And Now for Something Completely Different

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And now for something completely different. Well, sort of, but it’s a stretch from my usual writing about writing.

I’m about to make an admission. Maybe not a manly one, but I’m old enough that I can suffer the slings, arrows, and jibes that just about anyone might aim at me. So, here it is: I love musical theatre.

My love for musicals began in 1957, when my parents took me, an 11 year old boy, to my first Broadway show, L’il Abner. I loved everything about it: the staging, the comedy, the music, and most of all, Edie Adams as Daisy Mae (no further comment necessary). Two days later, I saw The Most Happy Fella. Thus was my love for musicals ignited, and the flame has burned brightly ever since.

Why mention (admit?) this? Because musicals, like novels, short stories, and articles, are written. And just as for these other works, some musical shows are written brilliantly, the music, lyrics, and spoken dialogue meshing perfectly. A few examples: the aforementioned L’il Abner, Carousel, West Side Story, 42nd Street, The Scottsboro Boys, Chicago, Pippin, Little Shop of Horrors, et al.

Others, less than perfect, nevertheless succeed despite their flaws. Take Miss Saigon, which has wonderful music and at least some very well written lyrics, but also some that are awkward and even trite. Still, the show overcomes its flaws on the strength of its story (a modern updating of Madame Butterfly), its emotionality, and the beauty of its music. The Phantom of the Opera offers another example of a wildly successful show that succeeds more because of its elaborate staging and lushly romantic plot than because of its unremarkable writing set to some admittedly catchy, if occasionally largely indistinguishable melodies. I will never understand why Cats has been so successful.

On the other hand, there are the flops. Does anyone really remember, or want to remember, Aspects of Love?

So, what’s the point of all this? It’s that writing a successful musical is a terribly difficult thing to do, and the skill and creativity involved in doing so are grossly underappreciated. Too many people dismiss musical theatre as trivial when, in fact, like jazz, it is a truly American, highly complex art form that deserves much more respect than it gets. I love musicals and, if you don’t, perhaps you should take another look. And listen. Maybe you’ll find love, much as I once did with Daisy Mae.

Plot 10, Writing 3

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With apologies to A Chorus Line, “Plot 10, Writing 3”…

Thanks to an initial subscription given to me by my daughter and son-in-law, I have for several years been receiving a monthly publication featuring science fiction short stories and novellas. As one might predict, the quality of the stories varies, with some being very creative and engrossing, and some being significantly less so. What is disturbingly pervasive across the magazine’s creative spectrum, however, is some terrible writing and editing. To wit: the editor of the aforementioned sci-fi magazine, in responding to a letter from a reader complaining that he hated two recently published stories, wrote, “I actually feel like only hating two stories out of the year is pretty complementary, all things considered.” Clearly, the magazine’s editor needs some remedial work. (If you don’t see the error, you do, too.)

This particular magazine is not alone in the bad execution department. It exists in many self-published books as well as newspapers and magazines, and don’t get me started on club and other organization newsletters. I’ve written briefly about this before, but recently have seen so many good plots and articles marred by stupid writing errors that I’m motivated to address the problem in more detail, now.

Some of the problem, of course, can be attributed simply to lousy writing skills. There are a lot of folks who simply find it beyond their skill set to write a simple declarative sentence without error(s). The problem is exacerbated when they try to be creative. Disagreement between subjects and verbs; dangling constructions; tense discordance; the list goes on. What were these people doing back in grammar school? Obviously, not learning English. (Where’s grammar? Upstairs, sleeping.)

Most writing for publication these days is done on computers. You’d think people would use spell check before submitting a piece. But you’d be wrong. Why don’t they? Who knows? Grammar check? Ditto.

When pieces are submitted, they are often sent as e-mail attachments. This has led to carelessness in the editing process. Publications are no longer typeset and may receive no more than a cursory review by a nominal editor before being transferred directly from the submitted file to the actual document for publication. In other words, the role of the editor has become markedly diminished and apparently, in some cases, nonexistent. This is how idiotic errors on the order of, “John slipped behind the wheel and they put the key in the ignition,” can and do occur. With poor or no editing, we see things like there/they’re/their errors, the frequent “could care less” instead of “couldn’t care less” mistake, or the abominable her’s instead of hers. Read critically and you’ll find all sorts of execrable stuff like this.

So, what’s the answer? Unfortunately, I’m not sure there is one.

We don’t teach English usage well in our schools. Multiple choice testing and the lack of assignments requiring writing are major contributors to the problem. Worse, many teachers, being recent products of our faltering educational system with its lack of emphasis upon the acquisition of English skills, are simply not equipped to teach current students. The prevalence of texting is another problem that has received much attention. To say it’s ungrammatical would be an understatement.

Does any of this matter? Perhaps not for idiomatic, everyday communication. But I think it does matter for more formal journalistic, nonfiction, and creative writing. Maybe I’m being overly sensitive, but nothing ruins my mood while reading a terrific article or story quite as much as coming across an “irregardless”, a misuse of “begging the question”, a dangling phrase, a homonym error, a misplaced or misused apostrophe, or any of a large number of other errors that should never occur.

Call me a curmudgeon, but I think there’s beauty in our language, and I hate to see it butchered.

Gone Fishin’

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This is the 31st entry into seductivepeach.com, and it’s been a fun ride since January, when I started these weekly entries. And yes, I haven’t missed a week since the inaugural posting.

As regular readers know, the blog has focused on writing for the self-publishing author, with occasional – OK, frequent – excursions into politics, religion, and whatever other thoughts cross my mind.

This week, I’m taking a break from the usual topics because we’ve just spent the past several days on the road, taking in some of the beautiful and occasionally odd sights of our country.

A couple of our “for instances”: The Cadillac Ranch near Amarillo, Texas. Yes, in a pasture alongside Interstate 40, one can view ten old Cadillacs half buried and semi-vertical with tailfins pointing upward at an angle approximating that of the slope of the faces of the Great Pyramid of Giza, and painted in psychedelic colors and patterns. In fact, visitors can add their own artistic inspiration if they bring their own spray cans. Or, how about the world’s second tallest crucifix: 19 stories high, standing just outside of Groom, Texas, east of Amarillo. A true monument to wasteful religious commitment, but ya gotta love it.

So, no deep thoughts for this week. Just a bit of a break from more serious subjects. More next time.

 

Little Pieces

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Up to now, I’ve pretty much dealt with both writing, publishing, and marketing one’s books. What I haven’t addressed is the subject of articles and essays, and the task of getting them into print. My own experience has been spotty, with some high points over the years mixed in with lots of rejections. Maybe my own history will prove useful if you’re trying to get some shorter pieces into print.

Back in the 1980’s, when I first started submitting articles to publications, I had some pretty grandiose notions about where I could be showcased. This resulted in a series of rejection letters from some of our finest publications of the day: New York Magazine, The New Yorker, Omni, Playboy, California…all on their lovely stationery. Usually these form missives began with “Dear Author” and went on there to note that either my material wasn’t “quite” right for their august pages or, occasionally, the dubious and likely faux politesse of, “We get many submissions and, unfortunately, cannot publish them all…”

I used to save all these letters, feeling I might someday paper my bathroom wall with them. Recently, however, I gave up on the idea and threw them out.

After receiving a certain number of these rejections, I began to see things in more realistic terms and, looking to a couple of my hobbies – amateur (“ham”) radio and model airplanes – wrote several articles for hobby-niche publications which, in fact got printed. I also wrote for a medical “throw-away” publication called Medical Economics, got a number of letters to the editor into a local newspaper and the L.A. Times. My latest success is that I will have an essay published this summer in a medically-oriented literary journal, The Pharos. Over the years, I’ve accumulated a fair number of these sorts of published pieces – enough to keep me encouraged in my writing while working on my two books.

So, what are the lessons to be taken from this? I think they’re few in number but highly valuable.

First, unless you’re a well known writer or have some high level contacts, you will likely end up on the slush pile of major magazine editors if you’re submitting to them cold. I’m not saying you shouldn’t do it, but you need to be realistic. I’ve still never gotten a story into Playboy, even though I’m egotistical enough to think that the few pieces I’ve sent to them over the years are at least as good as some of the fiction they’ve printed over the same period of time. Send targeted pieces to smaller, niche publications, many of which will likely be happy to publish your work.

Second, and there’s nothing original about this suggestion, write what you know even if it’s not really what you want to do. There’s nothing wrong with writing an article about servicing left handed veeblefetzers if that’s what’ll get you into print in the American Journal of Applied Fetzerology. You won’t make much money at it but you’ll be a published writer, and that’s at least part of your goal fulfilled.

Third, write letters to the editor of newspapers and magazines. You might or might not get printed but, if you do, people will see your name, and that’s important.

Fourth, no matter what you submit and where you submit it, expect a fair share of rejections. It’s going to happen, and if it’s going to upset you, you should probably be doing something else.

Fifth, no matter what, continue writing. The worst thing is to stop. The more you write, the better at it you are likely to become. And don’t be afraid of feedback and criticism. It will sharpen your focus, increase your insight into what you’re doing, and tell you much about the perceptions of your audience. If you’re going to succeed, you have to keep at it and develop a thick skin.

The Five Grumps Step in It Again

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   This week, we depart from literary pursuits to vent our frustration over the recent “Hobby Lobby” decision by the five crotchety Neanderthals on the Supreme Court, who’ve both politicized and “religicized” (yes, I made that up) the Court to an unprecedented degree.

   First, let’s recall that our country’s founders were deists who sought, among other goals, to establish a country free from religious oppression. Their idea was to keep any one religion from becoming the sanctioned religion of the United States, and for them this meant in particular that the sort of Christian theocratic influence and abuse previously seen in Europe and England was to be avoided.

   The corollary to freedom of religion and the establishment clause of the first amendment was the implication of freedom from religion. Of course, this is not stated anywhere in the Constitution, but if freedom of thought is an inherent right, then the absence of any establishment of religion clearly implies freedom from it, as well.

   All of which brings us to what’s been going on in recent times with the political right wing, right wing Republicans, Tea Partiers, and the Supreme Court. Any objective review of recent events must lead to the conclusion that the United States is suffering from creeping religionism (a real word). The White House’s Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, permission of sectarian prayers at public governmental meetings, and now – case in point — the ability of employers of closely held corporations to exclude family planning coverage from employee insurance plans – what happened to the first amendment?

   Here’s what happened: right wing nuts, including five angry and religious white guys on the Supreme Court, have decided to impose their morality on the rest of us. How can they do this? Well, they have already defined corporations as people, issued the infamous “Citizens United” decision, and now they’re saying that “closely held” corporations, i.e., those in which at least a majority of the stock is held by the officers of the corporation who have no plans to sell and thereby give up their control, can impose their religious beliefs on employees by restricting their insurance coverage. What’s next? Refusal to cover immunizations? Blood transfusions? Organ transplants? You name it: the door has been opened and it’s a certainty that we’ll be seeing test cases in the near future. Just wait until the first corporation owned by Christian Scientists doesn’t want much of anything to be covered except (maybe) fractures.

   Well, all right, you may say. Why shouldn’t the owners of Hobby Lobby be able to control the insurance coverage of their employees? Here two answers to the question:

  • Because a corporation is a legal entity, not a corporeal person. The individuals behind the corporation are not the corporation itself. As a legal entity, a commercial corporation cannot have a religion, and should not be able to impose religious views and restrictions upon its employees.
  • As already noted, the founders believed in what became known as the “wall of separation” between church and state, making the Hobby Lobby decision an unwarranted intrusion upon individual rights. How? By making Hobby Lobby a de facto agent of the state. What has been created is government sanctioned, corporate theocracy. This is simply a devious violation of the first amendment of the Constitution.

   If the owners of Hobby Lobby truly want to impose their religious convictions upon employees. and I even agree that, as distasteful to me as this is, they do have some rights in this area, they should be required to give up corporate status and simply become a privately held, unincorporated business. Then, without the luxury of hiding behind all of the protections offered to corporate entities (something right wingers should favor, anyway), they’d be able to offer pretty much whatever kind of insurance policy they might favor.

   Finally, a brief comment about Hobby Lobby’s actual philosophy. It never fails to amaze me how right wing factions constantly talk about individual freedom but only their own and not everybody else’s. In the Hobby Lobby case, their objection to family planning coverage appears at least in part to be based upon the notion that some contraceptive methods may act as abortifacients, although in most cases this is not true. Worse, not covering contraceptive therapy will not reduce the number of abortions. It will, in fact, increase that number. Thus, if the owners of Hobby Lobby are really interested in reducing the incidence of abortions, they should be supporting contraceptive coverage. This logical inconsistency on their part is difficult to understand, but one might suspect that underlying some of it is simply hostility directed at women. And based upon past right wing, religious fundamentalist performance, I’d say that’s a good bet, since they haven’t objected to coverage for erectile dysfunction medications which, as we know, are most often used not for procreation but for recreational sex. Yup, it’s the familiar double standard, promulgated under the hypocritically altruistic banner of that ol’ timey religion.

This week’s annoyance: The five members of the U.S. Supreme Court, who oppose judicial activism except when it benefits their political views, and who have abandoned fidelity both to the letter and the spirit of the U.S. Constitution.

Wanda’s Readers

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Wanda’s Readers is a book club in Riverside, California. A close friend belongs to the club and, having read and liked Zendoscopy, she decided to recommend it as the book of choice for the club’s June project. Then, she contacted me to ask whether I’d be willing to attend their June meeting for a “meet and greet” with the author.

Zendoscopy is, as has been noted in its Kirkus review, a “memoirlike” (sic) novel consisting of a series of loosely linked episodes in the life of a young boy and his coming of age as a young man. The book’s primary target audience is male, and although I accepted my friend’s invitation to attend the meeting, it was with some apprehension, Wanda’s Readers being a women’s book club.

On the appointed day, with my wife accompanying me, I presented at the knitting store where the group meets. There were about a dozen women in attendance, along with my friend’s fiancé (and longtime friend of ours). He was the only other male in the room.

The evening began with a nice dinner, during which conversation was casual and friendly. Eventually, however, it came time to discuss my book. I was invited to make a few opening remarks, and I described in some detail my concept for the book, trying to place its themes at a level above the specifics of the plot. This turned out, I think, to be a useful way of approaching the discussion, since it opened up the book to a discussion going beyond viewing the book as simply a collection of perhaps entertaining stories and, instead, provided an overarching view of what I, as the author, was trying to accomplish.

In response to my opening remarks, I got back some predictable questions: How much of the book relates real events? Am I Sherman, the book’s narrator? How long did it take me to write the book? And so on. But what also came out was something much more interesting, namely, the feeling by some of the readers that the book gave them a glimpse into the male psyche not often offered or shared with them. Several of the readers implied that they’d not before been exposed to such frank expression of male concerns, anxieties, desires, and, dare one say it, feelings. It occurred to me that, in fact, Zendoscopy was to them in some ways a male version of “chick lit”, a book dealing with male motivations, emotions, and trials. If, for these women, it was a sort of revelation, it was for me totally unexpected and even enlightening, something I never would have guessed.

Two of the women told me that their husbands had read the book. One of these men apparently made little comment after reading it, but the other identified closely with the stories and themes, reacting as I would hope a primary targeted reader would.

In the end, it appears that both the readers and I learned something from the evening. From my perspective, it was a wonderful experience. I received insightful feedback – not all positive, I would add – from a group of thoughtful, intelligent readers who expressed their reactions articulately, constructively, and with humor and respect.

As a self-published writer, I know first hand how difficult it can be to secure honest feedback from independent sources. Opening myself to such input at the book club was therefore a valuable experience, and the perspective I gained will, I hope, make me aware as I undertake future writing projects of the ways in which my work may be perceived by other than those who I might assume to be my primary audience. So, my thanks to Wanda’s Readers, and my strong recommendation that if you’re a self-published writer, you should seek out and actively engage with any group that might wish to do a “meet and greet” with you. Oh, and bring a few copies of your book and a good pen with you when you go. I did, and I sold and signed a few books, especially for those who had bought the Kindle edition of Zendoscopy.

Book Review: The Sixth Extinction, by Elizabeth Kolbert (Henry Holt and Co., 2014)

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Planet Earth is four and a half billion years old. It is not, as creationists would have us believe, only 6000 years old, and humans did not coexist with dinosaurs. Evolution is a scientific fact, not what those same Bible literalists and other religions fundamentalists, all of whom fail to understand the scientific (as opposed to the popular) meaning of the word, theory, would have us believe. And while Earth continues to grow older, evolution continues to occur. But there is a problem, and it is that evolution is happening at an ever increasing rate. And therein lies the core concern of Elizabeth Kolbert’s as developed in her extraordinary book, The Sixth Extinction.

In a meticulously researched, scientifically sound, and yet eminently readable work, Ms. Kolbert tells a story of evolution and five previous large scale extinctions of species on the planet. Through a series of personal adventures with a variety of scientists expert in differing disciplines, she provides both an informative view of what has gone before the age of humankind and then, having set the stage, she looks in depth at what is happening now, in an epoch increasingly being recognized as the “anthropocene”.

Her well supported thesis is that humans have had and continue to have major impact upon evolution. Through the often inadvertent and sometimes intentional redistribution of species in such diverse ways as spreading them in the ballast tanks of ships to befouling our atmosphere and oceans and poaching endangered game in ways that change local ecologies to favor or disfavor species, we are hastening the process of evolution on Earth. And no small part of what we are doing is accelerating the rate at which myriad species are becoming extinct: the sixth extinction.

It is remarkable that her grim tale of planetary transformation is told with wit and in lay terms, making the book both entertaining and frightening while always enlightening. The take-away from all this? Ms. Kolbert doesn’t preach but, rather, she simply lays out the facts, leaving us to decide. For this reviewer, the lesson is clear. Unless steps are taken to alter major aspects of human activity, we may be creating a dismal fate for our own species as well as others, many already severely affected.

There are those who believe that we need not do anything about all this, that their God will intervene either to remedy the situation or effect the “Rapture” for the deserving. But even these folks must admit that they don’t have a timetable for their hoped for salvation, and this ought to motivate them to join forces with the rest of us to safeguard Earth for succeeding generations. Unfortunately, however, human behavior to date does not bode well for positive change.

Ms. Kolbert has accomplished an extraordinary feat with her book. Rarely have the prospects for a fatal future been related in such a witty and engaging manner.

*Highly Recommended*

Flash News and Thoughts on Independent Bookstores

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FLASH!!! Zendoscopy selected as one of 20 indie books to have its review published in the 1 June 2014 issue of Kirkus Reviews!!

And now, this week’s entry:  The Independent Bookstore: An Endangered Species

Books have been a critical part of my life almost from earliest memory. From the Golden Books read to me as a young child by my mother all the way to Christopher Hitchens, I have found delight and stimulation through reading.

I began my independent searching out of reading material while still in elementary school, when once every two weeks the L.A. Public Library’s “Bookmobile” would park on the school’s playground and open its door those of us hungry for words on a page. From Heinlein’s “The Red Planet” to Brooks’ “Freddy the Pig” stories, I devoured the Bookmobile’s offerings.

One day, my mother took me to a new treasure trove of literature. A claustrophobic cluster of little rooms packed with books called Lewis’ Book Store and owned, of course, by Mr. Lewis. I never knew his first name, but I remember him to this day. He was just what you’d expect of such a store’s owner: an older gentleman, short of physical stature, kind and willing to help a young boy find just the right book to take home for his collection. And take home books I did: The Hardy Boys, Tom Swift Jr., Rick Brant, the Winston Science Fiction Series, the Triple Title Series (Space, Space, Space; Ghosts, Ghosts, Ghosts…), Max Shulman’s Guided Tour of Campus Humor, and on and on and on.

I remember those days of poring over Mr. Lewis’ shelves and going home with new treasures with aching nostalgia. I had feelings then that simply aren’t duplicated when I conjure up Amazon.com on my PC or walk into the local Barnes and Noble.

But there are places where the feeling comes back.

There are still wonderful independent bookstores ripe for exploration: City Lights in San Francisco, Book Soup in West Hollywood, and others, but they are an endangered species. It’s so easy to download the latest e-book from Amazon Kindle or Barnes and Noble Nook, or to order hard copy from myriad online sellers. I know – I do it, too. But I feel sad and even a bit guilty about it, because we’ll have no one to blame but ourselves if we allow independent bookstores to become extinct.

Why do I raise this issue now? Because a local two store operation, Mysterious Galaxy, is closing its store in Redondo Beach. For those who follow my blog, the name will be familiar. Mysterious Galaxy is the store that hosted twenty authors at a recent “meet and greet”, giving us (yes, I was one of the twenty) the opportunity to court potential readers and sign copies of our books for those readers interested enough to buy. For those of us committed to the welfare of the independent bookstore, this closure is a major blow, and a sign that places with knowledgeable, helpful staff and offering real, material books that one can pick up, examine, and take home just as I used to do when I went to visit Mr. Lewis, could easily become a thing of the past.

Online booksellers and cavernous Barnes and Noble four-walled stores aren’t going to go away, but we must not let them completely bury wonderful independent and even some limited chain stores, like the dying Mysterious Galaxy or the fortunately still apparently healthy Vroman’s/Book Soup. Mr. Lewis would not approve their demise, and neither should the rest of us.

Reminder: Zendoscopy is available from the following booksellers: Book Soup (8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood – a great independent bookstore) and the UCLA BookZone (Ackerman Student Union, UCLA campus). Please support them. Of course, it’s always available from the usual online booksellers and Kindle, but wouldn’t you like to browse in a real bookstore? And any independent bookstore that doesn’t have my books, Zendoscopy and Spacebraid and Other Tales of a Dystopian Universe, on its shelves can order them for you.

Zendoscopy Featured at Book Soup!

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For those in the L.A. area, my collection of funny, sad, and outrageous stories, Zendoscopy, is now a featured “local authors” selection at Book Soup in West Hollywood, at 8818 Sunset Blvd. Here’s a link to the store and my book:

http://www.booksoup.com/Local-Authors

If you’re in West L.A., you can also find it in the UCLA BookZone in the Ackerman Student Union on campus.

And, of course, it’s available from many online booksellers, including Amazon.com, Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble, and others.

Gun Nutty

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When I was a kid and going to summer camp, I used to love shooting guns, and I was pretty damn good at it, too. Could pick off cans and hit targets dead center like nobody’s business. Then on November 22, 1963, President Kennedy was assassinated. I was 17 years old and, upon hearing the news, I cried. The very same day, I resolved never to shoot live ammunition again. Over 50 years later, I’ve kept the promise I made to myself, and I’ve never felt any desire to revisit that decision.

We live in a violent society. Gun violence is a major part of it, but the troubled kid who recently became a mass murderer in Isla Vista adjacent to the University of California at Santa Barbara also used a knife and his BMW to injure and kill, demonstrating that guns aren’t the only problem we face when it comes to violence. Still, gun violence is so prevalent and so lethal that it commands the largest of concerns when it comes to how people are being knocked off.

The nut cases of the NRA and the cowardice of elected officials in facing them down in order to enact reasonable controls on gun and ammunition availability present the largest obstructions to progress in reducing the slaughter. Let me state my position clearly: Wayne LaPierre and his ilk are people who believe that the only solution to the killing is more killing, that there should be no restrictions on any type of firearm including the most deadly automatic, assault-type weapons with large ammunition clips. These people generally adhere to the most extreme right wing agendas and seem to savor violence as the answer to violence. Nowhere in their agendas do we find any intent or desire to address underlying issues and factors leading to violence; nor do we find anything but the desire for revenge in the punishment of violent offenders: rehabilitation be hanged, along with the perpetrators.

From where in the darkness of the human soul does this frontier mentality with its predisposition to vigilantism and vengeance arise? Some of it is a harkening back to the myth of the Wild West, what one might call John Wayne-ism and the image of the justifiably self-righteous, entitled to take the law into one’s own hands. The other problem – the elephant in the room – is that damned second amendment.

Arguments over the meaning of the second amendment’s wording are never ending. Did the nation’s founders truly intend that the right to bear arms truly apply only to a “well regulated militia”, or did they intend that everyone should be entitled to his or her own private arsenal? If they had been able to foresee the types of weapons available today, would they have created the second amendment at all? Does the present National Guard constitute a well regulated militia and, if so, obviate the need for private ownership of guns?

These questions are constantly debated in the U.S., the most violent of any of the industrialized western nations, but progress toward reasonable controls is continually and effectively opposed by the fanatics of the NRA and the organization’s extortion and bribery of both national and state politicians. So, no matter how many lunatics shoot up kids at school, commit slaughter in shopping malls, movie theatres, and the streets of our cities, nothing will be done until the impossible happens.

And what is the impossible? The repeal of the second amendment. It isn’t going to happen, and because it isn’t, the problem will not be resolved. But, let’s imagine for just a moment what repeal would mean. It would mean that there would no longer be any constitutional basis for preventing states and local jurisdictions from regulating the sale and use of firearms and ammunition. It would facilitate confiscation of automatic, assault-type weapons from gangs and right wing fanatics. It would enable extensive restrictions to be placed upon who might be entitled to own guns. It would make life safer for law enforcement officials. And, finally, it would kick an important prop for the NRA’s lobbying and propagandizing activity

Note here that I am not suggesting a total ban on the ownership of firearms but, specifically, I’m advocating for strict controls on the sale, ownership, and use of them. The current carnage and inability to do anything about it are infuriating and should be intolerable in a civilized society. The U.S. is far behind much of the rest of the world in recognizing and acting upon what should be self-evident, namely, that we are long overdue in stopping the killing. Until people rise above apathy and vote out the obstructionists, things aren’t going to get any better. In the meantime, I’ll keep dreaming of a country without the second amendment.