Three Interesting Things

1. I was unaware of this case winding it's way through the courts where we are apparently not allowing those born in American Samoa citizenship.  I wish them luck, and hope that should we decide they are not Americans, we would be willing to give Samoa back.  

2. I saw the post about the concern that a rave review had contributed to a small restaurant shutting down.  I understand that restaurant reviewer sometimes come to journalism a little differently than others, but this reporter found out pretty quickly there was quite a bit more going on behind the scenes of that restaurant. 

3. Full disclosure, I am related to the author of this blog post, hence had heard this story told in person, but it is an interesting look at how diving gets dangerous when dealing with inexperienced folks. 

Teargas is Still Bad

Seems like a good day to re-up this post about how teargas is terrible.  I want to add that this NIH review found prisons was one place where the effects were noticeably worse, and remind you that we have been detaining folks in camps near the border and there is no way to localize teargas at only some of the people in the area. 

Three Thankful Things

1. My family, both made and found.  I am lucky to have many.  I've seen a lot of them this year and that's been great. Fuzzy critters included. 

2. Books and food, both things that nourish me in different ways. 

3. Yarn, even as I have cursed the seed stitch a bit this year, I am grateful for the fun respite yarn provides.  

(Also books and food and yarn have found me some great people so that ties write back to 1.)

"The Ice Man Job"

I was back on "Let's Go Steal a Podcast" to chat about "The Ice Man Job" aka the job that the team tries to do without Sophie. 

Dear America

I need to tell you that we are in an abusive relationship. Probably several, but we have to talk about guns. They are literally killing us. They kill us in schools, movie theaters, our own homes, in the streets, in churches, in bars, at concerts, in hospitals, and I don't know how to end this list because every time I start to I think of another, offices, craft stores, gas stations. 

I know, it's in the Constitution you want to say. I will respond, first they are talking about a militia. I am always fascinated that people who claim to be strict readers skip right over the militia part. Second, it's an amendment for a reason. The amendments were designed to be parts of the Constitution that could be more easily altered. We have done it before, we can do it again. 

I do not want to live somewhere I can't promise overseas friends they can safely visit. I do not want to teach children and co workers battle triage so that we can go about our daily lives. 

The woman I had worked with this year who was murdered along with her co-workers in her office had been to shooter training at her church. Her church is the same flavor of mine and our congregations have started doing that because we had an active shooter situation ten years ago in a Tennessee church. 

I know people who have been evacuated from their offices due to shooters. This doesn't have to be our reality. 

We have the power to fix this. Yes it won't be easy. Yes the guns are just part of it. But our continued head in the sand approach is just leading to more death. 

I know the list of bad things is long, there are folks being detained in camps, there are areas struggling to survive various natural disasters. 

But we keep pretending our relationship with guns makes us special. It doesn't. It makes a lot of people dead who didn't have to be. And that has to stop.