What brake from yonder window lights

[gurdonark]

In theory, I would have thought being an attorney meant that the claims adjuster would be a little more apt to return my call about my small fender bender. Every time I hear one more well-meaning-but-dead-wrong conservative talk about a lawsuit crisis in this country, I remember how I can't get my insurance carrier to return my calls. Now I'll have to write some demand letter, and ratchet things up, and it's so needless, because all the carrier has to do is its job. It's almost as bad as buying software.

I am getting really busy again. Busy is good, but soon I must fire up the dreaded lists of things to do to a greater extent than usual. I will soon be working weekends again, but I must get a recording date with scottm scheduled before I do so.

I mailed off the payment for the cheap faux didjeridoo today, and then tonight's mail included wonderful ebay dollars from around the world. In addition, voodoukween not only renewed our long-running handwritten journal exchange, but enclosed a cool artistic blank journal. I feel particularly grand.

A cool post by marstokyo has put me in heart to once again resume my endless battle to convince paypal that I am who I am. When I moved from CA to TX, Bank of America insisted that they had to replace my check card in CA with another check card here in TX, because its software for different locations was incompatible (a bank merger thing, apparently). The whole concept somehow convinced paypal that my CA card had been reported stolen, causing them to ask me to re-document my life over and over to them. I believe I am one fax from solution, which is very comforting, because I am bored of being unable to use my paypal account. I don't pay for on line auctions via paypal that often, but it's nice to be able to paypal a payment. I would not be so irritated, except that this is literally a change of address issue, and yet I must re-document my life.

Lest my whole post become an endless saga of "Mr. Frustrated Consumer, JD", I'll move on to a few issues of general import, but also of a concerned rant-ish nature. The Bali news is disheartening. Terrorists blowing up people in bars "to make a point" is just indefensible. Those who try to "rationalize" their misconduct concern me--I've seen far too much west-bashing as a knee jerk reaction to such incidents. You know, the "if only we understood, then we'd get why" stuff. I don't get why. I never will. You don't blow up non-combatants in disco dance halls. What kind of mind could imagine that killing a bunch of Aussie 20somethings will "send a message" to anyone? It's terribly sad, and I hope those terrorist cells are ferreted out and dealt with in accord with the rule of law.

Meanwhile, I see Congress is moved to act by the horrors of the sniper incident. I am glad to see anything arise to give flesh and blood to the problems in our gun-crazed country. But a nagging bit of my Scots Irish southern blood says that if this sniping were happening in Arkansas or east Texas, there'd be no
congressional speeches, no calls for weapon legislation, and a much less intensive effort. Does crime have to occur to middle class people in DC before we realize that unregulated gun sales are bad? Also, without meaning to carp, the news headline on the AOL news that "now it's personal" because the latest victim is FBI
is offensive to me. Was it less personal when it was merely 9 non-law-enforcement random victims? Was it less "personal" for those bereaved families?

The sniper and any accomplices are beneath contempt. I think what bugs me most is that they will be found, they will be dealt with, and then some kid will build a website about them. People will clamor to buy the books about them. They'll make TV movies about them. Let's make a few movies about nurses and teachers and firemen. I am inclined to say 9/11 taught me nothing--but perhaps it taught me that life is too short to lionize snipers. Right now we can't get enough people to go through nursing school, because until the last year or two, as a society, we'd rather hire temp nurses than address their needs for pay and respect. Now we're finally make the first steps at change,but if we as a nation spent one ounce of the time we spend on documenting domestic terror on
nurses and teachers and police folks and such, what a better world it would be.

All we can really do is pray--pray that snipers are apprehended, pray for the families of disco revellers killed by madmen, pray for
a breath of compassion in our heavy breathing world.

Comments

[marstokyo.livejournal.com]

You don't need to have PayPal connected to a bank account. You can just use your credit card. I never *verified* my account until just recently when I've considered selling things and using PayPal as a way people could pay me. Up till then, the only information I gave them was my Visa card number. Which meant that I could purchase things on my Visa, using PayPal. (does that make any sense? or mean anything for you?)

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I think I tried that bypass, but I'll try it again. I want to have my verified account and to have my full paypal stuff restored, but maybe that will stopgap.

[(Anonymous)]

after i read about the tarot card with "i am god" on it, my thought was: yes, any a-hole w/a gun is a god...

and i definitely have the feeling that an era is passing

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think we are all realizing an era passed. Is this what 1929 felt like? 1940?

Anyone with a gun is God and Satan, Creation and Evolution, Field and Stream and a dozen faux chic art mags....

[theodicy.livejournal.com]

As the daughter, sister, niece and cousin of nurses, and the niece of teachers, and the sister of a fireman, thanks.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

thanks :)

[the-outsider.livejournal.com]

Meanwhile, I see Congress is moved to act by the horrors of the sniper incident. I am glad to see anything arise to give flesh and blood to the problems in our gun-crazed country. But a nagging bit of my Scots Irish southern blood says that if this sniping were happening in Arkansas or east Texas, there'd be no
congressional speeches, no calls for weapon legislation, and a much less intensive effort. Does crime have to occur to middle class people in DC before we realize that unregulated gun sales are bad?

Do you honestly think that someone who has no qualms about shooting random people would be prevented from getting a gun because of stricter gun laws? If someone is ready to murder people, wouldn't they just break the law and buy the gun illegally? Cocaine, heroin, and lots of other drugs are illegal and they are easily smuggled and easily bought by whoever wants them. If guns were illegal, or more strictly regulated, people who really want them would still get them. If someone has no problem killing people every day in public, I'm pretty sure they'd have no problem at all getting a gun illegally. Do you really think all of the people who commit gun related crimes went out and got a pistol permit, bought the gun, and then committed a crime? Of course not, they just buy them illegally. Stricter gun legislation would only prevent law-abiding people from buying them. The criminals are already getting guns illegally for the most part, so it would have no effect.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

This is an old debate,and all one has to do is look at countries which did pass stricter gun laws. The homicide rate in the UK annually is roughly the rate of two weekends in NYC.

[mockinggreylock.livejournal.com]

Not to spark a debate which I'm ill-prepared to participate in, but I'm highly skeptical that gun control alone would have much effect here, and the comparatively lower crime rate in the UK&EU is hinged upon many more factors :)

It all starts at home.

[the-outsider.livejournal.com]

This is an old debate,and all one has to do is look at countries which did pass stricter gun laws. The homicide rate in the UK annually is roughly the rate of two weekends in NYC.

Actually, NYC has extremely strict gun laws, as do many other big cities with crime problems, such as Washington DC, and it hasn't helped a bit. The US crime rate is actually almost the same as most countries in Western Europe if you don't include large cities. Suburban and rural areas, which usually have the most lenient gun laws, have crime rates that are no worse than Western Europe. The US crime rate is so high because of big cities, where the problem isn't the gun laws, but the usual urban problems (drugs, poverty, etc.)

[nickelchief.livejournal.com]

My sense is that tighter gun control laws wouldn't have stopped the guy from getting the gun, or from killing one or two or three people, but that we'd have more clues by now about who he is and where the gun was purchased. Any little clue, any paper trail, might help them get the guy and prevent additional killings.

The sniper and any accomplices are beneath contempt. I think what bugs me most is that they will be found, they will be dealt with, and then some kid will build a website about them. People will clamor to buy the books about them. They'll make TV movies about them.

The only ameliorating thought I have on this is a cynical one, too: the TV movies and crass websites and instant books will be gobbled up and forgotten in a matter of weeks. Such is the brevity of the American attention span. The sniper will have his day on TV, then go the way of other temporary criminal-celebrities, like the still-anonymous, but wholly forgotten, person(s) who sent out the anthrax in the mail last year. Nobody talks about white powdered envelopes anymore. How quickly we forget!

[uscwriter.livejournal.com]

I question whether or not there would be the same focus if the shootings were happening elsewhere. That's an interesting point to ponder.

Regarding the idea that that law enforcement lives are valued differently- that point is brought home through every trial of someone who kills law enforcement. Automatically, the sentence is life in prison or death, with no parole. There is no question about how long. I don't think the death of a law enforcement person should be valued any higher or greater than a regular citizen; however, I believe that anyone killed should be valued at least as much.

[scott-m.livejournal.com]

On the subject of the Bali disco bombing, I read a great column by
Paul Krugman ( http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/15/opinion/15KRUG.html --
you have to register with the NYT, but it's free). He says that it's not
just random killing. This act was done with the intent of knocking the
tourism leg out from under the Indonesian economy, thereby creating
financially desperate (and therefore easily radicalized) Indonesians.

Krugman has a larger point about the need to fight Al Qaeda where they
are and not where where certain national leaders would like them to be
(i.e., Iraq) that I think should draw more consideration around the country.