Joan Walsh published a gloom and doom political essay today that I unfortunately agree with. I don’t see any way to mend the fences between Red and Blue America. And I must say, I’m getting quite fed up with the minority of Americans telling the majority how things are going to be. The solutions are simple and obvious – terms limits for Congress and the Supreme Court and abolish the Electoral College. These two actions would move us into a more sane world where the majority of votes on an issue or a candidate would prevail. But getting those two things done in the current system is damn near impossible.

McSweeney’s has a good take on gun culture and “thoughts and prayers“. Here’s a quote directly from God:

At a certain point you need to have an honest conversation with yourself and ask whether you are praying to the God of love (me), or whether you’re praying and listening to a false God that cheers aggression, that encourages the blind worship of a document that was never meant to be worshipped and in fact was designed to be changed, that encourages responsibility for other people and immoral deflection for you, that rules through paranoia and fear, that views finding and killing innocent animals a good reason for why instruments of war should be readily available, that encourages arrogance and pride instead of compassion and listening, and that gives you power so that you can enrich yourselves instead of making the lives of others better.

Your prayers are pointless, your thoughts petty. The problem of too many guns won’t be solved by more guns. Part of the mourning process must involve direct political action, otherwise, the dead are not properly mourned for.

‘Nuff said.

In better news, how about a trip to the Bahamas in August? I’m seriously thinking about it – four UK basketball games at a world class island resort…sounds like heaven. This one might shove its way onto the bucket list Top 10.