NRA Is Responsible

When a horrible act is committed by a terrible organization, it has become customary for the group to call the media and "claim responsibility."

The National Rifle Association needs to call the media to take responsibility for the horrors of the shootings in Newtown, Connecticut.

The NRA is a vile, evil organization.

Guns Kill People

They do. The crazed shooter in the "Batman" movie last night may have held the weapon, but if our society did not make it so easy to obtain guns, so easy to carry them (unconcealed or not), this would not have happened.

Will this madness stop? Nope. (1) Scores of small, single-issue gun-control groups not willing to merge into a force strong and big enough to buy politicians, pressure the media, and have the funds and numbers to fight the sick, gigantic NRA. (2) The sick, gigantic NRA. (3) The bought-and-paid-for politicians afraid to stand up to the sick, gigantic campaign contributor. (4) The media that never is heard to say or write, "It's guns, stupid." They wring their hands and ask, "Oh, my, what went wrong?" but they never say, "Guns kill people."

Well, last night, as of this writing, 71 shot, 12 dead. All wounded or killed by a gun.

Wouldn't you think that, somewhere, someday, some politician would stand up and demand the madness end? That somewhere, someday, a member of the media would demand the same?

I don't believe in gun control. I believe in gun abolition. And, if gun owners say, "You'll have to take my gun out of my cold, dead hand," I have to ask, "What's the downside?"

Indiana is a Police State - Sad, but True

In response to a shocking 4-1 decision by the Indiana Supreme Court, allowing police to bust into our homes, without a warrant or probable cause, I wrote the following letter - it appeared in The Indianapolis Star, with a couple of minor edits.

The "deadly silence" remains. Hello? Hello? Tea Party? Others who denounce "big government"? Where are you?

Dear Editor:

I hear a deadly silence from those who are so loudly opposed to “Big Government” – if they really know what that means – when it comes to the Indiana Supreme Court’s 4-1 decision that seems to weaken, if not outright nullify, our rights under the 4^th Amendment. It’s time for the Tea Party, Libertarians, Republicans, and Democrats – and those who have given up hope and never vote – to rise up against this unconstitutional decision.  This defines Big Government/Big Brother.

Shame on Chief Justice Randall Shepard and Justices Frank Sullivan Jr., Brent Dickson, and Steven David. Only Robert Rucker, the sole African American member of the court, opposed this frightening decision. One shouldn’t have to be of his race to recall how violent our history of police brutality has been – and continues to be – in this state and country, particularly if you do not belong to the “correct” racial and/or socio-economic groups.

While your editorial (“Door’s open for police entry,” September 22) points out that the state’s highest court cannot take away such rights, their disturbing decision make it necessary for me to try to defend those rights by kicking and shoving any police who are now allowed to force their way into my home. Courageous men and women in this country have long refused to obey unjust court decisions and state and federal laws. Once again:  Citizens, to the ramparts!

I have lived overseas under five police states. It appears, to my horror, that I am now living under a sixth:  Indiana.

Don’t Send Them In!

Seeing the stage filled with the coven of declared candidates for the Republican nomination for U.S. President brought many disturbing questions to mind, as well as, “Hey, where’s the tiny car all of these clowns climbed out of?”

At about the same time, I read the obit of former Senator Mark Hatfield, described as a “liberal Republican.” It was refreshing to go down memory lane to recall a more civil and civilized time when both major parties had self-proclaimed conservatives, moderates, and liberals. And none was ashamed to be known as such.

Jacob Javits. Edward Brooke. Nelson Rockefeller. Hatfield. Just a tiny sampling of liberal Republicans who were U.S. Senators (and, in Rockefeller’s case, of course, Vice President, as well). Decent, bright Republican politicians and elected officials who were believers in a country with equal justice for all, who knew their American (and world) history and geography, who could work with others in their own party and across the aisle with those of the same or different viewpoints. They sometimes voted for a bill that became a law that advanced the cause of civil rights, individual and group freedoms, racial integration, education and health care for poor children, and other topics that most of today’s line-up of  candidates would , if asked, quickly denounce as “Socialistic.” (Ask them to define the word. Hell, ask them to spell it.)

Some of these people – Michele Bachmann (or, “O’Bachmann,” as David Letterman likes to call her – I don’t know why, but I laugh every time, and so does David), Herman Cain, Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, and Rick Santorum -- would have, only a few elections ago, not have made the “news” at all. Stuff them all in the little car and push it down the hill, far, far away. They should not be taken seriously today by all of the media and too many of the voters. We could be spared the bat-shit crazy whack-jobs that are, sadly, serious contenders for U.S. President.  President. And Republicans could get their party back!  I know so many of them want to do so, but it seems an insurmountable task, having to do battle with the millions of people who actually vote for Sarah Palin or cheer on Newt Gingrich.

Others – like Ron Paul or Jon Huntsman or Mitt Romney – seem a teeny bit saner, but, by comparison, who wouldn’t? And I don’t want any of them, either. Being smarter than Palin or more of a decent human being than Gingrich doesn’t take much, since the bar is so low, it’s resting on the floor.

The party began its decline with Barry Goldwater, took a huge dive with Ronald Reagan, and has been spiraling out of control, condemning liberalism and even moderation, as Republican candidates (and Presidents) over the past several decades have pandered to the far-right Evangelicals, “Christians” who should be the first to be dropped, wearing celestial cement shoes, into the Sea of Galilee. Rapturously.

Then, their strings were jerked by many super-wealthy contributors who duped the definitely-not-rich voters into thinking there really was a trickle-down theory of economics (they felt something wet hit their foreheads and misunderstood). Give the rich obscene tax breaks and deregulate critically important controls on environmental and other issues and you won’t create jobs. You’ll create more bank accounts in the Cayman Islands. It don’t trickle. Then, on top of the Evangelicals and the even-fatter cats, the Tea Party illiterates yank the Republican politicians in other directions.

As a result, we have not only these circus wannabes, we have other elected officials like John “Agent Orange” Boehner, Eric Cantor, Mike Pence, and Mitch McConnell refusing to help Americans desperately in need, talking about privatizing Social Security, slashing Medicare, cutting off aid to needy children, stomping on the poor and kicking the middle class into poverty – all in a cold, calculating drive to retake the White House (operative word: white). 

It is worrisome. With Obama’s inept performance, overall (including his puzzling choice not to fight for what we elected him to fight for, betraying his base;  his continually offering the Republicans more than they asked for, only to have them demand even more), these graduates of the Republican Clown College are a concern, when his re-election should be a shoo-in. He remains the best choice. And, having to say that, makes me sad. And mad.

Who knows what will happen? Who would have thought, in the summer of 2008, that whiny, mean-spirited, two-faced John McCain would have received the nomination and immediately choose a dangerously goofy running mate that, fortunately, brought down his ticket to defeat, but, thanks to the mainstream media (she doesn’t even need Fox), her every tweet is reported as news. News.

Not a single Republican candidate mentioned should have climbed out of that car. Go away. Bring us a Republican contender who knows history, decency, good governance, who doesn’t live by sound bytes and snide remarks. Who loves this country as much as the average Republican does and who wants to build it up, not tear it down. Someone who is a challenge for the writers of talk show monologues instead of the shooting-fish-in-a-barrel butts of jokes.

We don’t want jokes. We want a bright, sane person to be President. We want our Presidents to be rare, not half-baked.

We’re still waiting, Gabrielle

Maybe I missed it.

Amid the scores of news stories about Gabrielle Giffords, I never saw one that reported on her making an apology to the families of Gabe Zimmerman, John Roll, Christiana Taylor Green, Dorothy Murray, Dorwan Stoddard, or Phyllis Schneck.

Nor has she been covered by the fawning media on her dozens of visits to the homes of the families of victims killed by handguns in Washington, D.C.

Maybe I missed it.

Once she was shot in Tucson on January 8 by a Glock 9mm semi-automatic handgun, with an extended chamber designed to hold 31 bullets, legally purchased, all we’ve had is the breathless media feeding on her condition: She’s alive! She’s opening one eye! She’s moving a finger! She’s called a press conference to denounce gun violence and go on the record for gun control! (Oh, sorry, that’s my fantasy version.)

In the melee of the daily (or was it hourly? seemed hourly) coverage of her recovery (aided by the best medical plan in the country that all members of the U.S. House and Senate receive, unlike yours and mine), the six people in the first paragraph were forgotten.

Scrolling past numerous articles headlined “the Giffords shooter,” it took me an incredible amount of searching on the Internet to find the names of the dead. And, after much more searching, I had to give up on finding the 13 (some said 14) non-Gabrielle wounded.  

The Giffords shooter? That’s in a headline from this week. Apparently, a member of Congress, though wounded, though a proud, loud owner of a Glock handgun, though a person who voted to throw out the District of Columbia’s ban on handguns, is so much more important than the “civilians” who were murdered. In a climate fostered by such gun nuts as Giffords.

To have voted to overturn the ban on handguns in D.C., one of our most dangerous cities for gun violence, agreeing with the majority of the U.S. Supreme Court (no surprise there) repulses me. She brags about it on her website, deliberately misinterpreting the Second Amendment, just as the Supreme Court deliberately misinterpreted it, to try to make it say something it never did.

Gabrielle is not to be deified. She is to be vilified.

Thanks to Giffords and her ilk, nine-year-old Christiana is dead. Shot by someone who had shown enough signs of mental instability that should have kept a driver’s license out of his hands, let alone a gun. I don’t know if he had a driver’s license but he, legally, purchased the Glock with its extended chamber. And the Glock itself, without a chamber, is known for its ability to immediately ready itself for another firing, as the moment one bullet leaves the chamber, heading for a child, another one is rotated in place, ready for the next kid. Or – much worse! – for a Glock-loving, gun-toting, NRA-owned member of Congress.

Of course, amid this sickening gun culture, Giffords was still one of those members of Congress that Vile Sarah Palin put in her “crosshairs” on VSP’s map of the U.S. as one of the “targets.” And, Giffords’ opponent in the latest primary, Republican Jesse Kelly, urged supporters to help remove Giffords by joining him to shoot a fully loaded M-16 rifle.  And the NRA, which I still consider her boss, has wrinkled its nose at Giffords’ record. This is someone who isn’t pro-gun enough?

M-16 Jesse never said to shoot her, nor did Vile. But, they were both this close to calling for such an act. And this fast to defend themselves after the murders of Zimmerman, Roll, Green, Murray, Stoddard, and Schneck and the wounding of the Unknown, Expendable Thirteen.

The Tucson sheriff said Arizona had become the “mecca for prejudice and bigotry,” Thanks, Giffords, for helping make that possible! (She’s also anti-immigrant. Interesting how often that’s paired with pro-gun.)

And, also thanks to Giffords, a growing number of mothers and fathers in D.C. mourn, as you read this, of the deaths of their sons and daughters by someone with a handgun. Until Giffords proudly voted, and the Supreme Court acted, handguns had been outlawed by the D.C. government. But the feds stomped harshly, yet again, with the hard heels of their boots on the lives of the hundreds of thousands of Americans who pay federal taxes, but have no voting representation in the House or Senate a.k.a. the residents of the nation’s capital.

Following this slaughter in Tucson, President Obama forgot to call for an end to gun violence and to the outlawing of all handguns that, without exception, are intended to be used for murder. A semi-automatic is legal? Really? One with an extended chamber is legal? Really? Hell yes, says Giffords proudly. Every member of the U.S. House and Senate also forgot to call for an end to gun violence. 

And, the media, in its mad race to be the first to report on Giffords’ medical condition, somehow forgot, too. Perhaps I missed those print editorials about getting rid of guns or the TV coverage that laid the blame on the Tucson shooting not just in the hands of a deranged person, but on the fact that he could buy a weapon that should not exist. I’m afraid the media, with rare exception, forgot to blame the guns. 

So, since Congress, the White House, and the media are in bed with the NRA, it’s up to us.

Giffords, those six families in Tucson, the 13 families of the wounded who also grieve, and scores of families in D.C. are waiting for your visit and private apology. We’re all waiting for your public denouncement of guns and the apology you owe all of us. Let’s see if that would even make the nightly news. If so, the brief mention would be trapped between stories of mass shootings here and mass shootings there, the staple of nightly news, local and national.

Gabrielle, the dead, the wounded, and the rest of us are waiting for your apology.

Take Back His Nobel Peace Prize

It is astounding when a warmonger receives the Nobel Peace Prize.

No such distinction should be awarded to the person who makes one error after another in international affairs, creates havoc and a rain of death upon innocents, with arrogance and a complete disdain for the resulting massive loss of life, destruction of cities, and countryside laid to waste. Those who turn ploughshares into swords should receive our condemnation, not our accolades.

I am still angry. It was a gross injustice. The Peace Prize is sometimes puzzling. (While the announcement of the awarding of the Nobel Prize for Literature so often is met with “Who?”, the Peace Prize can make us recoil and cry, “Why?”)

He was embarrassingly ineligible to earn what should be an honor for major global initiatives and/or for a life’s work on behalf of peace.   

He gloats, knowing he did, indeed, have it both ways, even though he never fooled many of us. He got his wars, spreading terror and death across a growing number of Asian countries, overtly and covertly. Our young soldiers, if not cannon fodder sacrificed to “American interests,” returned home with shattered lives and limbs. Families grieve still. We left on their own soil a horrendous number of dead and maimed adults and children. Little girls with legs blown off and little boys left headless from American firepower.  And all for naught. The other side’s objectives were met. We were defeated. We fled.

In spite of the horrors we continually create on the international stage, sometimes even engineered by Nobel laureates, our government pretends to puzzle over why our foreign policy produces martyrs willing to avenge these cruelties.

It is not too late to take the historic, but belated step of rescinding his Nobel Peace Prize. Let it be done while he’s still alive. He won’t live much longer, resting comfortably in his Georgetown home, surrounded by his luxuries bought with the blood of so many. Leaving his books and Cognac and fancy furniture, he is limousined to studios to be interviewed as an “expert,” called upon by ignorant or uncaring media who actually think Henry Kissinger was a diplomatic success story, that he is now a respected, elder statesman. But many of us know better.  

Probably, he is able to sleep each night, un-conscience, having such sweet dreams, uninterrupted by screams of remembrance.

 And, Barack Obama, give back yours, too.

22 Minutes of Your Life You’ll Never Get Back. Nightly.

Prior to founding my own firm, I used to travel frequently on business. Each morning in the hotel room, I’d turn on the TV to catch the local news. I was appalled. Not only was I trapped in look-alike airports and look-alike hotel rooms, the local news programs were also look-alike/sound-alike. Dallas. Cleveland. Minneapolis. Perky airheads gleefully bringing us the latest murders, uncritically reporting on whatever some local politician said, making sure the reporters’ faces were on camera as much as the persons being interviewed. With that description, I am compelled to add Indianapolis to the list.

Soon, I had to give it up. I wanted to be a good sport and learn something about the city I was in. But, after trying to scream and brush my teeth at the same time. I had to skip Trixie and Skippy on Local News Watch (not exactly) and turn on CNN when, in its pre-Nancy Grease-Lou Dobbs-Glenn Beck days, it provided at least a modicum of real news.

Being old enough to remember decades’ worth of people, events, and causes and effects could be considered good news/bad news. It’s good in that it earns one perspective; it’s bad news in that it is even more reason to yell at TV reporters and anchors who do not share my passions: a sense of history and a sense of perspective.

Local TV news wasn’t always bad. It’s only been that way for the past 40 years.

While, to be fair, I can recall the incredibly rare reporter or anchor who startled you with his/her adherence to news coverage, I am more likely to remember the 15-minute nightly TV news shows on the Ft. Wayne stations that featured people who were not selected for their perfect haircuts or Botoxed smiles. The old guys (and they were all guys) not only read the news, sometimes looking down at the typewritten pages in front of them, they actually understood the content of what they were reading and could have, if asked, been able to hold a lengthy discussion on where that particular news story fit into the spectrum of events. We shared a passion for news.

They understood that history and the reporting of it (after all, “breaking news” is merely today’s tiny footnote to “history”) is on a continuum. The story of the night might well be part of a trend, the effect of some causes from days or decades or ages ago, and the same stories were likely to come around again and again before their careers were over. And the newscasters understood that.

Often, there were editorials, where one of the staff read a statement, giving the TV station’s opinion on a topic of local, state, national, or even international interest. Sometimes, the station lost advertisers. It wasn’t necessarily bold or brave, but it did take a stand, after an investigation of the facts. And, I don’t ever recall seeing a retraction. It had been investigated, it was determined that this would be the side chosen, and on the air it went.

While murders, fires, accidents, and other human tragedies were reported, they did not consume the news. Other more important stories and their impact on us all – actual news – lead off most broadcasts.

Today, those old newscasters would not recognize the local news. First of all, nobody loves a murder like a TV reporter, anchor, or news director. Easy reporting. Nothing incisive, nothing investigative, just standing breathlessly at the edge of the police tape, interviewing those who want their 15 seconds of fame, unable to resist the vulgar, “How does that make you feel?” If I walk into the room when the newscast has already begun on one of our local stations, I know it’s some delicious tragedy, by the stance of a particular reporter. Bent over, his shoulders curved inwards, his hands held reverently, barely able to grasp his microphone, he assumes the position of a supplicant returning to his pew from the communion rail.

One huge elephant in the room, as we like to say these days: Guns. No one questions the use of guns, even though guns made the murders possible. No one asks “Why?” It’s as if guns were some benign, some innocent catalyst in the process, not at all aiding and abetting the killing of family members or random multiple murders at a public place.

No time for such analysis, but too frequently on the short newscast we get the banal, scripted, and rehearsed “ad lib” comments between anchors, weather reporters, and sports reporters. And the head shaking and unwanted, unnecessary comments by the anchor after the bloody story has been reported. (“What a tragedy” or “Terrible, isn’t it, Skippy”) Just once, as long as we’re getting their opinion, could we hear, “We gotta get rid of guns.”

We need TV reporters, editors, newscasters, and anchors who are educated. They need to know history. Trends. What causes effects. Basic stuff. Critical stuff. Then, they need to be objective, determined to bring us real news, digging into a story to find out what really happened, not use only a politician’s press release or be carried away by a horrible vehicle accident or shooting, feeding on misery, giving over most of every broadcast to a litany of tragedies, avoiding the job of covering the need-to-know, unreported stuff that is – drum roll here -- news.

When an elected or appointed official makes a statement, wouldn’t it be nice if the news team would put it in perspective, report on what’s bound to happen, based on what’s happened in the past, along with a healthy dose of common sense. The anchors should read copy that is the result of the reporter asking a lot of hard questions. And follow-up questions. And, if the question was ignored, the reporter would have said, “Let me ask you that again, since you didn’t answer it.” Explore, learn, and then share with us the underlying causes, not the veneer that does not inform.

I want the TV anchors and other on-air “personalities” to stop being personalities. I want them to stop being cover stories in local publications, emcees at community events, guests of honor. They think they are the story. Their predecessors knew they were the messengers. We didn’t cover this in my Journalism and Ethics class. Because, with barely an exception, it didn’t exist.

On the other hand, have you ever seen a local TV newscaster appear on a public panel to discuss important issues of the day? That’s what we want. But, I’m afraid it won’t happen, as they don’t know the background, those cause-and-effect factors, the history. Speaking about complex economic, political, social issues is so damned hard. Murders, fires, car wrecks? Not so much.

Trying to get coverage for a deserving event a few years ago, I asked the TV assignment editor, “Do you want a body?” He laughed. I didn't. I went on, “Well, I know if I could guarantee you a body, you’d send someone.” Of course, no one came. But, I’m sure blood and guts from somewhere else in Indy flew off the Teleprompter that night.

If I were in charge, I’d hire majors in history, psychology, human behavior, geography, political science. And take them on a rugged training course in investigating, doggedly pursuing the story, putting it in perspective, resulting in an objective reporting of events. Then, in the remainder of that 22 minutes or so, subtracting time for we’re-all-going-to-die! weather reporting and much more sports than necessary, I’d squeeze in a recitation of the latest tragedies, if they could be somehow proven newsworthy, followed by an announcement of that day’s body count in Indianapolis from guns and the total, to date, for the year. Then, most nights, an editorial on something not necessarily related to that day’s coverage.

And they wouldn’t come on the air two or three times earlier in the evening, teasing us with some top stories, but not telling us what the story is – “Learn what top state official has been fired by the governor. And why. Stayed tuned for the eleven o’clock news.” No! Give me the name now. Will learning the name at 9 p.m. mean I won’t bother to watch at 11?

Let it start in Indianapolis. And let it spread across the land. And, business travelers and tourists can, once again, turn on the local TV news and brush their teeth at the same time.

News. A great concept. It could, once again, be a great practice.