As Words Fail

The conversation among commuting comrades on the 94 bus turned to the San Bernadino shooting. More accurately, it turned toward it and then veered away:

“Can you believe this one?”
“It was like an place where they help developmentally disabled or something.”
“Yeah. That was messed up.”
“Totally.”

Details established, the words trailed off. Anything more was beyond us this Friday morning. The same conversation, more or less, repeated at work:

“They were a husband and wife.”
“Yeah, they had a six month old baby.”
“Unbelievable.”

From there it went nowhere. Where could it go? What was there left to say?

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Black Lives Matter

The Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests were forcefully removed from their 18 day encampment outside the Fourth Precinct in Minneapolis – and then took their protest to City Hall. In between they reiterated their demands – Release the tapes, appoint a special prosecutor with no grand jury to investigate the death of Jamar Clark, and institute a safety plan to protect Minneapolis residents from continued police violence.

It’s far from over and the problems did not start with the shooting of Clark by the Minneapolis police. This is a systemic problem and while it wasn’t the protesters’ choice this belongs squarely in City Hall at this point. It’s not about one incident with one police officer but a system, a city, that are not functioning anything like they must.

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People’s Economics

Numbers get boring fast, but people usually don’t. Everyone has a perspective on the world, a way of looking at things earned through their experience swimming through this world which seems to get more in-your-face and crazy every day.

That’s why it’s time to take this show away from the ‘net, a medium that favors numbers and charts, and into a world full of people sharing their experiences freestyle. That’s what People’s Economics is about. The show is set – December 2, 9, and 16 at the Sidhe Brewing Company on St Paul’s up and coming Eastside.

Ready for this? I am! Your chair is still available and the weather looks like it’ll be clear!

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Violence at the Core

Another week, another shooting. This one at a Planned Parenthood clinic, leaving three dead. The shooter, as is so often the case, was a white guy – a European-American – who in this case muttered, “No more baby parts” as he was led away. The reports that Planned Parenthood sold aborted fetuses for cash, long proven to be false, may have pushed him over the edge but that may be beside the point.

He was in a murderous state of mind. And that state is remarkably common among people of European descent.

Where we often site “Islamic Extremists” as being particularly violent, history tells us that those of us who come from European stock are much worse. It’s time we confront this problem and stop assigning the characteristic “violent” to others.

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