Let’s get some random thoughts out of the way. We’ve got to get the motor primed and ready to hum. School is starting, football is starting, and the fall season begins in short order. Let’s get things cleared out and be ready to roll.
My random thoughts on things.
It’s sad that part of the annual back to school training for teachers and administrators is active shooter training. My daughter is a teacher, my soon to be daughter-in-law is a teacher and it just seems sad that anybody in the profession must consider this reality of the job as the enthusiasm of a new year begins.
I’ve got no workable solutions, neither does either side of the gun control argument. Wish I did.
I’m disappointed when Kansas City violent crime is blamed on state Republicans. It’s the cry nearly every time Kansas City or St. Louis hits one of the depressing milestones in terms of murder or gun related crimes. Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas is big on this excuse, and I just don’t buy it. I don’t think the lack of gun laws espoused by the more rural caucus is responsible for the crime in Kansas City and St. Louis.
The same laws or lack thereof exist throughout 100+ counties in the state that are not part of similar violent crime percentages, so it’s a mindset and social issue as much as a lack of law issue and blaming it on areas outside of Kansas City is nothing more than “dog whistle” politics.
I will agree with Mayor Lucas that mental illness is a driving force in many our problems, rural and urban. We’re getting crazier, more detached and more on edge as a people and it should concern all of us. The constant reach of our phones and social media has divided us and caused an angst in our young people that has not been fully comprehended. In my opinion, the phones and their social media connectivity may be causing more mental damage than drugs and alcohol combined. That is not going to get better as we become more and more “connected.”
Young people grow up to be old people in most cases and they bring their angst with them.
I’m not going to lie to you guys. Before I threw together this random thoughts’ column, I asked Foley to just run one of my prior columns that was a favorite of his. He said no such thing existed.
That hurt.
This column has clinically depressed me.
At least my house wasn’t raided this week. Also, grateful that I don’t keep nuclear codes in a box at my vacation home. Mostly because I don’t have a vacation home, but grateful, nonetheless.
Anyway, you live and learn. Here’s what I learned from national politics this week. If you are ever elected president of the United States, in your last few days in office, less time on Insurrections and more time on sorting and packing is in order.
Also, as a sidenote, if you reject somebody to be on the Supreme Court and you’re sometimes a little loose with rules and laws and such niceties, you should make sure it is not someone that may be attorney general someday. Don’t say I never gave you useful advice.
(Guy Speckman can be reached at gspeckman@me.com or turning over his mental random thoughts notes to the National Archives)