Tipping Point?

     The question mark is most significant. Have we reached a tipping point? That point where a single email, letter, or phone call to our Senator or Congressperson or the White House turns the tide, for at least this once, away from our knee jerk response of letting the missiles fly? We'll know in a few days. For now, let's hope so.

     I understand the impulse, believe me. Were some entrepreneur holding a raffle for the opportunity to push the button that blows Assad and his generals to Hell, I'd lay down a twenty in the blink of an eye. "Tickets please!"

     Watching children writhing on the floor in obvious pain, foaming at the mouth, mothers and fathers helplessly hovering over them, powerless, filled with a sorrowful rage experienced by far too many in this already too death laden century. There are moments when outrage is the only appropriate emotional response to the madness of one man's will to power. This is one of them. So my gut tells me, go ahead, push the button; let the missiles fly.

     But our response to atrocities cannot be guided by anger alone. Though anger is a positive emotion, it can become dangerous when improperly channeled. Anger can be a good servant, spurring us to action, fueling the fires even of righteous indignation, stoking the adrenaline rush that compels us to write that email, make that call, join the marches on the common, swallow our fears and get up on that stump in the public square to make our case. So far so good. Every once in a while we need something to move us to get up off the couch to go and do. Videos of gassed children will do it every time.

     If it doesn't, there is something seriously askew in your moral compass. You need to take your soul to the shop. You're empathy isn't firing on all cylinders.

     Yet here anger's appropriateness ends. Like a river, even the most appropriate sense of outrage becomes dangerous when it overflows its banks. Like any emotion, anger is a good servant but a terrible taskmaster. When it overflows even the most righteous rage turns destructive. We become the very thing we hate. Looking at the one we most despise, we confront our own darkness. The mirror does not lie. I am no stranger to the monster. What lurks in him, I know, lurks also within me.

     Before we push the button, best to push the breaks. Let's slow things down a little, lest we cross the line. (Ever notice how leaders love lines?) Let's consider this, widen the dialogue, ask the people, consult leaders of the faiths, the people on the ground, ask for a show of hands. Maybe there's a better way. Maybe there isn't.

     One thing for sure, when indulged the rush to military action most always turns out badly. Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention other graveyards, loom large in the rearview mirror. History runs off the laws of unintended consequences. Missiles are not that precise. At best, they launch with a tag that reads, "To Whom This May Concern." You cannot avenge dead children with more of the same. The Bastard is already moving his armaments into neighborhoods and school yards.

     Before the rivers of rage overflow their banks, it's time to call the people to the river to fill a few sandbags, buy some time, let caution prevail. Indecision, though messy, isn't always a bad thing. Public debate, votes in Senate and House, editorials, articles, and blogs and speeches and commentaries; they may not stir the blood but may keep so much of it from being spilt.

     Let's hope we've reached that tipping point. The moment when we continue a time of considered reflection before letting the missiles fly or sending in the troops. There are other options. Chief among them finding consensus among a majority of nations to isolate a rogue leader without leaving the country in rubble with even more civilians dead in the streets. There just may be a way forward without bombs and bullets and poison gas.

     So make the call, send the email, get up on the stump, join the march, speak your truth to power. Every crisis is an opportunity to find a better way of getting things done. Participate in democracy. The future of the world is too important to be left to the decisions of a powerful few.

The Jawbone

    

    

    


    

Cheerios and Voting Rights: Things Have Changed; Just Not all That Much

     "Our country has changed," writes Chief Justice Roberts, "and while any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions."

     Justice Roberts is right--partly. Things have changed. I am old enough to remember when our local pharmacy had a lunch counter. And why it never occurred to me why I never saw a Black person sitting there. That's just the way it was. Until that night I was watching the evening news, dutifully waiting, I kid you not, for the Lone Ranger to come on, and witnessed Black students being beaten by an angry white mob for doing what I took for granted:  setting down at the lunch counter. That's not a scene our girls grew up with. So, Mr. Justice Roberts, you are correct. "Our country has changed..," but only partially so. And not nearly enough. We've a ways to go yet.

     Fast forward to MSNBC internet page. Top left corner headline:  "Justices strike down key part of 1965 Voting Rights Act." Move down to lower right hand side of the page where there's a picture of this really cute little girl with the caption:  "Cheerios ad backlash inspires new campaign for interracial families."

     "...Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions." Well, let me suggest that these two articles reflect "current conditions."

     The Voting Rights Act of 1965 requires that nine states, mostly but not entirely in the South (it also applies to 12 cities and 57 counties elsewhere) with a history of racial discrimination get approval from Congress or a special panel of judges before making any changes to voting rights laws. This is the key provision the Supreme Court tossed out. Wrongly, I think.

     Why? Well, the Cheerios ad is telling. Seems the ad brought out the racism that yet remains. The ad, you see, shows an interracial family enjoying breakfast fare that, in my humble opinion, probably doesn't have much more nutritional value than the box it comes in. But I digress. Apparently all sorts of people raised hell about Cheerios daring to portray an interracial family to sell their cardboard.

     Really..? Surely, you jest!? I guess I live in a bubble. Surely, we have made more progress than this! Surely the good justice is right. We have changed more than this, haven't we?

     Mr. Justice Roberts is right--partly. We have come a long way. No doubt about that. Those of us who came of age in those critical decades that gave rise to the Voting Rights Act remember all too well what was. We know what now is, and what took place over those years to get us where we are today.

     Things have changed. But when a cereal ad brings out some of the worst impulses in human nature, things have not changed enough; not nearly enough. This is the point the Court missed, badly.

     One day mom and I were having lunch down at that pharmacy. As we were walking the couple of blocks back to our three room apartment my father and grandfather had built beside our grandparent's house down on Princeton Circle, I asked her, "Mom, what did that sign on the wall mean? The one that said something about "We reserve the right to refuse to serve anyone."

     Times change. People, some of them anyway, change with them. Others don't. Relatively speaking, it's easy to take down the sign on the wall. Yet there are those who still let it hang upon their hearts.

     Which is why the Court got this one wrong... big time. And why the struggle must continue.    

Global Warming: How to Educate a Politician in Severe Climate Change Denial--Not an Easy Task

     98% of scientists agree that climate change is real; that is, the earth is heating up faster than we thought. Polar ice caps melting faster, sea levels going up, drought, radically changing weather patterns; you know the drill. You might think this would be enough to convince almost everyone. I mean someone will always look at black and call it white no matter how many well-educated people tell them otherwise. It's just that I wonder about those 2% who seem determined to deny reality despite all the evidence the best of our science can present. I mean who the hell are these people?

     Allow me to introduce Minnesota State Representative Glenn Gruenhagen, Republican representative from Glencoe. According to Think Progress, Rep. Gruenhagen claims, in a speech he made recently on the floor of the Minnesota State House, "that there has been no global warming for the last sixteen years." That this whole climate change thing is nothing more--hold on, here we go again--than a vast United Nations conspiracy.

     To what end Rep. Gruenhagen chose not to elaborate. We are left to guess. Maybe he thought citing his source would be enough to convince us that he speaks the unvarnished truth. Seems his info comes from the good folks at the Conservative Political Action Committee, otherwise known as CPAC. You know, the folks that once a year bring us the latest from Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and other science denying luminaries who seem forever to be pontificating the same ignorance--that global warming is an elaborate hoax perpetrated by the secret world government to cheat the Koch brothers out of their petty cash pencil fund.

     Here's the part the Honorable Mr. Gruenhagen doesn't grasp. According to Matt Kasper, writing in Think Progress, 98% of scientists disagree. "2010 was the hottest year on record and every year of the 2000s was warmer than the 1990s average. Over 30 million people were displaced by climate- related extreme weather events in 2012, and it is increasingly likely that many millions more will be displaced in the near future."

     Alas! And woe unto we believers in scientific evidence regarding the things of earth, wind, fire, and water! How shall we persuade the skeptics? Our very survival as a species may depend upon it.

     Let us recognize the problem. It's not merely that Rep. Gruenhagen has a problem with global warming. The difficulty runs much deeper. He has a problem with science itself. The whole thing. Evidence be damned. This is someone who will swear up is down and down is up no matter how many times he falls off the roof.

     But! All may not yet be lost! Allow me suggest the following curriculum.

     Let us first take our unbelieving friend to the beach. Ask him to look out upon the horizon, the distant horizon where sea meets sky. "Observe," we say, "observe." This is important. Scientists are really big on this observing thing. Hell, half or more of what they get paid to do is just look at stuff and write down what they saw and I bet they get paid a shit load more than the rest of us for doing it--but I digress.

    Suddenly, let's say, a pirate ship appears on the horizon! But wait! How do we know it's a pirate ship? The whole thing isn't visible yet; just the top of the mast. Then, upon further observation--there's that word again--gradually the whole ship, from top to bottom, emerges into clear view. "Damn. It's just David Koch out for a sail in his 3 million dollar sailboat."

     Conclusion:  the earth is not flat. It is instead round, or at least sort of round, more like an egg than a ball. If all the grey matter is working properly, out goes the old idea and in comes the new. It's not flat. It's round. Cool. Seems a change of mind should be in the offing from our representative. Not so.

     Okay, let's try something else. Let's place our legislator under an apple tree. One of us will climb up, sit on a branch, take aim, and drop an apple upon our guest's pumpkin head. Doing this often enough should produce the observation--that word again--that the apple falls down instead of floating off into outer space toward Mars. If the desired change of mind does not follow, we should immediately change to something weightier, say, a brick. Should the sought after change not follow, that is, there is something called gravity, I suggest moving to a fourteen pound bowling ball. But that would have serious spinal implications that would defeat the purpose of our demonstration.

     Were it not tragic the whole thing would be comical. But it's no joke that the polar ice caps and the Greenland ice sheet are disappearing at an exponential rate. Sea levels are rising. The ozone layer is damn near shot. Drought is rampant. Millions of refugees are on the move to who only knows where as the climate deniers fiddle while work crews bail water out of Manhattan subways.

     This is what we are up against, folks. The 2% who, for reasons unknown to such as myself, are incapable of changing their minds no matter what the best scientists the world over will tell them over and over and over again. This shit is serious. And we're pretty much waist deep in it now and running out of time.

     There's only one solution. Come January 1, 2014, every last one of them, from the state house to the outhouse, every last one of them must be voted out of office. Our survival as a species may well depend on it. Happy campaigning.

The Jawbone



    



    

Waiting for the Grey Smoke

     Remember Mr. T, the enforcer on the old A Team TV show? You know, the big Black dude with the Mohawk and half ton of bling rumored to be worth hundreds of thousands draped around his neck? Built like a brick outhouse, Mr. T could somekinda kick ass. He could back up his favorite words, "I pity the man; I pity the poor fool who..." What a great model figure for the new Pope, whoever he may turn out to be.

     Before the local convent comes threatening to hang me by my genitalia from the nearest steeple, allow me to explain.

     Tuesday the Cardinals, most of them anyway, will literally be locked into the Sistine Chapel. They're not allowed to come out until they've elected a new Pope. We on the outside will know they've once again come to that momentous decision when grey smoke begins to billow forth from the ancient chimney erected on the Chapel roof to commemorate the occasion. Thousands upon thousands of nuns, priests, churchmen, churchwomen, and tourists of every sort from all over our shrinking planet will erupt in cheers as they wait to see who appears at the upstairs window as Pope Who or Whatever name he chooses.

     Then begins The Great Speculation over whether they have made a momentous or disastrous decision; one that will either move the Roman Catholic Church forward through rethinking the Church's role in the new multicultural, multi-religious millennium, or backward into a new Dark Age of increasing irrelevance to all but the most faithful few. There will be good arguments on either side.

     Which is why it's appropriate that the smoke from the chimney will be, not white, but a see-through shade of grey. It hasn't been white for years. Tradition was that when the ballots were taken, if no choice had been made, the guys inside rigged the fireplace to make the smoke black, and vice-versa. St. Peter's, however, has been around a few centuries, and over all those years deposits have built up that render the white smoke a tinted grey. It's a fitting symbol for our new millennium where everything, every moral decision, every ecclesiastical pronouncement, every theology, every economic policy, every political decision is neither black nor white but somewhere in between.

     To paraphrase Mr. T, when it comes to being Pope, "I pity the man! I pity the poor fool..!" who has to cope with brining the ancient traditions into a world neither Jesus nor The Twelve could have conceived of in their wildest imaginings. And let's face it; the Church of St. Peter's is in trouble.

     Riddled by everything from sex scandals to financial improprieties at the Vatican itself, a shortage of priests, the decline of those entering monasteries and convents and various orders of ministry, the decline of parish attendance, celibacy, to the concerns of the LGBT communities; the new Pope will have a plate full. "I pity the man..!" who gets this job. Then, some guy (well, personally, I would argue that too, but I'm not there) has to do it.

    Beginning in the century after Jesus' death (the resurrection is a question of faith, so let's stick to history here), the faithful have been tasked with attempting to live within a creative tension between the past, represented by the Gospels and the teachings of the Church, and the moral and political conundrums of the present.

     I would suggest that tradition as valuable as it is, should guide and inform rather than enslave us. Blind obedience to the past is just that, blind. And the blind soon fall into the ditch. The present brings new ethical challenges and, we can always hope, new insights into what it means to be a moral human being. Let's hope the new Pope will be a man capable of keeping one eye on the past and another clearly focused on the radically new predicaments of the present.

     For example, take the issue of only men in the priesthood. Let's hope the new Pope catches up with the wisdom of Martin Luther's Reformation and chucks this one out the window when he first appears to the waiting crowd. So what if The Twelve was an old boys club. That was then. This is now. In Jesus' time only men would have been accepted as teachers. Contrary to what in some quarters remains popular belief, Jesus did have women, Mary Magdalene for one, within his inner circle, and was quite probably married as was the custom among Jewish men of the day.

     Though much work remains to be done, we have made a bit of progress in the area of gender equality. Of all places, in the church, women should stand on equal footing with men. It's way past time for the Roman Catholic Church to permit, yea, even encourage women to join the priesthood. And I mean a fully endowed with all privileges and powers priesthood, not as second class helpers to their male counterparts.

     Face it. For a clergyman to sit across from a female parishioner and dare say, "I understand" may be valid, but only up to a certain point. We need to realize human understanding is limited, defined, informed by and interpreted through our respective gender. There's just no way around it. So let's just admit that and realize that if I can't walk a mile in her shoes then I should bloody well get her to priest of her own gender who can.

     As for celibacy, that should be an option, not a requirement. Both celibacy and marriage are sacred expressions of being together in holy community. Neither is superior to the other. If someone wants to follow in the footsteps of Thomas Merton and become a hermit intellectual living on top of a seven storied mountain that should be his or her privilege. Or if they want to follow Martin Luther, get married to a former nun and have seven kids (now that's Reformation!!), then so be it. Let the individual be free to choose how he or she will live by the teachings of Jesus. The Church should be there to help interpret and guide as best as human fallibility allows, not dictate.

     Now, Martin, and Pope Who or Whatever you will call yourself; about all those kids. This idea of no birth control needs to go the way of the dinosaur because if it doesn't then the rest of us and our offspring will follow T-Rex and his buddies down the rabbit hole of extinction.

     Neither in the time of Jesus nor that of Martin Luther was the human species in danger of overrunning the planet, despoiling nature of every last resource, poisoning the well water by fracking for natural gas, over fishing the seas--you get the idea. Times have changed. Deal with it. It is the utmost environmental irresponsibility to tell people, for whatever reason, they don't have a moral responsibility, to themselves, their children, and to the ecosystem we're all part of to limit their own numbers. Eighty percent of American Catholics deep sixed this idea years ago. It's time the Vatican caught up with the wisdom of its own people.

     Change is always difficult. So here's to hoping the Cardinals have the collective wisdom to bring it on. The next Pope must have the wisdom to bring the ancient teachings to bear upon a post modern world teetering on the brink of self-destruction. Let's hope that, like Mr. T, he turns out to be a real kick ass kind of guy.

The Jawbone

   
    

Jawbone: Guns, Freedom, And the Man in the Middle

Jawbone: Guns, Freedom, And the Man in the Middle:      Six mass shootings already, and we're barely into February. Promises to be one Hell of a year. Prompts me to wonder how many more child...

Guns, Freedom, And the Man in the Middle

     Six mass shootings already, and we're barely into February. Promises to be one Hell of a year. Prompts me to wonder how many more child-size coffins will we bury between this evening and the night the ball drops once again on Time's Square. But as with all things human, that's going to be largely up to us.

     Like millions of other Americans, I watched the recent Senate hearing on gun violence as it unfolded on morning television. Moving from left to right we had Representative Gabby Giffords and her husband, Mark. Either by design or fortuitous fate, in the center, in full dress uniform, James W. Johnson, Baltimore County Chief of Police. Bringing up the far right--both literally and metaphorically--Gayle Trott, representing some obscure think tank the purpose of which, I'm told, is to get more women interested in conservative politics--this despite the well-known position Ms. Trott has taken against--yes, that's against--the violence against women act. (Go figure!) And on the far right of my television screen, Wayne LaPierre, current figurehead of the NRA and puppet voice for the gun manufacturers of America. Each and all facing a Senate panel representing the gamut of political opinion on our current debate on the role guns of every type will, or, will not, have in our future.

     Well, there we have it. The entire spectrum of opinions on the role guns, and what kind of guns and how many bullets, and, you know.... all the other issues that become involved in this debate; are going to play in our society.

     That morning it occurred to me that I was watching something much more significant, of much greater and far reaching consequence than a debate on gun control, or even the second amendment, or the presumed by the gun lobby right to carry an assault weapon of mass destruction with a hundred round clip. All those are surface issues.

      This is a debate about the future; a debate about who we are as a people; and, more, what kind of society we are choosing, and we do choose, to move toward. For the decisions on policy we make today are the ways we project our values into the future. Our decisions, personal and political, betray what kind of society we want to create for our children's, children's, children.

     Moving from left to right, there were Gabby and Mark Giffords, gun owners, well respected members of their community, themselves victimized by the mentally deranged lunatic with a semi-automatic weapon and high capacity magazine clips. In the center, the representative of law and order, reason, freedom, and responsibility, Chief Johnson. And on the far right, the voices of paranoia run amok; Gayle Trott and Wayne LaPierre, whose only purpose was to convince us that we are rapidly moving toward anarchy; a society Ms. Trott vividly described in her fictional tirade about a mother being attacked in her home, defending her babies with an assault rifle. Women of America, meet Ms. Rambo.

    These are two radically different views of the future. One, represented by the Giffords, a responsible society where people may, if they so choose, own such weapons as are necessary to defend their homes. A society governed by law, represented by Chief  Johnson. And a society of anarchy, chaos, death and destruction; everyone for him or herself; apocalypse now suburban style represented by the radical fringe of the NRA personified by Ms. Trott and Mr. LaPierre.

     So it would seem we have a choice between two visions of the future: one a vision of responsible gun ownership, law and order; and one of anarchy born of a paranoia based upon a survivalist militia mentality. Which will we choose?

     Chief Johnson and the Giffords illustrate the more responsible choice. Yes to responsible gun ownership; yes to universal background checks, closing the gun show loophole; yes to the ban on all assault weapons of mass destruction that do not belong in the hands of untrained, inexperienced civilians; yes to the ban on high capacity magazines; yes to law and order and a civil society. No to paranoid militia movements who are convinced they need weapons of mass destruction to defend themselves against their own democratically elected government.

     The gun debate is not so much about guns as it is a debate about what kind of society we are going to have, or not have, and, more, how we are going to choose to live together in community. As such it represents both peril and opportunity. We have the opportunity to choose wisely, to decide what kind of weapon a citizen may reasonably be said to require for the defense of his or her home and family.

     Or we have the choice offered us by the militia/survivalist movement represented my Ms. Rambo and Mr. LaPierre, along with the extremist wing of the NRA. Arm yourself to the teeth with the deadliest weapons of mass destruction you can get your hands on for the coming war of all against all.

     And we need to decide which side we're on; and work to make the vision of our larger society a reality. I prefer the vision offered by Chief Johnson and the Giffords.

     Someone should tell the Ms. Trott, Mr. LaPierre, and /the survivalist fringe of the NRA that we are no longer living in Tombstone. Through the rule of law, we are attempting to choose something better.

The Jawbone



    

    

From Cigarettes to Bullets: Congratulations to the Marketing Department

     Send congratulations to the marketing gurus for upping their game; they've managed to move up the ladder. They couldn't be satisfied with figuring out more creative ways to market cigarettes, otherwise known as "coffin nails," to children and teens. They've decided to up the ante and go for bullets."Now there's something with real marketing appeal! Bet we'll make a fortune off this gig!"

     This morning's New York Times carries an investigative article revealing how gun manufacturers, always in cahoots with the most radical fringe of the NRA, you know, that branch of an otherwise respectable organization that thinks it's perfectly acceptable to put an Uzi in the hands of a twelve year old and send her off to middle school with instructions to, "Remember sweetie, if you see a bad man with a gun, remember to squeeze rather than pull." But I digress. The article reveals how the gun manufacturers have chosen to market their wares to teens. According to the article, one ad even portrays a fifteen year old girl holding an assault rifle implying how great it would be to wake up Christmas morning to find good old Santa had brought you one of these!  

     This, when, as Nicholas Kristoff pointed out in his New York Times article of December 16, that Americans between the ages of five and fourteen are thirteen times, yea, thirteen times more likely to be killed with a firearm than their counterparts in countries. The only exception is countries where there is all out war. And as Ezra Kline of Newsweek pointed out only a couple of days before in his article, fifteen of the last twenty-five mass shootings in the US involved assault weapons.

     The NRAs answer is more guns, and better mental health care. Okay, so better mental health care is a winning idea. Certainly a most needed improvement for our society. But how would we work this out? I mean, are we all supposed to be watching one another now? Which brings me to the question, "Where do you draw the line between thinking your neighbor a bit odd and reporting him or her to the local constabulary as a potential mass murderer?"

     Just the other day my local paper carried yet another letter to the editor in favor of arming teachers so that "violence will be answered by violence." The couple had been on one of those evangelical mission trips to Guatemala and were praising the presence of armed troops in the streets on every corner. They felt much safer and hoped for the day that the US would catch up with Guatemala by arming teachers. So lets just turn our schools into free fire zones.

     News flash. The troops in the streets of Guatemala are not there to protect the citizens but to suppress and intimidate citizens on behalf of the government. Great. So these yahoos want to turn the US into a third world dictatorship. That will solve a lot of our problems.

     Senator Feinstein has proposed a bill banning assault weapons. Unlike the previous bill that has already expired, the Feinstein bill gets specific and bans more than one hundred types of these weapons of mass destruction. It's worthy of our support.

     Limit the guns. Limit the slaughter of the innocents.

The Jawbone.

    

    

    



    





    

Newtown: Beneath the Surface

     More than a half century ago, the desperado stood on the veranda, red cowboy hat pulled down to shield the sun, showing off his fringed vest and chaps, his six-shooters at his side, ready for action. Hey, even at five, I was a cute little guy!

     No one thought anything about it. Not my parents or my aunt taking the black and white picture with that old look down through the top view thing Brownie camera we still have around here somewhere. We live in a gun culture. And our indoctrination begins early.

     I am not anti-gun. A few years later my father and grandfather would begin teaching me the difference between those toys and the real thing in the fields and forests around the ancestors' farm in Lithia. My first "real" gun was a bolt action .22. We would put the beagles in the car and rabbit hunting we would go.

     Guns weren't toys. Somewhere along the way we learned the difference between playing bang-bang in the back yard and safely handling the real thing. We knew after the backyard games were over everyone would get up and go home when Moms called us in for dinner. With the real thing we knew it didn't work that way.

     But things have gotten way out of hand. Maybe a deeper look is necessary.

     First, we need to admit we live in a culture that glorifies violence, particularly gun violence. Ours is a culture that revels in revenge. Tv shows, video games, and movies are designed to move us to stand up and cheer when some fake hero blows away the bad guys. Mayhem is the order of the day.

     The NRAs answer is to arm everyone, even public school teachers. Give everyone a weapon and let's just all go freakin' at it. I really don't think more guns in school or anywhere else is the kind of answer we're looking for. Even Wyatt, Morgan, Virgil, and Doc had enough presence of mind to demand all the cowboys turn in their guns at the edge of Tombstone. Maybe they were on to something. 

     We certainly don't need civilians having access to assault weapons. An AK isn't designed for deer hunting. No more firearm sales of any kind without proper federal background checks, proper training, licensing. No more gun shows where any escaped felon can buy an Uzi. There is something to the argument that less guns will mean less gun violence. With the possible exception of countries at war, Americans have more guns than anyone else and we kill one another more often than anyone else. But we all know the stats. We've spent the days since Newtown reading them.

     I suggest we look a bit more deeply. We tend to define violence as the use of the fist, the knife, or the gun. But that's only just the surface of things; the outward manifesting of something deeper.

     In the middle of the last century, theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, writing in, if memory serves me, Moral Man, Immoral Society, pointed out there are two kinds of violence:  overt, and covert. The overt violence of the gun, the fist, the knife, he wrote, is but an outward manifesting of covert violence. Covert violence like dehumanizing poverty, for example. Granted, Niebuhr was writing about a much larger scale of violence; the causes of WWII and other armed conflicts. But his work leads me to ask whether the same thing might be true of school shootings.

    The authors of  Rampage, the Social Roots of School Shootings, published in 2005, would tend to agree Dr. Niebuhr was on to something. The editors of the Jan. 7/14 issue of The Nation do a good job of boiling down this research to its essentials. Shooters are responding to the covert violence of social isolation, bullying, exclusion, ridicule, rejection, etc.--pretty much the stuff experienced by those kids in high school that never seemed to fit in very well. You know, the outcasts.

     Nothing like Newtown or Columbine happens out of the blue. There are signs. Increasing withdrawal. Depression. Despair. Acting out on an escalating scale. Hostility to authority and a host of others. Rampage... and studies like it need to become part of our curriculum for teachers, students, clergy, counselors; maybe for all of us.

     Though I do think assault weapons should, and will, be banned, by itself that will not solve the problem. But less access may stop a few; and less access to large clips and assault weapons will at least limit the carnage.

     But we have to do more. What we need to do is, to paraphrase an old source, become a bit more conscientious about becoming our brother and sisters' keeper. We can educate ourselves to the warning signs. We can summon the courage to speak up before the shooting starts. We can resolve in this new year to reach out to the outcasts among us; to the kids who are silently screaming for help. We can teach our teenagers and young adults to be more sensitive to the kids who don't fit the magazine image of masculine or feminine good looks or dress or sex appeal. We can learn to reach out. Because no one--no one--suffering that much emotional pain has the ability to reach out for help on their own.

     These issues are complex. And I have only skirted the surface. They are not easily solved. Answers are multifaceted. But it seems to me that the foundation upon which any real solutions must be built is the simple knowledge taught by all the world's faiths. That the answer to the question, "Am I my bother/sister's keeper?" is supposed to be, "Yes."

The Jawbone.