Enough is enough, right Washington?

Maybe it’s the hundreds of poetry essays moving in red folders across my table in the AP Literature scoring room, or the company of hundreds of English teachers, all equally obsessed over words, but as soon as I saw this morning’s headline on a discarded newspaper on the conference center cafeteria table, my mind flooded with questions and outrage about gun violence. I don’t want to minimize this latest shooting (prayers to all involved) but… this is what will cause Washington to become stunned over the  epidemic that has been spreading like wildfire in our communities?

headline on recent gun shooting

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still

Who could forget that cold December 14, 2012, in Newtown, Connecticut, when a 20-year-old deranged man murdered 20 elementary children, as well as six school staff members? At the time our collective outrage was visceral and visible. The cold-blooded and senseless murders prompted an immediate demand for universal background checks, and for legislation to ban extremely dangerous semi-automatic firearms. And yet, as we face the 4th anniversary of this tragedy, and the 998 mass shootings since, there is little forward movement toward ending this violent epidemic ravaging every avenue along our collective landscape. headline4 Continue reading

Our America

This country. This #America gone #hashtag #crazy yet stalled so fucking bad in Washington that even the Senator’s families don’t live there anymore. Just fly in and fly out to cast their party-driven vote. This America. A jumble of contradiction at every turn. Wide rural vistas divided by pristine forests and muddy rivers. Farmland rich with harvest promise. Yeah, promise. But that’s a  lily-white view tarnished once one passes under a big-mother Confederate flag flying with bravado, (yeah, sadly we saw those) or an oversized Trump billboard (crazy, but yeah, saw those too) promoting all the trappings of White Supremacy with his sneer. That sneer. Sickeningly an advocate of hatred. (Will anyone really be able to vote for that world, his world of hate?) After our recent 14 State and 4,500 mile drive-by, and the current racially driven atrocities, it is clear to this blogger that the veneer of the American Dream is wearing thin, if not for all of us, at least for the Other in this country.

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