And NOTHING is more American than football. Not even Donald Trump. Along with football come other things people enjoy like cooler weather, pretty foliage, and apple picking. Also, elections happen in the fall, and we're ONLY 14 months away from a big election, so buckle your seat belts.
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As always, happy Wednesday and happy reading! (photo courtesy of exacttarget.com)
This Day in History
1998 – A UN Court delivers the first ever conviction of genocide to Jean-Paul Akayesu, a Rwandan mayor, for his role in the Rwandan genocide in which close to 800,000 Tutsis were killed.
Where do I start with this? On the one hand, good, this is progress, on the other hand it took 50 years since international laws against genocide had been passed in the aftermath of WWII for someone to be found guilty, and he was a mayor. Pol Pot killed nearly two million of his fellow Cambodians in the 1970s, but it took Rwanda to get a conviction.
The UN can often be a laughable body, but I think it offers more potential for international problem solving than we give it credit for. I see this ruling as a small sign of progress and a bigger sign of how much progress we have left to make. (photo courtesy of World Vision Magazine)
Speaking of Progress
Have you heard that America has a gun problem? It depends on who you listen to, but it really boils down to a very simple comparison, in every other advanced nation in the world there are the same problems we face with crime, poverty, mental health, etc. The one thing no other advanced nation has that we have in (over) abundance is guns. We got guns like Greece has debt or like Morocco has sand.
It's a simple equation really, almost like a controlled experiment has been done for us. Poverty + crime + drugs + mental health + etc = social problems. Poverty + crime + drugs + mental health + guns + etc = social problems and LOTS of gun deaths. In 2010 alone 31,076 Americans died at the wrong end of the gun (from the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence), but here's where the data become telling and contradict the narrative that unlimited guns everywhere prevents crime: guns were used in over 11,000 homicides about 68% of all homicides committed.
Gun proponents like to point out that a murder with a gun would be a murder with a knife or other weapon if he didn't have a gun, but the reality is that most murders use the most lethal, legal means available to them. Yeah, I can choke someone to death, or I can save time and energy by pulling a trigger. Assume that, with fewer guns available, only 50% of the murders are successful, we saved 5,500 innocent lives.
At the end of the day, the only defensible pro-gun position is that we like guns. And that's fine. Most people do use them responsibly, and we shouldn't have to choose between armed-to-the-teeth everywhere all the time and totally weapons-free. But innocent people are dying, and our failure to address the cause makes us complicit.
Being Vladimir Putin
This is not about Papa Vlad's recent workout pics with crony, I mean Prime Minister, Dmitry Medvedev, this is about what it must be like to have no accountability at all (from Forbes). This guy could show our politicians a thing or two about how to commit and get away with scandal. The guy has been waging an illegal, immoral, semi-clandestine war in East Ukraine and denying it vehemently, but then his government posts casualty figures online. That's an "oops" moment if Rick Perry has ever seen one.
People like Putin are the reason we need international criminal courts. Unfortunately, people like Putin are also the reason those courts are generally ineffective. (photo courtesy of Forbes)
Third Guy's a Charm
Do you ever get tired of the same old rehashed political talking points? Well yeah, do whales poop in the ocean? One guy talking to another guy when both of them are forced to take the opposite position even if it makes no sense isn't serving us so well. What if we threw someone else in the mix (from NYTimes)?
Electoral politics in parliamentary systems have their own kind of messiness, sometimes created by having too many competing parties and points of views, but there has to be a better alternative to this. If Trump doesn't get the Republican nomination I hope he makes it into the final debates as an independent. Seriously. He'd force the Republican nominee to be serious or piss off his base, and if the Republican candidate had any senses/he would ask Trump about his liberal views in the past, hopefully putting the Democratic candidate on the defensive to defend positions as well. Who knows, maybe they'd end up having a real conversation...all because of Donald Trump. Whoa. (photo courtesy of Buzz Feed)
How Bad Will it Get!?
From Mike in NYC comes the harbinger of our economic doom (from Fortune). Lower gas prices, excess corporate capital waiting to be invested, wages that are ticking up, Americans are even saving more! Can it get any worse, or are these signs of economic strength the good news we've needed?
For all the ongoing economic what-ifs and issues, we've actually been chugging along fairly well. Political whims and incompetencies aside, we Americans are a resilient bunch, and it almost seems as though much of the process we've made over the last few years restoring our economy has been done despite government, rather than with its help. I wonder how much better things could be if the government acted in ways that facilitated growth instead facilitating debt crises. (photo courtesy of Fortune Magazine)
Elle and Mackinac and Tigers, Oh My!
Today we have critters like America has guns. From Laura in Mississippi comes Elle (top left), Mackinac (top right), and the first ever cats of the week, Nina and Price (below). What can I even say about so many animals!?! Well for one thing I can tell you that Nina and Price are Bengal Tiger cubs from the zoo on the Mississippi gulf coast, a zoo with a sterling reputation for treating its animals well and having the cutest baby tigers ever.
As for Elle and Mack, well you can tell they're just as friendly with one another as Nina and Price. Mack is the elder statesman of the group, and Elle is the athlete, a swimmer and fetcher extraordinaire! What makes Elle's athletic prowess even more incredible is that she is nearly blind! When asked about this, Elle shrugged it off and simply said, "I'm a dog, I see with my nose."
Thanks, Laura, for sharing Elle, Mack, Nina, and Price!
Time for Kickoff
Remember, Sundays are for football. And Saturdays. Weekends are for football. So enjoy your weekends, kickoff is almost here!
