In the Aftermath of Minneapolis

 "Please do tell us all the secret solution."-- Kyle Smith, chucking it

I interact with theater critic Kyle Smith more often than is necessary, a credit to his acumen and tolerance, and his willingness to post back to subscribers, but I would like to gnaw on one kernel he offered to politically active Democrats when he asserted, factually, that his party couldn’t ban firearms. No, but they could push to ratify a constitutional amendment by the traditional two thirds state majority to alter or eliminate the Second Amendment. I am not indicating this is what I would do, and such a proposed ratification would take a long time, would have to outlive MAGA’s commitment to any perceivable Trump heir. It isn’t simply the United States which faces the choice to revitalize or decline (I am in the decline camp because my life is static and puerile beyond the words I have to spare for virtually living with a bandy ass minority I never chose, as a daily constant of my sixty plus years), but our party system as well. Leon Panetta discusses bipartisan abdication for The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page. One way to reverse this is to revitalize commitment to principles, and domestic massacres are powerful arguments against American citizens carrying Glocks, semi-automatics, killing Las Vegas revelers, or the children of Sandy Hook, or Florida students, and now, church going Catholics; it isn’t going to stop until the electorate and the representatives we elect have the will to make it stop, to stop treating gun shows like flea markets, to restrict sales. For every Kyle Rittenhouse engaging in the right of self-defense, there are 20 tragedies any literate reader could rattle off. Remember George Zimmerman making a martyr out of Trayvon Martin, in 2012, at the tail end of Obama’s dimming comet of glory? Until Trump’s election last November, Democrats outnumbered Republicans by 2 to 1 on the basis of voter registration. It can be that way again, because conservatives tend to be streamlined, have a unipolar focus, like faith in God, country, and austerity.  So stand for something, change the Constitution. I have written on this Blogger failure in the past that I believe in political violence in very limited circumstances. Will Smith slapping Chris Rock didn’t perturb my conscience. I don’t appreciate either man a great deal, but Smith stood ground in an acceptable manner. Senseless carnage destroys everyone and everything which used to be decent, including me.

It's All Fixed?

 "The last game needed to win is always the hardest."-- Nazem Kadri, rink Sultan

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I first heeded the call to return to what used to enthrall me about NHL professional hockey in 2022, when the AVS defeated Tampa Bay to host the Stanley Cup that off season. It wasn't a hard and fast rekindling of  a twelve year old's medical model pain which found appeasement in the dark listening to Flyer's radio as the Broad Street Bullies brought it home and actually let me touch that magical trophy when I was still in my normal W sitting  posture, in pigtails, hard for me to remember now, my normal body in that horrible vaginal-painted ward in 1975, before the surgeons, with my father's permission, destroyed me, although I am obviously still here, suffering writer's block superficially due to Substack, another collective bargain with digital devils which obviously isn't working. I don't want to do this on that model, indulge myself. I can't afford it.

Kadri was more quixotic than exotic to me, wondering in the back of my mind if the Canadians htad gone too far turning a Muslim into an athletic nerd. Perhaps I followed up on the racism Naz had to field, but it wasn't the focus of my attention. All the line journalists wanted to speak to him, he was good at relating to fans while closing in on that victory, trying to find a fixation that will keep me strong enough not to self-destruct with end of life nigger welfare care at my disposal, such intimacies as are necessary with the majority black warders making me worse, not better, than when  Google wanted to terminate me for incendiary, caustic tones. Perhaps I wanted an insurrection, much like the Red Brigade did when they assassinated Moreno, but I am too old now. Genocide, carnage, casualties, it doesn't heal pain solve my arduous cursor issues, or earn me Paul Bissnnette's acknowledgement. What would that do for me anyway, giving up on James Woods the actor with muted rancor, and why that? Trump Elevation Syndrome? The tragedy of his Palisades survival? X makes me feel too familiar with Woods, and like some thinkers, I cannot process that virtual reality, ditto my dying aunt. I have written about her on Blogger, disparagingly, and she is dying almost exactly as Pope Francis did. It is all fixed, she used to tell me about sports, and after the Canes victory Monday evening, her sensibility makes me balk. She's right. Granted Florida was tired, but some of you remember the early James Woods film, Against All Odds. Big money wants game 5. Too cynical?