Who goes there? Please leave comments so (An Aries Knows)!
On February 26, 2020, a mass shooting occurred at the Molson Coors Beverage Company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The perpetrator shot and killed five coworkers before fatally turning the gun on himself. His weapons were a .45-caliber Springfield XD(M) semi-automatic pistol equipped with a Dead Air Armament Ghost suppressor and a .40-caliber Walther P99C semi-automatic pistol.
• Jesus Valle Jr. (33)
• Gennady Levshetz (61)
• Trevor Wetselaar (33)
• Dana Walk (57)
• Dale Hudson (60)
Of a stupid migraine. I don’t want to: hear anything, see anything, touch anything, smell anything, taste anything.
I do want to: sleep.
Life and work are not conducive to 24 hours of sleep in a day. But I’m doing my best.
What kind of Star Trek migraine-treating bullshit is this?
For the past several years, I’ve committed to making a blog post every day of the year. The only way I’ve been able to maintain that is by keeping a running list of content for the days I’m unable to post, and then when I can, catching up and dating the posts to the days I would have posted them if I’d had time.
I think below is roughly my online interaction since my first Internet log-in (via AOL) in 1997:
AOL chatrooms 1997 to around 2002
AOL message boards 2002 to around 2004
Live Journal 2004 to 2011
This Word Press blog 2011 to present
Along the way, of course, there was MySpace, where I had little presence, to Facebook, which I came to abhor. I went from who knows how many friends on FB to I think a current five after the 2016 election. I have never regretted the decision to cut that off, though I do miss my nieces’ and nephews’ and grandnieces’ and -nephews’ FB posts. I can, however, sort of keep up with some of them via Instagram, which is my busiest social media site, even though I am constantly disgruntled that it’s owned by Facebook.
A few months ago I began to visit my Twitter account daily after years of basically ignoring it. I don’t post there–mostly I retweet things and comment on other people’s feeds, but I use it to read what people are talking about. It’s the way I know what memes are making the rounds, but it’s also how I find the topics I want to research for myself–usually relating to social and political issues. Politics and history were part of my upbringing, as they were both always discussed in my home–around the dinner table, for example.
It was when I got to college that I discovered how wired my brain was for sociology, and it became my minor.
Sociology is defined as the “study of society, patterns of social relationships, social interaction and culture of everyday life. It is a social science that uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about social order, acceptance, and change or social evolution.” (Thanks Wikipedia.)
I’ve said on here before that I often feel like I’m an alien sent to study humans on this planet. Humans never cease to interest me. Human behavior can both dazzle and horrify me. Sometimes I weary of it all and step back–but if I’m stepping into music or movies or books for escape, well damn, there they still are, pesky humans who entertain and amuse and challenge and educate me.
Thank goodness for animals and nature–though that can be dicey, too, because of how humans treat animals and our planet. But somehow I maintain.
The fiction I worked on this year drove me to research things that have led me down interesting paths. I’ve explored a lot of things about which I have some longstanding and strong opinions. I have found many of those opinions challenged both by my studies and my observations.
There is nothing so alluring as complacency. It’s comfortable to use our own experience or the experiences of those close to us as the yardstick by which we measure the world. But the world is big, and we are small. A yardstick is not enough.
I said on someone’s Twitter feed that my mantra going into 2020 is “learn more, do better.”
There is a lot to learn, and doing better not only means opening myself up to tough teachers, but not succumbing to the comfortable.
Digging into the archives–took this in 2013. That means this crew is six years older now. When I look at them, all I want is for them to be alive and safe.
That is the legacy that began with Sandy Hook in 2012 and continues DESPITE what the majority of citizens want. We are heard, but nothing is done.
Nothing.
An antisemitic terrorist attack took place at the Tree of Life – Or L’Simcha Congregation synagogue in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on October 27, 2019. The congregation, along with New Light Congregation and Congregation Dor Hadash, which also worshipped in the building, was attacked during Shabbat morning services. The perpetrator was armed with a Colt AR-15 semi-automatic rifle and three Glock .357 SIG semi-automatic pistols. According to authorities, all four weapons were fired, killing eleven people and wounding six, including several Holocaust survivors.
Those killed were:
• Joyce Fienberg (75)
• Richard Gottfired (65)
• Rose Mallinger (97)
• Jerry Rabinowitz (66)
• Cecil Rosenthal (59)
• David Rosenthal (54)
• Bernice Simon (84)
• Sylvan Simon (86)
• Daniel Stein (71)
• Melvin Wax (88)
• Irving Younger (69)
Seven others injured in the incident included three other congregants and four Pittsburgh officers (two patrol officers and two SWAT officers; three by ricocheted gunfire and another by glass fragments).
On October 31, the perpetrator was indicted on 44 counts by a federal grand jury. The charges carry a maximum penalty of death or 535 years in federal prison. The counts included hate crimes, 11 counts of obstruction of exercise of religious beliefs resulting in death, 11 counts of use of a firearm to commit murder during a crime of violence, four counts of obstruction of exercise of religious beliefs resulting in bodily injury to a public safety officer, and three counts of use and discharge of a firearm during a crime of violence.
On January 29, 2019, the grand jury indicted the shooter on an additional 19 counts, 13 of which were for hate crimes. Federal prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
By October 2020, the perpetrator was seeking a plea deal. In January 2022, he sought a change of venue.
In June 2022, a U.S. District Judge said he anticipated the perpetrator’s trial would take place in 2023, most likely between April and June.
The perpetrator was also charged with 36 state criminal counts, including 11 counts of criminal homicide, six counts of aggravated assault, six counts of attempted criminal homicide, and 13 counts of ethnic intimidation. The state charges are held in abeyance pending the federal trial.
Current Photo Friday theme: Warm
There are so many inspirations and memories on the walls in my office. The wall behind my desk is my Muse Wall, and the wall behind the other desk–I guess that’s Muse Adjacent, though there are some heavy hitters on that wall in terms of who has influenced my writing and thinking.
It was definitely a Houston summer night in June 1993 when Tom and I saw Warren Zevon. He signed a CD cover for me, “For Becky. Very hot, Warren Zevon.” It lives on the Muse Adjacent Wall.
I read a review of Paul McCartney on the Freshen Up tour in which the reviewer said someone needs to tell him to stop–you see, his voice isn’t as strong as it used to be. Needless to say, I was not amused. The man just turned 77 and he kicks ass. Rock and roll, Sir Paul, rock and roll, even if they have to wheel you out, even if your voice is a whisper. You are Paul Fucking McCartney and your music changed the world.
When I was telling Tom about that review, he talked about what a different depth Warren Zevon’s voice had on his last album. Zevon knew it was his last, he was dealing with lung cancer. The Wind was released two weeks before his death. I compared it to the emotional power of Johnny Cash’s last work.
The audacity of thinking anyone shouldn’t do what they love as long as they can do it, and share it with the world if that’s what they want to do. If you want perfection, limit yourself to whatever you think that was. I’m grateful to listen to the voices of my inspirations for their whole journey. It’s all real.
On May 31, 2019, a mass shooting occurred at a municipal building in Virginia Beach, Virginia. The gunman, a disgruntled city employee, fatally shot 12 people and wounded four others. His weapons were a Glock 21 .45-caliber pistol and a H&K USP Compact Tactical .45-caliber pistol equipped with a suppressor. He shot two people outside the building, and then shot people on three floors of the building, seeming to fire without particular targets. He was finally shot dead in a gunfight with responding police officers.
Eleven of the dead were employees; the twelfth was a contractor who was in the building to get a permit. The dead are:
• LaQuita Chenoah Brown (39)
• Ryan Keith Cox (50)
• Tara Welch Gallagher (39)
• Mary Louise Crutsinger Gayle (65)
• Alexander Mikhail Gusev (35)
• Joshua Orion Hardy (52)
• Michelle Marie “Missy” Langer (60)
• Richard H. Nettleton (65)
• Katherine Anne Marie Lusich-Nixon (42)
• Christopher Kelly Rapp (54)
• Herbert Ray “Bert” Snelling (57)
• Robert Thomas “Bobby” Williams Sr. (72)
Yesterday, technology and other people’s mistakes frustrated me past the point of all endurance. Here’s hoping wearing this bracelet today will give me some peace of mind and remind me to breathe through life’s maddening moments every time I look at it.
Once again, sorry to my Instagram followers for being repetitive, but let’s talk for a few minutes about Somewhere in Time. I mentioned on Instagram how surprising it was that I’d never seen this 1980 movie because who’s more beautiful on film than Jane Seymour and Christopher Reeve and they are together! And it’s romance. And it has love that transcends time and separation. But mostly, it was surprising because I have listened to the score of the movie for decades and love it.
Oh, everyone said, YOU MUST SEE IT. (Except Puterbaugh, such a film geek, but he hadn’t seen it either.) So I ordered it. It came on Valentine’s Day, and from the moment Tom started the DVD, I wanted to cry. Okay, maybe I did cry. I didn’t even know how things would play out or what would or wouldn’t happen, but it’s that MUSIC.
SORT OF SPOILERS AHEAD (because you won’t see the actual end of the movie and I won’t provide it):
Near the end, when anybody’s heart would be breaking, and I definitely was crying… well, here. Here’s a four minute and something clip. Go ahead. Watch some heartbreak.
Now as I was watching that, there was no way I couldn’t think of another scene from another movie and how many times my friends who’ve been forced to watch it with me complained and carried on about how LONG it was, how torturous to see, oh, she should snap out of it. Let’s view the scene that makes them squirm and carry on.
It’s not that long! Christopher Reeve’s adult Richard Collier is grieving a love of like two days that he thinks is lost forever. Kristen Stewart’s teenaged Bella Swan is grieving a love of what, a year’s duration?, she thinks is lost forever. And though three months may pass in Bella’s scene, it’s just a little over TWO MINUTES on the screen.
If we can cry through four minutes of Richard’s agonizing sense of loss, Bella should get at least two.
I do wonder if Chris Weitz the director of New Moon thought of Christopher Reeve/Richard Collier at the window. It IS a truth internetly acknowledged that author Stephenie Meyer cites Somewhere in Time as one of her influences.
Also, I have imagined with some amusement Superman time traveling to Forks and making Vampire Girl forget Mr. Sparkles.
On February 15, 2019, a mass shooting took place at Henry Pratt Company in Aurora, Illinois, by a former employee using a Smith & Wesson .40-caliber semi-automatic pistol with a green laser sight. Six people died, including the perpetrator, who was shot and killed by responding police officers.
The dead were:
• Russell Beyer (47)
• Clayton Parks (32)
• Vicente Juarez (54)
• Josh Pinkard (37)
• Trevor Wehner (21)
A sixth employee was shot and hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries, and five police officers also sustained non-life-threatening injuries: four with gunshot wounds, one by shrapnel, and one non-gunshot injury.