I wake up to the news on NPR every morning. This morning it left me so depressed I didn’t want to get out of bed. It’s not that the news was any worse than usual. It was the utter hopelessness of what they were saying, and not saying. After relating the statement released by Cho’s family they went on the talk to a journalist who wrote a book about his son’s mental illness, his attempts to get treatment for him; bad laws and the impossibility of getting decent help for the mentally ill under our current health insurance system.
From there they went on to a survey of the stress and suffering of Iraqi children; then the current craze among our own children for getting high on cough medicine; a push for new laws regulating the sale of the stuff to minors; the resistance of manufacturers to any kind of regulation. By the time they got to the Supreme Court decision about the latest infringement on women’s rights I couldn’t decide whether to pull the pillow over my head and stay in bed or get up and scream. But it’s the things they don’t talk about that really get to me.
First, why aren’t we talking about gun control. I understand we can’t outlaw guns. But just as we regulate the sale and use of cars, also potential weapons, we should demand that every gun owner know how to use a gun, get a license for its use and possession, and in what seems to be the only thing our society understands, require high-priced liability insurance before being able to possess a gun, paid for in cash, in advance.
Second, let’s acknowledge that we are a drug culture. If we make it tough for teens to get cough medicine, they’ll use something else. I don’t know how we can deal with this, but reining in the drug ads on TV would be a good starting point. Isn’t it time we look at why kids are doing this and what alternatives we can give them.
I can’t speak about the Iraqi children. I’ve been in despair about Iraq from the moment we began talking about going in there. I’ve also been in despair about the Bush government. I think only God can do something about them, and I don’t think He’s been heard from in at least 2000 years.
I think we could do a lot about mental illness in this country. We seem to have no will to do anything constructive about it, in part because no one’s figured out a good way to make money from it. That’s probably the biggest problem we have; everything depends on making money, not impeding a company’s ability to make money, valuing wealth above all else.
I can get pretty worked up about women’s rights, also. I’ve learned that it’s not productive to let anger rule my life. Having lived through the fifties when women were supposed to have orgasms with their vacuum cleaners and washing machines, when my career choices were teacher, secretary, social worker, nurse, if I ever unleashed my anger, I would become a screaming banshee.
I don’t want to end on this bitter note. It was really a beautiful day, warm, sunny, truly spring. I went to the CMU campus for the buggy races, walked over to the library, did other nice things. It’s almost too easy to enjoy the day, forget all the pain.
Waiting for the last race.
Buggy No. 1. The buggy, the silver thing on the left, gets pushed up the hill by a fast runner then is released to run down the hill. It’s steered by a very small person lying down inside. As it starts up the next hill another runner grabs it and pushes it up.
Buggy No. 2.
100 Books Before I Die 
Well, maybe. But you never closed your parentheses. Can’t we focus on grammer-related priorities first?
I think the drug ads on TV feed the drug culture for adults as well as kids. That in turn increases insurance costs, and makes it difficult for uninsured people (me) to afford the RX we need (that also make it impossible for us to get health insurance. Malpractice suits raise the costs of doctors, and make us trust the doctors even less. It makes it difficult for the uninsured to see a doctor, so the mentally ill are often at risk. The gun laws should at least keep guns out of the hands of mentally disturbed people and off campuses. It seems to come together in my mind somehow. Tack on parents actually taking responsibility for teaching right and wrong to their kids, being home to watch over them, becoming aware of what they’re dealing with and helping them cope…it may not be the whole answer. But it would help.
Well said, Ruthe…glad to see you are so passionate about these things. You are right, I believe, in that it all comes down to money…and our society is also too busy making money to stay home and raise productive children. If the kid shows any spunk, they put them on Ritalin. Shameful, drugging our children, teaching them that it is ok to change their innate behavior through pharmaceuticals and then our society bitches about it when they try the illegal stuff. Mixed messages…the pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, gun companies continue to manufacture problems around the world, with their fear based advertising, sucking us dry…and they are most likely controlled by the same people that manufacture the problems so they can ‘fix’ them.
We can’t outlaw guns because the gun lobby (NRA) controls Congress, just as we can’t get single payer healthcare because the insurance companies control Congress. If we can ever get rid of the lobbies and special interest, then maybe we as citizens will be able to fashion a more rational world. It always comes back to money.
Maybe I’m just a dreamer, but I don’t see why we cannot outlaw guns. We can do any darned thing we want. I see no purpose for guns in our world. If you want to shoot at a target, get yourself a bow and arrow. I am sick of all the violence and deaths by gun.
I doubt gun control was the issue in the VT shootings. In fact, had more people there had guns, they would have shot the dude faster.
And as for drug ads, why stop them? it’s part of a free market to advertise product, and the ads aren’t the problem – it’s the paternalistic government that outlaws fairly harmless drugs and then wastes our own money trying to police the laws.