NEVER LONELY

I live alone. No pets. Don’t enjoy TV much. Don’t eat out. Cook alone. Eat alone. I walk alone. I sleep alone. I am the victim of ageism. Sometimes slander. And have been assaulted and am occasionally threatened.
I am not afraid. And I am not lonely.
When I encounter a person, a stranger, I make a point of saying something gentlemanly like “Good morning. How are you today?” and I sound like I mean it; because I do. I do care about how they are today. When I find a reason to expand on the one-liner and perhaps mention the weather as being pleasant or find some other relevant anecdotal comment to include, I watch their reaction with extreme care and I find in their hint of a smile, which I aim and look for, a contentment. I hear in their voice all of their humanity and sometimes it seems I notice an ancestral presence too. I can usually tell them them if they’re European, Irish, Brit or American and they find that charming. Sometimes, when I'm on my game, I surmise that they are a parent and tell them how many children they have and which genders (has to do with micro-observation, their breathing etc.). And usually, within a minute or shorter, I can find something humorous to add. And then there in their face I see the handwriting of God. It is in this brief exchange that I am filled. The magnificence of their humanity has touched me. I have been, as it were, topped off. 
Good to go.

THREE TELLING HOURS

The SWAT team in Orlando arrived and rather than taking immediate action to gain ingress to the nightclub where murder was in progress took positions outside the club and waited. For three hours. They waited and listened to the gunfire for three hours until an armoured vehicle was finally dispatched to go in through a wall. By then 50 people had been slaughtered. How many of them had been killed after the SWAT team had arrived and proceeded to do nothing?  What explains why they waited? Could they not have used equipment to locate the shooter and then gain ingress at a point where they would have been safe?

This isn’t the first time this lethargic sort of response has been the order of the day while mass murdering was going on.

It may not be politically correct to call it this way but this writer sees cowardice. And the lack of action could be argued to be criminally negligent. These members of this elite fighting group need to take their own pulse, and come alive. We have evidence of men acting frightened to the point of immobilization at the scene of a horrendous crime being undertaken by one gunman. One. Where were the stun grenades? Sleeping gas? Snipers? Anybody doing anything for three hours?

The American SWAT team has become the SQUAT team.

Gun Crazed Consequences

The Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando is the latest scene of mass murder in the U.S. Fifty people no longer have a pulse and that is the direct consequence of a gun-crazed culture. 

The Yanks will never get it. Their movies (with the actors' complicity); their TV and video games; their whole culture is driven by gunplay. The Second Amendment ('Right to bear arms') was written  when horse thieves were hung.  Who needs an assault rifle (700 rounds a minute) today, in a land of the free?  Not even the bobbies in Britain are armed with lethal weapons and the murder count there is almost non-existent.  

All this grieving and day after condolence-giving is meaningless. Amend that Amendment and make it illegal to own assault rifles and make it extremely difficult to even own a gun. 

Create theme parks where people can go and use rifles and guns under controlled circumstances. 

Institutions like Canon cameras and Nikon could lead a campaign against the NRA to eliminate trophy hunting and replace that weird 'sport' with trophy photography. Assist the gun retailers with switching over to camera and video equipment sales. Make movies instead of killing living beings. 

There are ways to satisfy this gun-crazed desire. 

But as long as our movies and video games glorify killing with guns, and the guns are at hand, we're all victims-in-waiting.