I used to be a big fan of The Onion, an online satire newspaper, years ago. I remember looking forward to new editions published online every Wednesday. Several years ago I stopped reading it because it had gotten... well, I don't think stale is the right word, though it had gotten a bit stale. The real problem was that current events in the US ( Read more... )

Monday afternoon as I was updating my blog on the mass shooting at a senior citizen dance club in Monterey Park, California, checking news reports that the death toll had increased to 11, I saw news of another mass shooting in California in the newsfeed. Police had arrested a gunman in connection with at least 7 deaths and one injury near Half Moon ( Read more... )

A gunman shot multiple people at a Chinese New Year celebration Saturday night in Monterey Park, California, a city just east of Los Angeles. 10 people died, 10 more were injured. Update, Monday afternoon: The death toll is now 11, as one of the injured died at a hospital Monday ( Read more... )

On Monday Abigail Zwerner, a teacher in Newport News, Virginia, was shot by one of her students. A six year old pulled out a gun he brought to school and shot her, once. The teacher, whose immediate action was to get the rest of her class to safety before caring for herself, is recovering from her injuries at a hospital.

There are so many things ( Read more... )

Earlier today I posted " Democrats Screwed Up The Messaging" about how they've not just lost the messaging war for this year's election but have underperformed on messaging for several years running. There are two important facets to messaging.... It's not just what you say but how you say it. In my previous blog I explained the high level mistakes ( Read more... )

This past weekend nationwide rallies were held by March For Our Lives, a student-led organization calling for action to reduce gun violence. The rallies reminded me of a question I've asked myself a number of times recently. If I were a grade school/high school student, or a parent of a student, what would I do? Besides attend a rally, I mean. ( Read more... )

Oops, it happened again. Another week, another mass-shooting tragedy.

On Wednesday a gunman entered a hospital in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and killed four people. Example news coverage: CNN article, updated 3 Jun 2022.

I've written before about the challenge of writing about mass shooting tragedies. As a writer I want time to process what happened about ( Read more... )

Yesterday I wrote "Two Weeks, Two Tragedies" about the recent mass shootings in Buffalo, NY and Uvalde, TX. I decided to make that a brief post, simply recognizing what happened. As I composed the post first in my head, then initially on paper, it was much longer. I have a lot of thoughts to share about these incidents and the patterns around them ( Read more... )

Years ago I created the tag The Tragedy of the Week on my blog. My first use was in December 2012, in the wake of the Newtown, Connecticut school shooting. My intent was sardonic humor. Tragedies involving innocent young people killed by guns, such as in school shootings, were becoming so common that they seemed to happen every week. It wasn't ( Read more... )

Yesterday I posted to my blog about the school shooting in Oxford, Michigan, that killed 4 and wounded 7. I'd been considering whether or not, and how, to write about it for a few days. These events are tragedies, and they're sadly becoming too frequent to write about all of them without turning this blog into "The Tragedy of the Day". What finally ( Read more... )