Simple solution

There are many sides to most issues, often obscured by emotional response or a short-view simplistic solution.  Arguments made along party lines are often poorly-informed.  Thoughtless blaming and accusing can contribute to subsequent confusion.

There are indeed positions held on an issue which might be considered conservative.  Or liberal.  Or progressive or socialist or capitalist or pro-life or pro-rights or ....  Such labels are of little help, we've noticed, because it's just the goal that matters, not the party.

School shootings and school violence top the

media list today.  Discussions of gun control,

rights of ownership, and arming teachers are

 the perhaps simplest response, but they don't
 address either the cause or a
 truly viable solution.

Why would a student go to school to kill?  

Attacks in schools by students go back to the 1800s in the U.S., and are often related to events at the school. Within that context, we see students choosing violence when faced with rejection, conflict, or their own failure, things they perhaps don't know how to deal with otherwise.  It sometimes can be traced to escalating frustration, perhaps a life-skill development shortfall over years.

Columbine wasn't first, but it has been a model studied by perpetrators here and elsewhere in the world.  Do we know why?  In some measure, we do.  Can security measures at school solve the problem.  Unlikely.  Nor will an assault weapons ban or background checks bring about any fundamental change in heart and mind of those planning violence.

Causes, as reported -- there's bullying or having been bullied, being harshly and perhaps publicly reproved by a teacher/principal, being ostracised by a social group, academic failure, loneliness, conflict, failed romance, frustration with personal life and home circumstances ....

Beyond the simplistic solutions offered, there is much to understand about who we are and how things have changed in the recent decades.

For what specifically do we equip our children?  Ideally, we'll redirect them to personal strength and away from violence.  They'll perhaps be faced with circumstances like these:

• school culture may or may not be an extension of family and community; real life is usually quite different.
• not every school culture is harsh, but segments of many are.
• not every teacher/administrator is thoughtfully engaged every hour of every day, but many are or nearly so.
• not every neighborhood supports student aspirations, but many do.
• not every household is calm, but most are functional.
• not every parent is unaware or uninvolved, though many are limited by multiple jobs and partner absence.
• not every student is equally vulnerable to distress, 
• and not every crisis has the same solution. 

And, while laws are necessary, none of the causal elements are addressable by legislation.  None.

Required in the larger discussion -- personal, family, and community values, national principles; all must be considered, and law isn't going to solve the problem no matter how much we'd like to legislate something simple and move on. 
Leadership, however, ....
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Update 4 MAR 18 - here's one senator's approach via a bipartisan study group for policy changes that might help.  Written like a politician perhaps, but it contains a preliminary set of goals for the discussion as it moves progressively deeper.  Thoughts?  Missing pieces?  What are the chances of meaningful change?
 

School safety is a top priority on a daily basis--in every classroom in Maryland. Over the last week I've been working with a small bi-partisan group to develop a comprehensive, multi-faceted action plan that addresses the issue. 

This plan has overwhelming bi-partisan support; will be drafted into a 4-tier legislative package with each tier then including specific solutions to issues in each of the following categories:

          Prevention, Anticipation, Deterrence, Protection.

Providing additional support to our communities by tightening background check procedures, establishing threat assessment teams in schools, adding more sworn, trained police to serve as on-site resource officers, and last line of defense safe refuges in classrooms are just a few of the changes this legislation will mandate. Keeping our kids safe--along with teachers and faculty--is the true goal. This legislation not only addresses today; it also includes a system of checks and balances that requires periodic review of safety procedures at each individual school. ... 

We are deliberately staying away from 'solutions' that will never pass or cause polarizing partisan fights. I don't want headlines or press releases - I want to fix the problem. 
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Problems -- Impediments to understanding include how such incidents are categorized and reported by various agencies. State agency perspectives vary widely.
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Gun control -- after 17 people were killed at a high school in Parkland, Florida, gun control advocates say they have momentum to enact new state laws. But in the years since the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, more state laws have actually expanded access to guns.

From a recent article in Huffington Post ...

"In the years since Sandy Hook, when 26 were slain in 2012, states have enacted nearly 600 new gun laws, according to data compiled separately by the National Rifle Association and the Giffords Law Center to Reduce Gun Violence. Nearly two-thirds of those were backed by the NRA. It is “indisputably true” that there have been far more new laws that loosen gun restrictions than tighten them, said Michael Hammond, the legislative counsel at Gun Owners of America, a Virginia-based “no compromise” gun lobbying organization. The way a state reacts to mass shootings depends on who controls its legislature, he said. And in the case of the states that expanded access to firearms, most were controlled by Republicans.

“If you are in favor of the Second Amendment, grow up with guns, are comfortable with guns, don’t want to see kids turned into sitting ducks, you’re more likely to say the solution is more guns,” Hammond said."

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From Jay Bazzinotti on Quora, 17 FEB:
The “main culprit” that seems to be the cause of school shootings is the cruelness of life combined with very easy access to guns. Throughout history we have made school itself a punishment where students long for snow days and see as drudgery the sudden rigid schedules. They are separated from seeing the inherent benefits of schooling: the social aspect, the education; the learning; the use of time; the opportunity for extra-curricular activities. They are unable to find reasonable ways to express their dissatisfaction with their environment, with discipline, with work, with their changing bodies and romantic entanglements they cannot understand or seem to make work. They seek control and something like “freedom”. School is like prison to many students. The easy access to guns, the unrealistic portrayal of shootings in movies and TV with their lack of gore, their lack of remorse or grief and their apparent magical ability to provide control and easy answers to nearly every problem makes shootings more attractive. We try to control shootings more now by building prison-like schools with more metal detectors and bomb-sniffing dogs in the hallways, with bulletproof classroom doors made of diamond plate and TV cameras in every hall but all we do is push the problem somewhere else - to shootings in churches and theaters and stadiums. There are 140,000 schools in the United States, every one of them a potential target, a soft target.

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Apart from law, what role does leadership play in this issue?

A year ago this month ...

Shane Patrick Boyle was a young man who had moved to Arkansas to care for his ailing mother. Boyle was a diabetic who was unable to find work in his new town, so he couldn’t afford the insulin shots his body needed to stay alive.  He was waiting for his ACA application to be approved, but it was taking a long time.  In desperation, he started a GoFundMe account to raise money. He was $50 short of his goal when he died, just two days after his mother passed away, in February 2017.

Remembered by his cousin, "The world lost a

wonderful man due to complications of

type 1 diabetes. My cousin, Shane Boyle,

put everything into taking care of his ailing

mother at the expense of his own needs.

The price of insulin had tripled in the decade before Shane died. The required doctor visits and treatment supplies had increased similarly, and folks without insurance pay higher prices.  It cost Shane his life.

Boyle’s story isn’t unique. Alec Raeshawn Smith was a 26-year-old diabetic who had to start rationing his own insulin after he aged out of his parents’ insurance coverage. He was found dead in his apartment in June of last year. 

Research (by the NIH and Columbia University reviewing 47 studies) has found that poverty and inequality cause roughly 291,000 deaths in America every year. Their research also found that poverty was a contributing factor in many more deaths.

So helping the less fortunate among us isn’t just a nice thing to do, it saves lives, which may explain some of God’s deep concern.  It might motivate us to get involved. The reason the wealth gap should concern people is that life and death should concern people, and the sooner we can be honest about the very real consequences of turning a blind eye to American poverty when we have the resources to do something about it, the sooner we can start talking about real solutions.

The Spice of Islands

The only place in the world ... the Spice Islands.

Inhabited for thousands of years with a long history of self-rule, the Maluku islands were in the center of world trade in spices. In the south, the Banda Islands were the world's only source of nutmeg and mace produced from the nutmeg tree.  Cloves were available from nearby island communities and nowhere else in the world. For generation after generation, they traded the spices for food and manufactured goods from India, China, and Arabia.

Banda Islands

When Europeans discovered the market, competition escalated viciously.  In the 16th century, the Portuguese were first to arrive and attempted to monopolize the trade in spices, but failed.  The Dutch East India Company (VOC) attempted the same monopolizing and succeeded.  It was Europe's second joint stock company after the English East India Company, both major landmarks in the development of the modern corporation.

Much like today, the Dutch East India Company coerced the local governments into unbalanced trade agreements that gave them increasing leverage in the local economy and workforce.  When they came to the Banda Islands, however, there was no central government to conquer.  Each community was governed by a council of residents, and they were quite opposed to foreign involvement, so the company killed them.  Corporate genocide.

Jan Pieterszoon Coen, the Dutch governor of Batavia, sailed with a fleet (and company army) to Banda in 1621 and killed almost all of the people there.  He let about a thousand survive to preserve the agricultural knowledge necessary for continued spice production.  He divided the lands into 68 sections which he allocated to company executives and brought in slaves for forced labor.

Such deadly practices were not uncommon and are seen in varying degree among most of the business ventures controlling the new world's trade in their treatment of both colonists and indigenous populations.  Indentured servitude, slavery, and native genocide were corporate initiatives.

Today, it is illegal in most contexts to kill competitors.  With that exception, corporate trade practices continue much as before.

Fair trade efforts have shown some progress, but 'me first' and 'us first' persist to the detriment of most of the world's inhabitants.  Inequality between and within nations is increasing each year.

There's more, of course, with perhaps the key
factors being governance and equality.
North and South Korea provide interesting
examples as did our northern and southern
states up through the mid-20th century.

Public discourse suggests that the only alternative to capitalism is socialism, suggesting the better of the two is the only choice.  That discussion is perhaps simplistic rhetoric rather than informed.  Neither capitalism nor socialism provides a solution, as we well know.  Both leave the lower economic segments of the population in deprivation and inescapable circumstances.

Fortunately, there are numerous alternatives.  For starters, ours is not a pure capitalist economy any more than China is pure socialist.  Both economies have morphed over the years, sometimes beneficially, sometimes not.

Here's hoping we learn along the way and improve appropriately, perhaps virtuously, as has from time to time been our national intent.

The Problem with Anger

An angry delivery will do more harm than good, even if the criticism is deserved.

Most folks don't begin the day looking for an opportunity to explode.  Such occasions tend to surprise us, and we perhaps respond quickly and without much thought. Kaboom!  Out pours the mess of our own less-than-perfect soul.

Anger rises naturally in us.  Something we care about got handled badly by someone else.  Waiting in line, listening to politicians, or dealing with life and a partner can trigger that natural response in us.

Anger person-to-person, however, breaks the bonds of relationship.  It's more or less deliberate.  I love you less at the moment because you ... whatever.

We sat with an impressive couple who recounted for us their personal relationship changes.  Both had been conflict escalators, adding emotional content (anger, rebuke, criticism, kitchen sink) to discussions where they didn't agree.  They told us how they had started asking why this or that mattered and negotiating the important things.  It involved more listening.  They pulled back far enough to see the values they shared and figure out how to achieve their goals.  They were justifiably proud of themselves and warmly confident about their future together. It was an eye-opener.

For the record, Jesus said anger is pretty much the same as murder.  (Mt 5:21-22)  Put down, beat down, force down, or force away.  Being, acting, or speaking angrily; all the same root.

Love is patient and kind.
  Love does not dishonor other poople.
    Love does not easily become angry.
      Love does not keep track of other people's wrongs.
         And a loving heart apologizes sincerely when it has done wrong.

Happy Valentines Day.

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You might appreciate ... The Strangest of Creatures

Wage and Job Growth

Data through the end of 2017 from the Bureau of Labor Statics today.

Job growth and unemployment numbers are encouraging, but there's more to the reality for American households.

Wages have kept pace with inflation plus a small margin since 2001.  Measuring percentages can be inadequate or even misleading.  If your weekly pay is $380, making $576 seventeen years later (after inflation, that's up about $50) isn't great progress.  That's the 25th percentile.  

We have 113 million in the full time workforce and 25 million working part time.  There are about 20 million who haven't worked in more than a year of which about 7 million aren't looking anymore; they've given up, gone back to parents perhaps or to the streets with the other homeless.  An increasing number are falling out of the labor force for as yet undetermined reasons.

Data through the end of 2017 from the Bureau of Labor Statics today.

Prime employment-age male participation in the workforce

"A crucial measure of how far from full recovery the economy remains is the growth of nominal wages (wages unadjusted for inflation). Nominal wage growth since the recovery officially began in mid-2009 has been low and flat. This isn’t surprising–the weak labor market of the last seven years has put enormous downward pressure on wages. Employers don’t have to offer big wage increases to get and keep the workers they need. And this remains true even as a jobs recovery has consistently forged ahead in recent years." Economic Policy Institute

Only 39% of Americans have enough savings to cover a $1000 emergency. If the water heater dies, or if the car breaks down, most folks haven't got the savings to stay on top. The GAP continues to widen as income for the upper quintiles continues to grow rapidly. 

Things changed in the '70s.  Corporations moved to profit as the exclusive model.  Workers became a liability and were treated accordingly.  Legislation supported the move. Much improvement is needed, still.

So, what do you think it was that he saw?

Considered objectively, he saw something, and he tried to describe it.  

"I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”

So, what do you think it was that he saw?