By Sue Misao
Hey Carlton, it’s time to remove the piles of combustables from the top of the woodstove because winter’s cold shoulder, also known as fall, has arrived. The question is, where to put it all? The answer is, inside the woodstove. This is called “fall cleaning.”
Meanwhile, my smartypants neighbors just pointed me to a Sept. 21 article in the Guardian by Henry Porter that suggests American gun use is out of control and maybe it’s time for the world to intervene. “The death toll from firearms [32,000 people each year] in the U.S. suggests that the country is gripped by civil war,” he said.
“Fun,” I thought, until I heard Obama’s speech to the U.N. Tuesday morning. “There will be times when the breakdown of societies is so great, the violence against civilians so substantial, that the international community will be called upon to act,” Obama droned, adding, “While the United Nations was designed to prevent wars between states, increasingly we face the challenge of preventing slaughter within states.” Yes, you do.
Was Obama talking about Syria, or was he hinting that the U.N. should come in and perform some targeted strikes on the NRA? Because, one can only conclude, 32,000 gun deaths per year pretty much makes the United States one of those places Obama was talking about, where “horrendous violence can put innocent men, women and children at risk with no hope of protection from their national institutions.” He said the U.N. has to help “prevent mass atrocities.”
It looks like the world might want to solve us, since we can’t do it ourselves. Stay safe, Carlton.
