Let's talk and eat chocolate

What can you say about last week?  I have been eating chocolate and listening to quiet country Christmas music to try and keep from crying all weekend.  Sometimes the news is just too much.  Those innocent little kids, killed by another kid who our system failed.  So sad.

Our country does need to talk and gun control has to be a part of it.  As a country person I know guns are a valuable tool.  We own a gun.  But our country just doesn't have a sensible attitude about guns.   No one other than the military needs semi-automatic or automatic weapons.  Things need to be done, its obvious what we have doesn't work. 

But there are other things we need to talk about too.  Our mental health system is failing people.  We are holding the rights of individuals over the rights of society as a whole.  People cannot get the help they need for those they love unless they do try something horrendous.  Our prisons serve as mental hospitals.  It’s a system that desperately needs an overhaul and we need to discuss it. 

The video games and movies we let children watch or play do have something to do with the disconnect from reality, the tolerance of violence, the normalizing of abnormal behavior.  You can trace the upswing in violence to the rise of more and more violent and realistic video games and movies.  There’s no doubt in my mind they play a part in this mess we are in.  We need to talk about that.

And the media - and ultimately our fascination with violence, the competition to outdo the last guy who did something violent, the media shrilling everyday about this or that “record” in violence, all of that feeds violence and we have to talk about it.  Here in mid Michigan the media can’t stop reminding people that the Newtown shootings are not the worst school murders, citing an 80 year old incident in Bath where a bomb killed many elementary school children.  It’s not the same and we aren’t in a competition. 

We don’t need the honor of having “the worst” record.  Children don’t need to worry about bombs as well as shooters when they go to school.  As adults we know of all the horrors that are in this world.  But our children shouldn’t.   We shouldn’t even be bringing up the Bath bombing.  It’s not relevant and I repeat we don’t want the distinction of holding the record for most dead school children.

Every night the media reminds us that the last shooting or other violent death brings us closer to the “record”  or has exceeded the record.  We count the senseless acts of violence up and it takes more and worse violent acts to get our attention.   Let’s stop announcing the shootings and other violent acts.  It hasn’t seemed to help. No publicity for the stupid and evil.  Let’s make it news when there hasn’t been any violent deaths and announce how many days we have accumulated to a violence free days record. 

Candle light vigils and piles of memorial junk don’t help anything so let’s stop showing them.  Let’s focus on kids doing good things, adults helping others, and stop focusing on the terrible and sad things in the world.  If we portray a sad and hopeless world filled with violence that’s what we will have.

Oh yes this country needs to talk, about a lot of things.  There can’t be sacred cows and political correctness needs to take a vacation.  We need to get it out, work it through and just make the changes we need.  A New Year is beginning and we don’t need to accept violence any more.  Let’s talk - and eat a lot of chocolate.