Fact of Life...

 

Colt Gray, Colin Gray's Mug Shots Released After Georgia School Shooting, Newsweek

© September 8, 2024, the Griot Poet

“Tyrants overthrown: 0

“Co-workers, students, spouses, store clerks * et al: near ∞

“And we cower

“Kowtowed by lobbyists’ power

“NRA clout and dollars

“Make our representatives “want to holler”

Scoreboard, July 23, 2012

 

“Death is a sure thing, but life is just as certain. The problem is you can’t know in advance.

“We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.” Toni Morrison, February 18, 1931 - August 5, 2019

Fuck your “thoughts and prayers!”

“I... can’t... breathe!”

“Between mass shootings

“Not 24 hours after twenty souls were

“Dearly Departed

“By another white domestic terrorist

“In El Paso, Texas”

Carnage, August 19, 2019

“Sports commentator

“Jemele Hill’s saved tweet,

“Sums up our national sociopathy:

“Quoting Dan Hodges: “In retrospect, Sandy Hook marked the END of the gun control debate. Once America decided that killing children was bearable, it was over.”

“Children,

“[Who] on December 14, 2012,

“[Had] every right to dream about a white Christmas: they lived in Connecticut,

“And New England is known for its winter weather.”

Killing Fields, February 15, 2023

 

Governor Bill Lee tweeted:

“I am closely monitoring the tragic situation at Covenant, & the Tennessee Department of Safety & Tennessee Highway Patrol are assisting local law enforcement & first responders at the scene.

“As we continue to respond, please join us in praying for the school, congregation & Nashville community.”

“After three students and three adults,

A teacher, a substitute, and a custodian,

All in their sixties died in a Christian school,

“Thoughts and prayers” are oxymoronic,

“But so is signing legislation against drag shows, which to date:

“Drag shows are voluntary activities.

“No one’s died, ever.”

Thoughts and Prayers, March 29, 2023

 

I am tired of writing about mass shootings.

On the 58th anniversary of the first episode of Star Trek.

A fantasy of society evolving to a “more perfect union.”

They’re becoming more frequent than Braxton-Hick’s contractions.

 

Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick told grandparents to “take one for the team” during COVID-19 to open the economy as our corpses froze in eighteen-wheelers.

The libertarian fascist set wants to raise the retirement age to 72, to get us closer to death.

The answer to rising childcare costs is for the aforementioned “take one for the team” and work until you drop grandparents are supposed to “take up the slack” by being what: zombie corpses skilled at diaper changing?

The fact of my life is my granddaughter just started kindergarten.

 

Every piece I’ve written was to avoid the eventual day she started learning how to escape and evade,

Play the quiet game,

Text her parents to tell them that she’s okay until the PTSD nightmares begin.

 

A gun enthusiast [obviously] named Colt Gray.

Let me give some perspective:

At fourteen, I was in Army JROTC and joined the Rifle/Pistol Team.

To get on the rifle range, we all had to join the NRA,

Before Wayne LaPierre got his grubby hands into it, they took care of the gun range safety training, and that was it.

“Point the barrel of your weapon down range.”

“Always wear your eye and ear protection.”

“Practice BRASS: breath, relax, aim, slack (the trigger finger), squeeze (the trigger finger): repeat.”

And,

“Never point your weapon at anyone at any time.”

Most importantly:

“Put your weapon in the gun safe on exiting the range.”

We trained with 38-caliber pistols,

World War 1 M1A1 bolt action rifles,

And the Mike-One-Six long rifle.

Which has a muzzle velocity of 3,100 feet per second,

5.56mm NATO (.223) caliber cartridge

And has a maximum effective range of 600 yards. It has a rate of fire of approximately 800 rounds per minute.

This class scared the living shit out of fourteen-year-old me,

But I’m betting Colt Gray never heard it.

 

The precursor of this personal weapon of mass destruction was the Armalite 15 Assault Rifle.

The AR and the Mike-One-Six can punch a hole the size of a fist in front of a human body and rip the back out on its exit.

Which is why we had deep respect for the power that we wielded,

This is why we haven’t seen any aftermath photos of gun massacres from Columbine to Sandy Hook.

A Mike-One-Six in Vietnam could tear down concrete walls if you let it.

 

“I don’t like that this is a fact of life,” Vance said. “But if you are a psycho and you want to make headlines, you realize that our schools are soft targets. And we have got to bolster security at our schools. We’ve got to bolster security so if a psycho wants to walk through the front door and kill a bunch of children, they’re not able.”

AP News: https://apnews.com/article/jd-vance-georgia-shooting-7d7727a1aff8491f66914a4d8a14cd8c

 

Columbine, Parkland, Sandy Hook, and Uvalde: all had “bolstered security” with resource officers.

 

Mr. Vance,

I must [respectfully] disagree,

Our society for letting this carnage go on and on is psychotic.

The fact of my life is my grandbaby who just started kindergarten.

Recollection...

© July 15, 2024, the Griot Poet

I credit the podcast “Politics by Tabitha” for the tagline for this piece.

 

“I’m old enough to remember”:

The genesis of violent rhetoric.

“Do me a favor: knock the crap out of them! I promise you that I will pay your legal bills.”

Hinting that his followers would use “second amendment remedies” if he lost the 2016 election.

“I could shoot someone on 5th Avenue, and I wouldn’t lose any voters!”

 

“I’m old enough to remember”:

Birtherism by the immigrant Orly Taitz,

During the campaign of the first credible black candidate running for president.

Soon to be taken over by a failed businessman and reality show host.

You can see the thread from questioning President Barack Obama’s legitimacy to Vice President Kamala Harris being a “DEI hire.”

 

“I’m old enough to remember”:

“Terrorist fist bumps,” racist rhetoric, Facebook memes with watermelons,

The right was appalled by sleeveless dresses and tan suits, causing existential crises!

 

“I’m old enough to remember”:

Moscow Mitch and “Crazy Eyes” Bachmann vowed to make Obama a “one-term president,”

And secret meetings where an ENTIRE party vowed not to work with him, even on policies that they previously supported,

“I’m old enough to remember”:

Obama burned in effigy,

The right joined the dark chorus, demanding that he “show his birth certificate.”

Then he did. The short form wasn’t good enough. Then he published the long form.

People who couldn’t spell “forensics” if their lives depended on it knew that both were forgeries!

Glenn Beck said he thought Barack Obama was “prejudiced against white people.”

 

“I’m old enough to remember”:

The right screaming at migrants at the Texas-Mexico border,

And “little Marco Rubio” on the “Gang of Eight,”

Trying to tackle comprehensive immigration reform,

They had a solution ready to forward to the full Senate,

Until he abandoned it to run for president.

For a son of Cuban immigrants, that was quite a trick!

 

“I’m old enough to remember”:

Lindsey Graham called him a “race-baiting, xenophobic bigot.”

I remember Ted Cruz standing up to him for insulting his wife and accusing his father of murdering President Kennedy.

Marco Rubio called him a conman.

Rand Paul couldn’t stand him.

One by one, they all folded,

Right after the Russian GRU hacked the DNC and the RNC servers.

We found out that Hillary Clinton liked yoga and was excited to be planning Chelsea’s wedding,

And that John Podesta liked cheese pizza from a certain DC restaurant,

Alex Jones and other conspiracy theorists made that “child pornography” and “Pizza Gate.”

A man from Salisbury, NC, shot at the roof looking for children in a nonexistent basement.

Intel released about the RNC: nada, zero, zip!

But Paul Manafort, the unpaid campaign manager and Russian oligarch consultant, was smiling.

 

“I’m old enough to remember”:

Government shutdowns cost taxpayers millions of dollars the 60 times they tried to repeal Obamacare, with no replacement offered or mentioned.

 

“I’m old enough to remember”:

Moscow’s refusal of his Constitutional duty to “advise and consent” on Merrick Garland’s elevation to the Supreme Court,

That would have made it lean liberal 5 to 4.

Roe vs. Wade would still be protected.

Moscow pulled rules out of his rear in what amounted to a bloodless coup to reshape the third branch of government,

Shoving in Handmaiden, Amy Coney Barrett, before RBG’s corpse was cold.

Now, it’s 6 to 3 “conservatives,”

All Heritage Foundation picks,

Moscow is a member of it,

“Project 2025” was enacted before they publicly announced it.

 

“I’m old enough to remember”:

Who repealed the Obama legislation in the first year of his administration,

Blocking mentally impaired people from the purchase of firearms.

Particularly AR15s, as used by the shooter.

Karma has never had a more cogent example.

Mr. Crooks was a supporter of the felon with signs festooned in his front yard.

 

“I’m old enough to remember”:

The attack on Paul Pelosi,

Speaker Emerita Nancy’s husband,

By a psychopath who was chanting, “Where’s Nancy?”

Like those insurrectionists at the Capitol,

The same who injured and killed Capitol Police officers.

That the convicted felon calls “hostages.”

The same he has vowed to pardon.

The same who intended to kill Speaker Pelosi and Vice President Mike Pence,

I remember “CF” leading the jeering against Paul Pelosi before he became a shooting victim.

And how they made a joke of an 81-year-old grandfather getting his skull smashed by a hammer.

“It must have been a gay sex act,” they said.

They put up Paul Pelosi manakins to punch and kick at their conventions.

 

“I’m old enough to remember”:

An Army friend called me on November 5, 2008, and asked:

“Reg, did you ever think that we would live to see this?”

My friend and I are both veterans of the Army and Air Force,

Even though we swore an oath to “protect and defend The Constitution,”

We could not see anyone like us as the Chief Executive.

We’d seen 43 previous examples of the preferred model.

 

Dr. Carter G. Woodson, “The Mis-Education of the Negro”:

“When you control a man’s thinking, you do not have to worry about his actions. You do not have to tell him to stand here or go yonder. He will find his ‘proper place’ and will stay in it. You do not need to send him to the back door. He will go without being told. In fact, if there is no back door, he will cut one for his special benefit. His education makes it necessary.”

 

November 5, 2024, is sixteen years since this faithful call between friends,

Our ancestors fought for freedom since the Revolution, since Crispus Attucks,

Only for the “blessings of liberty” to repeatedly not be extended.

For,

A nation founded on the land theft from Native Americans and the genocide of tribes from the Taino to the Cheyenne and Arapaho at Wounded Knee.

The kidnapping of Africans for uncompensated labor for centuries.

Before July 13,

Four presidents were assassinated,

Three were shot but survived.

Three attempts with bystanders killed or injured.

Four attempts where no one was killed except the culprits.

 

“I’m old enough to remember”:

Before we can state that “we’re better than this,”

We should really be honest about how violent our country’s history is.

But That's Not It...

 © June 30, 2023, the Griot Poet

Source: Facebook Meme, Sandford Finley

 “I attended Yale Law School. Yale had opened its doors, heart, and conscience to recruit and admit minority students. I benefited from this effort. But for Affirmative Action, where would I be today? These laws and their proper application [are all that stands] before the first 17 years of my life and the second 17 years.”

Clarence Thomas, 1983

 “I cannot believe what you say because I see what you do.”

 -James Baldwin

“Stable Genius” was such a stellar student,

He could have lit a cigarette with the friction of his departure,

After two years at Fordham University in New York,

His dad gave over a 3.4-million-dollar endowment.

To the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business,

 

But that wasn’t Affirmative Action.

 

Jared, “Damien Thorn” Kushner,

To the confessions of his high school guidance counselor,

He had neither the grades nor the SAT scores to earn a place at Harvard,

His dad was an alumnus, and that’s legacy enrollment,

 

But that wasn’t Affirmative Action.

 

Nixon started Affirmative Action!

It’s the closest thing to reparations this country has gestured towards,

If you had done that in the first place, we wouldn’t still be having this conversation!

 

The “Supreme Court” is neither.

John Roberts memorized “Stare Decisis” for his confirmation,

Forgetting last year, this year, and the next, it translates to the core of American jurisprudence: precedence.

The lightweights rejected 6-3 using race in college admissions at UNC,

6-2 in Harvard’s case because Ketanji Brown-Jackson knows how to recuse herself, unlike Clarence Thomas.

“Forest Gump,” John Roberts said seventeen-year-olds can “write essays about how their cultural identity informed their experiences.”

 

What didn’t get dismissed:

Athletic programs,

Legacy applicants,

Financial endowments,

All favoring white cisgender men,

They DO allow diversity, equity, and inclusion at Military Academies,

Because we’re the right complexion to DIE for this country!

 

And,

On the LAST day of Pride Month,

The former Supreme Court has proven itself neither,

Basing the bigotry of a so-called “Christian” web designer purely on a hypothetical?

By the way: the guy she accused is a web designer, AND he’s straight!

 

What’s [so] infuriating about this is,

What prevents any establishment from using their “Christian” stance to justify denying services to a straight black couple because of the “Curse of Ham?”

Or because the potential customers are Sikh or Muslim?

Will “Stand Your Ground” be based on I didn’t kowtow to your Christian nationalism?

 

At this point, we don’t have a “Supreme Court.” We have three actual justices and six religious Mullahs Spitballing!

And the six evil elves are AGHAST that the court: after revealing donor influence, conflicts of interest, and naked corruption, has the LOWEST approval rating in its history?

WHODATHUNKIT?

 

What does a constitutional crisis look like?

 

This!

Margaret Atwood warned us in “The Handmaid’s Tale.”

The world becomes a dystopian nightmare when the highest court has no ethics.

The “Rule of Law” in the Roberts Court is officially a joke!

 

Look.

You don’t have to LIKE Joe Biden.

I get that we wanted Bernie,

Joe said:

“You can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”

Joe’s father said:

“Joey, don’t compare me to the Almighty; compare me to the alternative.”

 

You can’t let yourself be distracted by Robert Kennedy Jr., Cornel West, and any other flashy third-party objects,

Democracy, or autocracy, is on the ballot!

We’re not a parliamentary government,

We’re not structured to form coalitions with crackpots,

Democracy requires informed citizens,

Fascism uses free and fair elections,

And the ignorance of citizens,

For democracy to destroy itself,

But, like the dog who caught the car,

We’ve already had four years of observance,

It’ll be a cluster fuck once they have us!

 

Last year, Roe vs. Wade,

This year, student loan forgiveness, [and] LGBT bigotry,

Next year is a toss-up for the six “Dr. Evils”:

Same-sex marriage,

Voting Rights, or both?

It’s hard to choose between evil acts,

When you’re rapidly dismantling the American experiment,

 

That’s it.

The Roberts junta is trying to repeal all the progress of the 20th Century and the 21st!

Their “great again” is 1953, the year before “Brown vs. Board.”

Clarence hasn’t realized that if they get their fascist wet dream, he’s beyond obsolescence!

 

America isn’t exceptional: it’s influential.

America isn’t a utopia: it’s an ideal worth striving for.

If we fail, other democracies topple like dominoes,

Once they all fall, what will rise from the ashes,

Is the brief, suicidal age of strongmen,

Human civilization will not survive them,

Nation states as warring factions,

Can’t build starships to explore the heavens,

Can’t reduce climate change and inequality,

The end of progress and cooperation,

The caves will become Entropy for what’s left of civilization,

To avoid this disastrous situation, in 2024:

VOTE!

 

In numbers so vast, trying to suppress it will be as futile as a surfer holding back a tsunami!

Don’t let the armed idiots who will show up [to] intimidate you at voting precincts.

We need a 63-seat majority in the Senate,

And the satisfaction of seeing the weakest Speaker in history,

Give the Speaker’s gavel to my Frat brother, Hakeem Jeffries,

“We The People” can do this to save democracy!

That’s it!

 

Thoughts and Prayers...

© March 27, 2023, the Griot Poet

“There is something deeply hypocritical about praying for a problem you are unwilling to resolve.” Theologian Miroslav Volf.

Governor Bill Lee tweeted:

“I am closely monitoring the tragic situation at Covenant, & the Tennessee Department of Safety & Tennessee Highway Patrol are assisting local law enforcement & first responders at the scene.

“As we continue to respond, please join us in praying for the school, congregation & Nashville community.”

After three students and three adults,

A teacher, a substitute, and a custodian,

All in their sixties died in a Christian school,

“Thoughts and prayers” are oxymoronic,

But so is signing legislation against drag shows, which to date:

1. Drag shows are voluntary activities.
2. No one’s died, ever.

Your faux oblations never get past the ceiling,

And are a bitter tonic for parents reeling,

A few hours ago, before their [personal] midnights,

They didn’t realize,

They would be saying.

“Goodbye!”

“Have a good day!”

“I love you!”

 

For the last time,

Their children were the victims of another American mass shooting.

Done by a former student,

Reagan’s “morning in America” has become daily “mourning in America.”

 

I write this on the 87th day of 2023,

We have surpassed 100 mass shootings and casualties.

As an engineer, let me extrapolate sans accuracy:

We might have 419 by New Year’s Eve, and I fear we will surpass that!

We are exceptional because no other country puts its citizens through a constant barrage of PTSD violence!

 

Bill Lee is a waste of oxygen, banning drag queens when as a teenager, he was one!

One of the aspects of inept fascist governance is punching down on the weak.

It solves nothing in the short run but sets up eventual disasters like this.

“Owning the libs” and culture wars are [apparently] more fun than legislating.

 

In addition to “saving our youth” from drag queens,

 

Bill Lee:

In 2021, signed in law permit-less carry,

To terrorize his own citizens,

Hat tip to the NRA: “not responsible always.”

Every massacre is the responsibility of “evildoers” we extend 2nd Amendment rights [to],

More rights than the children at Covenant,

Which translates to “binding agreement, or promise,”

A promise Bill Lee flopped.

His piety is apostasy.

 

Andy Ogles,

Congressman from the Tennessee district who represents Covenant,

Tweeted:

 

“My family and I are devastated by the tragedy at The Covenant School in Nashville this morning. We are sending our **thoughts and prayers** to the families of those lost. As a father of three, I am utterly heartbroken by this senseless act of violence.”

 

Andy posed with his family in a 2021 Christmas photo armed to the teeth with assault rifles.

He’s “devastated” by the shooting, just not enough to legislate.

 

You and Bill Lee’s “thoughts and prayers?”

Save them!

Your Schlitz 45 malt liquor oblations are poured out for Mammon and Moloch!

You missed the red letters in the Bible that might be slightly important!

You “checked out” at the Sermon on the Mount.

The last time I checked,

The “meek” that will inherit the Earth won’t have bump stops, AR15s, or banana clips!

“Thoughts and prayers?”

Bullshit!

 

Here are the fruits of your labor:

White evangelicals became a numerical minority in 2017.

They decline with every action not taken after every gun massacre accelerating the institution’s demise.

So, your obvious “solution” is not “good news” but the gospel by gunpoint!

Evangelism by fascism,

 

Dog ear this:

We had news reporters concerned for their children during an active shooting and flashing back to their [own] childhood attacks.

“Run and tell that!”

 

Gun violence is the number one cause of death for children in America!

It’s overtaken cars and illicit drugs,

And drag queens are NOWHERE on this list!

We passed laws insisting that young children wear seatbelts.

It did not reduce fatalities to zero, but it did reduce their frequency.

We can legislate the womb, but we can’t legislate open carry.

We can’t do anything about gun massacres because of the gun lobby!

There are 538 Senate and House representatives, many of them on the gun lobby’s books.

This lack of action has been consistently sadistic since Sandy Hook!

 

Audrey/Aiden Elizabeth Hale,

28-year-old former transgender student,

Was the shooter,

The police executed them.

“Woke” didn’t cause this!

Their choice of pronouns didn’t cause this.

No drag queens have ever committed violence.

What violence was committed by Covenant when they were a student?

They probably have a backstory that propelled them to do this,

If mental health is the issue,

Okay,

Let’s fund it.

And reinforce the ban on the mentally ill owning guns.

Rescinded by the last administration,

But that takes an act of compromise and governance,

And requires something this Congress of sociopaths lacks: a demonstrable, functional soul,

It’s why you fear voters and polls,

Like Benjamin Netanyahu,

Fascism doesn’t want to be accountable.

Israel,

Is suddenly realizing that rights denied to any out-group like the Palestinians,

Eventually migrates to all its nation’s citizens,

Martin Niemöller wrote the “First They Came” poem about it.

As Bibi is trying to exert total control over the judiciary and government,

 

There are 400 million guns in the country to 330 million citizens!

If more guns equaled safety,

With that much firepower,

The United States should be the safest country on the planet!

I’ve got news for you, Sherlock: it ISN’T!

 

Stop lying!

Stop giving us your flaccid “thoughts and prayers” to hide your political impotence.

You hypocrites, don’t believe what you say when you reflexively utter it!

 

Vote these idiots out!

2024 IS the “final battle,” just not the one Orange Satan thinks!

 

Sources:

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/03/andy-ogles-covenant-school-christmas-card

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/interactive/2023/ar-15-damage-to-human-body/

 

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/trump-signs-bill-revoking-obama-era-gun-checks-people-mental-n727221

Invention Inventory...

 

Image Source: What ‘arms’ looked like when the 2nd Amendment was written, Analysis by Christopher Ingraham, Washington Post

© July 7, 2022, the Griot Poet

 

In 1791,

Travel unless by maritime,

Was by horses and buggies,

Or hiking,

 

Communication,

Centered on newspapers,

And letter writing,

 

Delivered by courier,

Or carrier pigeon,

 

Unfortunately,

A lot of medical advances,

We made by the anti-Hippocratic,

Surgeries on enslaved African women,

Without bothering to use anesthesia,

 

Plantation oligarchs

Allowing abortion for their wives and mistresses,

They were motivated against abortion for their property,

Because babies that were born into slavery,

Increased their exchequers and political viabilities,

The same goes for their progeny

In the 21st Century,

The 13th Amendment has an exception,

African Americans are thirteen percent of the population, and the majority are in for-profit prisons,

Seventy percent of farm laborers are undocumented,

So are the builders of suburban homes and white picket fences,

 

Don’t get it twisted:

 

In 1791,

The 2nd Amendment was written before the invention of the bullet.

 

Let me say that again:

 

The 2nd Amendment was written before the invention of the bullet.

 

The colonists had gunpowder and muskets.

 

How to load a musket:

 

1.       Pour powder from a powder horn into a measure holding a predetermined amount.

2.      Pour the powder charge down the barrel of the gun.

3.      A patched lead ball at the muzzle is shoved down the barrel until it rests on the powder charge.

4.      Pour a finer grade of powder into the rifle pan.

5.      Hammer pulled back and frizzing closed, the weapon is ready to fire - ONE lead ball.

 

The mechanical engineering

That could Auto CAD design,

Kalashnikov, Ruger, Sig Sauer and

AR15s did not exist,

 

Every bloody step of Manifest Destiny,

Improved the technology of death-dealing,

As colonizers cleared the prairie,

Of its indigenous inhabitants,

Who must be “othered” as savages,

Over three hundred treaties with the US were not honored by it,

So the eventual genocide can be conveniently swept under the rug of contrived history,

Easier to stomach in municipalities,

Populated by the descendants of plantation oligarchs,

Not wanting the responsibility of paying reparations to US citizenry,

 

Imagine:

Rules for carrier pigeons govern the Internet,

 

Imagine:

The mathematics of traffic flow before differential equations, or Garrett Morris,

The black inventor who gave us the traffic light and the gas mask,

 

Imagine,

C-sections,

Episiotomies or ectopic pregnancies

Withholding anesthesia before such surgeries,

 

You can’t.

 

But you can imagine:

Unfettered access to weapons of mass destruction,

Make an electorate fearful of its [own] “we the people” government,

The “great experiment” in constitutional or parliamentary democratic republics,

Overturned by foppish hacks,

In Great Britain and the US,

Malignant Narcissists with bad combovers,

 

For the sake of the next quarter,

For the sake of shareholders’ stocks,

Forsaking self-government for short-term profits!