A Promised Land

America as a Developing Country

Steve Kerr, the Oscars, Gun Violence and All the Empty Rooms

A 35-minute masterpiece about loss, pain and love.

While living in the Philippines from 1987 to 1993, I knew about a half-dozen Filipinos who died from shootings in that wonderful but gun-plagued land. Most were just casual acquaintances of mine, yet each killing hit home. At the same time, though, I became grimly resigned to thinking, “That’s life (and death) in the Philippines.”

America’s own endless plethora of firearm fatalities may lead many of us to a similar conclusion: That’s life and death in the USA. And what with everything else going on these days, addressing gun violence has dropped off the national radar.

All the Empty Rooms, which won this year’s Oscar for Best Documentary Short Film, reminds us why we should still deeply care and strive to staunch this bloody epidemic.

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Maligayang Pasko! (Merry Christmas!) And a Few Thoughts on Cheerfulness and Resilience During Dark Times.

Americans can learn a lot from Filipinos.

Keep the flame burning…

Having lived and worked in the Philippines from 1987 to 1993, I experienced several Christmases in that predominantly Catholic country and exchanged countless “Maligayang Pasko!” (‘Merry Christmas” in Pilipino) greetings along the way. I often reflect on my time there, especially at this time of year…but also as America goes through some dark times.

Many of my holiday season memories of Manila, the capital, are positive. There were delightful celebrations, abundant Christmas decorations, lots of time off work and relatively mild (by Southeast Asian standards) weather during December.

On the other hand, the lead-up to New Years meant increasingly frequent, loud fireworks explosions throughout the month. Traffic congestion soared as shopping and partying put even more cars on Manila’s clustermuck of clogged streets.

A Christmas Spirit All Year Long

But what Maligayang Pasko means most to me is not about the holiday season itself, but how Filipinos display the Christmas spirit of joy, giving, cheerfulness and resilience throughout the year. I’ve never been in a place where so many people smiled and joked around so easily. (In a  bit of culture shock, upon moving back to the States in 1993 I found that in meeting strangers I needed to tone down my Philippines-enhanced jocularity, even in the generally friendly Bay Area.)

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A Dark Day

The Trump assassination attempt and its possible aftermath are so horrific on so many levels. For what it’s worth, here are two excerpts from my interview with the Indian TV station WION (World Is One News) a few hours after the attack. As you might imagine, they capture just a slice of my views on the matter. The American woman who’s also contributing is WION’s U.S. correspondent – with whom, you might note, I disagree on a couple of points.

 

In one of the clips, I refer to a Washington Post article that ironically appeared earlier in the day, on Trump-supporting, violence-advocating Christian nationalists. In its own way, it’s just as frightening as the shooting.

The days just seem to be getting darker lately. But let’s not give up on our creating light down the road.

Guns: Here We Go Again…

and again...and again...

Unhappy New Year

California has kicked off 2023 with a bang: two mass shootings in 72 hours. (Mass shootings constitute events in which four or more people are injured or killed, not including the murderer.) This has probably been the country’s most massacre-intensive January ever – and certainly since the Gun Violence Archive started tracking this data in 2014. Only a small fraction of these nearly twice-daily horrors (647 in 2022) gets much media coverage. Still, this seems like a nightmarish Groundhog Day.

Over the course of nearly nine years, the satirical, fake news outlet the Onion has regularly summarized such slaughters 30 times with the same headline,  “‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens.”

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Cry Until We Laugh

Some Funny Takes on Why We Must and Don’t Learn from Australia About Gun Violence

In the wake of eight shot dead in Georgia and ten in Colorado over the past couple of weeks, I was going to take a deep dive into gun violence. I would draw on analyses discussing: a wide range of relevant data; how we compare to other countries; U.S. mass shooting statistics; going small by “chip[ping] away at a large problem through a public health approach”; and a contrary prescription that asserts, “To change the status quo, Democrats should go big.”

On second thought…

Nah.

If you’re up for exploring any or all of these excellent articles, go at it.

But what strikes me about many such analyses is, through no fault of their own, how recycled they are. They update diagnoses, descriptions and prescriptions from a few years ago. They leave me disinclined to reinvent or regurgitate the wheel on this debate.

I’m not criticizing these thoughtful, informative commentaries; they’re as valid today as when originally written. But the refrains bring to mind this piece the Onion publishes each time we have a mass shooting: “‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens.”

Instead, then, I’ll offer constructive laughter rather than despairing tears. I’ll recycle some humorous but extremely insightful videos contrasting American firearms policies and perspectives with those of Australia.

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