Monthly Archives: September 2019

Did You Catch This?

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[Newsy] An appeals court ruled on Friday that survivors and family members of people killed in a mass shooting in South Carolina are allowed to sue the federal government for negligence.

In June 2015, a white supremacist entered an African-American church in Charleston and opened fire on a Bible study group. Nine people were killed. The shooter was convicted on federal murder and hate crime charges and now awaits the death penalty.

After the shooting, then-FBI Director James Comey said the gunman was federally prohibited from owning a firearm when he bought the weapon used in the attack, and that he was able to buy it due to failures in the FBI’s background check system.

Cases brought by survivors and family members intended to hold the government accountable for allowing the shooter to buy the gun. They were consolidated and dismissed by a lower court, which ruled the federal government was protected from lawsuits under two provisions.

But the 4th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals said Friday that judge was wrong. It ruled that the laws protect the government employee who performed the background check, but not the government itself. The dismissal was reversed.

Wow! This will provide impetus for gun legislation. Hit’em in the pocketbook.

[CityLab] Between crushing student debt, skyrocketing rents, and underemployment, more college graduates are crashing with mom and dad until they can find financial stability. A study using 2016 Census data, from the real estate site Zillow, found that overall, the share of young college graduates moving back home jumped from 19 percent in 2005 to 28 percent in 2016. Miami and New York had the highest shares—45 percent and 42 percent, respectively. For some Millennials, according to MarketWatch, that means they’re skipping starter homes and going for larger houses as their first purchase.

In his small home town, mariner has a related statistic. Many older families are now parking a third car in their two-car driveway.

[Propublica] Everything You Need to Play Baseball Is Made in China — and Getting Hit by Trump’s Tariffs.

Baseball is America’s pastime, but prices on its China-made gear are about to rise as the trade war escalates. Golf, lacrosse, basketball and other sports will feel the pinch, too.

It’s not hard to think of the future being made in a blender. Will the Minuteman Statue sport a Mongolian deel? will the Statue of Liberty wear tight Yoga pants? Will hamburgers be served at a Japanese tea ceremony? Will Afghanistani women wear stringy short-shorts? Will Donald attend his Alabama rally wearing a tilted bérét, a pencil mustache and twirling a Bat Masterson cane?

Mariner prognosticates that global politics, society and economy will all be in a blender until sometime after 2040 – a lot like living in the Bahamas with Dorian hanging around.

Ancient Mariner

Of God and Country

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It seems that an individual selects one’s God and one’s candidate in similar fashion. In these modern religious times, scriptures are less a source for describing god; most believers settle for a God that is very much like them but whose authority is absolute. The same is true with candidates for elected office. Study after study has shown that, in the final analysis, a voter selects the candidate with whom they are most comfortable – the candidate most like them.

A major issue is that the selection process has no absolute, agreed-to plan. One can’t plan God’s will; one can’t plan an elected official’s will. So there is no plan. There are whims and fancies, even a structured belief about what may happen but there is no agreed-to plan.

There never will be a plan. Authority is an individual vice, self-serving and even in its most gracious moments, self-directed. This is why most universal issues, e.g., the fossil fuel industry, discount what others may desire or have insight into – “it’s the money, stupid.”

Just as money yields to more money, power yields to more power. The advantage of God is that God already has all the power and in an orderly way distributes power to all existence – whether it is what voters choose or not – hence global warming. In today’s confusion corporations and technology, both unfettered by meaningful regulation or conscience, seem to have a power approximating God’s. The framework of morality, accountability, fairness and all the other words that constitute human wellbeing are not part of their plan. Like a kindergartener playing with blocks, the attitude is ‘if we can do it, do it’ without consideration to its ramifications.

Mariner, like everyone else in this new century, is caught in the maelstrom. His compass is tossed about by disruptions in his human magnetic field; his vision is blurred by the smoke of confusion and disorder; his personal hopes and dreams are stifled by interruptions and blockages of discord.

Mariner welcomes you to this century. Pick your candidate as carefully as you pick your God – there is no plan.

It is time for a haiku:

Haze rests on the grass.

Squirrels frolic in the trees.

Life starts a new day.

 

Ancient Mariner