Music Montage

I was going to put this up for Saturday night, but I had to get some sleep before the snow removal project.   It's time for one of those lighter posts, this time with a musical mix of new and old.  So if you've got a snow day sit back and relax and enjoy a few selections I've come across.

Old, but new...

A reminder?

A little country...

It's so, well, obvious...

An oldie, but a goodie...

So I liked the name...

A Tale of Two Guns

This week there was another horrific school shooting, this time in Florida, with seventeen people killed and numerous injured. Those killed were sons and daughters, friends and co-workers. They were going about their lives with no inkling that they would be cut short at the hands of someone with a gun. They were in a school, an environment that should have been safe. Now they are gone, with their families and friends left to continue on with only memories.  

We hear on the news that the FBI was given a tip about the shooter back in January, but failed to follow up. Apparently a mistake was made, something they will have to deal with. But this is not the central issue here. It is the gun and who possessed it. We cannot use the FBI as a scapegoat or as some kind of political cover. The second amendment to our Constitution gives people the right to “bear arms”. However, it does not go into how we are to determine whether or not someone has the capability, mental stability or maturity of judgment to handle a gun. We have been left with a system that seems to base the right to possess a gun only on whether or not the person is breathing.

The mass shootings garner much of the news attention, which is understandable, given the trauma to so many people. But there are other cases out here that are worthy of notice, not just because of those who are hurt, but because they show what happens when you put a gun in the hands of someone who may, or may not, act with good judgment. These are shootings by ordinary people. People who just stumble into events that morph into situations that end in tragedy.

The first one occurred in January in Rochester, Minnesota.

Rochester Teen Shot after Traffic Accident

No incident is all black or white.  There are obviously details that we may not know.  But did he deserve to die? Over a traffic accident? One witness to the incident said there was no pushing or hitting by the victim. It sounds like a conflict between two immature people, one of whom may have been on some substance and one of whom had a gun. The whole situation got out of hand and now a person is dead. As his father said, killed in one of the safest cities in the world.

The second incident occurred just this past week. Also as a result of a traffic accident.

Man shot after wielding a knife

In this case the shooter was hailed as a hero. As one of the drivers in the accident said, who on earth thinks that a drive on the way home from work will end in being attacked with a knife after a traffic accident? But even here there is tragedy, both for the victim's family and friends and for the shooter himself, an ordinary person who will have to live with having taken a life.

Both of these incidents involved handguns. The mass shootings involve semi-automatics. But the pain for those involved is the same. Someone has died needlessly.

And just to add another wrinkle.

There are these guys:

They throw a whole new curve into the mix when they start making their own guns.  So what is to be done?  

Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble

The stock market here in the United States recently took a small dive.  According to some it is fear of rising interest rates.  I don't know if that is really the case, it seems that for some time it has not been tied in any way to reality.   But perhaps that is actually the case for much of our financial system.  I ran across a video from 2017 which discusses in depth the workings of this system.

Bubbles come in different forms.  Sweden has a housing bubble, I feel we have a stock market bubble.  But if the people in this video are correct the whole world is in a bubble that could cause massive pain if, or when, it bursts.