I wasn’t planning on making another
blog posting before my Honduras trip, but here is one after all. Trying not to be too fussy this time, as long as the posting is understandable,.
My daughter Melanie found these items from the past posted on Facebook. My late son Andrew as a boy appears there.
This looks like a clipping from an even earlier time, August '78 with Andrew second from the top right before his 11th birthday. I don't know who posted these, but I'm glad to see them.
Why not require a test and a license to
buy or own a gun? One is required for driving a car and must be renewed periodically.
Also, the age for gun ownership definitely needs to be raised to 21 to reduce
the chances of young men at their most volatile age, when testosterone first
surges, of getting their hands on a firearm. But Shinzo Abe’s killer in Japan was
41 and is an example of someone who was so hell-bent on shooting someone, that he
even went to the lengths of fashioning his own gun. Hondurans also do it all
the time.
NYTimes, Assassination Shocks
a Nearly Gun-Free Japan The
assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during a campaign rally in
western Japan was especially hard to fathom because it involved a gun — a type
of crime that is extremely rare in a country with some of the most stringent
laws on buying and owning firearms. Gun violence is almost unheard-of in Japan.
There was only one firearm-related death in all of 2021. Since
2017, there have been 14 gun-related deaths, a remarkably low figure for a
country of 125 million people.
Fox, VP Harris calls for 'assault weapons ban' on guns
'intentionally designed to kill' people Vice President Kamala Harris on Sunday
called for the reinstatement of the Federal Assault Weapons Ban, arguing
that certain semi-automatic firearms are "intentionally designed" to
kill people and only belong on the battlefield.
NY Times, After Another Mass
Shooting, Questions Loom About the Role of Parents Most mass shooters are young men between
18 and 21, many still living at home with parents. The 21-year-old Highland
Park shooter’s parents had had considerable trouble with him for years before, yet
his father sponsored him for a firearms license.
Milwaukee
Journal Sentinel, What keeps an ER doctor up at night: 'The sound a
mother makes after her child dies.' I am a pediatric emergency
physician in a poor, segregated city in America, and I am calling attention to
the No. 1 killer of children: guns.
Slightly more than half of gun deaths in the US are suicides. Our
country has the highest gun suicide rate in the world. Most homicides in the US
are also committed with guns, with most victims being women. There were 45,000
gun deaths in the US in 2021, including 22 school shootings carried out with
guns. Yet, 21 states allow concealed-carry without a license.
Wash. Post, There are too many mass shootings for the U.S. media to cover
The Wrap, Trump Calls Elon Musk a “Bulls– Artist,” Internet Dies Laughing Talk about the kettle calling the pot black!
‘Go home’: Honduran islanders fight
against crypto colonialists.
BBC News, Nicaragua expels Mother Teresa's nuns in
latest crackdown
AP, Nicaragua goes after newspaper for reporting nuns' expulsion
In 1990, I suddenly came upon Mother Teresa wearing white robes praying at a remote religious shrine in Nicaragua. She was tiny. A man in civilian clothes stood quietly behind her. A vehicle was parked nearby. The shrine was deep in the jungle at the end of an unpaved road—really just a trail--so my Nicaraguan friend Larry (now deceased) and I were surprised to encounter anyone else there. Larry had driven us there in a bouncy homemade 3-wheeled contraption he called the boogy-boogy to show me that secret sacred spot. We nodded to Mother Teresa and her companion, then knelt down ourselves. Now I see that her nuns are being ejected from Nicaragua by the very same Daniel Ortega who had lost that 1990 election, the election which I had come to Nicaragua to help monitor then.
Miami Herald, The killing of a Black youth in Cuba sparks criticism
of police brutality and racism Since 2020, human rights activists have documented at least four
extrajudicial killings of young Black men by police, including that of Diubis
Laurencio Tejeda, killed by a police officer during the July 11 protests last
year.
Wash. Post, How Cuba’s investment in writers and artists came back to haunt its regime In Cuba, hundreds of innocent people are in prison because they dared to demand freedom. Exiles are still fighting from abroad.
Wash. Post, Last year, Cubans took to the streets. Now they’re fleeing the island
Daily Telegram
(Mich.), Dobbs case: An unborn human being but not
a person
AP, Federal
judge blocks Arizona's 'personhood' abortion law
Courier
Journal, 'It wouldn’t be my choice for judge':
Senate Democrats slam Biden planned anti-abortion pick
Wall St. Journal, The White House clarified new federal guidance around abortion: Hospitals must provide the procedure in emergency situations, regardless of state law.
Mainstream media seem to be firmly on the side of supporting unfettered access to abortion, but often use slanted terms like “pro-choice rights” or “constitutionally guaranteed reproductive care.” Some pundits are also trying to make the case that pro-life policies are “racist” since proportionately more black women seek abortions. To the contrary, the racist label might be applied more aptly to abortion itself, which disproportionately affects black unborn babies. OTC birth control available soon in some places should help, as preventing an unwanted pregnancy is preferable to trying to end it.
Some counter pressures to abortion are developing within the broader society of which women of childbearing age are a part. More is now known about fetal development than when Roe was decided, and fathers are asserting more rights, especially gay fathers who want to become custodial parents. Preemie infants now born earlier can survive, indicating, at the very least, that the abortion timetable should be moved back.
If
more help for new mothers, as proposed by the Biden administration, actually comes
about, a reversal of the current “baby bust” may follow. The ideal from a
national perspective would be to keep the US average birthrate at about 2.1 per
woman of childbearing age, that is, at just over replacement. Presently, our average
birthrate is substantially below that, only at 1.6 children per woman. Often, mothers
with young children now stop at 2 and many other women stop at one or none. US
birth rates have been declining since 2007, though with a slight uptick so far this
year. In Europe and Japan, the overall aging of the population is even more
dire. China is belatedly providing incentives to reverse its one-child policy,
but is now reproducing at about the same rate as the US with families there still
favoring boys who are not future child bearers. By next year, India is on track
to surpass China as the world’s most populous nation. Countries with the
highest fertility rates are almost all in Africa, with Niger taking first place
with an average of 7 births per woman.
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Above is a Facebook
friend suggestion
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Alien Abductees Group, is another Facebook suggestion
Ofertas
de Xfinity Internet
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