The Science of Scientology

There are many things in life that should bear close scrutiny. Religion is one of them. I took a look inside of the belly of the beast of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the other day. It was not a pretty sight. The pictures of men with their families, where you couldn’t tell his children from his wives, was very disturbing. I will never get those images out of mind.

Another fringe group are the Scientologists. They tend to setup where there’s a preponderance of rich folks, and, who can blame them? The original premise for their religion came from a science fiction writer, L. Ron Hubbard. L. Ron posited that if a fellow really wanted to get rich in life, he’d start a religion. He wrote a book called, “Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Healthin 1952, that detailed his thinking about how people should live their lives.

The book went into great detail about how people could psychoanalyze themselves and be able to cure themselves without the aid of doctors trained in the field. Mood altering drugs were not allowed, but it appears that mind altering drugs were. There were also people trained as “auditors”, who could help guide people in gaining “clarity”. The auditors would use something called an electropsychometer, or E-meter for short. The auditor would strap you into the E-meter and give you a reading about traumas you’ve experienced in this life, and previous ones, to help get you “clear”.

Obviously, the AMA was not happy about the Scientologists practicing medicine without a license, and they went after L. Ron and his followers. After Dianetics went into bankruptcy, L. Ron reformulated it as a religion called the Church of Scientology. With tax exempt status, and free from the attacks from the medical community, L.Ron was on his way to stardom. All he needed was a population looking for something other than a “traditional” religious experience, and he would have the road to riches paved for him. Turns out the road was paved in gold.

It’s easy to see how a science fiction writer could formulate a dialog of Creation that would blend in parts of science, and parts of fantasy, to make the Genesis appealing to people who were burned out on traditional religion. The story of Xenu, a tyrannical ruler of the “Galactic Confederacy”, who brought billions of people to Earth in spaceships 75 million years ago, is a pretty good start for a science fiction novel. Or a religion, apparently. It gets weirder from there, and I encourage further reading.

What is more interesting to me is that the Scientologists don’t seem to have a lot of moral scruples when confronted with opposition. “Do unto others as ye would have done unto you”, does not appear to be one of their tenets. There are a host of misdeeds and crimes listed on the internet for perusal. I think the attack on the IRS stands out the most to me. Maybe because it’s called the “Operation Snow White” affair, which conjures up Disney and Hollywood.

A religion infiltrating the government is kind of science fiction stuff, but I guess it’s just the Scientologists getting back to their roots. They’d probably get Tom Cruise to play the lead in the movie, that is if they ever wanted the rest of the world to know what’s going on behind their closed doors. Sounds like a real Mission Impossible to me.

Fundamentally Crazy

I took the opportunity to watch a documentary last night. The Showtime Anytime Network has developed a new menu system that makes it much easier to read titles and descriptions of their offerings than before. I chose to stretch my comfort zone a bit by selecting Prophet’s Prey. I went into viewing the movie as a mildly interested party. Well, I can’t say I’m not interested now. In fact, I may have to figure out how to charge Showtime for the counseling I’m going to need after watching the show. “Disturbing” kind of scratches the surface of how to describe the movie.

The “Prophet” in question is Warren Jeffs, the president of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The “Prey“, were everybody Jeffs came in contact with, but most especially children. The financial/economic setup with these folks is so convoluted and entangled that it would take an army of accountants years to figure out their land holdings and internal structure, which is not to say somebody shouldn’t do it.

Jeffs put hundreds of people in slavery by confiscating all of their belongings and then taking their paychecks from them. Jeffs controlled every aspect of the followers daily lives. The initiates were powerless to move away from the church, emotionally and financially. Once Jeffs held all of the purse strings, he tightened down on the congregation until the aberration that resulted was way more cult than church.

I’m familiar with a wide range of religions, and I feel like I’m fairly tolerant of folk’s belief systems. I never suspected that anyone could go to the depths of perversion like Jeffs and his followers have. Especially those who claim they were doing the “Lord’s work”. We’ve all heard about the Mormons prolictivity for multiple marriage, there’s even a “T”ouching “L”ittle “C”hildren network show called “Sister Wives“.

While I’ve made fun of the idea of having more than one woman to “put up with”, Jeffs is recorded to have more than sixty wives. These are not wives in the traditional sense. Most of the “marriages” were not done in the church in front of the congregation, like we do. These “marriages” took place by bringing the bride to the husband’s room. Thereafter the bride was called upon when it was the husband’s desire.

As open minded as I am, I can’t see the pretense of a marriage to have sex with multiple partners as anything but hypocrisy. But it gets worse. Most of the “wives” were below the age of consent, some as young as twelve. Jeffs would reward a follower with a wife for the male’s undying devotion to the Jeffs’ program. Having a wife put the follower in line to have children of his own, who would then be used as chattel to improve the husband’s standing. This goes beyond the old “arranged marriage” concept of wedding families together for the benefit of both families. This is wholesale child sex slavery; carried out right here in the U.S.A., in multiple states, in full view of the law.

One of the saddest stories in the movie was from Jeffs’ wife number 66, I believe. She was fifteen when brought to Jeffs, and within a year had his baby. Her life was over at fifteen. She told the story about how the cult believed that wearing red was a sin because Jesus is supposed to be wearing a red robe when He comes back. She related that she would purposefully wear red to tempt God to destroy her for heresy. She was so miserable that she truly wanted an angel to strike her dead.

Finally, the state of Utah issued a warrant for Jeffs’ arrest on felony charges of accomplice rape of a teenage girl between 14 and 18 years old. He used his many compounds and followers to avoid arrest for quite a time. Jeffs even made the FBI’s ten most wanted list at one point. Jeffs was eventually arrested and convicted on two counts of sexual assault of a child. He was given life in prison.

Unfortunately his followers remain, and the patterns of child abuse still remain. Whether under Jeffs direction from jail, or vying for their own leadership, Jeffs’ brothers and sons continue the horror.

Please put me down as a secular humanist, albeit a fundamental secular humanist.

 

George Washington’s iPhone

On the six month anniversary of the Insurrection of 2021, I’m going to take the opportunity to wax eloquently on the current state of non-public servants holding political office, and the ones who play them on TV. For those of you who are suffering from short term memory issues, on January 06, 2021 the defeated presidential candidate inspired a group of wackydos to overthrow the democratic process of certification of the new president.

The lead up to the insurrection placed my home state firmly in the public eye. For once the public officials in Georgia did their job without impartiality. They resisted the threats coming from the most powerful person in the world and his delusional minions to “find” just enough votes to overturn the will of the people. It’s so rare that we get to say something good about the Republicans in Georgia that I thought it was appropriate to call out the honor and bravery shown by these officials in preserving the democratic process. Of course their brethren in the state legislature have been working day and night to see that the candidate with the most votes doesn’t win again if he’s not the “right” candidate.This might be the one time in Georgia political history that the right thing happened for the right reasons. I’m glad I lived long enough to see it.

Now, I’m not going to recount the hundred of things that our elected officials should have done to prevent the situation that caused people to storm the Capitol and try to overthrow our government. There will be investigations and trials that will eventually ferret out the agents of destruction working from inside the halls of government. Sadly there is one collective group of people who don’t want to get to the bottom of the insurrection. In fact, a Georgia congressman is trying to sell the insurrection as just another tourist day at the Capitol. Here you see him trying to keep the “peaceful tourists” from entering his work place and laying waste to everything. Hypocrisy and lying are like autonomic reflexes with these people. These people are known by one name, Republicans.

There’s an old saying that, “A Republican is just a Democrat that’s never had anything bad happen to him”. I’m not suggesting that Liz Cheney has converted, I’m just saying that mobs of folks with pitchforks and torches around the Capitol might have opened her eyes a tad as to what “serving the Public” is supposed to mean. We’ll see. There are a few others, but none as high profile as the spawn of Darth Vader. I hope she will use her place on the select committee investigating the insurrection to hold accountable the ones who threatened the lives of our elected officials and our democracy.

Anyway, the group of people who want to serve the public by destroying the government were on the tube again. Kevin McCarthy has decided to name some Republicans to the bipartisan committee. I expect it will be the usual stooges, Jim Jordan, Devin Nunes, Mo Brooks. Their purpose will be to be the monkey wrench thrown into the gears of the investigation and to offer the Donald and his acolytes an excuse for the attempted coup. I expect a lot of smoke screens, whataboutism and sound bites provided by Putin/Trump for distribution by the Faux News. There will probably be some diversion into Federalism and the sanctity of the Constitution as it was written by the founding fathers.

While the congresscreeps drone on and on about the founding fathers and their interpretation of the founding father’s interpretation of the Constitution I’d love to be able to ask one question,

“What do you think would happen if you walked into The Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia and passed your iPhone around for the Founding Fathers to see?”

I put forth the theory that the congressperson would probably be burned as a witch because the Founding Fathers had no concept of what the future was going to bring in technology. 

What the founding fathers did have the vision to see was how a tyrannical despot could get elected and try to hold on to his power. They counted on the other equal branches of government to hold that despot in check. I see zero candidates on the Republican side that embrace that theory and have the courage to speak out about it.

J.D. Vance, you’ve broken my heart.

Hey, Hey, Hey

What the heck is going on with all of this Bill Cosby business?

Before we break out into factions, male versus female, he said, she said, I’d like to drop the discussion down a notch. Bill Cosby is one of the two black people who helped me see that all of us are just “accidents of birth”. Now, what I mean by that is that absolutely none of us, from Donald Trump to Charlie Manson, determined our birth situations. Trump was born to a multi-millionaire, Manson an unwed sixteen year old. I’m sure if Manson had his druthers, he would have picked The Donald’s situation.

Some of us were born to parents that, while not criminal, were still harmful. As I’ve outlined before, I learned racism from my Mom. Mom didn’t want me to be Klan, but she was comfortable with me carrying hate in my heart for people who had no more to do with their skin color than I had to do with my hair color. It’s illogical as all get out, but that’s the way it was, and still is in places. Folks latch onto something we have absolutely no control over, and then brand us for life. It was tough being a “ginger”, I can’t imagine how tough it would have been to grow up black.

That’s where I was, until about 1965, when a friend invited me over to listen to some albums. He queued up a comedy album called,”Bill Cosby Is a Very Funny Fellow, Right!” I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything as funny before. We howled, we laughed until we cried, we rolled on the floor. It wasn’t ribald humor, it wasn’t even risque, it was more along the lines of Jean Shepherd’s childhood recollections. Cosby set up these wonderful scenarios about his family life, and made them universal. The universal appeal of the story fired a spark in my dinosaur like brain. If Bill Cosby was the funniest guy I’d ever heard, and Bill Cosby was black, might there be other black people out there worthy of my attention? Turns out there was, but we’ll leave that for another time.

What I took from the experience was there were non-athlete, non-musician black people out there that were worthy of my consideration. I now felt comfortable saying I could live next door to Jim Brown, or Bill Cosby. A big leap in growth for me. While the “times” were changing, it’s important to remember how the “times” were, to have a frame of reference for the troubles Mr. Cosby has been battling.

During the ’60’s, ’70’s, and maybe still, it was the male that procured the recreational medicinals for the evening festivities. At the onset let me say that in that culture the medicinals were shared, not forced. The female’s quid pro quo generally speaking was being “appreciative” of the male’s efforts. Apparently Cosby’s drug of choice was methaqualone, “ludes” which were highly sought after. Watch the movie “Looking For Mr. Goodbar” for a refresher course on the times.

It’s in that context that I think we should view the allegations made against Mr. Cosby. The assertion that many women came to Cosby’s room to, “discuss their careers” and were “surprised” when Mr. Cosby made advances, is tenuous. I know in the south that mothers will be the first to say, “if she was dumb enough to go to his room…….” Harsh assessment, but the complainants calculated the “risk/reward” and decided the risk was worth taking.

Is it possible by today’s standards, where college students are signing consent waivers before engaging in sex, that Mr. Cosby stepped over the line? Probably, but without criminal charges being filed, only the participants know for sure. The one allegation filed in a manner timely enough for the police to follow up on has had an interesting resolution.

Cosby’s admission to providing drugs for a consensual sexual act in a civil suit was used to convict him criminally. That case has now blown up. In some form of cosmic irony, Donald Trump’s lead impeachment lawyer fouled up and now Cosby is free.

Fat Albert says, “Hey, Hey, Hey!”

St. George And The Dragon

I’ve been mystified by how the right wing media is able to just outrageously lie to their public and keep a straight face about. Tucker Carlson is one who floats to the top, if I’m allowed a bit of bathroom humor. So I did a deep dive on the “Tuck Man” to see if I could figure out what was in his roots that created a such a schism with the truth. Seems Tuck Man went to a private school in Rhode Island where he wound up marrying the daughter of the headmaster. The school is called St. Georges. Google says St. Georges is a “private, Episcopal and coeducational boarding school in Middletown, Rhode Island”. The school lists its street address as 372 Purgatory Rd.

Now I hate to rip off somebody else’s catch phrase, but the address does put me in mind of Bill Engvall’s, “Here’s Your Sign”. I mean, it you were dropping your kids off at the school where they would be basically living full time, wouldn’t the word “purgatory” throw you off a bit? It’s kind of like moving into the “Abandon Hope” trailer park. Not that the name can be used as an excuse for aberrant behavior. To me, there’s just way too much irony involved, and I never thought of the Episcopalians as a particularly ironic lot.

So, it turns out the school was charging folks $56,000 a year during the 70’s and 80’s to fondle, abuse, rape and take nude photographs of their children. Allegedly. According to reports, the investigation has uncovered at least seven perpetrators who are still alive and could be charged with crimes. The alleged crimes were never reported to authorities until the Fall of 2015. The report only surfaced because of the lawsuits brought by over a dozen former students. It is so sad for folks to have to wait forty years to get some sort of relief from the people who were supposed to be their protectors and mentors. I’m thinking at least tuition times ten per year of attendance should get the ball rolling.

In a twisted side note, I have always referred to Episcopalians as Catholics Lite. Episcopalians have a lot of the same drama and rituals involved in their worship as the Catholics. It appears that protecting child abusers was part of the similarities shared by the two religions. None of the alleged perpetrators in the St. George case were reported to the police. Even when the administration had evidence of their misdeeds and terminated their employment, the school protected their own reputation by not reporting the abusers to the police. Sound familiar? The only thing missing in this case from completing the Catholic trifecta was quietly transferring the abuser to another diocese so they could continue the perversion on another group of kids. Thank goodness St. Georges didn’t have another school they could quietly transfer their pervs to.

What’s in a name? The real Saint George was a wealthy Roman soldier who was arrested for not renouncing his faith and agreeing to worship Roman Gods. He was tortured many, many times, but he would not recant his beliefs. One torture session even included being lacerated on a wheel of swords, but George held fast. Eventually, George was executed by decapitation. He never renounced his beliefs or his moral code. High standards indeed for a school, or “journalist” to live up to.

Reading the story of the real St. George has given me hope for the Tuck Man. Maybe one day he’ll have a moment of clarity and denounce everything he has lied so assiduously about to atone for his sins. Maybe he’ll have his Jimmy Swaggert moment on live TV and become a productive member of society. Maybe pigs will grow wings. Maybe.

Planned Parenthood

In case you haven’t heard the news, there’s another nutty “therapy” being promoted to “correct” what the religious wacky doodles think will make their world perfect. You no doubt have heard about “Conversion Therapy” where “some kinds” of homosexuality can be “cured” by using psychological or spiritual interventions? Fortunately the practice has been banned in most sentient parts of the world. According to Wikipedia: “As of March 2020, 20 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and some counties and municipalities in the United States have passed laws banning the practice of conversion therapy on minors.” 

Now here comes the latest attempt to bend the laws of human science and biology back to the wacky doddles’ perfect world. It’s called “Abortion Reversal”. I mean, Jesus H. Christ, what’s the attraction to the RWNJ’s to keep messing with people’s sexual organs and preferences? There’s even several  Colorado clinics that are willing to give the “theory” a try. Just be sure and sign their release form before you start the therapy.

Lauren Boeber, the newest right wing congress person from Colorado used the opportunity of her first proposed piece of legislation to attempt to defund Planned Parenthood. She has gone on several maniacal rants about Planned Parenthood and continually spouts nonsense on her Twitter feed. If a woman doesn’t understand the importance of a woman maintaining control of her reproductive rights, who do you trust those rights to? I guess Boeber would leave it to just any ideologue nutjob with access to hormone pills to decide whether a woman can decide if and when they will take on the hardest job in life, mother.

Who is Planned Parenthood, what is their mission and why do they rouse such ire in some folks? Their 2019 annual report reveals these numbers:

 

Two things that jump out to me:

1. Less than three percent of their services are abortions.

2. The majority of their medical services provided are for STI Testing and Treatment. I make the assumption that these people that are treated at a clinic are not people who can afford a personal doctor.

Why are the richest of the rich consumed with the reproductive processes of the poor? I postulate that the rich are not consumed by the prospect of the poor overpopulating, they’re consumed with the aspect that the poor won’t reproduce. The Republicans are obsessed with the poor continuing to reproduce an “under class” to the point of denying abortions to women who have been raped or are victims of incest.

Forcing children on people who can’t afford them, or more importantly, don’t want them is evil. In fact the book that the Republicans claim to guide their every movement on has addressed the exact situation. Proverbs 14:31 “Whoever oppresses a poor man insults his Maker, but he who is generous to the needy honors him.”

Maybe the Republicans should change the tone and content of their message to ensure that the people who are on the fringes of society don’t act on Republicans propaganda, like “Abortion Reversal”. It would be the responsible thing to do, it would be the Christian thing to do.

 

The Domino Theory

For those of you that didn’t have to live through it, the Domino Theory was the guiding light of our foreign policy from the 1950’s through the 1980’s. Simply put, the Domino Theory speculated that if one country in an area became communist, then all of the country’s neighbors would follow suit.

Even to write out the principle now seems stupid, but that’s how it was back then. People were scared of communism, religious people in particular. For sure you can’t have people running around being nice to each other and getting along with out having a God to thank for it, right? More importantly, if you disrupt God’s delivery system, the priests and preachers, where are all of those folks going to get jobs? I mean, communism guarantees jobs for all, just not jobs as cushy as Cardinal or Pope.

It sounds like I’m picking a little bit on the Catholics here, but not really. It was one of their ideologues that eventually led the United States into invading Viet Nam and killing hundreds of thousands of innocents. No, I’m not talking about John F. Kennedy, although he did play his part. I’m talking about one Thomas Anthony Dooley.

Thomas A. Dooley was a Catholic, Navy physician that worked in Laos providing aid to the refugees there. Dooley worked as a spy for the C.I.A. and was encouraged to write a book about his struggles. The book was well received and not a Catholic kid who grew up during the 50’s doesn’t know who Tom Dooley was. Every classroom in Catholic schools around America had collection boxes for Dooley’s work in fighting Communism/helping the refugees. When he died, Dooley was perceived by most Americans to be the third most esteemed man in the world, following only Eisenhower and the Pope in popularity.

Nicholas von Hoffman wrote in 1969 that Tom Dooley had created “the climate of public misunderstanding that made the war in Vietnam possible“. Dooley had reduced the extremely complex issues of Southeast Asia as a battle between good and evil. Eventually the evil of the war in Vietnam caused the American public to view Dooley’s moralistic anti-communism as simplistic pablum.

Simplistic pablum is another way to describe the Domino Theory. Eventually we left Viet Nam and it fell to some sort of Socialist, Capitalist, Communist, Dictatorship that functions as a good neighbor in the region. Viet Nam’s neighbors, Thailand and Cambodia, are still ruled by kings, kind of the antithesis of communism. Normal relations exist between the U.S. and Viet Nam and you can vacation there anytime you like. Just be careful where you walk.

Unexploded ordnance, left over from the U.S. bombings, are still blowing up and killing people today. Some 42,000 people have died due to the ordnance left behind since the war officially ended. Carpet bombing, the gift that keeps on giving.

That’s something to remember when we listen to the politicians present their new “Domino Theory” as it applies to the Middle East. As you listen to our potential presidential candidates, pay particular attention to the religious ideologues, they’re grinding more than one axe. Some politicians are so steeped in religiosity that they believe Israel’s sovereignty assures their end goal of Armageddon.

I leave you with the words of my old buddy, Edmund Burke, “Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.”

The First Rule of Holes

I am put in mind of one of the phrases of one of my favorite writers, Molly Ivins. Molly use to cover politics from Austin, Texas. Molly was one of the most gifted, insightful writers I’ve ever read. The fact that she used humor to skewer the politicians was a double bonus for me.

One of the phrases that Molly used to describe the actions of a politician who had gotten in deeper to a situation than was prudent was, “Poor old so and so, he’s forgotten the first rule of holes; when you’re in one, quit digging.” Molly made her point with the simple logic that everyone could understand. She applied the logic with warm hearted humor that made even the roasted politicians laugh at themselves. Molly Ivins was a national treasure in a state that was diametrically opposed to her politically. I miss her.

In the spirit of Molly Ivins, I’d like to say to Matt Gaetz, “quit digging”. Trying to figure out which hole the Mattster is in at this point in time is a bit of a guess, since he’s been digging a new one about every hour for the last few days. In case you haven’t caught the news in the last few weeks, I’ll hit a few of the Mattster’s highlights.

1. Has become a target of the DOJ for obstruction of justice in the investigation of his friend Joel Greenberg. Politico reports: “The witness in question was one of a handful of women who entered Gaetz’s orbit via his one-time “wingman,” former Seminole County, Fla. tax collector Joel Greenberg, who pleaded guilty last month to a host of crimes, including sex-trafficking a 17-year-old in 2017.”

2. Passes off his high life partying as just being a “generous partner”. In an interview with Axios, Gaetz  defended himself by saying, “The allegations of sexual misconduct against me are false.” When asked what the DOJ probe could be about, he added, “I have definitely, in my single days, provided for women I’ve dated. You know, I’ve paid for flights, for hotel rooms. I’ve been, you know, generous as a partner. I think someone is trying to make that look criminal when it is not.” The girl in question was 17 at the time.

3. Considers himself more of a “player” than a representative of the people. From an ABC article: on the Mattster’s dedication to his work as a congressman, “While on Capitol Hill as a member of Congress, Gaetz allegedly boasted of his sexual encounters with women, and would allegedly try to show colleagues photos and videos of naked women he said he slept with, according to sources familiar with Gaetz’s actions“.

4. While a congressman in the Florida state house, the Mattster was part of a group of young male lawmakers who created a “game” to score their female sexual conquests, which granted “points” for various targets such as interns, staffers or other female colleagues in the state House. One of the targets of the scoring system was a group the lawmakers had heard were “virgins,” according to a source. The scoring system by male Florida lawmakers was previously reported by the Miami Herald.

4. Is now on a “stir up the crazies tour” with embattled loony tune Marjorie Taylor Greene. The tour is named “America First” which was originally floated as a name for a caucus in the House. The name was “cancelled” after it leaked out that the language forming the caucus invoked white nationalism.

I don’t know how to suss through all of this. Have we ever had a congressman neck deep in a child sex trafficking investigation? How does a man that bears a striking resemblance to the character Butthead, and apparently the same basic urges, get elected or re-elected? Does the Mattster believe that women should vote for him because he’s always been “generous with his girlfriends”?

It seems like Gaetz’s behavior would fall under the “DO NOT EVER” rules 1-10 from your campaign adviser. I am reminded of Edwin Edwards who once said, “The only way I can lose this election is if I’m caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy”. Unlike Matt Gaetz, Edwin Edwards knew he was supposed to avoid those conditions, not embrace them.

As a loyal Democrat let me say, “Please, please, please let Matt Gaetz be the Republican nominee for president in 2024”.

No Regulations Allowed

I guess thinking about apocalyptic situations consumes about fifty percent of the American zeitgeist now. Maybe it’s more. I’m not seeing anybody doing any studies on it. If there are studies being done as to why we are so consumed with bad news, the reports are not being published. At least in any media I’ve found. I suspect that those whose financial well being would be negatively impacted by such a report are controlling all of the news outlets.

Crazy as it sounds, it’s like all businesses out there benefit from our fears. Whether it’s based on the fear of getting a zit, or the fear of being gun downed at a concert, all advertising seems to exist to manipulate our fears. Now, I admit, there is a wide chasm between worrying if our face will clear up in time for the big dance and getting gunned down at the dance, but the marketing is basically the same.

The drug companies at least have a bit of a constraint placed on them by the FDA. If you’re having a little acne problem, and you’re thinking about a solution, at least the makers of the drugs have to tell you about their side effects in the advertising. I’m not sure how many folks objectively weigh the choices laid out in drug advertising. How many teenagers have said, “I’d rather die than go to the dance with my face like this”. At least with the FDA restriction on advertising, you know that dying might be a possibility. Not so with the purchase of a gun.

I hear the collective groan, “Now you’ve crossed a line”. Let me ask you when was the last time you saw any mention anywhere of what the proliferation of weapons in our society has done? Never. You’re likely to see an ad on all of the merits of owning a high capacity semi-automatic hunting rifle, ‘Guaranteed to bring home a kill, even if you’re blind‘. You’re never going to be presented with the “side effects” of gun ownership, as you would in a drug ad. 

The Gun Violence Archive reports there have been 58,807 incidents of gun violence in the U.S. in 2020, resulting in 39,427 injuries and 19,380 deaths. I had to Google that. In the time of full blown Covid and stay at home orders, we still managed to shoot nearly 59,000 people. Admittedly in 2020 Covid was the big killer, but shouldn’t somebody have been talking about the other grim reaper in our midst? Bashing guns, or actually reporting accurately on the effects of guns on our society, seems to run counter to the “fear formula”.

What is the “fear formula”?  I think it can be best exemplified by what happened after the Sandy Hook shootings. If you don’t recall Sandy Hook, on December 14, 2012, in Newtown, Connecticut, a nutjob with a gun killed 20 children and 6 adults. To me, seeing children being gunned down should have been the wake up call needed to do something like Australia did. Instead, gun sales went up by as much as 60% after the shooting.

Sturm, Ruger & Co., the largest publicly traded gunmaker, saw its net sales for the first nine months of 2013 jump 44 percent to $506.4 million, from $350 million in the same period a year before. Think about that, children are being gunned down in their schools, and our solution is to buy more guns. Why? Well, the head of the N.R.A. tells us that what’s needed to stop bad men with guns, is good men with guns.

Not to call the scummy sleazeball Wayne LaPierre a lying scumbag, but here are a couple of interesting facts that don’t support his assertion.

In America, there are approximately 393 million firearms possessed by civilians, 1.2 guns for each man, woman and child. That sounds like a lot of guns. Of those guns, approximately 700,000 of them are in the hands of law enforcement officers. The numbers make it sound like the police are horribly outgunned, but as it turns out just 3% of American adults own a collective 133 million firearms. Three percent of the population own one third of the guns. There must be some serious armories being built out there.

So, I guess not enough “good men” are getting their hands on guns. The manufacturers are doing their part. There were 9,052,628 new guns manufactured in the U.S. in 2020. 70 million firearms have been manufactured since 2008. Those guns have accounted for 17,510 Americans being the victims of gun-related violence so far in 2021 and 410 of the victims are children. Where were the good men with a gun that LaPierre is counting on to protect us?

Let’s be real here, we have a serious, serious problem. It’s not fundamentalists of whatever persuasion, as the news agencies and the gun lobby want you to believe, it’s fundamentalists with guns. Take their guns away and then we can at least argue the merits of their beliefs.

By the way, George W. Bush, that great moralist, took away the ability to sue gun manufacturers for their “side effects” back in 2005. The Dickey Amendment prevented the CDC from studying the effects of gun violence on the health of Americans. So much for that Republican value of accountability.

Now the N.R.A. is trying to hide behind bankruptcy to avoid their culpability in the slaughter of innocent Americans. And for what, so that Wayne LaPierre could spend $300,000 on a few suits?

The N.R.A., no regulations allowed since 1871.

One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer

Ok, spoiler alert, this is probably not going to be one of my happier reports. I come to this somber discussion quite innocently, though. I was listening to the radio, good old WNCW out of Spindale, N.C. A song came on that just sent my mind a tumbling. The song was, “The Trouble With Drinking, Is, It Ain’t No Trouble At All”. I know that probably all truth can be revealed by listening to country songs, from Mommas, to dogs, to prison, to trains, Jesus and girlfriends. I don’ t think I’ve ever had such truth revealed to me as those simple lyrics, “The Trouble With Drinking, Is, It Ain’t No Trouble At All’.

Now, I realize there’s nuances within the message, like, “it ain’t no trouble” because it is socially acceptable. From the “Mad Men” of the 50’s celebrating their achievements with martini lunches, to the factory workers filing into bars for a few shots at the end of the day, to the average Joe picking up a six pack of beer to drink on the drive home, it is socially acceptable to drink. In fact, one could say that drinking is encouraged.

The alcohol industry spends about $2 billion per year on all media advertising. The beer brewing industry spent more than $770 million on television ads and $15 million on radio ads in 2000, all by itself. That’s a lot of suds. Maybe Budweiser can send the Clydesdales out on a promo tour to all of the hospitals in America where people are dying from cancers of the mouth, throat, voice box, esophagus, liver, breast, and colon-rectal region. I’m sure the folks suffering from cirrhosis of the liver will get a big kick out of seeing the Clydesdales play football in person before going to their final reward.

I know that family attitude has a lot to do with the, “it ain’t no trouble” component of drinking. Even within the rather homogeneous structure of the “average American family”, there are different levels of acceptance of drinking. Some families consider the fact that you can serve in the military at eighteen, but not drink until you’re twenty one, as being odious. Some families see the age of twelve as the time of passage when a child can be “safely” given a “little” wine with dinner. Some folks are so darn happy their kids are away at college so they don’t have to deal with them coming home drunk that they’re willing to turn a blind eye to the activity. “They’re going to drink anyway, I’m just glad they’re not on the roads”, is the mindset.

Sadly, we’re just pushing the solution to the next generation. Study after study has confirmed that the earlier you start drinking, the earlier you will experience problems. Those problems will become chronic, and I’ll just go ahead and say it, the drinker will become an alcoholic. Now, some drinkers won’t become raging lunatics that beat their wives and destroy property, but many will.

In 2013, the number of alcohol related traffic deaths in the United States was over 10,000. In fact, the CDC reports that: “Excessive alcohol use led to approximately 95,158 deaths and 2.8 million years of potential life lost (YPLL) each year in the United States from 2011 – 2015, shortening the lives of those who died by an average of 29 years. Further, excessive drinking was responsible for 1 in 10 deaths among working-age adults aged 20-64 years. The economic costs of excessive alcohol consumption in 2010 were estimated at $249 billion, or $2.05 a drink.”

Think about that, 2.8 million years of potential life lost. That’s an awful lot of taxes that aren’t getting collected due to our collective turning of a blind eye to one of the leading causes of death in our society. Seems like Congress would jump all over that. Of course, they would have to weigh public good against political contributions. Oh well, I guess we’ll just have to wait for the insurance companies to do the heavy lifting, like they did with tobacco.

Until then, “The Trouble With Drinking, Is, It Ain’t No Trouble At All”.