Month: June 2023

Remember The ‘Nanny State’?

Some may not be old enough to remember the slang used to describe a Democratic agenda…the years in the 80s and 90s was when it was most used.

Conservatives (AKA GOP) criticized the agenda of environmental and financial regulations, as well as most social programs as a form of central planning and that would be Soviet style government.

But where did the term ‘Nanny State’ come with….surely American conservatives were not clever enough to come up with this on their own….

Well they did not….

It is of UK origin that conveys a view that a government or its policies are overprotective or interfering unduly with personal choice.

Basically it means a government that makes decisions for people that they might otherwise make for themselves, esp those relating to private and personal behavior.

Fast forward until today…..(sound of time speeding by)….

Look closely at the agenda of the modern American GOP….These ‘people’ are experts at such political slurs…..

Political slurs and simplistic slogans are damaging democratic discourse and policy making. In place of open and clear debate, we see unfounded assertions, innuendo, and smears. Influential—and often wealthy—elites (they are this, though pretend otherwise) have sold a myth that they stand against the self-serving control of liberal intellectualism. These elites shun reasoned argument (we’ve had enough of experts…). They close down reasoned discussion of social and political values. And claiming to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with persons who are disaffected, disenchanted, and disenfranchised, their rhetoric masks myriad entrenched commercial and political interests.

The rhetorical technique of crying “nanny state” is an example of such crushing of sensible public discussion.

(bmj.com)

Sad that jingoism and slurs are the way of policy debate these days….few to no actual discussion on policies occurs anymore just the slurs  and outright lies.

Will the Americans ever wake up to their plight under the watchful eye of backstabbing politicos?

This country will continue to suffer and the innuendoes will continue to fly….but we have a chance to change the direction of this country, as we do every 4 years, sadly I do not see any change coming….we will continue to hate and lie, especially to ourselves.

The GOP is trying to control individual choices, education, who can vote and where….if that does not sound like a ‘nanny’ state then I do not know what does.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

The Big Day Is Here!

Today is the day that Trump will be in court to answer the indictment…..a day that many if us are pleased to see but we have reservations that he will not answer for his digression.

One of the most damning testimonies may come from his, Trump, attorney

One thing that has crystallized over the last few days in the federal case against former President Trump: Prosecutors’ key witness is Trump’s own attorney. As the New York Times explains, attorney Evan Corcoran took copious notes as he worked with Trump—he first dictated them into his phone, then transcribed them onto paper. And those notes, along with Corcoran’s forced testimony, have provided prosecutors with what amounts to a “road map to building their case,” writes the Times‘ Maggie Haberman. Details:

  • No privilege? Such communication is usually protected under attorney-client privilege, but a judge ruled in March it doesn’t apply here because prosecutors argued that “Corcoran’s advice may have been used to further or cover up a crime,” per Reuters. The significance of the ruling didn’t become clear until the Trump indictment was unsealed on Friday.
  • Trump attorney I’: The indictment relies heavily on notes and testimony from “Trump Attorney I,” referring to Corcoran, explains Slate. Corcoran quotes Trump multiple times in ways that don’t appear to bode well for the former president in regard to obstruction-of-justice charges: “Well what if we, what happens if we just don’t respond at all or don’t play ball with them?” And, “Wouldn’t it be better if we just told them we don’t have anything here?” And, “Well look isn’t it better if there are no documents?”
  • Plucking: The indictment also cites Corcoran describing a moment in which Trump made a “plucking motion” after the attorney placed dozens of secret documents in a folder that was to be handed over to federal prosecutors. Corcoran said he interpreted that to mean he should take the folder back to his hotel room “and if there’s anything really bad in there, like, you know, pluck it out.”
  • Crucial to the case: The Daily Beast reports that Corcoran’s testimony is so crucial to the case that it suggests a vulnerability for prosecutors. If, for example, the federal judge in Florida handling the case (a Trump appointee) overrules the earlier decision that Corcoran’s notes are fair game, it could undermine the case against the former president.
  • Unflappable’: Corcoran is no longer a Trump attorney, having left the legal team last month, notes the AP. The Reuters story on all this includes a mini-profile of the 58-year-old: “Unflappable and even-keeled are the words that come to mind,” said Douglas Gansler, a former Maryland attorney general who worked with Corcoran years ago. The piece also describes him as “soft-spoken and diligent.”

How damning has yet to be seen.

Sadly I read an article about how he could possibly beat the rap….

pecial counsel Jack Smith has laid out what many observers see as a damning case against Donald Trump over classified documents. Take the view of William Barr, who served as Trump’s own attorney general: “If even half of it is true, then he’s toast,” he told Fox News on Sunday, per USA Today. The phrase “slam dunk” is being tossed around, but Paul Rosenzweig at the Atlantic floats a different basketball analogy: The “case is more aptly characterized as a difficult contested shot from beyond the 3-point arc.” Yes, Smith has presented exhaustive evidence suggesting Trump is guilty of illegally taking the documents in the first place, then obstructing the subsequent investigation, writes Rosenzweig. But “there is a more-than-reasonable possibility that Trump will never be convicted.”

Why so? Rosenzweig ticks off the reasons:

  • The judge: Smith got “exceedingly unlucky” with the federal judge assigned to the case in Florida. Judge Aileen Cannon is a Trump appointee who could affect the proceedings in myriad ways, including by which evidence she deems acceptable.
  • The jury: That the case is being tried in Florida rather than DC gives Trump a much better chance of having sympathetic jurors. Of course, jurors can be swayed, but Rosenzweig points out that most of the Trump World convictions so far (including Paul Manafort and Steve Bannon) “have come in jurisdictions that have leaned decidedly against Trump.” He also sees a legitimate risk of “jury nullification”—that a single juror will ignore all evidence and vote to acquit.

Read his full essay.

Today is the big day…..

The nation will be watching.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Amazing Story Of Survival

Over the weekend an amazing report came out of that of 4 kids left on their own after a deadly plane crash…and they survived 40 days in the unforgiving Amazon……

“Miracle, miracle, miracle” is how a Colombian general involved in the search for four missing siblings described their survival over 40 days in the Amazon jungle. The Indigenous children, ages 1 to 13, were found Friday by searchers hunting for them ever since their small plane crashed on May 1, killing their mother and two pilots. So how did they survive? Three factors helped: flour from the plane wreckage, fruit and seeds from the jungle, and having an extraordinarily capable 13-year-old leading them.

  • The children’s grandfather told reporters they found cassava flour, or farina, in the wreckage, reports the Guardian. “After the farina ran out, they began to eat seeds,” said Fidencio Valencia.
  • “There’s a fruit, similar to passionfruit, called avichure,” said Edwin Paki, an Indigenous leader who helped in the search. “They were looking for seeds to eat from an avichure tree about a (mile and a half) from the site of the plane crash.” A key factor in their favor: “The jungle was in harvest,” says the head of the Colombian Institute of Family Welfare.
  • The children are dehydrated and have “nutritional deficiencies,” but appear to have no major injuries, per the BBC. “In general the children, the boy and the girls are in an acceptable state … (and) they are out of danger,” says defense minister Ivan Velasquez, who credited 13-year-old Lesly for keeping them alive. “It is thanks to her, her value and her leadership, that the three others were able to survive, with her care, her knowledge of the jungle.”
  • Their grandmother, Fatima Valencia, told reporters the eldest girl was used to looking after her younger siblings while their mother worked. The baby turned 1 in the jungle and another sibling turned 5, per the BBC. The other sibling is 9 years old.

After I wrote this draft more details have

come out…..

More details of the 40 days that four indigenous children survived in the Amazon jungle are coming out, and one is particularly heartbreaking. After their single-engine propeller plane plane crashed in Colombia on May 1, the children’s mother survived for about four days. That’s according to the father of two of the children, who says the eldest child—a 13-year-old girl given much of the credit for keeping her siblings, a 9-year-old, a 4-year-old, and an 11-month-old who turned one during the ordeal, alive—told him so, the Guardian reports. “Before she died, she said to them: ‘Maybe you should go,'” to increase their chances of being rescued, he said, per the AP.

 

The children’s aunt says they are dehydrated and have bug bites; their uncle says the children told him they hid in tree trunks for protection from the mosquitoes as well as snakes and other animals in the jungle. By the time they were rescued, “the minor children were already very weak,” says the leader of the search effort. “They were only strong enough to breathe or reach a small fruit to feed themselves or drink a drop of water in the jungle.” They are now being rehydrated before they can eat much food, and are expected to be hospitalized at least two weeks.

What’s still not clear is why they weren’t found earlier despite search teams reportedly passing as close as 66 feet away from them on multiple occasions, but relatives say they may have been scared of the uniformed search party and barking dogs and tried to remain hidden. One dog involved in the rescue effort, though, is thought to have spent some time with the children and to have left tracks that helped rescuers find them, but he himself has not yet been found. The oldest child reportedly told rescuers “a dog who was lost, that didn’t know where to go, … accompanied us for a while.”

An amazing story….this young lady should get recognition worldwide for her accomplishment….she was brave, resourceful and driven…..

Whatever this young lady wants she should get it all….

I cannot see many young people these days that could pull off this feat of survival.

Do you?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

When All Else Fails Use Violence

Trump still pretends that he is rightfully the president and with the 2024 election is quickly approaching….the one question is if Trump is the nominee and he loses what will happen (again)….

Would Americans tolerate the chance of violence?

Since the insurrection of 06 January you would think that violence after an election is off the table…..

More than two years after the deadly January 6 insurrection, 12 million people in the United States, or 4.4% of the adult population, believe the use of violence is justified to restore former President Donald Trump to power, The Guardianreported Friday.

This percentage has declined from nearly 10% in 2021, when the Chicago Project on Security & Threats (CPOST) first began conducting its Dangers to Democracy surveys of U.S. adults. But April data the University of Chicago research center shared exclusively with The Guardian reveals that a treacherous amount of support for political violence and conspiracy theories persists nationwide.

In the two and a half years since Trump’s bid to overturn his 2020 loss fell short, Republican state lawmakers have launched a full-fledged assault on the franchise, enacting dozens of voter suppression and election subversion laws meant to increase their control over electoral outcomes. Due to obstruction from Republicans and corporate Democrats, Congress has failed to pass federal voting rights protections and other safeguards designed to prevent another coup attempt ahead of November 2024.

“We’re heading into an extremely tumultuous election season,” Robert Pape, a University of Chicago professor and CPOST director, told The Guardian. “What’s happening in the United States is political violence is going from the fringe to the mainstream.”

Several right-wing candidates who echoed Trump’s relentless lies about President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory lost in last year’s midterms. But more than 210 others—including at least two who participated in the January 6 rally that escalated into an attack on the U.S. Capitol—won congressional seats and races for governor, secretary of state, and attorney general, underscoring the extent to which election denialism is now entrenched in the GOP and jeopardizes U.S. democracy for the foreseeable future.

The CPOST survey conducted in April found that 20% of U.S. adults still believe “the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump and Joe Biden is an illegitimate president,” down only slightly from the 26% who said so in 2021.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/12-million-us-adults-think-violence-justified-to-restore-trump-presidency

I think that as the election gets nearer the chance of violence will expand.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Gladys Attacks!

It is Sunday and time to find some strange and unusual stories to write about.

A tale of revenge and an on-going vendetta….

Last weekend I wrote about a pod of orcas off the coast of Spain that were attacking boats….this is an update to that post.

It’s still unclear why a group of orcas is attacking the rudders of sailboats off the Iberian Peninsula. What is clear is that they’re not letting up. There were 20 incidents in the Strait of Gibraltar in the month of May, per the Independent. And in one case, the killer whales stalked a boat all the way to shore after they’d completely destroyed its rudder, per Live Science. This marks a change as, in past incidents, the whales would lose interest and swim away once the rudder was disabled. In the May 24 case, a pod of orcas began striking the rudder of the Mustique soon after finding the vessel in the strait around 9:30pm local time. “The force of this would spin the helm violently and you could feel the vibration through the deck,” British sailor April Boyes writes in a blog post.

She and her three fellow sailors tried using deterrants, including sprinkling sand in the water, which is meant to disrupt the orcas’ sonar. But the strategies didn’t work. “After around 30 minutes the rudder was now broken, but some of the orcas swam away,” Boyes writes. However, they returned within 20 minutes and continued striking the rudder for another hour until it was “completely destroyed,” leaving “a gaping hole … with seawater flushing in,” according to Boyes. Unbeknownst to the sailors, the hull had also “cracked through the fiberglass.” It was enough for a mayday call. But the orcas weren’t deterred by the rescue boat, which towed the Mustique to Barbate. As Boyes writes, “the orcas continued to follow the boat until we got inshore.”

Boyes calls for “extensive research” into the issue, noting that “demonizing [the orcas] is not the answer.” Another British sailor who recently watched orcas rip both rudders from his yacht in the Strait of Gibraltar tells the BBC that they “seemed to be playing” and could’ve easily destroyed the vessel if they wanted to, per Insider. Experts from Conservation, Information, and Research on Cetaceans (CIRCE) have already tagged one orca involved in attacks and plan to do the same with five more so as to track their movements, per Live Science. But biologist Alfredo Lopez Fernandez, who’s studied the interactions, fears this will only “aggravate the situation because it is done by shooting and the killer whales will surely not find it very funny,” per the outlet

This is fascinating story…..does anyone remember the movie “Orca”….it is about revenge….life imitating art?

What did a sailboat do to ‘Gladys’ that she has embarked on this road of revenge?

Thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

IST Saturday News Dump–10Jun23

It is that magical time of the week….the IST news dump bringing you all the news you cannot possibly use.

In these days of banning and censorship it just keeps getting worse…..

Miss Marple and James Bond aren’t who you thought they were… at least not if you read a recent edition. Agatha Christie and Ian Fleming are on a growing list of authors whose books have quietly been “updated” by the publishing industry with the help of “sensitivity readers.”

Sensitivity readers scour texts — both new and previously published — to find phrases they deem triggering, problematic or incompatible with modern mores.

Their purpose? To protect readers from ideas they might find upsetting or to ensure authors share their so-called “lived experiences” in an authentic fashion. That can mean bringing on a black sensitivity reader, for example, to edit material written by someone of a different race. 

https://themessenger.com/opinion/that-classic-novel-may-not-be-what-you-remember-censorship-for-a-sensitive-age

Then there is the bans….there is a ripple forming in this….

The Good Book is being treated like a bad book in Utah after a parent frustrated by efforts to ban materials from schools convinced a suburban district that some Bible verses were too vulgar or violent for younger children. And the Book of Mormon could be next. The 72,000-student Davis School District north of Salt Lake City removed the Bible from its elementary and middle schools while keeping it in high schools after a committee reviewed the text in response to a parental complaint, per the AP. The district has removed other titles, including Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and John Green’s Looking for Alaska, following a 2022 state law requiring districts to include parents in decisions over what constitutes “sensitive material.”

District rep Williams said the district doesn’t differentiate between requests to review books and doesn’t consider whether complaints may be submitted as satire. The reviews are handled by a committee made up of teachers, parents, and administrators in the largely conservative community. The committee published its decision about the Bible in an online database of review requests and didn’t elaborate on its reasoning. The decision comes as conservative parent activists, including state-based chapters of the group Parents United, descend on school boards and statehouses throughout the US, sowing alarm about how sex and violence are talked about in schools. Due to the district’s privacy policy, it’s unknown who made the request for the Bible to be banned from Davis schools or if they’re affiliated with any larger group.

A copy of the complaint obtained by the Salt Lake Tribune through a public records request shows that the parent noted the Bible contains instances of incest, prostitution, and rape. “Utah Parents United left off one of the most sex-ridden books around: the Bible,” the parent’s complaint, dated Dec. 11, said. The review committee determined the Bible didn’t qualify under Utah’s definition of what’s pornographic or indecent, which is why it remains in high schools, Williams said. An unnamed party filed an appeal on Wednesday.

The answer to problem children and it involves guns…..

A Florida mother was fatally shot through a door outside a neighbor’s home after what officials characterized on Monday as a 2 1/2-year feud over children playing, the AP reports. Marion County Sheriff Billy Woods said at a news conference Monday that deputies responding to a trespassing call at an Ocala home on Friday night found Ajike Owens suffering from gunshot wounds. The 35-year-old mother of four was taken to a nearby hospital, where she died. Since January 2021, Woods said, deputies have responded at least a half-dozen times in connection with the feuding between Owens and the woman who eventually shot her. The sheriff’s office hasn’t arrested or identified the shooter, though calls are mounting for an arrest to be made.

Woods said detectives are working with the State Attorney’s Office, and they must investigate possible self-defense claims before they can move forward with any possible criminal charges. The sheriff pointed out that because of Florida’s “stand your ground” law, he can’t legally make an arrest unless he can prove the shooter did not act in self-defense. Before the shooting, Owens’ children had been playing in a field near the shooter’s apartment complex, officials said. At some point, the woman yelled at the children and threw a pair of skates, which hit one of the children, Woods said. When Owens later confronted the woman at her apartment, an argument ensued, and the woman shot Owens through the front door, investigators said.

Civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, who is representing Owens’ family, said in a statement that the shooter had been yelling racial slurs at the children before the confrontation with their mother. Owens and her children are Black. The sheriff’s office hasn’t confirmed there were slurs uttered or said whether race was a factor in the shooting, but Crump says the unidentified shooter is a 58-year-old white woman, NBC News reports. Crump says that after the alleged shooter yelled at the kids, one of them accidentally left an iPad behind, and the woman took it. Crump says when the child went to get it back, the woman threw it, hitting him and cracking the screen. Owens went over to her house to talk to her about that when she was fatally shot, Crump says.

Interesting….very interesting.

Environmental stuff….

There is trend to use the biodegradable plastics…..but could that all be hype?

The use of plastic across all facets of human life has grown more and more pervasive in the last few decades, resulting in a surge in global environmental pollution. More than half of the amount of plastic produced from 1950 to 2017 became plastic waste, which harms ecosystems, livelihoods, and food security around the globe. In the United States alone, about 35.7 million tons of plastic were generated in 2018. Exploring potential alternatives to conventional petroleum-based plastics, like bioplastics, is necessary to mitigate pollution and reduce the waste stream.

Bioplastics are usually made from extracted starches, oils, and sugars from renewable sources such as corn and sugarcane—like poly(lactic acids) or PLAs. Others are made from polymers produced by microorganisms, like polyhydroxyalkanoates or PHAs. PLA, one of the most commonly used bioplastics, has similar functionalities to conventional plastic and is considered to be recyclable, biodegradable, and compostable. “Biodegradable” means that it can be degraded naturally by microorganisms, while “compostable” means it is biodegradable in industrial composting operations. However, new research shows that PLA might not be as environmentally friendly as initially thought.

Those are my offerings for this Saturday….enjoy.

Have a great day

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

AUMF In The Crosshairs

I have been calling for the end of the Authority to Use Military Force (AUMF) for years and I would expect that some Dems would be in the forefront of this effort….but nope….the Dems are taking a backseat to the radical GOPers…..

Some GOPers have introduced a plan to end our endless wars…..

A group of Republican senators on Thursday introduced a bill to repeal the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) that was passed in the wake of the September 11th attacks and is still being used to justify wars today.

The End Endless Wars Act was introduced by Senators Rand Paul (R-KY), Mike Lee (R-UT), JD Vance (R-OH), and Mike Braun (R-IN). The legislation would repeal the 2001 AUMF 180 days after its enactment.

“If there exists any desire to reclaim our Constitutional power and send a message to the world that we are a nation of peace, Congress should pass this bill and repeal the 2001 Authorization for war. After all, the 2001 AUMF never intended to authorize worldwide war, all the time, everywhere, forever,” said Sen. Paul, according to a press release from his office.

Sen. Lee said the 2001 AUMF has “become one of the many instruments of misuse, and it is time for members of Congress to end this authority that keeps us in endless wars.” Sen. Braun said that no president should “have the authority to singlehandedly wage war” and called to “return this power to the people and repeal this authorization that has far outlived its’ purpose.”

The 2001 AUMF currently authorizes war in Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, and several other countries. There’s been a push in Congress to repeal the 2002 AUMF that was used for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, but that authorization is not used today, and repealing it won’t end any current wars.

In March, the Senate voted to repeal the 2002 AUMF and the 1991 AUMF used for the Gulf War. At the time, Sen. Paul attempted to include an amendment to the legislation to repeal the 2001 AUMF, but it failed in a vote of 9-86.

(antiwar.com)

I do not care where the end comes from as long as the act is repealed.

But I fear this will go down in defeat as well….the defense industry has deep pockets and Congress has their hands out after all re-elections are coming up.

Even the Dems have become corruptible….especially from the arms people.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Crap Comes Home To Rooster?

After months of back and forth there seems to be a break-through on the Trump and secret documents thing.

Donald Trump has been indicted over his handling of classified documents. The former president posted on Truth Social Thursday evening that his lawyers informed him of the development, reports the Hill. The New York Times confirmed the news, reporting that the Justice Department filed the indictment in federal court in Miami, where Trump has been ordered to appear on Tuesday afternoon. He is expected to surrender to authorities rather than be taken into custody. Trump thus becomes the first former president in US history to face federal charges, per the Times. As the Washington Post notes, the investigation involves not just hundreds of classified documents found at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate but whether the former president obstructed efforts to recover the material.

The specific charges Trump faces have not yet been publicly detailed. Trump has insisted that he did nothing wrong and that he had full authority as the outgoing president to retain such documents. He has further accused the FBI and the Justice Department of a politically motivated investigation intended to torpedo his 2024 run for reelection. The Justice Department investigation has been run by special counsel Jack Smith, who has, as expected, remained mum about developments.

Investigators also found documents at the residence of Mike Pence but have cleared him of criminal charges. An investigation is still underway over classified papers found at the residence of President Biden, stemming back to his days as vice president. On Thursday, Biden said Americans should trust the process. “Because you’ll notice, I have never once—not one single time—suggested to the Justice Department what they should do or not do on whether to bring any charges or not bring any charges,” the president told reporters, per CNN. “I’m honest.”

7 counts, eh?

What could they possibly be?

Donald Trump was indicted on seven counts related to the probe into his handling of classified documents, his attorney confirmed. The former president is facing one charge under the Espionage Act, plus charges including obstruction of justice, destruction or falsification of records, conspiracy, and false statements, CNN reports. Trump himself weighed in on the Espionage Act charge, which he called “ludicrous.” Federal agents from the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security are en route to Miami ahead of Trump’s court appearance, which the former POTUS said would happen Tuesday, the AP reports.

Meanwhile, Trump’s fellow Republicans are speaking out against the indictment. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy blamed President Biden for the charges, saying it is “unconscionable for a President to indict the leading candidate opposing him.” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise agreed, saying Trump is “weaponizing his Department of Justice against his own political rival.” Even Trump’s 2024 rivals are backing him up on this: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis wondered, “Why so zealous in pursuing Trump yet so passive about Hillary or Hunter?” while Sen. Tim Scott said the justice system’s “scales are weighted” based on politics. Fellow GOP candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said the indictment was “an affront to every citizen.”

Great news in my opinion…..but I do not think this will go the whole way…..

He, Trump, should be barbecued IMO.

Any deep probing thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Should We See The Photos?

Yet another mass shooting….and the usual rhetoric around it….

This will be an emotional post if it upsets anyone I am sorry.

In my little corner of the country we have had two mass shootings in one week…..shootings are nothing new around here but ones with multiple victims is…..

In this country in the last two weeks, there have been nearly 200 people shot in mass-shooting incidents.

Some action is called for….thoughts an prayers is doing  nothing to curb this disturbing trend….Congress is an impotent tool a society just looks the other way.

I had a conversation with a friend that believes the photos should be published for the public to see the carnage and that may turn the debate to decide to do something to help stop this carnage.

I also read a letter by William Falk published in The Week magazine……which I present here…..

When former police officer Stephen Spainhouer rushed to the scene of a mass shooting at an Allen, Texas, outlet mall last week, he came upon a battlefield. Bloody, torn bodies were scattered on the ground next to the dead killer and his assault rifle. A little girl seemed to be hiding next to a bush, but when Spainhouer turned her over, “she had no face.” He tried performing CPR on other victims, but “the injuries were so severe there was nothing I could do.” Hours later, cellphone images of the disfigured dead began circulating on Twitter. No mainstream publication, including this one, would publish such photos, for many reasons: the need for family consent; preserving the dignity of the dead; the sensibilities of readers. But by not showing what mass shooters do to human beings, do we make it easier to be numbed to the slaughter? If Americans were repeatedly exposed to images of children with their faces blown off, would they still accept that “nothing can be done?”

Images have great power; they can reach into hearts and minds in a way words often do not. When Emmett Till’s mother allowed publication of photos of her late son’s mutilated face in 1955, the revulsion galvanized the civil rights movement. Other photos have also marked turning points in history: the 1972 image of a naked, 9-year-old Vietnamese girl burned by U.S. napalm; the 2004 photos of Iraqis humiliated and tortured by U.S. soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison; the video of a police officer with his knee on the neck of a pleading, dying George Floyd. What if we’d seen what an assault rifle did to the 20 first-graders and six adults in Newtown? (Some of their bodies had to be identified by DNA.) Or the 19 kids and two teachers methodically executed in Uvalde? Or the 26 churchgoers massacred in the pews at Sutherland Springs? Would their gruesome deaths still be written off as the regrettable but necessary price of “freedom”?

Interesting thought.

For me after Vietnam there is not much that shocks me…..so I say yes….of course with permission to use the photos.

I do not think it will make much difference to our lay-about lawmakers for their concerns are with donor dollars not the safety of our citizens.

What about you, my readers, should these photos be published?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”