Sun Thoughts

This AM's newspapers carried several stories that attracted my attention.  First, "61 people shot in Chicago since Monday."  "61?"  At least 15 of them were hit with bullets from Friday evening to early Saturday morning.  The police chief said "We have to get some common sense gun control laws in this country......"  He added, "...not just this city, not just this state, but this country to stop this from happening."  Hmmm......  He might be right; who knows?  But if I have read correctly, Chicago and Illinois have some of the strictest gun control laws in the US.  It seems to me Chicago doesn't have a gun problem, but a people problem.  Too many folks have no value for human lives, except perhaps for their own.  I know I've asked this before, but what leads a person to believe he can just pull out a gun and shoot someone for his car or shoes or jacket, or because he was "dissed," or for whatever reason?  What kind of animal randomly shoots into a house no knowing who is sitting in the living room just watching the boob tube, doing homework, etc.?  Ninety-nine percent of the gun owners in the US don't shoot people.  Maybe someone ought to point that out to the police chief and suggest he look at the Chicago people who do.  Maybe......

Second, Cal Thomas wrote a column that reads like a number of blogs and e-mails I've written in the distant and not-so-distant past.  Sometimes Thomas is a bit too far out there for me, but not this day.  "Vulgar goes mainstream."  He cited that unfunny comedienne at the White House Correspondents' Dinner--her vile words and lack of civility.  I thought I was reading my own words.  Thomas asked why people didn't walk out.  He noted more examples, too.  Language that used to be found only in the locker room has made it to movies, television, newspapers, video games, and more.  It seems nobody is shocked to hear such talk, "blue language" my college coach called it as he didn't permit it.  Nobody is ashamed to use it.  I chuckled at Thomas's "...having his mouth washed out with soap."  My mother used to put soap on a wash rag and then clean out my filthy mouth.  Oh, she didn't have to do it often and as bad as that was, it was better than her telling my dad when he got home from work.  How can we punish kids for language that parents accept as normal on prime time television, in popular movies (even the kids' cartoons!), etc.?  I know, I know......  "They're only words."  Yeah, right.

I'm still not a fan of Don Trump, not at all.  He shouldn't be President, at least in my view.  If he's the best we can do, we are pathetic.  That's not an endorsement of Obama or Clinton or anyone else.  I find them equally disgusting.  Another article, I think one day last week in the Wall Street Journal, wrote of Trump's accomplishments, that, because of them, we should ignore everything else he does.  I remember what people said of Mussolini, of his accomplishments in Italy.  "He makes the trains run on time."  (Now, he really didn't, but that's not my point.)  Because he "made the trains run on time," everything else he did could be overlooked.  And, because I know a little bit about Hitler and his early days as the Fuhrer in Germany, I could make some other comparisons.  (I know, I know......  He who resorts to "Hitler" in an argument loses by default.)  But from 1933 on to when the tides of war turned against Germany, he was very popular.  He turned the economy around.  He created jobs.  He made it so Germany was feared again.  He made Germany great again, after the humiliation of the loss of the First World War and the "diktat," the Treaty of Versailles.  (Now, not all of that is so, but it was the general perception.)  Things were, as they always are, a bit different.  In Germany, opposition was silenced and people were imprisoned and even disappeared.  Almost immediately Jews were targeted.  But as long as the economy began to boom and the massive unemployment of the Depression dissipated, these things were ignored or, at least, overlooked.  I'm not comparing Trump to Hitler or even Mussolini, not at all.  I am concerned that Trump's accomplishments (and I think they are underrated by his opponents and overrated by his supporters) lead many to overlook and ignore what shouldn't be overlooked and ignored.  (And I could cite more examples/comparisons.)   As usual, I concede that I might be all wrong on this.