Eating and reading amidst all the chaos

Today was one of those days when you just want to come home and get under a blanket with a bottle of whiskey. A traumatic first day of school for a soon to be thirteen year old turned into a double murder live on air. It was hard to focus on anything while having a discussion of local politics with a local party high up which turned into laughter when it was revealed a local community that thrives on authenticity is getting a mall pizza shop in their neighborhood. For once I was happy that the west side was neglected. Quite the social media day considering I culled about fifty people my list earlier this week.

Then one of the baby pandas at the National Zoo died.

At least my wife loves me even when I think my kid does not.

At least I am thankful to have Saga and Martin try to solve murders in Sweden and Denmark for a few more hours.

And the Mets keep winning.

Did manage to find a decent low priced Chinese take out in the area recently. There is a great Thai place in the back of an Asian market that we frequent, but sometimes you just want the sweet and sour chicken or pork strips without all the heat. There is one place that recently changed ownership and is now called Asian Wok, but I'm not feeling the need to be a pioneer. So I did some Yelp research and gave Peking Wok on West Broad a chance.

The Wife and I like it. She says the lo mein is quite good. I can vouch for the sweet and sour chicken and roast pork and snow peas. The only minor miss was the fried dumplings. For plenty of food we paid about fifteen bucks. It's in the Franklinton Center and it's a hole in the wall but they're busy making very tasty things in their kitchen.

Been trying to read more and am almost succeeding. Recently finished a very good crime book from the UK. Here's my Amazon review

From the author of the Eoin Miller trilogy comes Ways To Die In Glasgow, a new crime thriller from Jay Stringer. Sam Ireland is a Glasgow private investigator who gets involved in a case that becomes much more complex, and deadlier than she expected. Stringer also gives us the story from the perspectives of Mackie, a violent young man with a missing gangster Uncle and Lambert, a detective who tries to stretch the system as much as possible to his benefit. It's a fast paced dark and witty romp with a high body count. Men are missing, lawyers and policemen are corrupt and steadfast - just like life. Stringer writes about his now home city with great detail and gritty affection. We're shown the dark, violent pubs and the spotless purity of legal firms, with plenty of one liners and wit that rises above the many blood stains. A good read by an author with a promising future, and that cover of Coney is brilliant.

I've also just cracked the spine of Neurotribes a look at autism from a historical and scientific perspectives. Steve Silberman has done some impressive research with this heavily buzzed about book. Hope to finish it sooner than later.

And to finish, here's a cool new song by the great Darlene Love.

Invention

Second Amendment Kleenex. Each sheet is imprinted with the second amendment. To be handed out at the funerals of victims of mass shootings.

Male America loves guns more than people

The hits just keep coming don’t they? A few days ago an irresponsible journalist named Terrence McCoy published this sensationalist click bait disguised as a news story.  The following poem, that I wrote over two years ago is a bit foreshadowing.

Also that idiot stabbed three people in his apartment then drove around as he shot three more. The family lawyer brings up Aspbergers and too many people say “see?” Guy was nuts, hated women and had an extremely false sense of entitlement. Few are saying another man with a gun is a mass murderer. My condolences to all the families who lost loved ones in this tragedy.

Children in Cells

Mr. President, Chairman, Dignitaries.

Your children are one cell division away from being biologically imprisoned for life

They look like you, us,  but cannot speak for themselves;

So we as their parents, advocates and caregivers have to speak for them

While their country is abandoning them, and so many others, behind a layered war jester mask of compassion,

You ladies and gentlemen, claim the country is going bankrupt and we can no longer afford entitlements

Yet, so are these parents whose insurance is not good enough to care for their children

When a bean counter says a five year old child with an eating disorder will not be covered because food is not medically necessary but rubber stamps lap band surgery on a teenager, can’t you see there’s a problem?

Or are you all too occupied with taking profits in weapons and misery to see families fall apart?

This condition is said to effect one in one hundred
One in one hundred and fifty
Proportion does not matter when they will add up to millions.

These children will not be locked up in attics any longer

You will see them at tables in restaurants you frequent

You will sit next to them in coffee shops and artisan ice cream parlors

You will not be able to placate them with incompetent ventriloquist promises as empty as your soul

You have closed the institutions you once locked them in

You have eliminated funding for safe group homes for them to live

You will not be able to put them in jail unless you manufacture crimes of the innocent, and I am not putting it past you that you will try

It hurts to love, when what is damaged, is yours.

What you helped create, what you will not see to completion before you die - when the land he belongs to will not assist as his hand is stretched, hoping for some help

Receiving nothing but a platitude and talking point by another deceiver

At night before you sleep, you will hear all their babbling whispers

They will be telling you they’re growing up

Autistic toddlers turn into autistic teenagers turn into autistic adults

There will be multitudes of them waking you

At dawn, you will hear their cries for understanding and acceptance

Before you dream you will get on your eggshell knees, grateful you are not their parent

When you are awake, you will ignore them all

When you leave your tinted window enclave, you will be run over by a steamroller of the silent, 

Just because your victims cannot pick you out of a lineup, does not make you any less a criminal

Even then you will remain ignorant of all the mistakes you continue to make

I do not know how to stop a monster

The events of yesterday's shooting at Newtown are still raw. The details are still a bit sketchy but the fact is that twenty kids are not going to have a Christmas this year. Twenty sets of parents have to bury their children. These things are not supposed to happen as Aurora was not supposed to happen, as the Jeffords shooting was not supposed to happen.

All these mass shootings have a couple of things in common. A lone man, and guns - and I have no real answers how to prevent either from doing horrendous acts. I do not think turning a school building into an armed camp is an answer. I do not think arming everything and everyone to fulfill a Walter Mitty heroic fantasy is the answer. It's the reluctance to try anything but the status quo that continually baffles me after these murderous events occur. We sure took care of Four Loko quick though.

It's being reported that the shooter may have had Aspbergers or some other mental disorder. Another quiet kid, who kept to himself then exploded. How do these kids get treated? What psychiatric and medical facilities were available to this family, who were not poor? And did they take advantage of them?

Twenty people were wounded by a man with a knife in Shanghai yesterday. Those people are most likely going to recover from their injuries. The kids in the kindergarten classroom, not as lucky. I do not usually go to writing a poem after such a disaster has happened. Could not help it this time though.

So I've been hugging my son often, even though I'm a bit put out since he's been awake since 4AM. At least I can hear him singing, and happy, unlike twenty families in Connecticut whose homes are infected by a cruel silence this morning.

Look Through Any Window

That's the view from my desk at work when I look to the right. Been busy getting settled into the new space. All is well so far.

Thinking about this, which happened in this city six years ago.

And any history of this day has to include another event. All I'll say about it is simply, shine on.