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Posts Tagged ‘Photography’

Tis the Season

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , on June 3, 2025| Leave a Comment »

We’ve had a noteworthy Spring so far in our family and friends network. Aside from the early arrival of our beautiful baby grand girls, there’s been a record number of graduations – the Pumpkin from lower school, one high school, two college alums and a law school! Congratulations to ALL the graduates out there. May our Grandson have smooth sailing in middle school and best of luck to everyone on their next chapter.

And remember, no matter where you start out, it’s the journey that counts.

My Father, a pharmacist from Scranton, PA, turned away from the family business of butchering to pursue an education in science. The Flapper told me his family never forgave him, and well, they also didn’t approve of her – a widowed, ex-dime-a-dance girl. His family was well established Irish; they came over early and made their money in cattle. The Flapper’s Mother, my Nana, was a domestic worker. I have a picture of my paternal grandmother looking quite formidable. All I know about her is she went to Mass every single day.

Excuse my nostalgia, but Bob has finally filled two legacy boxes with all our old paper pictures. We are on the cusp of entering the digital visual world! So I’ve spent the weekend going through lots of black and white photos. My foster parents kept an album of my baby pictures glued to thick, black paper and I can’t thank Bob enough for managing to free my childhood photos. It seems after reading the back of one photo, they actually entered me in a cute baby contest! I love the one of me pretending to read a newspaper, like Daddy Jim. He left school after 8th Grade to help support his family.

He was the most loving and nurturing father a child could ask for, I was lucky.

School pictures, my college graduation picture, my wedding pictures. The Flapper with Cab Calloway in MN. A picture of my sister Kay in a white coat next to one of the first ultrasound machines in NYC. Kay tells me that buried in her apartment is a 1958 graduation picture of her National Airlines stewardess class. My brother Dr Jim’s graduation from OCS in NC, before he went to Vietnam. The Flapper pinning his bars on his shoulder, my sister wearing her wings.

Journey joyfully and with alacrity, and always be ready to pivot. My Kindergarten picture.

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Bird Facts

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on June 24, 2024| Leave a Comment »

“Bird” is simply working class (UK) slang for a woman. It’s not pejorative, but it’s not respectful or flattering either.

The Groom has developed a funny habit. Whenever he gets an advert text message, he texts back a random bird fact! Usually it’s a bot and he immediately stumps it. But sometimes it’s a human, and sometimes there’s a tacit recognition, a glimmer of humanity between the sender and the sendee. I wanted to tell him all about the crows making a racket next to my pool PT this morning, but then I remembered the family drove to Memphis at dawn..

They are being interviewed for Global Entry passports: “Global Entry is a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) program that allows expedited clearance for pre-approved, low-risk travelers upon arrival in the United States. Members enter the United States by accessing the Global Entry processing technology at selected airports.” https://www.cbp.gov/travel/trusted-traveler-programs/global-entry

When we flew British Air to Italy, we breezed right through TSA checkpoints while the kids had to wait in long lines. It’s definitely worth the effort to apply for Global Entry if you fly out of the country. You feel a tiny bit royal coming back to the US. Being an avid Anglophile, I was delighted to be served “Coronation” tea sandwiches on board. I didn’t even mind being called, “Mum” by the flight attendants. When the pictures of Taylor Swift hit social media over the weekend, smiling with the Prince of Wales and his two oldest bairn, I was positively gobsmacked.

Then today I read (cue the lights) that Travis Kelce picked Tay Tay up like a bird on a London stage and carried the Queen to her throne chair.

The Love Bug had a fantastic week at Taylor Swift camp. She made a gorgeous tee shirt, lots of bead bracelets, and dove deep into the Swiftie phenom. I’m sure Yale will be offering the definitive course on Taylor soon enough.

Well, we’re all wilting aren’t we? Bob and I walked to the Farmer’s Market on Saturday for the first fresh garlic and barely made it home. It’s less than a mile, half up a gentle hill, but the heat index got me. Not so much the temperature, which was mid 90s, it’s the “real feel” as Aunt Kay calls it; a combo of humidity in the air and the subjective, apparent temperature we perceive. That was at least three digits! Nashville has been experiencing the same heat dome as everyone else, only I guess it’s pretty normal for us, except…

“It’s not even July yet people!”

The Pumpkin enjoyed robot camp too, and I’m just happy the camps were indoors during this heat spell. Naturally I’ve been keeping the Pumpkin’s bird bath refreshed twice daily. I love watching our robins, yes I believe these two are our babies recently hatched above the patio, indulging in water aerobics and taking a drink every now and then.

Yesterday I stood by the window marveling at our bird’s ingenuity and determination to get a berry. Bob covered the blackberry bush with mesh this year, hoping we’d actually have a harvest, but the birds have outsmarted us. The robin jumped up on a lawn light, squared off, and then hovered for a few seconds whilst plucking a berry through the mesh! This went on for quite awhile. I didn’t know a robin could impersonate a hummingbird. There’s another bird fact for you!

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Trolling Around

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on May 7, 2024| Leave a Comment »

We’ve probably all been targets of internet trolls. People on our social networks who deliberately post provocative or humiliating comments would like nothing more than our response, our attention. Which is why it’s best to just ignore, block and report the trolls. Let them start a fight with someone else. But what if you’re walking along in a beautiful garden, dodging cicadas, and a gigantic, wooden troll appears out of nowhere? Well then, you engage. You listen.

Bob and I visited Cheekwood, Nashville’s Botanical Gardens last weekend to stroll among the whimsical sculptures in their Trolls exhibit: “Save the Humans.” It seems a Danish musician/artist, Thomas Dambo, has turned his creative sights towards crafting immense sculptures of trolls out of discarded construction pallets! They are not painted, they are meant to decay in fact. With one troll lying flat, listening to the earth, and another wearing recycled plastic jewelry, his message is clear.

“Thomas is known internationally for his larger-than-life Troll sculptures made from recycled wood. With over 100 sculptures all over the world, these Trolls have begun to have a life of their own. Popping up in Denmark, the USA, France, Germany, China, South Korea, Chile, and many more on the way, the message of sustainability and unlimited imagination have reached millions through in-person visits, shared photos, and international media coverage.” https://cheekwood.org/calendar-events/trolls-save-the-humans/

Once upon a time, Nordic people were sailing the seas, spreading their DNA along with their myths about giant trolls who lived in castles, not under bridges. According to Ancestry, I have a giant ONE percent Norwegian gene! You probably do too. Bob and I would love to visit Scandinavia next year. In fact, Norway looks like a fine first destination:

“On June 17, 2023, what they call the world’s first and only research station for the species of trolls opened in Rindal. “Home of the Trolls” is not just a research station for trolls. It is also a nature-based experiential destination with activities, outdoor adventures, local food, and exotic accommodation options.” https://www.visitnorway.com/things-to-do/art-culture/the-mythical-norwegian-trolls/

I wonder if the US would ever open a research station for Bigfoot? This morning, after sweeping more than enough cicada exoskeletons from the patio, I may have glanced at all the gowns celebrities wore to the Met Gala last weekend. Its theme was “The Garden of Time,” and aside from all the flowers and feathers one thing stood out to me – the hundreds of hours it took to hand embroider and create one. single. dress.

What is Mother Nature telling us? Giving us another solar eclipse, directing two cicada species to emerge from the ground simultaneously? Placing enormous, sweet Trolls in our path? Amid the constant drumbeat of two proxy wars, I think we must continue to plant and nurture our own gardens for as long as we can. Because 3 baby robins are flapping their wings over our patio, and they need the worms.

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What To Do

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on April 16, 2024| Leave a Comment »

What do you do when a bird decides to build her nest on your porch?

One of my favorite non-profits, besides Planned Parenthood, is the Audubon Society. I love perusing their magazine, soaking up stories of our feathered friends along with gorgeous photography. The new Spring cover shot is of a spindly-legged Wilson’s Phalarope (picture a large Piping Plover) standing on one foot, and the title of the issue is “Delicate Balance.” But the article that intrigued me the most on the inside was about cats – “Where the Not-So-Wild Things Roam.” It’s a funny and disturbing story about a cat called “Bad Kitty.”

Did you know that domestic cats that are allowed outside to roam about their neighborhoods are responsible for killing almost 1.3 BILLION birds a year? That’s just in this country alone. Now don’t get me wrong, I love cats. I can’t help it if half my family is allergic. When I was young and lived alone in NJ, Henry was my everything, my calico red cat. He looked like Edward G Robinson because at some point in his past street-life his jaw was broken. He had a short crooked tail too.

Henry and I would walk through the woods every weekend, without a leash. Of course, every now and then he’d have to zoom off but he’d always return. My cat had the run of The Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge at all hours. In the early 70s, along with mom jeans, I didn’t know better.

The Audubon article suggests buying a large colorful collar for your cat, https://www.birdsbesafe.com/ if you must let them outside. Bells do nothing to alert a nesting cardinal. Birds however will see a feline approach if they look like they’re wearing a bright, hysterical clown collar. Better yet, if being in the great outdoors is essential to your feline’s well being, the author suggests building a “Catio!” Imagine a screened in porch standing alone with lots of cat architectural climbing details incorporated into its design.

I mean I used to let Aunt Kiki’s cat out on our sleeping porch in the Blue Ridge, and she did enjoy it – the view, the wind, the bears and the bluebirds. If you’re not into DYI, you could buy a Catio for a small fortune…

Yesterday I was hosting the little Frenchie Emperor for the afternoon, and he didn’t understand why I wouldn’t let him out the back door. I patiently explained that a robin was sitting on her nest directly outside between the pillars of my covered porch. He’s very cat-like in that he loves to chase birds almost as much as he loves to chase rabbits. I would open the side door and he’d look up at me like I was crazy, like it was absurd to go into the backyard through the side door when there was a perfectly fine and faster entry Right Over There.

“Rarely do we get this opportunity to get a front-row seat to a wild organism starting its life,” says Brian Evans, a migratory bird ecologist and project lead at the bird observatory at the Smithsonian National Zoo. “All we have to do is start noticing.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/home/2024/04/15/how-to-keep-bird-nest-safe/

AND DO NOTHING. When a bird builds her nest in or around your house, just sit back and enjoy the spectacle. I put out ribbons for her pleasure but I don’t think she used them. And I noticed that when the dog was in the yard, she flew away and seemed agitated flying haphazardly around the fence. But when my neighbor came by and we sat talking underneath her nest, she stayed put! Birds are smarter than we think.

I’ve resigned myself to the early birdsong and the messy patio furniture, and hope that some squirrel or other creature doesn’t discover her nest. I figure it’s better than listening to the news in Israel, or Mr T’s trial in NY. I can’t worry about November with Passover approaching. It’s time to clean out the tsuris (troubles but also flour in Yiddish) from our lives. And pick the flowers in my garden.

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2021 in Selfies

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , on December 30, 2021| 4 Comments »

A Dog Walk in January; My First Outing to a Store in February; Our March Vacation in Hawaii

Historic Nashville
Parnassus Bookstore
Golfcarting in Hawaii

In April We Begin the Search for a Home; First Time Dining Indoors in May; A Music Video in June

To Rooftop or Not
Panerra
Kingmaker

Ada’s Cypress in July; We Fly to LA in August; Another Dog Walk in Historic Nashville for September

Great Grandma Ada’s Tree
Silver Lake, CA
Positively Fourth Street

October We Find a House; Boosted in November, Thank You Dolly Parton!; Another New Haircut Selfie in December! Happy and Healthy 2022, It’s Getting Better All the Time

Third Time’s the Charm
A Trip to Walgreens
2020 vs 2021 More Brow, Less Pink

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Pecha Kucha

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, Memoir, science, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 10, 2020| 4 Comments »

We have some very good news for you today. The Groom has returned from his two week exile in the Tower of Nashville garage apartment! He is virus and fever-free and our family couldn’t be happier. Next week, he and the Bride will be sharing home-schooling so he better rest up while he can. We’ve all learned that a surgical mask may not protect you if you’re around patients all the time, or colleagues who test positive.

But what about the rest of us? What have we learned in our (fill in the blank) weeks of quarantine? I’m on week 22 and I’ve learned that Bernie was pretty much right about everything, that police budgets are off the charts, that misogyny still lives in our political language, and that you get 50 points for using all your letters on one word in Scrabble!

Bob may never play with me again.

I’ve also discovered new family members on my biological Father’s side thanks to the Rocker and “23andMe.” Which resulted in my becoming addicted to “Ancestry” – the keeper of my personal DNA thread. You know the one, where I’m 99.9% Irish. I have a vague memory of traveling to a lake in PA, in a town named after a long dead relative, for my First Holy Communion in about 1953. I even have a black and white picture of an ancestral Victorian farmhouse there, with a huge wraparound porch.

I couldn’t wait to share this second cousin news with my brother, Dr Jim, and my sister Kay on our weekly Zoom call yesterday. Kay is the family archivist, after all she is the oldest sibling with the longest memory. She told me that two of my paternal aunts never had children, and another, Aunt Elinor (the grandmother of my newly discovered relatives), adored my Father. A fourth aunt died at the age of 15.

A chill ran down my spine when I later found her death certificate from 1914 on Ancestry; her cause of death was listed as “chronic endocarditis.” My Father was only 13 when she died, this may be why he decided to study pharmacology instead of taking over the family business. Druggists, in the 30s and 40s, were the de facto doctors in poor, working class communities. Many people were afraid of hospitals, they thought you could catch polio there.

Dr Jim, still a working psychologist, told his sisters that we should try doing a Pecha Kucha presentation about our lives! I think he’s afraid dementia may set in before our stories are told! It’s a power point presentation, where you show 20 slides for 20 seconds each. That gives you exactly six minutes and 40 seconds to talk about transformative events in your life. I’m not so sure Great Grandma Ada could condense 96 years to 20 pictures, but I’m willing to give it a try.

Pecha Kucha was invented by two architects four years ago, Mark Dytham and Astrid Klein, to fill up a gallery space they owned in Japan and increase business. Many big cities, before the pandemic hit, used to host pecha-nights, including Nashville. Why? “…the rules have a liberating effect. Suddenly, there’s no preciousness in people’s presentations. Just poetry.” https://www.wired.com/2007/08/st-pechakucha/

What would your first picture be? How would you begin the story of your life? My future adult Grands might start out with this picture of their Dad, released from his Covid quarantine.IMG_8085

 

 

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Corona Crafts

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , on July 13, 2020| 2 Comments »

Either you are crafty, or you’re not. It’s like being pregnant, it’s impossible to be only slightly pregnant. Some people see a balled up Cadbury cream egg wrapper and think. “That’s just the bit of sparkle I need for my found art project;” and some people just pick it up and throw it away.

With a bit more time on my hands these last few months, I’ve turned to Pinterest for corona life hacks and inspiration. I discovered how to make fabric masks. I’ve found great recipes, and charming party ideas which I may use in the future, but it was finding an exquisite type of Japanese embroidery that really piqued my interest. I wanted to mend my favorite pair of corduroy pants – and so I started a whole new board:

Corona Crafts – so far I have 23 pins!

Granted, I never would have called myself “Crafty” in the past. I never bedazzled anything, not even a pair of sneakers. I never did scrapbooking, nope never understood that one. Sure I’d put my pictures in books – remember when we’d get to hold a picture? –  but I felt they were self-explanatory. Looking back over those books, I wish I’d have written down a date here and there.

Wait – I take it back. I did make a scrapbook once for the Bride when she went off to college, full of old pictures. I wanted her to remember where she came from, maybe because of my early life as a gypsy. Always trying to fit into two families. There were glamorous photos of Great Grandma Ada as a young bride, and pictures of us floating on a pond in Windsor, MA when the Bride was a baby.

In Middle School, my daughter started making Fimo clay beads. I actually bought a small toaster oven for her to use as a kiln. Since I use a toaster to make toast, buying a toaster oven was an investment in her artistic nature. She has actually passed that particular craft on to the Love Bug, they recently made some lovely Fimo beads for me to incorporate into necklaces.

Granted, I AM a stringer; although my love of stringing pearls into eternity necklaces has been usurped by mask-making. I never considered making jewelry to be a “craft.” For that matter, I didn’t consider my quilting or knitting back in the day to be lumped into that craft category either. I’m not sure why. Were they hobbies? Today, a young Icelandic knitter buys vintage sweaters and knits mouths and tongues onto them. I guess I’d call her an artist. https://www.thejakartapost.com/life/2020/05/12/icelandic-designer-makes-scary-masks-to-encourage-distancing.html

Maybe I’m just a Maker! After all, if a man has a wood shop in his garage, he’s called a woodworker. Why does being “crafty” have such a bad rap? Well, searching at dictionary.com gave me a clue: CRAFTY

adjective,craft·i·er, craft·i·est.

  1. skillful in underhand or evil schemes; cunning; deceitful; sly.
  2. Obsolete. skillful; ingenious; dexterous.

 

Is it because it implies a woman of a certain age with time to kill, idle hands and all? The Flapper never had time to be crafty; she worked full time and cooked and cared for us, and every Sunday she did her hair and nails, never setting foot in a beauty parlor! She was however a gifted artist, as is Kay and the Bride.

As we all slow down and bake sourdough bread, or make masks, I like to think we are all feeling a bit more creative, when we’re not bored/in/the/house/crying/in/our/wine. And if you don’t feel like making something, that’s OK too… but just in case. Here’s how to make beads out of newspaper – remember newspaper?  https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/11/at-home/how-to-make-newspaper-beads.html

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Displacement

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , on May 23, 2019| 3 Comments »

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Growing up, I’d never heard of Dorothea Lange. There were no Women’s Studies courses in the 1960s. We knew about Doris Day and Eleanor Roosevelt and sometimes I’d dream about marrying a prince like Grace Kelly – hey, she was born in Pennsylvania like me. And there was always Brigette Bardot and Marilyn Monroe just in case I aspired to be a sex symbol? On second thought, I really wanted to be a comedienne like Carol Burnett.

But Bob and I wanted to see the Frist exhibit of Dorothea Lange before she left the building – the museum is the actual/original Art Deco Nashville Post Office and always amazes me. The exhibit is scheduled to close this weekend so we boogied downtown the other afternoon; I’d admired Lange from the moment I heard about her, a photographer who documented the real human toil of the Great Depression. https://fristartmuseum.org/calendar/detail/dorothea-lange

I wasn’t expecting to cry. I was so moved by her images of families displaced by the economy and dust bowls. Lange is famous for her portraits of migrant women, both white and black which was unusual in itself, but when we got to the pictures of Japanese families sitting, patiently waiting to be deported to internment camps, surrounded by their bags, I wept.

The children had government ID tags on them.

I was touched because I knew that feeling, displacement. It was in my bones and it has never left me.

 

 

 

 

 

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Digging Through Photos

Posted in an expository essay, Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , on May 13, 2019| 2 Comments »

“Looking through some photographs I found inside a drawer,
I was taken by a photograph of you.
There were one or two I know that you would have liked a little more,
But they didn’t show your spirit quite as true.”

Those lyrics from Jackson Browne’s song “Fountain of Sorrow” have been playing through my mind lately. We were heading into the home stretch of unpacking boxes and settling into our party farmhouse when Bob decided it was time to digitize our mountains of old pictures – the Bride’s 9th birthday party, the Rocker’s Middle School birthday trip to the Liberty Science Center with the Twin Towers hovering in the background. Eighth Grade graduations, Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, my little cheerleader and my little ice hockey player.

Every single important event had been chronicled, and sometimes just random moments, like an impromptu trip to DC, or a drive back to the Berkshires, under sparkling amber trees with old friends.

I tried to look at myself objectively, did I look happy then? Or was I rushed and angry because I’d completed the grunt work and didn’t want to “pose” for a picture? What possessed me to don a Groucho Marx nose for a beach birthday party? We have lots of doubles because the second set of pictures were free and you never know who might want one.

A friend sent me a picture of herself, hanging clothes out on a line in the 70s dressed in bell bottoms.  I loved pinning up my clean, wet clothes to the sun, and still love it today even though there is no clothes line outside my city house. I guess Bob never saw fit to catch me hanging up diapers, or maybe he was always working on wash day.

I had a sense during that sweet young motherhood time, a feeling that this was just about the best it would ever be. I’d started writing for a newspaper, pecking out words during naptime and at night after the children were asleep. We had feminist consciousness raising young mom playgroups where we shared our secret mothering tricks and helped each other after each new birth. I used to sew baby elephants that would attach nose to tail across the new baby’s crib.

It was a lifetime ago, and yet it was just yesterday.

“I found some pictures where I still had dark hair,” Bob just said. And my hair looked different in each frame because strawberry blonde hair cannot be captured by a camera. Sometimes it looks like mahogany, and sometimes it looks white. Now that I’ve let it go grey, it actually is a blondish/white!

I’m reading a remarkable book by our local bookstore’s blog editor – “I Miss You When I Blink,” by the very blonde Mary Laura Philpott. It’s part memoir, part humor, and all heart. Following in the footsteps of Bombeck and Quindlen, she talks about her mother quizzing her in First Grade for a spelling bee, and she mentions how mothers always take the blame for our failures. She is, however, smart enough to know how nature can pounce on nurture. She was probably a Type A from the get-go. Philpott is still young by my standards, in her 40s, young enough to remember First Grade.

Her book has me literally laughing out loud! “She’s refreshingly honest and very funny, especially when, at a much-anticipated kid-free dinner party, she finds herself in an endless “momversation” (my term, feel free to borrow) on the subject of chicken salad. Boiled or baked? Shredded or chopped? Grapes or no grapes? To salt or not to salt? I chortled as Philpott fumed through dinner: “I had to concentrate to keep from shaking my head no no no, to keep from yelling, SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP . . . Fifteen minutes in, I wanted to scream, ‘Is anyone having some genuine feelings about something? Does anyone have something fascinating or funny or weird to discuss?’”  ”https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/you-know-that-funny-friend-you-look-for-at-dull-mom-parties-here-she-is-in-book-form/2019/03/29/cf43b17e-49ba-11e9-93d0-64dbcf38ba41_story.html?utm_term=.b9b497aebabc

We’ve all had those “momversations.” Seriously, if you know of any other Type A out there, this one’s for them.

Hope y’all had a wonderful Mother’s Day weekend. I’ve always said the Flapper did the very best she could. Losing my father when I was 7 months old, then almost losing her own life in a car accident 3 months later. She was a strong and resilient woman and I see her qualities still in my own children, in their determination, chutzpah.

She waited for me to return of my own free will, and I will always be grateful for that. Here I am in my early 40s. Why did I choose a peplum dress? It was the 80s.

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Betsy, Betsy, Betsy

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , on August 24, 2018| Leave a Comment »

I love seeing the flood of Back-to-School pictures on my Facebook feed. First graders and first year in high school, they all look so fresh-faced and eager; but I guess if your child has been dreading the start of school, well, the first day might be different. Maybe she/he has experienced bullying? Or maybe, the sheer number of school shootings has them worried, do they really feel safe at school?

Not to worry, Betsy DeVos is considering using our tax dollars to fund arming our teachers and training them to carry guns… against all sane advice to the contrary from law enforcement, pediatricians and teachers’ unions. Our children are now practicing “active shooter drills” the way we had fire drills.

Our government has also approved a 1.8 million dollar grant for “School-Age Trauma Training,” ie to teach kids what to do to help their wounded friends. First Aid for First Grade. And now, bless our hearts, the Department of Education is considering using federal money set aside for “Student Enrichment” to fund gun-toting teachers.

I thought student enrichment meant field trips or maybe a special gifted and talented program? Maybe some band instruments? How about after-school-programs???

I was student teaching when Columbine happened. I’d gone back to graduate school and was placed in a middle school for a year. I remember the shock in the teacher’s lounge, a place I rarely visited. I remember the way the disaffected loner students retreated further. That feeling of helplessness, foreboding. Columbine happened nearly two decades ago, and here we are.

Those of us who do NOT watch Fox News on a feedback loop day after day may be wondering how we can continue, as a nation, to allow school tragedies like Newtown and Parkland to continue unabated. I was surprised to read that the DOE has already allowed teachers to carry guns in 14 states! The stranglehold of NRA money fuels a corrupt system that is uniquely American. Out of 23 countries with the highest-income in the world, the USA stands near the top of a deplorable list: 82% of all gun deaths – 90% of all women killed by guns – and 92% of all children killed either accidentally or on purpose by a gun.

Media reports of school shootings capture headlines, the way a lone suicide with a handgun never will. And yet, suicide is the most prevalent reason young people die in this country. But the heck with universal background checks and banning assault weapons or stopping loopholes in the law that allow spousal abusers to purchase firearms. Let’s just put more handguns in school, shall we? https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45288773

Betsy, Betsy, Betsy please reconsider your boss’ insane idea.

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