Wide Awake

Every year around the first of June there’s a festival at our neighborhood community center. It’s called “Awakening of the Bears.” All the kids love it because they get to beat on drums, wave their arms, and make lots of noise. The purpose is three-fold. First, it teaches them what to do should they run into a bear, which is a not uncommon occurrence in these parts. Second, it serves as a reminder that this is the time of year such critters are waking up hungry from hibernation. Last but not least, there’s this enduring bit of wildlife wisdom: Bears would rather avoid than confront humans, so a human making noise on the trail serves as a deterrent to untoward bear encounters. (The one exception to all that, of course, is a mama bear with cubs. Cubs are naturally curious. Mama bears are naturally protective. So, word to the wise, best not to get between the two. All other rules go out the window if that happens.)

 

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Wide Awake and ready for action

 

Yesterday on my hike around South Rim I happened to wear my t-shirt advertising Awakening of the Bears. And indeed, yesterday I did see lots of bear scat on the trail. (Later in the season, bear scat is filled with small seeds and has a reddish tinge from a diet heavy with wild raspberries. But this early in the year, it’s mostly grasses with a greenish hue.)

Roxborough State Park opens at first light. By the beginning of June, that’s 5 AM, but most folks tend not be wide awake until a bit later in the day, so today I was first in the parking lot at 7AM. Being an early riser has advantages and disadvantages. One big advantage is that there are no other humans on the trail. One big disadvantage is… well, yeah, you guessed it. Rounding a bend about half way to the top, she was ambling toward me at about my speed, black as sin, and roughly my size. I can’t tell you how hungry she was, but she was definitely wide awake. Fact is, by that point, we both were.

Ursus americanus is notoriously near-sighted, as am I. But at ten paces there was no mistaking each other. I didn’t wait around to see if she had cubs in tow. Turning back, I went downhill the way I came, a bit faster than on my way up.  And – I’m not ashamed to say – my heart rate was significantly elevated.  Sorry, I have no pictures.  You’ll just have to take my word for it.  (Note to self: Get that can of bear spray at REI today – it’s 20% off at the Memorial Day sale. As an alternative, I guess I could get a drum? But that seems a little impractical for hiking.)

The Problem Is The Filibuster

It’s been a while since I’ve addressed anything serious in these pages. Maybe that’s why a commenter said of one of my recent weather-related posts, “Ever the flibbertigibbet.” (Yeah, I had to look it up too.) But knowing which way the wind blows is child’s play compared to the thorny issues laid bare by the recent massacre of children in an elementary school classroom in Uvalde, TX. A lot has been said in response to that, perhaps nothing more eloquent than Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr’s comments at a press conference prior to a recent NBA playoff game against Dallas. (I urge you to watch it, here.) And if you doubt Kerr’s bona fides on this subject, I suggest you google “Malcolm Kerr.” Then note that Steve’s dad was kidnapped and murdered by terrorists in Beirut while Steve was still playing college basketball at Arizona.

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All that being said, the underlying problem here – alluded to by Kerr, and spelled out more completely in a recent New Yorker piece called “How to Prevent Gun Massacres” – is the U.S. Senate’s rule on filibusters. (You can read that story here.   I think it’s important enough that I’ve reproduced it in its entirety, below.) “The filibuster?” I hear you say? Yep, the filibuster.

Don’t believe me? That’s okay. Just know this: If we do what we’ve always done, we’ll get what we’ve always gotten. To believe otherwise is the textbook definition of insanity. As for those who don’t learn from the examples of history? Well, they’re doomed to repeat them, of course. And if you wait until it’s YOUR child who gets murdered in a classroom? Or YOUR grandma who’s  gunned down by some nutjob in a grocery store? Well, my guess is, you’ve probably waited too long. Word to the wise. Believe it or don’t. Totally your call.

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How to Prevent Gun Massacres? Look Around the World.

Australia, Britain, Canada, and other countries have enacted reforms that turned mass shootings into rare, aberrational events, rather than everyday occurrences.

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On April 28, 1996, Martin Bryant, a disturbed 28-year-old Australian who had been bullied at school, walked into a café in the city of Port Arthur, a former convict settlement that is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. He pulled a Colt AR-15 rifle from his duffel bag and started shooting. After killing more than 20 people in the café, he reloaded his weapon and roamed around shooting at random. A carjacking and a hostage negotiation followed. By the time he was arrested, he had killed 35 people and wounded another 23.

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Australia, like the United States, is a former British colony that has long styled itself as a rugged, individualistic nation. Hunting and shooting are popular there. Unlike the U.S., though, Australia has a political system that is responsive to popular opinion. Its legislatures do not have filibuster-like rules that allow a minority of lawmakers to block legislation. Within 2 weeks of the Port Arthur massacre, the worst in modern Australian history, governments at the federal and state levels had agreed to ban semi-automatic and pump-action firearms. The federal government also introduced several other measures. These included a buyback scheme to compensate owners of the newly banned firearms, a centralized registry of gun owners, and a public-education campaign about the new laws.

 

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Just over a year ago, Australia marked the 25th anniversary of the transformation brought about by the Port Arthur rampage. In a country of roughly 27 million people, there are still a lot of guns in private hands. In 2020, there were an estimated 3.5 million of them. But the number of mass shootings, defined as attacks in which at least 4 people are killed, has declined precipitously. In the decade before Port Arthur, there had been 11 such incidents. In the quarter century since, there have been 3. The worst of these involved a farmer in Western Australia killing 6 family members.

 

It should be noted that Australia, like the U.S., has a strong gun lobby. Until 1996, that lobby had successfully frustrated efforts to tighten gun laws there. When the conservative Prime Minister at the time, John Howard, pushed through the ban on certain firearms, gun owners were so angry that he wore a bullet-proof vest when he addressed a group of them. But the vast majority of Aussies backed Howard. After Port Arthur, Australia was “united in horror and grief. And there was a very strong level of support for what we had to do,” Howard recalled to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation last year. “The goal was to prohibit possession of automatic and semi-automatic weapons. And that’s been achieved. The country is now a much safer place.”

 

What happened in Australia provides a concrete example of how a healthy democracy can confront powerful interests to introduce rational policies that clearly benefit the country. The Australian success story also reminds us what a dismal outlier the United States remains in terms of gun violence and political will, even in the face of the most gruesome and abhorrent of all mass shootings: the killings of schoolchildren.

 

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The urge to shoot children and other young people gathered in educational settings is certainly not confined to the United States. On March 13, 1996, a 43-year-old former Scout leader, Thomas Hamilton, entered Dunblane Primary School, in Scotland, carrying four legally owned handguns. He shot dead 16 students and a teacher. On December 6, 1989, at Montreal’s École Polytechnique, a women-hating 25-year-old man, Marc Lépine, who was armed with a Ruger Mini-14 semi-automatic rifle, gunned down 14 female students and staff members.

 

In terms of sheer cruelty and wantonness, these shootings rival anything seen in the United States. In both cases, though, the British and Canadian political systems responded. Compared with the United States, Britain already had strict gun laws. But it enacted even more controls after the Scotland attack. Within a year, Prime Minister John Major’s Conservative government had banned all handguns except for .22-calibre pistols. Tony Blair’s successive Labor government banned those, as well.

 

Canada’s legislative response to the Montreal massacre wasn’t as immediate or as sweeping. But it did eventually include a 28-day waiting period for the purchase of guns. It also included expanded background checks, a national registration system, and a ban on large-capacity magazines for semi-automatic weapons. In recent years, Canadian governments have further tightened gun laws. In 2020, after a deranged 51-year-old dental technician, Gabriel Wortman, used a Mini-14 to murder 22 people during a shooting rampage in Nova Scotia, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued an executive order banning “assault style” weapons. That includes the AR-15 and the Mini-14.

 

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Even Israel, a country that American gun enthusiasts point to as another heavily armed democracy, has much stricter gun-control laws than the United States does. To buy a gun there, you need a government license. The requirements for obtaining this license include satisfying a minimum-age limit (27 years old for anyone who hasn’t served in the military or national service). They also include passing a gun-safety test, and obtaining a letter from a doctor that you are sound of mind and body. Many applicants in Israel are turned down. And even those whose applications get approved are, in most cases, limited to purchasing a single handgun with a limit of 50 bullets. Salvador Ramos, the shooter in Uvalde, Texas, legally purchased two AR-15 rifles and 375 rounds of ammunition just days after his 18th birthday.

 

The evidence couldn’t be more plain. Other countries haven’t entirely eliminated mass shootings. But they have enacted reforms that helped turn them into rare, aberrational events, rather than the everyday occurrences they are in this country. Is it any wonder that much of the rest of the world considers us mad? From afar, the evidence suggests that we are. Up close, however, the real problem isn’t mass insanity. It’s political capture. It’s a system that, aided by the filibuster, entrenches the status quo and prevents desperately needed reforms. Until we tackle these systemic problems, nothing will change.

All That Jazz

All That Jazz

Put on your dancing shoes, bring your lawn chair, and drop on by if you’re in the area, every other Friday, all summer long. This week: The Lila Mori Quartet.  Hey, it doesn’t get any cheaper than free.

Let It Snow

Late May in the Rockies? Let it snow!

From today’s DP :

On Friday into Saturday, snow fell throughout the area with some spots receiving more than 10 inches…. Snow from the storm broke leafed-out tree limbs across the metro area leading to power outages as downed limbs took out overhead power lines. As of Saturday morning Xcel Energy Colorado reported 1,368 outages in the Denver area with 102,907 customers impacted.

 

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Not only that, but baseball at Coors Field was postponed last night.

A make-up double header is scheduled for today.

Ummm… today???

Good luck!

 

Let It Snow - 1

 

 

Top Shelf

Happy 33rd to our favorite 6’7″ trombonist:

From Day One, you’ve always been top shelf, Ben.

 

May 18, 1989 - Day One.
Literally Day One – May 18, 1989 – at St. John’s Hospital, Santa Monica, CA. Yes, we were all tired!

 

Day One - birth announcement
Man of many faces, even from an early age.

 

 

At least Top Drawer if not Top Shelf
With RGW and KAW posed beneath the top drawer in Colorado Springs.

 

Top Shelf of Astoria Tower
On top of Astoria Tower, looking pensive.
On Crescent Beach (Oregon) with the old man.
The epitome of top shelf cool with Soundstage Rhythm Orchestra.
Top Shelf Spirits
In later days, a connoisseur of top shelf spirits.

 

Done!

As you may have noticed, I tend to shy away from sales pitches here in these pages. Humor, history, hiking, news of the day – and sometimes maybe even the occasional bit of crossword arcana – sure. But it’s not in my nature to do much stumping, either for business or for anything else. One thing I’ve learned in my 63 years on this planet, though:  Never say never. So today I bring you good tidings of great joy in the change of status on our property in West Sacramento: Goodbye Airbnb, hello JTS Property Management. With the help of some great folks, I just spent the past two weeks clearing things out, prepping, painting, cleaning, and generally spiffing things up. The upshot? Done! For all the gory details, you can visit the link on this site, or go direct to Zillow, here.

 

Done!
Done! Thanks James, Sam, Amanda, Ken, Kira, Bob, Daniel, Francisco, and Franz:  It wouldn’t have happened without you.

Arcana

Those of you who know us well know that my wife and I don’t consider any day complete without completing the NY Times Crossword. What you may not know is that our current streak there extends 775 days back to pre-pandemic times.  So when I came across this classic about the humorous intersection of psychoanalysis with crossword arcana in the New Yorker cartoon archives? Well, of course I couldn’t resist.

 

Crossword Arcana

 

Don’t know about the helmet, but if you ever find yourself in need of a six-letter plural noun meaning “secrets or mysteries,” consider yourself now enlightened.  And for those of you with a thirst for more NYer cartoon arcana, see here for a holiday-themed post from a few years back.

Elko To High Sierras

Woke up this morning in one of my favorite places on earth: Elko, NV.

Needed to get an early start, and Cowboy Joe doesn’t open until 8 on Sunday. But the place next door opens at 7, so that’s where I had breakfast – starting at 7:01 AM.
Burt Gurr, Elko candidate
This candidate is wearing a white “Members Only” jacket, so he fits right in.  Elko, NV – where nothing has changed since the 80’s!
I take it back: I do love this brand new mural right behind Bert Gurr’s campaign poster.
The only thing “liberal” in Elko NV is, um… uh… well… you know.

 

After an all-day drive on I-80 across the Great Basin, I entered California with enough time to go hiking on a brand new (well, new to me anyway) trail in the High Sierras at Squaw Valley: The Granite Chief Trail.

Elko to High Sierras - PCT
“PCT” stands for Pacific Crest Trail, which runs along the spine of the High Sierras at about 9000′ elevation. From this starting point, that’s 4 miles and 2000′ elevation gain: Piece of cake!
Elko to High Sierras
How am I ever gonna cross this stream 5 times?

 

Lots of spring runoff, but not too tough: With enough stepping stones, I can definitely do that.

 

The Winter Olympics were held at Squaw Valley in 1960. It’s a pretty place, and I’ve been by it numerous times, but I never took the turn-off from Truckee and actually went there before today.

Elko to High Sierras - scenery

 

I got a wee bit lost on the way back down the mountain, but luckily one of the natives was kind enough to point me in the right direction.

Love this little wigwam, eh?
If yer gonna get lost, I guess it pays to get lost in the high rent district.

 

Finally arrived at my West Sac destination just as the sun was setting… only to find the roses in full bloom in the back yard. Spectacular!

Roses in bloom
A fitting end to a long-distance day.