a year ago, 17 people were gunned down at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. Most of them were teens. Within the last two weeks, two young survivors of that attack have committed suicide, as has the father of a Sandy Hook Elementary School (Newton, Conn.) shooting child victim. All of this death. The …
Rep. Luke Simons is perturbed to peaches. His House Bill 1381 aiming to permanently disallow any North Dakota city or one man’s last stand to form a government, from initiating a gun buy-back, ever, was called stupid by lots of people, including me, but this is the jab that got the young lawmaker worked up: Nicholas Kristof, a columnist for …
The gun activists in North Dakota are feeling the cattle prod after losing out on carrying a sidearm to “99 percent of everywhere” due to the unpatriotic nay votes in the Commie Republican Legislature. The guy who publishes the MinuteMan Blog is really steamed. How dare a legislator vote closer than usual to their conscience or as their constituents want? …
Alexandria, Va., photographer Jeff Olson joined an estimated crowd of more than 800,00 at the March For Our Life rally Saturday in Washington, D.C., as students gathered in the nation’s capital and at sister marches all across the United States to deliver a powerful, unified message: Enough is enough. The rally, organized by students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the site …
The National Rifle Association spokespeople like to use Justice Antonin Scalia as a supporter of the Second Amendment to the extent they claim you can’t place limits on gun ownership and use. The NRA is devoid of integrity. It espouses its “love for the right to own guns, any guns.” The moment POTUS 45 declared to the National Governors Association, …
When the current president of the United States calls someone a coward, he speaks as an expert on the subject. A coward is defined in a number of ways, each fitting him to a T. The dictionary says it’s a person who lacks the courage to do or endure dangerous or unpleasant things; one who is excessively afraid of danger …
“Good morning, students. It’s time for announcements. The lunch menu today is hot dogs with macaroni and cheese. The vegetable is ketchup. Take that, Michelle Obama! Miss Swiffer from fourth grade will be walking point during recess. Also, I love the smell of napalm in the morning.” — The Principal. “Even if you took away all the guns, people would …
I am a single parent. It wasn’t what I set out to do. When Steve and I had Duncan and Ian, I had all the hopes and dreams of a young married mother, raising my children in a loving, intact family. However, that was not to be. Steve and I separated the weekend Ian began kindergarten and Duncan started second …
Of course, it’s about the guns. Let’s get past that right now. The 19-year-old who slaughtered 14 teens and three teachers at a Florida school so much like Fargo South or Moorhead High was able to buy a military-grade weapon undeterred … though a federal law from a saner era, the 1968 Gun Control Act, still prohibits him from buying …
It’s been a long time since I’ve felt so absolutely convinced that the future of our country will be secure. The reason is our youth … the youth who have been maligned, criticized and bullied by the adult world as though there were no good kids left. I’ve always understood the kids were taking an unfair hit from the superwise …
The National Rifle Association’s key talking point rolled out as predictably as the sad reality that another mass shooting will happen soon in a U.S. school. “This is not the time to discuss gun control.” Let’s add just one word to the key talking point: This is not the ONLY time to discuss gun control. In fact, it’s EXACTLY the …
There is a meme that makes the rounds on my Facebook feed after every school shooting that makes my blood boil. It takes the form of two letters. The first says “Dear God, Why do you allow so much violence in our schools? Signed, a concerned student.” The response reads “Dear Concerned Student, I’m not allowed in schools. God” I find …
Given the Texas church massacre that was just committed by a man named Kelley … if you use the same rhetoric as the president, then all white Irishmen should be banned from this country. Of course, banning the Irish is an insane idea. But it’s no more insane than banning anyone else because their skin color, religion or place of …
Is it still too soon to talk about guns — and the slaughter in Las Vegas — or is too late? Who makes the timing rules? I think it’s Sean Hannity, who is in some unholy alliance with Bobo, aka the president of the United States, who is so short on brain juice that he’ll believe or lie about damn near anything. …
After several years of watching British cops shows on Netflix, something finally dawned on me. Years is generally the time it takes for me to have a good dawn. Anyway, like American cop shows, a detective is running down a suspect, and he — or she — has the criminal, punter or wanker basically cornered, but they have to go …
In light of recent events, I am extremely proud of Minnesota Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken. I cannot express strongly enough how disgusted and disappointed I am with North Dakota Sens. John Hoeven and Heidi Heitkamp. When it came time to vote on the filibuster issue, the only Democrat who opposed basic legislation was Heidi Heitkamp! At a time in …
Every time I start to think that the politicians at the national level can do no more “stupid,” they pull another rabbit out of their hat full of “dumb.” I’d like to share examples of this from both political parties, but it’s the Republicans who just can’t leave well enough alone. Each day, they make the Democrats in Congress and …
I cannot help but wonder how many people in this country can be taken in by the buffoons in charge of the Republican presidential candidates’ ship of fools. Let me be clear (oh, oh, there’s that Bernie Sanders quote burned into my system): The extremist candidates ― Trump, Cruz, Christie and Rubio, and to a lesser extent Carson ― have more …
As the shots rang out just after noon last week, I was in a college classroom with my writing students, discussing the art of the interview. Some few might have wondered from time to time whether they’d survive Media Writing 210, but none of us had ever, ever doubted that we’d live past Thursday. Ten people died, including the teacher, …