Don Menzel
Mass school shootings in the U.S. have left 169 students dead since April 1999 when two Columbine students killed 12 of their peers and one teacher at the school in Littleton, Colorado, and injured many others before killing themselves. Chants of “thoughts and prayers” abounded then and today over the horrible killing of nineteen fourth grade children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas.
There are many proposals to stop the carnage, with many focused-on-gun policies such as requiring background checks, regulating the sale of guns at gun shows, and passing “red flag laws” that allow police agencies, family members and others to petition that a gun to be taken from someone they believe has become dangerous. Proposals to reform gun policies are neither new nor few. There are currently over 110 gun bills on the desks of members of Congress.
America is a 245-year-old experiment in democratic governance that is in grave danger of vanishing from the globe. Oh, you say, why are you so pessimistic? It never, ever occurred to me that I would see in my lifetime so much ill-will and downright ignorance embraced by millions of Americans. And then, as I began to ponder why so many Americans had reached this point, an “aha” moment struck me. Perhaps the stars had aligned to cast such a dark shadow.
Yogi Berra, the greatest philosopher and sage of our time, put it this way: “The future ain’t what it used to be!” No, it’s not … it’s what we imagine it to be. How do I imagine the future? At almost age 80, I imagine a future that is not far off. Indeed, nearly five years ago I imagined a future that would put us in our forever house. Oh, how wrong I was. Why? Because I learned that it is near impossible to imagine a future that is different from the present. Let me clarify. 
Musings of One Tampa Chica
What do you think is the meaning of life?
Socrates is alleged to have said: “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Was he talking to the elite of ancient Greece? Or are his words still applicable to us, even though we are separated by thousands of years?
Do you consider yourself an (un)lucky person? Are you a poker player? I used to be but decided that with my luck I may as well stay home. Oh, how about skill? Doesn’t poker require some skill like being able to count and remember the cards that have been played. Sure it does! But it didn’t matter in my case; I always lost—was unlucky, you might say. I suppose another way of putting this is to say that my “fate” was always—to lose (at poker). Neither luck nor skill mattered.