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Gun Violence and the Scarlet Letter “R”

To the Editor: It is 3:11 a.m. on Tuesday, April 11, 2023, and I can’t sleep. I keep having the titles of articles on gun violence reverberate in my mind. There are so many, and they are all compelling. Some have refrains of common songs of our nation, such as “Gun Violence, when will we ever learn?” Others feature the locations of mass shootings, such as at a “car wash” in Pennsylvania in 2018, or a particular feature of the guns used, like learning about “bump stocks” in the mass shooting on October 1, 2017, in Las Vegas when 58 were killed and almost 500 …

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Billionaires Much Richer Since Covid Hit

by Brett Wilkins As the deadline for Americans to file federal income tax returns approached, on April 14th Oxfam America renewed calls for taxing the ultrarich while publishing an analysis showing America’s growing number of billionaires saw their wealth increase by nearly one-third since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic and by nearly 90 percent over the past decade. “Wealth inequality in the U.S. is more extreme and dangerous than income inequality; and we need to change our approach, so we effectively tax wealth as well as income,” the charity said in an introduction to the report, Tax Wealth, Tackle Inequality. Based on Forbes data, …

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Sun, Apr 23

2018—U.S. President #45 says, “If [George Washington] was smart, he would’ve put his name on [Mount Vernon]. You’ve got to put your name on stuff or no one remembers you.” 2017—Proud papa Dennis Dickey, a U.S. Border Patrol agent in Arizona, reveals the gender of his pending progeny by firing a gun at an explosive target surrounded by dry grass. The resultant fire burns 70 square miles. 1993—RIP Cesar Chavez. 1971—National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, speaking over the phone with Allen Ginsberg, agrees to meet personally but draws the line at doing so naked on live TV. 1971—Concluding Operation Dewey Canyon III, “a limited incursion …

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The Dead Letter of the Law

Three good things might be said about the fortnight which just ended: 1) It’s over; 2) We won’t have to go through it again; 3) It may help clarify the nature of the power structure in our much-vaunted, supposedly democratic republic. Two statements are sufficient to sum up how most people in this country stand in relation to our justice system: they are protected by it and unrestrained; or, they are restrained by it and unprotected. At the very apex of this justice system, doing his level best to assure that it stays the way it is—or becomes even more unjust—sits Clarence Thomas, on a …

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Sat, Apr 22

2004—U.S. Army Spec. and ex-NFL star Pat Tillman is shot by his own side in Afghanistan; a cover-up ensues. 2002—Dick “Dick” Cheney, fundraising in Florida, says “The Taliban is out of business permanently.” 1987—The Supreme Court rules in McCleskey vs. Kemp that just because the death penalty is applied in a racially biased manner, that’s no reason for states to stop killing Black convicts. 1983—The first two jolts from Alabama’s electric chair set John Louis Evans on fire. It takes a third to stop his heart from beating, though. 1971—Capitol police arrest 110 Vietnam veterans for serenading the Supreme Court with God Bless America. 1963—South …

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