memorial day

It's the official beginning of summer, you know.  But it is much much more.  This federal holiday is to honor those who died in defense of our country and other peoples who were being pushed around.  Wars are usually politically driven and orchestrated by world leaders like Putin.  Many times since we have felt the REAL threats of world wars and those that had nothing to do with protecting our citizens made me sick.  Vietnam.  Desert Storm.  Iraq. Afghanistan.  etc etc.  I have seen PTSD up close and personal through veteran friends of these wars.  One of the happiest stories, though, involves Joe Deak of the US Army. I first met him when we went on a beach trip long ago with his wife to be Heather.  He had been working as a contractor after his deployment and made a whole bunch of money.  He wanted to be a nurse, and not just any old kind.  He specialized in psych nursing and is the kind of guy who knows the horrors of violence.  

Guns.  We watched intently as all of the mistakes that were made in Uvalde were reported on the news.  A door propped open.  An hour of 911 calls with no breaching the building.  There were over 500 kids in there.  The classroom was locked but they had to find janitor to get the key.  Tick..tick...tick.  Parents were trying to storm the building and the policia kept them out which was a good idea I suppose.  They said they didn't want to add to the death toll.  I can guarantee you if my kid was in there I'd be knocking the damn window out and daring the "mentally ill" person to drop the weapon.  I'd probably get shot in the process but that's a parents' instinct.  

Stop telling me that it's not about availability of repeating long guns.  That is the coward's way out.  And as for Governor Abbott, he blamed it all on mental illness for which he cut funding recently.  Thoughts and prayers.  There are stations set up every which a where for grief counseling and assistance through June 3rd.  Meanwhile the NRA is up there in Houston letting Trump run his mouth.  It's disgusting.  

This is, indeed, a partisan dilemma.  The vote for gun safety legislation depends on the Senate and they're kind of stubborn about the second amendment.  Afraid to piss off that financial sector, so to speak.  Mental illness is indeed a big part of the problem because it's all about people who can't control their anger.  Yet mental health evaluations are hard to come by even for us normal folks.  The entire healthcare system is screwed up because of profit driven delivery of care.

In other news, Rosie caught her first mouse in the middle of the night and woke me up doing it.  Last I knew we were snoozing together and next thing I find her chasing Mr. Jingles under the staircase.  She had him but I didn't want to deal with mouse guts at 3AM so I pulled her off and put her outside.  Then, back to sleep.

We are all in shock about all the news these days.  Inflation is starving folks to death and fuel is just ridiculous.  Everybody is struggling with something.  But you know what?  We're all in it together.  Unity can be had when differences of opinion are respected and we meet in the middle^j^