;)
The Commentariat -- Nov. 28, 2015
Internal links removed.
Julie Turkewitz & Jack Healy of the New York Times: "A gun battle erupted inside a Planned Parenthood center here on Friday when a man armed with an assault-style rifle opened fire and began shooting at officers as they rushed to the scene. The authorities reported that three people were killed, a police officer and two civilians, and nine were wounded before the suspect finally surrendered more than five hours after the first shots were fired. A police official in Colorado Springs, who was not authorized to speak, identified the man in custody as Robert Lewis Dear, 59. No other information about him was available." ...
... President Obama's statement. ...
The Denver Post gathered statements from public & private officials. CW: Nearly every one was "prayers, blah-blah-blah." Here are two exceptions, cited in part:
We need to call the threats of violence and the intimidation of health care providers and patients what it is — domestic terrorism. And more public officials in Colorado and across the country, not just advocacy groups and the people on the front lines, need to take a stand opposing domestic terrorism and supporting women's health. -- Karen Middleton, Executive Director of NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado
This clinic is part of the Planned Parenthood Rocky Mountains affiliate, which was featured in one of the highly-edited smear videos released this summer. Since that video, the affiliate has seen an increase in protesters and death threats against one of their doctors. -- National Abortion Federation
... Ashley Feinberg of Gawker: "While Colorado police were apprehending the Planned Parenthood shooting suspect Friday night, Fox News was busy ensuring its level of discourse met our most base expectations. Which, of course, amounts to little more than: Thanks, Obama.... Frequent Fox News contributor, former NYPD cop, and professional smear-man Bo Dietl was commenting on the then-active crisis unfolding in Colorado when he had what can best be described as incomprehensible, waking stroke." Dietl's comment or whatever is cited in full. ...
... Steve M.: "Dietl's reply, as the Gawker post notes, is war-porn word salad -- but the point he makes is clear enough. It's also clear that Dietl isn't going off on a rant on his own volition -- the segment is set up to raise this issue.... So the Obama administration expressed some skepticism about police militarization, therefore a Planned Parenthood siege proves that Ialamicists are going to kill us all. In reality, as the Denver Post reports, heavy equipment was used to deal with this situation.... This is what Roger Ailes considers the most important mission of Fox News: to mine every single news story for a real or imagined examples of liberal evil and perfidy." ...
... D. R. Tucker in the Washington Monthly: "This case may prove yet again that in America, we always have to be on guard for heavily armed, self-radicalized religious extremists who believe they have the right to take lives in the name of their faith and who pose a perpetual threat to homeland security — and I’m not talking about ISIS." ...
... CW: There's this headline from Leon Wolf of Red State: "Planned Parenthood Shooter Finally Convinces Leftists that Beliefs Matter." No link. ...
... Nina Liss-Schultz of Mother Jones: "The attack comes amid an exponential increase in threats and violence against abortion providers since the release of a series of viral — and widely debunked — videos.... Since the release of the Center for Medical Progress' videos that purport to show Planned Parenthood selling fetal issue, harassment, threats, and attacks against abortion providers, their staff, and facilities have surged dramatically across the country, according to new numbers from the National Abortion Federation." ...
... From the Colorado Springs Gazette, linked below: 7:30 pm MT, Nov. 27: "UCCS has confirmed Garrett Swasey, 44, a six-year veteran of the UCCS Police, was killed in Friday's shooting." ...
... From the Colorado Springs Gazette, linked below: 7:00 pm MT: "Lt. Catherine Buckley of the Colorado Springs Police Department confirms two civilians and a UCCS police officer died in Friday's shooting. Four civilians and five officers were transported to hospitals with gunshot wounds. All are in good condition." ...
... From the Colorado Springs Gazette, linked below: 6:00 pm MT: "Multiple news outlets are reporting fatalities in Friday's shooting at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood building. Gazette news partner KKTV reports that a University of Colorado at Colorado Springs officer was killed; 9News in Denver reported that one officer and one civilian are dead." ...
... Jennifer Shutt & Nolan McCaskill of Politico: "Vicki Cowart, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Rocky Mountains, released a statement expressing sympathy for those involved and urging restraint given how much is not yet know about why the shooting took place. 'We don't yet know the full circumstances and motives behind this criminal action, and we don't yet know if Planned Parenthood was in fact the target of this attack,' she said. 'We share the concerns of many Americans that extremists are creating a poisonous environment that feeds domestic terrorism in this country.'” ...
... Also from the Politico report: "Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) tweeted "Please join me offering thoughts & prayers to family & friends of the UCCS police officer & civilian killed during the #CentennialBlShooting." CW: Lamborn, who is a lying, reactionary Planned Parenthood foe, can't even bring himself to acknowledge that the massacre took place at a Planned Parenthood clinic. He is as guilty as anyone for spreading the lies that well may have inspired the shooter. So there's Doug, asking you to pray for victims of his own hate speech. ...
... Lindsey Bever, et al., of the Washington Post: "A suspect is in police custody following an hours-long ordeal at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colo., where at least five police officers and six civilians were injured in a shooting Friday. 'The perpetrator is in custody,” Mayor John Suthers declared just after 5 p.m. local time — more than five hours after an active shooter was first reported at the health-care clinic.... Police described the gunman as a stocky, bearded white male wearing a trench coat and armed with 'a long gun.'... At least 11 people were transported from the scene to local hospitals, officials said. Their conditions were not known, and no fatalities were reported at the time of the suspect’s capture.” ...
... Noel Black & Christine Hauser of the New York Times: "A gunman inside a Planned Parenthood center [in Colorado Springs, Colorado,] was exchanging gunfire with the police, the authorities said on Friday, after an hours long shooting spree that left at least eight people injured including four officers. People in the surrounding buildings, including the clinic, were told to shelter in place." (Same link as updated NYT story by Turkewitz & Healy above.) ...
... The Denver Post story, by Jesse Paul & others, is here. Includes video report. ...
... The Colorado Springs Gazette is posting live updates. ...
... Sadie Gurman of the AP: "Police were searching for a gunman Friday who opened fire near a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs." ...
... CW: And excuse me while I blame these insane acts of violence on every person who has lied about Planned Parenthood, including the makers of the recent faked videos, the Members of Congress & other politicians who have smeared Planned Parenthood for no reason other than their own political gain. That would include Carly Fiorina. Not fair? I think it is. ...
... News Corpse in Daily Kos: "Once again, the people who watch Fox News are demonstrating their appalling lack of decency and, ironically in this case, respect for human life.... In the heat of this live crisis the Fox News website is hosting some of the most nauseating responses imaginable. They run the gamut of hateful rhetoric from anti-choice extremism ('Too bad the abortion doctor and the nursing staff weren't all killed.') to overt racism ('I know this isn't PC....but n***gers are just plain bad news.'). Never mind that there is little information about the shooter or his motives (he has been identified in one report as a white male), the Fox News audience is focused entirely on their inbred hostilities toward minorities, women, and President Obama, whom some are accusing of setting this up."
Cristina Marcos of the Hill: "Republicans are eyeing an upcoming government spending bill as their best leverage for pausing the Obama administration’s refugee resettlement program in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in Paris. Some GOP lawmakers are already saying they'll vote against the catchall spending bill, known as an omnibus, if it doesn't block funds for refugee resettlement for people coming from Syria and nearby regions in the Middle East." ...
By Brian McFadden, published in Daily Kos.
Dana Milbank: Even though the Affordable Care Act requires insurers to cover mental health issues on parity with physical illnesses, too few mental health professionals are willing to see patients. "... psychiatrists, many of whom stopped taking insurance because of the paltry reimbursements, have yet to rejoin the system.... Thankfully, a bipartisan group in Congress is trying to fix this. The 'Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act,' introduced by Rep. (and psychologist) Tim Murphy (R-Pa.) and Rep. (and psychiatric nurse) Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Tex.), attempts, among other things, to reinforce community mental-health programs. It has 165 co-sponsors and has already cleared a commerce subcommittee. Similar legislation by Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.) attempts to expand the mental-health workforce.
Alex Byers of Politico: "The National Security Agency will no longer be able to collect phone records in bulk starting Nov. 29, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in a statement Friday. The program's closure was required by the USA Freedom Act, signed by President Barack Obama in early June. The program was allowed to continue since then as part of a six-month wind-down period, in which intelligence officials could create and test a new phone records program where the government can only obtain records connected to a specific entity like a person or device that is associated with a foreign power or terrorist group."
Peter Hermann & Rees Shapiro of the Washington Post: "A Connecticut man who police say draped himself in an American flag and scaled the White House fence on Thanksgiving Day left a suicide note with friends he had been staying with in Virginia, according to court documents unsealed Friday. D.C. Superior Court Judge Errol R. Arthur ordered the suspect, Joseph Anthony Caputo, 23, to undergo an emergency psychiatric evaluation at St. Elizabeths Hospital."
Presidential Race
GOP Candidates Find New Way to Be Racists. Abby Phillip & Katie Zezima of the Washington Post: "... many GOP presidential candidates are calling for an end to one of [the 'war on drugs''] central tenets — by agreeing with Democrats to treat low-level drug offenders rather than incarcerating them. The Republicans are selective, however, about who is deserving of their compassion. Several GOP presidential contenders have advocated treating the nation’s growing heroin epidemic as a health crisis, not a criminal one. But most stop short of advocating the same approach to other drug laws, notably those involving marijuana and crack cocaine, which disproportionately affect African Americans.... The heroin epidemic has overwhelmingly hit whites. It has also skyrocketed to the top of voters’ lists of political priorities in the same bands of America — rural states, the suburbs and notably the early voting state of New Hampshire — that track directly with where Republicans must perform well to win back the White House next year."
The Gray Lady Is Shocked (And Cannot Type Those Words that Are the Subject of Her Story). Matt Flegenheimer & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "A little more than two months before the voting begins, the [Republican] candidates have charged into what appears to be the inaugural profanity primary, wrought by an overstuffed field of competitors vying for attention and the specter of a foul-mouthed Manhattanite perched atop the polls.... The outbursts make clear the extent to which Mr. Trump, the election’s clear pacesetter in vulgarity, continues to dictate the tenor of the race. the outbursts make clear the extent to which Mr. Trump, the election’s clear pacesetter in vulgarity, continues to dictate the tenor of the race. The outbursts make clear the extent to which Mr. Trump, the election’s clear pacesetter in vulgarity, continues to dictate the tenor of the race.... Such frequent, deliberate cursing by presidential candidates addressing campaign audiences in this election cycle seems to be without modern precedent."
Sarah Ferris of the Hill: "The presidential campaign is reigniting the battle over importing prescription drugs from Canada, with all of the leading Democratic candidates endorsing the idea. Calls for allowing people to buy directly from Canadian pharmacies are also intensifying from some Republicans in Congress, including Sens. John McCain (Ariz.) and Chuck Grassley (Iowa). But the drug industry remains dead-set against allowing importation, and it's unclear whether voter support will translate into legislative action."
Bradford Richardson of the Hill: "A Reuters poll released Friday finds that GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump has dropped 12 points in less than a week, his largest single poll-to-poll drop since he took the primary lead in July. Trump was still the favorite among 31 percent of Republicans in a rolling Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted from Nov. 23 to Nov. 27, but down from 43 percent support registered on Nov. 22." ...
I have the world's greatest memory. It's one thing everyone agrees on. -- Donald Trump, October 28
Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "The New York Daily News released an archived news article on Friday that seemed to contradict a claim by Donald J. Trump that he knew nothing about a reporter whose disability Mr. Trump appeared to mock at a rally earlier this week. The reporter, Serge Kovaleski, said Thursday that he covered Mr. Trump numerous times while he was at The Daily News, including on a daylong maiden voyage of the now-defunct 'Trump Shuttle' in 1989. 'Donald and I were on a first-name basis for years,' [Kovaleski] said...." ...
Serge Kovaleski must think a lot of himself if he thinks I remember him from decades ago — if I ever met him at all, which I doubt I did. He should stop using his disability to grandstand and get back to reporting for a paper that is rapidly going down the tubes. -- Donald Trump ...
... Maggie Haberman: "'Now the poor guy, you ought to see this guy,' Mr. Trump said [at a South Carolina rally], before jerking his arms around and holding his right hand at an angle.... In his statement on Thursday, Mr. Trump maintained that he had never met Mr. Kovaleski. 'I have no idea who this reporter, Serge Kovalski [sic], is, what he looks like or his level of intelligence,' Mr. Trump said."
Taylor Luck, et al., of the Washington Post: "... Ben Carson arrived in the Jordanian capital on Friday afternoon with plans to tour two Syrian refugee camps over the next day, according to several people familiar with the trip.... The trip comes ... veiled in secrecy and uncertainty about his purpose and his schedule."
Elizabeth Preza of Mediaite: "Former mayor of New York Mike Bloomberg told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz 'says some of the stupidest things' he’s ever heard about climate change. 'Even the right-wing crazies no longer say climate change isn’t real. They say "it’s natural, it’s not business, not man-made,'” Bloomberg told Amanpour....
Beyond the Beltway
Aamer Madhani of USA Today: "Protesters took to the streets in the midst of Black Friday shopping on Chicago's iconic Magnificent Mile as they continue to make their push for broad reforms in the Windy City in the wake of a police video showing a white police officer fatally shooting a black teenager 16 times.... Friday's protests drew hundreds that crowded North Michigan Avenue, a shopping strip that includes high-end retailers ... on traditionally one of the busiest shopping days of the year." ...
** American "Justice," Ctd. Conor Friedersdorf of the Atlantic: "As [Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke] faces murder charges, there remains a need to demand accountability for the Chicagoans complicit in the injustice he perpetrated.... Protestors want accountability for investigators whose inexplicable slowness allowed Van Dyke to remain on desk detail and to collect a paycheck from taxpayers. And the civic derelictions of duty run even deeper. They implicate Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the city council, Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy, rank-and-file cops, Pat Camden, who leads Chicago’s Fraternal Order of Police, and members of the press who credulously report police-union talking points." Read the full article. ...
... Robinson Meyer of the Atlantic: "Would body cameras have made justice speedier for Laquan McDonald? Not without new laws.... With the exception of the metropolitan police in Washington, D.C., no major American city — not New York, not Los Angeles, not Houston, Miami, or Baltimore — allows people recorded by body cameras to have access to footage of themselves. These cities prohibit access to footage even if someone on film, or a survivor from their immediate family, is filing a complaint.... The crimes that the city of Chicago committed in the case of Laquan McDonald appear to go much further than its handling of open-records law. But this is not the last time that the city or its civic servants will commit those crimes."
In the Spirit of the Season. David Boroff & Nicole Hensley of the New York Daily News: "Call it Black-eye Friday. Brawls broke out at Walmart retail stores and other shopping centers across the country on Thursday evening, the official start of 'Black Friday.' In Kentucky, Texas and Louisiana, tempers flared among shoppers as law enforcement agencies struggled to keep control." CW: Do read Bob Cesca's piece, linked in yesterday's Commentariat.
A Turkey for Your Vote. Ashley Parker of the New York Times: Libre, a Koch-funded group, handed out turkeys & offered free flu shots to Miami Hispanics in exchange for the recipients giving the group their personal information. "Libre, reflecting the Koch’s views, supports a broad overhaul of the immigration system, including a path to citizenship. It waged a campaign in support of the Senate’s 2013 immigration effort, including airing in excess of $1 million in television ads.... But the group has also ... rais[ed] concerns about some of President Obama’s more sweeping executive actions on immigration, and by pouring money into House races to help defeat two Hispanic lawmakers — Pete P. Gallego of Texas and Joe Garcia of Florida, both Democrats — because they supported the president’s health care plan, among other issues Libre opposes." ...
... CW: Maybe somebody should have told the Koch boyz that under ObamaCare, of which they're so opposed, most insurance plans pay for flu shots with no co-pay.
Allison Manning of the Boston Globe: "A former Millis[, Massachusetts,] police officer who was facing felony charges after police said he lied about a shooting and bomb threat was found dead in his home on Thanksgiving, according to the Norfolk County district attorney’s office. Bryan Johnson, 24, had been indicted last week on charges related to the hoax. Johnson told police on Sept. 2 that he was in his cruiser when a driver in a pickup truck shot at him twice, leading the police officer to drive his cruiser into the woods."
Travis Gettys of the Raw Story: "An enraged Waffle House customer shot and killed a waitress early Friday who asked him not to smoke."
Andrew Husband of Mediaite: "The famous dancing traffic cop of Providence, Rhode Island was fired after he organized a protest against the Black Lives Matter movement. According to the Providence Journal, Tony Lepore organized a protest of a local Dunkin’ Donuts coffee shop after a worker there wrote #BlackLivesMatter on a cop’s coffee cup in October. He was terminated as a result."
Way Beyond
Andrew Roth of the Washington Post: "The Kremlin on Friday played down the possibility of a grand coalition with the West to strike the Islamic State in Syria, despite personal visits by French President François Hollande to both Washington and Moscow following a spate of horrific terrorist attacks tied to the terrorist group. 'At the moment, unfortunately, our partners are not ready to work as one coalition,' Dmitry Peskov, President Vladimir Putin’s personal spokesman, told reporters during a conference call on Friday." ...
>Ceylan Yeginsu of the New York Times: "Turkey took steps on Friday to calm relations with Russia over the shooting down of a Russian warplane this week, calling for a presidential-level meeting, possibly at the climate talks in Paris next week. 'I would like to meet Putin face to face in Paris,' President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a speech on Friday, referring to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. 'I would like to bring the issue to a reasonable point. We are disturbed that the issue has been escalated.'”
The trouble with naming your daughter after Egypt's most important ancient goddess.
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Reader Comments (17)
I was shocked to hear the description of the PP terrorist. I expected a three year old Syrian refugee.
We don't officially know the motive, but this looks like the the Republican Party is America's version of ISIS.
One officer is dead. Welcome to America the land of the free and home of the scum.
This is the context paragraph on the PP murderous rampage:
"The shooting came at a time when Planned Parenthood has been criticized because of surreptitious videos of officials discussing using fetal organs for research."
Really, NYT? That's the best you can do "surreptitious " videos, not "false, doctored propaganda pieces?"
Their coverage makes me absolutely sick. Decent people are being gunned down because of a climate of hate abetted by the media coverage and the Times is not helping one bit.
Victoria, totally agree. I wonder if the terrorist knew that fetal tissue is the method for the development of Polio vaccine saving a half a million lives a year.
Think like a wingnut:
The 'real terrorists' are the murderous fanatics of Planned Parenthood, gleefully slaughtering and butchering all those innocent little babies for fun and profit.
Well, OK, it's not thought exactly...
"HOLIDAY EXPRESS"
It's not unusual - especially living in a large city and multi-unit apartment buildings - to find items in one's mailbox that were not intended for you.
Along with some redundant junk mail - despite Cease & Desist letters and phone calls. I discovered a Christmas catalog whose cover illustrations & initials I did not recognize, titled "HOLIDAY EXPRESS".
Colorful Xmas tree as background. Hearth hung with cheery red & fleece-trimmed stockings. Holiday-wrapped gifts set before a working fireplace. And the foreground encircled by a toy train carrying cargo unrecognizable to me.
Call me SHTOOPID if you must, but it took me a while to figure out that the initials N R A did not represent a new online clothier or candied fruit purveyor.
I knew that no one who knew me would send this as a prank. (Though there was a split-second recollection of a sociopath from a long ago acting class who had stalked me.). When I turned the catalogue over, I saw that our apartment numbers were identical but belonged to a building a few doors east of ours. (Of course, I now wonder who "_____ __ _____ Jr" is, since he's just a stone's throw away.)
One can purchase an NRA ALL-WEATHER TACTICAL HARD CASE, which is "designed to cradle your firearms in a protective cocoon".
There's also a nifty NRA COVERT ANKLE HOLSTER, which receives "high marks for its comfort and for its versatility" (kindly note these items are all commercially photographed).
In kind consideration of lefties (side dominance), there's an NRA AMBIDEXTROUS SLIDE HOLSTER that "is designed to fit nearly any semi-auto handgun."
There are pages & pages of tee-shirts (with emphatic slogans), telephoto lenses & goggles, knives, hatchets and - oh yes - books: So far, my fave is LEGALLY ARMED 2, whose cover is the singular one featuring a *female* body, poised quick-on-the-draw.
And "100% of the profits from this catalogue go directly to support vital NRA programs" (shoot-outs at Planned Parenthood clinics come to mind).
There is also a first-page greeting - with photo - from Wayne LaPierre.
I make a habit of hand-delivering mislaid mail (I once received a very elderly woman's Social Security check (!): She wanted to adopt me, she was so thankful). In this instance, I'll leave it for the mail carrier to make the correction . . . and possibly - discreetly - see if I suss out who this arms enthusiast is. I mean - Hey! The dude's only a few doors away.
Ophelia M.
How, oh how, can we persuade the press and our elected officials to stop referring to us as "civilians" in contrast to police. THE POLICE ARE CIVILIANS TOO, not soldiers. Or not yet, but are evolving toward military both in language and equipment. Not a good trend.
No one could look at Dear's booking photo (I assume it's a booking photo) and not immediately recognize the batshit crazy. Great, we can now move directly to mental illness, blah blah blah and bypass the more on point issues of the easy and insistently encouraged access to guns and constant fomenting of hate and violence. Dear may be crazy, but who's the most culpable when someone constantly whispers in a paranoid's ear that everyone is after you.
Perhaps it's the grey cold day outside but I find the commentariat particularly depressing today. But I think it's because all the news is not new news it's deja, deja deja news. Corruption, moral bankruptcy, mass murder, all of it.
How can American's want to shop for drugs in Canada? Any article in Canada about drug prices questions why we pay in dollars what other countries pay in nickles (pennies no longer legal tender here) The solution seems to be moving drug price negotiations from the provincial to the federal level. Course that's an option not available in America.
Diane;
Indeed, and I’d like to pass along this absolutly brilliant obversation and introduction to the term: “Stochastic terrorism” by Valerie Tarico:
http://valerietarico.com/2015/11/28/christianist-republicans-systematically-incited-colorado-clinic-assault/
RE: “Stochastic terrorism” by Valerie Tarico
Thank you, asa watcher, for sharing this piece.
The title of the Valerie Tarico piece "Christianist Republicans Systematically Incited Colorado Clinic Assault" says it all.
As I said before, the Republicans are now the American form of ISIS. Same game, same outcome.
BTW, I am getting a little paranoid over the fact that they have released no info on dead or wounded except cops.
Excuse me now, I have to make another contribution to Planned Parenthood.
Tarico's piece should be required reading for all Democratic candidates. I'd love to see "stochastic terrorism" become common vernacular, starting with Obama. As much good as it is likely to do, I've sent the link to my squishy Congressional rep, Ami Bera. Thanks Asa Watcher.
NYTimes header this PM: "Obama's Legacy at Stake in Paris Talks on Climate Accord."
I can't say how tired I am of this kind of empty-headed construction!
Obama's legacy this and Obama's legacy that. If not climate issues, then the ACA; if not the ACA then immigration--all as if the world's climate issues, the matter of health care or its lack for millions, and the manifold immigration questions we have failed to meet and resolve affected only one person and the abstraction of his legacy, which history, by the way, will gladly take care of without the help of news writers.
I'm more than tired of it, angry about it really, because it promotes a childish perception of social issues, which are by definition about far more than one person, most often in this teeming world millions of people, as little more than one-man show, with consequences not extending beyond that one person's skin or eventual reputation.
Outside the fair and balanced world of Faux News and the standard Right Wing "news" sites, which make their living by lying, I can think of no more effective way to diminish and dismiss the extent and gravity of the the immensely consequential challenges that face both our nation and the world.
We are not children and we do not live in a playground, though we continue to write headlines as if we did.
And the Times and the AP do it over and over again.
Is it arrested development or what?
I agree that Valeria Tarico's piece should be required reading, for everyone. But Bob Dylan captured this idea of stochastic terrorism back in 1963 in his song "Only a Pawn in Their Game," about the shot-in-the-back assassination of Medgar Evers, the civil rights activist. Part of the final verse:
"... when the shadowy sun sets on the one
that fired the gun
He'll see by his grave ...
His epitaph plain:
Only a pawn in their game."
Whilst the focus is quite rightly on the massacre in Colorado, I am dismayed by the execution of a waitress in a Waffle House. So awful and so predictable. How can we live like this? Afraid of the public, afraid to do our jobs, in diners, in bars, in medical centres, anywhere. This, too, is terrorism.
I'd like to join with others in thanking assa for the interesting Stochastic Terrorism piece.
And @Ophelia–-loved your description of that spiffy magazine you received–-my favorite: AmiDextrous Slide Holster–––please let us know if you encounter the real receiver––but if you do, duck and cover!