The Prime Directive

The last time I was so slow in writing a blog, it was because I decided to do something really unusual in the on-line world. I took some time to think, a lot of time in fact. It took me about two weeks to decide what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say it.

It was kind of like the way a magazine article compares to a newspaper article, or the way a newspaper article - which can take days or weeks to write - compares to the breathless rush and dramatic video of broadcast journalism.

This time it was something different. Really different. I have been so distracted by the exciting rush of news - national, international, domestic, hollywood - that I simply stopped thinking. All I did was watch and listen and watch some more, as a literal flood of news poured over me.

And I started thinking really deep thoughts. Should football players have the right to express themselves on the sidelines before a game? Should the football team owners have the right to usurp patriotism as part of their own game, and decide which actions are patriotic and which are not.

Should they close the food stands while the national anthem is playing? Should ushers eject people who talk to each other and not stand at attention when the national anthem is playing?

What about a baseball game where an America team is playing the Toronto Blue Jays? Do the players have to stand at attention for both national anthems? What if the game is being played in Canada?

Or, just what is sexual harassment anyway. I know that lots of people say it is a man problem, and that any act or word could be considered sexual harassment. And I know the law clearly defines a lot of acts as harassment, and does not deal with a lot of other acts. And the overt behavior of Harvey Weinstein is clearly outrageous and should be punished.

But what about all those movies made in the 1940’s and 1950’s where the relationship between men and women was clearly one of complete harassment by today’s standards? Was Rock Hudson sexually harassing Elizabeth Taylor all through “Giant,” intimidating her and making all the decisions for the family? Will I ever look at “Gone With The WInd” the same way again?

Well, you can see where all these bright and shining objects took me. To the endless details of a proposed and yet unwritten tax cut to the darkly hidden role of United States troops in African countries - a role not even known by the Congressional committees that regulate these things.

Should our soldiers die without the elected representatives of the people knowing what was going on? Remember, Mr. Phelps, if your team is discovered, the secretary will deny all knowledge of your assignment.

And then, it just hit me. Not that I had been suckered in by all this action - why should I be different than the rest of the country - but I figured out the big secret behind what had been going wrong. For me and virtually everyone I know.

It gives me a chance to carp, once again, at the failure of the media. The media, collectively, is forgetting the prime directive of journalism. Let me say it in a separate paragraph, because it is really important.

The news should be new. Not a rerun.

Want an example? Well, the first time Donald Trump attacked Hillary Clinton in a tweet, it was an unprecedented action. Never been done before by a sitting president to an opponent. Dramatic and really newsworthy.

The second time he did it, not so much. Maybe the unusual continuation of his attack was new. Maybe not. But, not nearly as big a story. Then came the third time, and the fourth, and maybe the fifth or sixth, depending on how many of Trump’s denials you want to believe.

But, here we see our media treat each attack as if it were as important as the first. How about his first lie, or his first broken promise? How about his demands to build the wall, each of them as breathtakingly covered as the first. Look, video of the first samples of what the wall may look like. Wow, still news after all these years. Well, at least it seems like this has been going on for years.

Want to count the fifty or so times the Republicans voted to kill the Affordable Care Act? Wait, let me turn on the TV, they may be doing it again.

All of this does have a purpose, of course. It’s great red meat to put in the fund-raising letters. Heck, let’s spread a story that the Democrats and the Republicans are in cahoots, with each party using each outrage to raise funds for...well, not for another election, but to hire some politically-connected fundraisers who will use this outrage to raise money for...well, it may not be true, but it could be.

At least for one party. Depends on where you stand. Or not.

Journalism’s role in this should be to look at what is happening and put it all in proportion. What’s not happening in Washington is a bigger story than what our President and our Congress think of NFL players protesting on the sidelines.

The ever-expanding foreign ownership of our nation’s businesses - and the lack of any identity or national commitment by our multi-national industries - is a bigger story than any vague promise of better health care or a more fair tax code.

Want another example? How many big businesses in our nation don’t pay taxes on what they earn here by transferring the money they raise off-shore. Heck, their CEO’s probably stand up in their luxury box while the national anthem is being played as their profits escape, untaxed, to a new tax haven every Sunday.

Perhaps in a year or two, Trump’s latest attack on Hillary Clinton will no longer be front page news and will not be the lead story on cable.

By then, maybe the Russian owners of our nation’s media will just want to put the whole thing behind them as a bad investment.

On Gun Violence

I heard that Bill O’Reilly wrote on his website that the carnage in Las Vegas was the price we pay for freedom.

And, he clarified the point. "The Second Amendment is clear that Americans have a right to arm themselves for protection," O'Reilly said. "Even the loons."

And, in a way, he is absolutely right. Just think about that for a minute.

Our Congress, frightened and feted by the NRA - and running in gerrymandered legislative districts that allow a well-organized minority group to kick incumbents out of office in a primary - has come to the realization that in America in 2017 a few gun deaths in a nation of more than 300 million is a cheap price to pay to stay in office.

But we have the biggest mass shooting in our nation ever. About 60 killed and close to 600 wounded. Who would dare call that a cheap price?

Well, before I point out some sad truths about the human condition, let me predict exactly what will happen because of this massacre. And, I won’t take the cheap way out and say “nothing.”

We will have talking heads on talk shows from the right and from the left, talking about the need for gun control and the Constitutional protection given to gun owners.

We will have people talk about how crazy it is to allow one person to own 20 or 30 rifles, and we will have people talk about how they need a weapon or two for personal protection.

And, while they are talking at each other - a conversation that will echo similar conversations that took place after every other mass shooting in the nation - Congress will appear to act. Someone will hold a hearing or two or three.

People will testify about the lives and families that have been ruined, and other people will talk about the need for an immediate ban on assault rifles. And, the Congressional staff will set to work writing some rules that would do it.

And three months or six months down the road, in a closed meeting of some working group or committee, they will come across a roadblock they have always come to before.

The conversation will change from the need for gun control to the need to control some kinds of guns. Assault rifles, naturally.

That’s when a well-paid lobbyist or two will point out just how hard it is to define an assault rifle. And the conversation will switch to the kind of technical love that you get when photographers try to argue over what is the best camera, or when botanists try and decide which new rose is the best of the year. Or, maybe, when a couple of NASCAR mechanics argue over which brake lining is the best.

You’ve heard it before. It’s not fully automatic, it has to be converted. My conversion kit is legal in 11 states, so don’t blame me if someone buys it illegally. There are thousands of these guns out there already, so it makes no sense to stop new sales.

Yes, we get sucked in every time.

So, first, let’s put things in perspective. Remember when I said that, in a way, Bill O’Reilly was right?

Well, any decent person can not but be angered and disgusted and react with great sorrow to the senseless massacre of so many people. And, they will cry out and demand something be done.

But, in part, they are reacting to the fear that we all have that it could happen to us. That someone we do not know, with a weapon we can not see, will end our lives and no one will be able to do anything about it.

It’s the same reason that so many people panic, and demand action, when they hear of a shark attack. Something in the water we can not see could come and kill us before anyone even knows what’s happening.

I wish half the country would have a similar reaction to the carnage on the highways every day. Maybe they could drive a little slower, not tailgate as much, and pay more taxes so more police officers could be put on the roads to give out more tickets.

Want the numbers? Well, in the United States, we have about 16 shark attacks a year, and one of them is fatal about once every other year.

Now gun deaths don’t quite reach the 40,000 vehicle fatalities we had in the United States last year, but they are nothing to sneeze at. The problem is that the numbers are really soft - it is hard to get good statistics that would show the whole picture, partly because that NRA-fearing Congress has passed laws (and so have a lot of state legislatures) keeping officials from even gathering statistics.

But, here’s a good guesstimate. There are about 32,000 gun deaths a year in our nation, and some experts believe that more than half of them are suicides. It’s often hard to tell.

A small number, maybe three percent, are flat our accidents. That comes out to about a thousand deaths a year. A lot more are gang related, which really does not pose a threat to the population at large, certainly not to the people who only see gangs on television, not in their neighborhoods.

Well, I will agree that all these gun deaths are all bad, and we should do a lot to stop it from happening. Here’s what I suggest when the reaction to this latest massacre gets to the law-making stage, and we somehow just can’t seem to define an assault rifle once again.

Pick a number. How many people can someone kill in a minute with this rifle? That way, we won’t be arguing over the size of the magazine, the kind of modified action that can be placed on it, or anything else.

You are a nut, standing there in a field so far away that I can not see you, and you start shooting. Will that gun kill three people in the first minute - one shot every 20 seconds - or four people, or six people. Just stand there right now and go bang, bang bang. You want to kill 30 people a minute?

Well, any rifle that lets you fire more than three shots a minute should, in my mind, be called an assault rifle, and any state that wants to should be able to ban them. That’s also any rifle which could be converted to kill all those people, as well as any rifle that could actually do it. I am tired of hearing about mail-order conversion kits that can not be controlled.

Now, while we are on the subject, let’s also kill a few other myths about keeping a rifle in the house for your protection or for hunting.

You hunt with a rifle that takes out your target with the first shot. You do not shoot bullet after bullet at the bird or the deer. Period. So much for that argument.

If you want to protect your house, you don’t need a rifle. You need a hand gun or a shotgun. It’s really hard to aim a rifle at a moving target, and it’s almost impossible to keep your rifle bullet from going through your wall and into your neighbor’s house.

Conversely, a demented madman armed with a pistol or a shotgun standing three football fields away from you - that’s 900 feet to those not in the know - does not pose much of a threat. At least, not to you.

And, here is one more myth. Assault rifles are a good investment, because the government will force manufacturers to stop making them one day, and the price will just go up and up on the internet or the black market.

Well, guess what? An average AR 15 was selling for just under $800 in March, 2007. After President Obama was re-elected, the price shot up to nearly $1,200, mostly because people wanted to get them before the government came in and stopped sales, Dreams of wealth danced just under the trigger fingers of the proud AR 15 owners. And then, nothing happened.

Want to see an investment drop to a price that was less that what you originally paid? Yep, the AR 15 did just that.

And one final observation. If those in Congress who are under the thumb of the NRA just keep voting against a ban on assault rifle sales, well then it could be the fault of all of us who will not form a solid, bipartisan group that will vote against anyone - Republican or Democrat - who will not vote to stop the sale of these terrible weapons.

The death of 60 people is too much. The death of 20 people is too much. The preventable death of even one person by someone who has a rifle that has no purpose except to kill people is far too much.