When is this madness going to end?

When will the callous cowards in Congress begin to recognize that some of the blood spilled during the increasing number of mass shootings in this country is, to some extent, the result of the blood money they accept from the NRA. When will this madness end?

It has been said that one death is a tragedy, one million is a statistic. Charleston, Chattanooga, Lafayette have become the seemingly endless list of communities having to deal with what has become the new normal in an environment of unlimited access to guns - a condition fiercely defended by the NRA and gutless representatives who, on "principle", vote against any restrictions that could sensibly control that situation. Between 2000 and 2010 335,609 people died from guns in the United States. Every 17 minutes a person is killed by a firearm - 87 people on an average day. Those are the statistics, and these obviously don't even include the time period since 2010. Mass killings appear to have become increasingly prominent. In addition to the above, consider Sandy Hook, Isla Vista, Aurora, to add just a few. I suppose Lafayette does not meet the statistical measurement of being considered a  "mass killing", since according to a 2013 law we define those calamities as killings

 of three or more people. Shooters are not included in the stastistic.

After each one of these massacres politicians become active, passing laws protecting their standing with the gun lobby, and suggesting that if only more people would have had guns, these massacres would have been curtailed. Iowa, some time ago, passed a law stipulating that blind people can buy guns and carry them in public. Several municipalities even mandated their populations to own guns. Loaded guns are now allowed in bars in Tennessee, Arizona, Georgia, Virgiunia and Ohio. People bring their guns to school, church and social settings. After all, our Second Amendment - a relic of the distant past -supposedly allows us to own, carry, and do whatever we need to keep our guns. In the entire civilized world only Mexico and Guatemala have adopted similar provisions in their constitution. We don't have to want to eliminate the irrational stranglehold of the gun lobby on our lives. We can simply want to eliminate loopholes and establish rational restrictions on gun ownership. We are not just considering the 32,000 annual gun deaths in this country. Every time someone dies an entire support group suffers as well. What multiplier should we use to assess the real impact of each of these killings? Five, ten, fifteen? At what point are these numbers simply relegated to becoming statistics? When will we acknowledge that we are talking about real people?

The fanatics love to say: "When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns";  or "guns don't kill people, people kill people." These idiotic , circular, "arguments" may work on bumper stickers. They make no sense. People with guns kill people, and as far as the "outlaw" reference goes, I have a magnet on my refrigerator that states: "When lutefisk is outlawed only outlaws will have lutefisk." Tautological, circular, and not very helpful to the conversation.

It is very frustrating to continually ponder how we can frame the argument for sensible gun control and the closing of loopholes. The statistics continue to pile up. Perhaps we should consider letting our our representatives know that if they can't muster the courage to sensibly confront the issue, they are, in effect, facilitating these ubiquitous killings. Too harsh? Perhaps. However, we need to force the issue somehow.

Is Trump trumping himself - does anyone care?

It is probably a no-brainer to respond to Donald Trump's outbursts these days. The comments that are front and forward these days are the ones he uttered about John McCain's status as war hero.

It just seems that more people need to chime in. 

In last Sunday's New York Times Frank Bruni compared Donald Trump with Silvio Berlusconi in Italy. Obviously there are legitimate comparisons - wealth, power and ego being just some of these. However, Berlusconi actually has been a political power in Italy. Trump is just a wannabe. Let's face it, Donald Trump is a narcissistic windbag surrounded by discordant wind chimes who finally developed the courage to voice their disagreement with whatever comes out of his mouth. Most of his Republican  opponents in the presidential race are very happy he made the disparaging comments he made last Saturday. The only contestant not too happy, I suppose, is Hillary Clinton, who benefitted from the extreme move towards the right in the Republican Party. The latest poll still has Trump at 24%, well ahead of Walker and Bush.

Let's see where it all ends up. The contest is getting more interesting. 

EMPATHY IS A CHOICE - ENTER ROTARY

It has been said that one death is a tragedy. One million is a statistic. We appear to have the ability to empathize with individual tragedies. However, when confronting large numbers of suffering people, as in epidemics, earthquakes or genocides we often choose to react less empathetically.

Enter service clubs like Rotary. Service clubs have the ability to harness our collective empathy, and through their size essentially reduce the apparent enormity of overwhelming odds to manageable proportions.

Consider that at this point in time there are 60 million refugees world-wide. 14,000 People die from diseases related to contaminated water - EVERY DAY. 18,000 Kids die from hunger and malnutrition  - EVERY DAY. That is 1.5 million a year. 700 Million people live with disabilities. 20% of the world's poorest people have some kind of disability. 775 Million can't read - 66% of these are women. 32 Million live in the United States.

It is very easy to become overwhelmed by these statistics, throw up your hands, and do nothing. But here comes the strength of service clubs like Rotary. With 35,000 clubs and 1.2 million committed, compassionate members, rotarians are able to make a difference. Rotarians are able to pool the assets everyone brings to the table and effect greater impact.

Back in the 1950s over 55,000 new polio cases developed in the United States. Every year 50,000 plus kids died from polio, and thousands more were crippled, paralyzed or suffered lifeling disabilities. Rotary began to undertake an eradication effort 25 years ago. At the time the estimate was that the project would cost $100 million dollars, and  500 million kids needed to be immunized. Initially the organization set a fundraising goal of $120 million. Two years later, in 1987, that goal was surpassed, with $240 million raised. Rotary linked up with the World Health Organization, and in 1988 the inoculation program was well under way. At that time you would find polio in 125 nations, and every year  350,000 new cases broke out. Since that time, with financial help from the Gates Foundation, over 2 billion children have received Rotary's polio vaccine. They are now living a life without the fear of paralysis and death from polio. In fact only three countries still report new polio cases - Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria. The rest of the world is polio free. What once was an overwhelming statistic was reduced to manageable levels, harnessing our collective empathy and affecting the lives of real people.

Rotary has many stories like this. Individual clubs choose objectives they can confront within their own means. As an example, consider the Rotary Club of Watsonville, California. During its last fiscal year the club produced sufficient funds to give 15,000 kids the opportunity to live polio free; install a water purification system in San Lucas, Guatemala, where, up to that point one third of children under sixteen  died from diseases related to polluted water sources; support a health initiative in a remote area of India giving hundreds of families a chance for a better life, and locally the club spent close to $100,000 on scholarships, infrastructure improvements in schools, literacy programs and support for organizations like Boy Scouts, Papas, the Pajama Project and others.

Multiply this effort by 35,000 clubs, and the potential is enormous. Service clubs like Rotary allow us to show empathy and make a difference in the lives of people who, most often of  no fault of their own, are suffering from the many inequities of every day lives in many parts of the world. Without these   clubs many of these people just become statistics.

Ignorance permeates the conversation about the Iran deal

It seems pathetic how much ignorance is driving the agitation against ratification of the recently concluded Iran deal. Much of the mindless opposition is guided by sound-bites and platitudes generated by candidates running in the 2016 presidential election, none of whom were involved in the discussion leading up to this, and most of whom had no contact whatsoever with any of its key players.

Madeleine Albright suggested, rightly so, that the critics should take the time to study the deal before spouting off on its contents.

Let's look at some of the facts that should be front and center:

1. Since 1979 sanctions on Iran have constantly increased, culminating in sanctions imposed by the United Nations in 2006 - signed off on by Russia and China as well - specifically targeting Iran's uranium enrichment program. Yet, according to the best intelligence we have, Iran is now only 6 months away from developing the capability to field a nuclear weapon.

2. Sanctions are unraveling. Russia announced in April that it will go forward with an old contract selling Iran an air defense system. Iran's Day Bank has already been re-admitted to the international financial system.

3. The agreement is not just between the U.S. and Iran - it was negotiated between the U.S., England, France, Germany, Russia, China and Iran. Even if we renege, chances are that the other participants will go forward with it. Merkel, Hollande, Cameron, Putin and Jinping do not need our congressional consent.

4. Regardless of Netanyahu's political grandstanding, Israel is not in danger of annihilation, and arguably less so after the deal goes into effect than it is currently. Israel has the nuclear arsenal to defend itself if need be. It possesses hundreds of nuclear warheads, and it is not bound by the Nuclear Non-Prolifiration Treaty, since it decided not to be a signatory. (Iran is!).

The information just received was that Netanyahu will aggressively attempt to convince Congress to reject the deal with a veto proof majority.

5. Saudi Arabia is predominantly concerned with the potential of dropping oil prices if and when Iran again enters that market.

6. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, a nuclear scientist by training who participated in the negotiations, agrees that the agreement is verifiable even if some of the inspections require a lag time of several weeks.

In short, this agreement considerably improves the status quo. Nothing our Congress does will change the situation on the ground. Foreign policy should not be driven by platitudes and sound-bites. Ignorance is no excuse, it isn't bliss, it is a curse. Do as former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright suggested - study the content, and make up your mind about the merits of the deal intelligently.

Nikki Haley and Hillary Clinton are displaying political courage

This morning two politically courageous decisions stood out to me, and all of our poltical leaders should take a page from the book of these two individuals.

Governor Nikki Haley of South Carolina deserved being in the limelight at the taking down of the Confederate Battle Flag from the front of her State Capitol. Without her courageous leadership this would not have happened, at least not yet. She was able to move the envelope in her state, potentially incurring negative political fall-out.

I also took heart from Hillary Clinton's decision to face the gun lobby head on and make sensible gun control measures an active topic during the upcoming campaign. The NRA stubbornly opposes any control and restrictions on gun ownership - regardless of the 32,000 killings that take place in our country every year - and the issue is politically hyper-sensitive. Her stance probably won't have repercussions for her during the Democratic Party primary, but it could have consequences during the general election, if she gets there. Hillary's husband, President Clinton, and President Obama stayed away from this topic during their election campaigns, fearing adverse political consequences.

These two women showed leadership qualities missing in all the politicians too scared to confront the ignorant rants from that narcissistic bagpipe Donald Trump - perhaps too afraid to get into a public shouting match with him.

Cowardice is not what we look for in our leaders. Having said that, ignorance is a curse, not a crime. Anyone has the right to display it - even Trump.

Marriage equality receives support during traditional marriage ceremonies

Lasty weekend I attended my niece's marriage in Napa. During the dinner following the (traditional) wedding ceremony the couple circulated a framed document the content of which expressed strong support for marriage equality. I experienced an emotional response to their sympathetic gesture. While having been involved in a happy traditional marriage for 35 years, my wife and I have recognized the struggle, despair, bias and condemnation same-sex couples have had to endure over time. All of us have friends and family members impacted by ugly and hostile expressions from, essentially insecure, people when they find out they are gay. This simple gesture gave us hope that we are finally getting somewhere.

This is what was circulated:

"We felt that the timeliness of this historic event needed to be shared with our loved ones on our historic night. As we raise our glasses to celebrate our commitment to each other, we also celebrate our strong belief that the love between any two people should never be questioned nor should the right to marry have ever been restricted." Signed - Michael and Nancy

The statement continues with the following quote:

"No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highesty ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization's oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right. The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is reversed."  Signed - Justice Anthony Kennedy

It's time to bring sensible gun control back to the top of the agenda

Another massacre and 9 more families suffering from the effects of easy access to guns. If history repeats, our elected representatives will again assume the ostrich position and do nothing.

Two weeks after 35 people were killed in a gun massacre in Tasmania, then Australian prime minister John Howard ushered in a semi-automatic weapon ban. In 1996 a massacre in a Scottish school in Dunblane killed 16 children and one teacher. The following year the private ownership of most handguns was banned in Britain. The day after the Sandy Hook massacre killed 26 in Newtown, Connecticut, demand for assault weapons exploded. One gun shop owner reported that he sold more AR-15 and AK-47 rifles in one week than he normally would sell in a year. Our preoccupation with guns has reached insane proportions. We already own 9 guns for every 10 citizens, totalling 270 million, 30% of the entire world's privately owned firearms.

We lose 31,000 family members to gun violence every year. That is approximately 85 deaths per day. By contrast Great Britain  registers 42 similar deaths per year. On a per capita basis our death rate attributable to firearms is 9.0 per 100,000 population. Japan is at 0.07 and the UK at 0.22. One could legiyimately argue that the reasons behind these morbid statistics, which distinguish us from all other developed countries, is accessibility, the Second Amendment, the National Rifle Association, and perhaps a residual frontier mentality.

The NRA has 4.2 million members who provide in excess of $100 million in membership fees. The organization likes to present itself as a membership organization. In reality it is a lobbying group with immense political leverage funded largely by the gun industry. It has managed to keep congress from adopting effective gun control legislation. Even after Sandy Hook its articulated positiiion has been that to combat similar massacres - and we have had dozens since then - we need more guns. Its members object to restrictions on private ownership of any type of firearm, including rocket launchers. They fiercely object to a national gun registry because they feel that this would allow the government access to information that could be used to confiscate their weapons. They object to mandating background checks when guns are acquired from anyone other than licensed gun dealers, which covers 40% of total gun sales. Their opposition always comes back to a firearm friendly interpretation of "Second Amendment rights."

The Second Amendment, adopted in 1791, was modeled on a condition found in the English Bill of Rights of 1689. In it the king was prohibited from disarming his subjects. During a very tempestuous period leading up to adopting the Bill of Rights, king JamesII, a catholic, attempted to disarm his protestant opposition. During our revolutionary period the fear of being disarmed was real, and the amendment was an understandable reaction to that fear. Since that time the confusing, convoluted language of the amendment has gone through various interpretations of the founders intent, focusing on collective versus individual rights to own firearms. The issue, for the time being, was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in a 6-4 decision in D.C. vs. Heller in 2008 when it sided with individual rights.

Although the Supreme Court decided in favor of private gun ownership, there is no reason why this right can't be reasonably regulated. The sheer magnitude of the numbers involved makes it unlikely that we can take all guns out of circulation. Besides, few would argue against ownership of guns for gaming. However, military weapons belong with the military. Private clubs could be organized where enthusiasts could go to shoot assault weapons and then leave without the guns. All dealers could be mandated to have a license to sell. Gun owners could be required to have an operating license, just like all of us who drive motor vehicles are required to have a license. A national gun registry could be inaugurated over the objection of the gun lobby. It would make things considerably easier for law enforcement. Background checks could be more exhaustive, and need to be required of anyone attempting to make a purchase, be it at a gun show, on line, or in a store. Finally, some weapons and high capacity ammunition feeding devices simply don't belong in private hands.

In short, if these calamities don't prompt us to change our pre-coccupation with guns and force sensible controls, what will? How many more need to be slaughtered before we wake up and get angry enough to demand change? If not now, when? We all need to contact our elected representatives and instruct them to move the issue back to the top of the agenda.