Odd place

We live in such an odd place, really.

• Do local right-wing ministers (named “Wiley”) ask God to off their critics? Indeed they do. (See WILEY DRAKE: REVEREND OR AYATOLLAH?, Buena Park pastor again prays for critics' demise, God, justice and the infidels.)

• Do big newspapers utterly drop the ball on corruption in the County Sheriff’s Office and then refuse to acknowledge the droppage or the abysmal extent of said droppage? Again, indeed they do. (See REGISTER "DIDN'T HAVE THE GOODS" ON CARONA, Was media too slow in Carona case?.)

• Do public officials get paid a shitload of money for doing virtually nothing—or, worse, for doing a phenomenally shitty job? Indeed, they do. (See Some in public still angry about salary increase, Turd.)

• Great weather, though.

Nice day

Along Santiago Canyon Rd.

Sunny Girl

From Modjeska Grade

Stood on these rocks, lost my balance, fell down hard. Dropped my camera, too. On the rocks.

Lambrose Canyon Rd.

1-800-672-3888 (Red Emma)

by RED EMMA
.....AFTER a mass shooting, I always make a point of checking in with the National Rifle Association. Friday morning I went to its impressive website to look at what might be going on over at the propaganda organ of the weapons industry. You know, after five human people were killed at Northern Illinois University and a gay teen was murderized by another little kid with a handgun here in the Southland, at an Oxnard junior high.
.....The gun pimps seemed not to be addressing either killing at all. No, instead, the NRA’s “Top News Stories” were: Eddie Eagle GunSafe Program Reaches 21 Millionth Child, Deadline Approaches for NRA Youth Education Summit, and NRA Club University to Be Held in Austin, Texas.”
.....Wow. Stop the presses already. Oh, and guns don’t kill people. Mentally ill children kill people.
.....No mention either of the predictable, even necessary crime for which the NRA is directly (yes, directly) responsible in yet another case of students at a college killed by a mentally ill person or homophobe or misogynist or Regular Guy who found it easy enough to buy multiple weapons and bullets or find them in Dad’s closet or garage or wherever these assholes, all NRA supporters of course, keep their shit. No, instead, an attack on Rosie O’Donnell.
.....So, beyond checking in, I always make a point of actually calling the NRA’s toll free number. 1-800-672-3888.
.....“I am just calling,” I said on Friday morning, “to acknowledge the work of the NRA.” I paused here. (Red has done this before, because I am an asshole, so I kind of have it down. It’s fun, if you like this sort of thing, like tearing the wings off of flies or talking to Republicans.)
.....“Well, thank you sir,” said the minimum wage-paid stooge who sits in a call center somewhere in a “right-to-work” state.
.....“Yes,” I continued, “I wanted to thank you for your consistent and tireless work to get weapons into the hands of people who kill their wives, or students or little kids, especially women, and especially this week, at high schools, colleges and universities. I wanted to make sure that you know just how much I hold the NRA responsible for confusing the Second Amendment with the right to make weapons manufacturers wealthy and lobbying to challenge reasonable restrictions on purchase of handguns and for….”
.....And so on. You get it. The guy let me talk. In fact, I have never been hung up on. These are polite people, at least for a while. It’s my impression that the NRA doesn’t get many of these calls (damn shame, too) and that the Call Center phone op doesn’t quite know what to do. Finally he or she understands the rhetorical tack, as obvious as a sinking ship, and thanks me quickly and hangs up.
.....It’s all useless and petty, mean and pointless. It doesn’t make me feel better, but it makes me feel. Bad, too. Not as bad as must feel the useless public officials who can’t seem to follow the clumsy and obvious cause and effect of billions spent by this criminal outfit and the reliably, only completely predictable next shootings, which epidemiologists and doctors can see coming, not to mention law enforcement, Congress and anybody with a brain in their head. I like to cringe when the elected official makes a public statement, because it feels bad too. When the president of the college and the governor of the state offer that there’s not much we can do, except help the victims’ families and pray and develop, yes, better communications and safety mechanisms at public institutions, maybe install more phones. Yes, more phones. Phones. (Because there aren’t cell phones everywhere?) And never, ever point out the complicity of the Colt and Glock companies and their paid hustlers for the profiteers and fetishists of mechanical death made easy. No, so scared or coerced or bought off are they, so far, far away from what is most obvious and clear that they chalk it all up to fate or “a sign of the times we live in” (actual quote, heard on NPR) without reading the actual sign right there, which reads, clearly, written in blood, thank you, legible from anywhere in the world in any language, “National Rifle Association: Sponsor, Gun Violence.”

— RE

Andrew Tonkovich

Sunny is a brat

An introduction to Sunny Girl.
For cat-lovers only. (Click on the arrow.)