People, not Guns

Guns. There is currently no more emotional issue in the US and nothing that polarizes more. You’re either in favor of guns or you aren’t, and if you’re in favor of them the ownership of a gun is probably viewed as a fundamental right. There isn’t much room for compromise.

Into this debate we have a nearly constant litany of shootings, sometimes with legal weapons and sometimes not. President Obama has decided to act where he can, more or less working on tightening up the existing background check laws and enforcing them more uniformly and rigorously.

There was a time when gun advocates called for us to “enforce existing laws” rather than write new ones, but even this action is controversial. But it shouldn’t be.

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Not Our (big) Fight

Welcome to 2016 – when the actual election starts. It would be easy to say it will be the news story of the year. But as important as it will be a bigger story is developing, as it did in 2015.

The conflict between Sunni and Shia Islam is more than a millenium old. It resonates today because the region is emerging, as so many other developing nations are, away from the thumb of Western influences.

It’s not our fight – and we can probably only make it worse. But it will be hard to stay out of.

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Happy New Year!

With 2015 out of the way, it’s time to look forward. But as we’ve shown many times, the best way to draw a line into the future is an extrapolation from the past. Such is the real tradition at New Year’s – looking back and ahead at the same time.

Besides, the stillness of the present time moment is usually more of a hangover.

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