Child abuse.

I was reading the story Alex posted earlier, about the Indiana pastor who confessed “adultery” to his flock, and was rewarded with a standing ovation, until another member of the flock took the mic:

The woman, now in her 40s, also added an important detail.

“I was just 16 when you took my virginity on your office floor. Do you remember that? I know you do,” she told her longtime pastor, describing herself as “a victim.”

The dateline for this story is Warsaw. It rang a bell, and a moment or two of recollection, and it came back: Hephzibah House, a “Christian” “reform school” for girls that would occasionally attract attention from media, but, astonishingly, managed to stay open until just two years ago.

One of my colleagues did a piece on Hephzibah House, on the abuse that happened there – the corporal punishment, mostly, but also the “modest” clothing, the nutritional– I don’t know what to call it, but I recall some of the girls were given only some weird drink in lieu of food, as punishment. It had zero impact. Read the story linked above, and you can see they skated through many state inspections, even though they basically held young women prisoner for months or years at a time, while they beat the “worldliness” out of them. And they lasted until 2020. Apparently it was an episode of “Dr. Phil” that finally did them in. (Laugh, serious journalists, at your vast influence.)

Anyway, who is surprised that a preacher in the…what was it? Oh yes, that a man of the cloth in the New Life Christian Church & World Outreach would rape a teenager on the floor of his office? No one should be.

Note the comments on that story, too: I too am a survivor of this shit-hole. It was to be a 14 month program but at the end of my 14 month pastor Ron told my parents I was still to worldly to go home. I was kept there for 4 years. This place was ran by Christian slave owners who whores their own daughters out to the other pastors sons.

So that put me in a sour mood to confront the late-afternoon horror of another school shooting. Jesus Christ, fourteen eighteen nineteen kids. I just can’t, anymore.

Posted at 7:13 pm in Current events |
 

98 responses to “Child abuse.”

  1. Jim said on May 24, 2022 at 8:12 pm

    re being an expat: for us oldsters Canada is indeed impossible to retire to. Belize and New Zealand are not. Effectively you just have to have enough in retirement funds, and transfer them to accounts there.

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  2. Dorothy said on May 24, 2022 at 8:20 pm

    Until a member of the Senate or House loses a loved one to a mass shooting, no one will do a fucking thing to change gun laws in this fucking country.

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  3. LAMary said on May 24, 2022 at 10:00 pm

    I can’t handle this. Trying to imagine how heartbreaking this is for the families of those kids…
    Abbott and his two senators are scheduled to speak at an NRA lobbyist meeting tomorrow. How fucking perfect. The national NRA convention is in Houston and you know they’re going to talk about how people will demand more gun laws now.
    What does it take to talk some sense into these monsters? How many children, or 80 year old black ladies, or Walmart shoppers need to be murdered before we reconsider what the 2nd amendment actually means?

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  4. Sherri said on May 24, 2022 at 11:06 pm

    The GOP is awful of course, but the Dems have tolerated Manchin and Sinema and refused to get rid of the filibuster and take responsibility for actually governing.

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  5. LAMary said on May 24, 2022 at 11:13 pm

    They are using DNA matches to identify the children. Being shot at close range with an assault weapon does a lot of damage.

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  6. alex said on May 24, 2022 at 11:14 pm

    Dorothy, I doubt even that would make a difference. Such a Senator or Rep would get drop kicked just like Liz Cheney.

    This stupid country and its stupid capitalism. Can’t make health care or education accessible, but assault weapons are there for the taking. I’m afraid it will take a massacre of the whole House and Senate before sensible gun laws ever get any serious consideration.

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  7. john (not mccain) said on May 25, 2022 at 7:14 am

    Slaughtering Tucker’s kids might work. If not at least that DNA won’t do any more damage.

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  8. Jim said on May 25, 2022 at 7:15 am

    So, become a man of *God* and get a Licence to rape children and women .
    Apologies .

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  9. Jeff Borden said on May 25, 2022 at 8:55 am

    A quick reminder: Steve Scalise, a congressman from Louisiana, was seriously wounded by a gunman who opened fire on a bunch of Republicans practicing for the annual softball game against Democrats in 2017. It changed his position on guns exactly zero, despite the severity of his wounds.

    The only real solution is to absolutely bankrupt the firearms manufacturers with huge lawsuits, but that is next to impossible. Gun makers enjoy laws that allow them to fend off most lawsuits and, of course, the chances of those laws ever being altered in the current political environment are nil.

    I fully expect Abbott, Cruz and Cornyn to echo the NRA propaganda that the real problem in Uvalde, Texas was teachers not being armed and the elementary school not being secured like Fort Knox. What a sad fucking country we are when books about gay kids are aggressively targeted by politicians and parents are hysterical over non-existent “critical race theory” initiatives while the proliferation of firearms and rapidly increasing mass murders get only the “thoughts and prayers” bullshit.

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  10. alex said on May 25, 2022 at 10:53 am

    I read this morning that right-wing media are portraying the shooter as a transgender individual despite zero evidence.

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  11. RB said on May 25, 2022 at 11:09 am

    The Dems cannot be blamed for Manchin & Sinema, or allowing the filibuster to continue. That blame lies squarely on Manchin & Sinema and the 50 RepubliKKKan senators who are stymying gun control legislation.

    As much as I loath KS & JM, without them Moscow Mitch would be in charge of the Senate.

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  12. LAMary said on May 25, 2022 at 11:22 am

    I saw a posting on facebook first thing this morning. It showed pictures of the kids who died. It took me a while recover from seeing those faces.

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  13. Julie Robinson said on May 25, 2022 at 11:23 am

    For my own mental health, I’ll be engaging the news in a highly selective way today. And I’m putting a pause on my most recent book, written by a former member of the Children of God cult, who sexualized children at a very young age (among other abuses, like living in poverty, working from toddlerhood, very little education, all classic cult tactics).

    I have engaged enough to read about the damage an AR-15 bullet does, and that Mitt Romney is the top recipient of NRA donations. And that no weapons will be allowed when Trump speaks at their gathering. It’s all sickening.

    Speaking of sickening, it’s looking like the graduation party we went to may have been a spreader event. The graduate started feeling bad last night and tested positive this morning. I’m pretty sure our household has immunity from our bout last month, as for others I have concerns. The grad’s grandparents are high risk; one with diabetes, two other families flew in and so may have carried it back with them. Another family leaves for Europe soon in a trip rescheduled from 2020.

    If this is what endemic Covid looks like, I don’t see much difference from pandemic Covid.

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  14. Sherri said on May 25, 2022 at 11:37 am

    Why shouldn’t I blame the Dems for Manchin and Sinema? What consequences have they suffered for totally shutting neutering the Dems’ agenda? How much have we gained from not having Mitch McConnell in charge of the Senate? Where is our John Lewis Voting Rights Act? Where is the codification of Roe? Where is any action on climate change? Why do we still need 60 votes in the Senate to pass things that have wide popular support, like fucking gun control?

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  15. Sherri said on May 25, 2022 at 11:48 am

    And speaking of Covid, where is the money for more Covid aid and vaccines? Congress can’t even pass that. What good is having a trifecta is you still can’t get the basics done?

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  16. Icarus said on May 25, 2022 at 11:59 am

    We sit and watch old men with white hair who haven’t had to live in the reality of the communities they represent in decades make decisions on how we should live. We accept it as the status quo and we dare look to children of the generation we are raising to be the change.

    It is not their job.

    The old guard needs to retire and if they won’t then we need to dethrone them.

    — Jacalyn Wetzel (https://www.facebook.com/Jacalynwetzelwriter)

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  17. Nelson said on May 25, 2022 at 12:24 pm

    https://twitter.com/davidhogg111/status/1139200473703911426

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  18. Nelson said on May 25, 2022 at 12:27 pm

    Texas Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar doesn’t plan to give away NRA donation in aftermath of gun massacres

    PUBLISHED TUE, AUG 6 2019 3:46 PM EDT
    UPDATED FRI, AUG 9 2019 7:26 AM EDT

    https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2019/08/06/texas-democrat-cuellar-declines-to-give-away-nra-money-after-massacres.html

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  19. Sherri said on May 25, 2022 at 12:36 pm

    Cuellar is also anti-abortion, and faced a primary challenge from a pro-choice progressive. Guess who the Dem establishment supported?

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  20. Michael said on May 25, 2022 at 1:12 pm

    The Democrats have a trifecta in name only. The Senate rules prevent almost anything from passing with only a simple majority, and the black letter of the US Constitution says each chamber may set their own rules.

    Manchin and Sinema are products of their respective states, and the root of that problem is a system wherein the upper chamber of the legislature represents land rather than people. There is no magic bullet, only working and fighting, and progressives must stop the “won and done” thinking.

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  21. Heather said on May 25, 2022 at 1:37 pm

    Pelosi and Schumer gotta go. They’re useless. Not a fan of Biden right now either, who’s basically tweeting “what do we do?” right now. Dude, you’re literally the most powerful man on earth.

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  22. Sherri said on May 25, 2022 at 2:25 pm

    I don’t think progressives exhibit “won and done” thinking. I think progressives are frustrated that winning still results in nothing getting done. Sure, Manchin (not so much Sinema) is a product of his state, but Schumer and Biden don’t really care that much about getting rid of the filibuster, or they’d work harder to make it happen. They’d make it more painful for Manchin to be a block, strip him of his committees, punish him the way unruly senators have always been punished.

    It’s not the progressives fighting change, it’s the Dems backing centrist Conor Lamb in the primary in Pennsylvania, or the Dems backing pro-gun, anti-abortion Henry Cuellar in the primary in Texas. The Republicans didn’t change by protecting their RINOs, they changed by following their values, as fucked up as those values are. The Dems have better values, but refuse to stand up for them. They keep chasing the mythical Reagan Democrat rather than pay attention to the real base of the party.

    White men are never coming back, Dems! Stop centering your strategy around them.

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  23. Jim said on May 25, 2022 at 3:05 pm

    In a sad state of affairs The Onion characterizes it the best: https://www.theonion.com

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  24. David C said on May 25, 2022 at 3:12 pm

    Presidential systems of government seem uniquely unable to deal with crises. Gun massacres happened in Australia and New Zealand and their governments were able to almost immediately pass laws to deal with it. We have one that’s built to sit around, point at the other guy, and say “his fault” and fuck-all ever gets done. Unfortunately we see our Constitutions as some sort of holy document when it was written by a bunch of privileged white people who were trying to preserve their privileged. It’s time to tear it up and start over. Maybe try a parliamentary system this time.

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  25. JodiP said on May 25, 2022 at 3:17 pm

    The Onion page is even more powerful because it’s *every* story on the site.

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  26. Sherri said on May 25, 2022 at 3:18 pm

    When a few people staged a completely peaceful protest outside a Supreme Court Justice’s home, Congress leapt into action to extend Capitol police protection to their homes.

    The US has seen 250 mass shootings this year so far, more than one per day. Sen. Schumer says there are no plans to bring a bill to the floor for a vote in the Senate, that people should vote in November. Why, Chuck? What will change if we vote? We’ve voted before, but nothing has happened. Every alienated 18 year old in the country can go out and buy AR-15s and as much ammunition as he wants and take out his anger by killing as many people as he can find, and Congress does nothing.

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  27. Jeff Borden said on May 25, 2022 at 6:56 pm

    Today, Texass Gov. Greg Abbott invoked my home, Chicago, in his “what aboutism” reference to gun control. You know, well, sure, we’ve had a whole bunch of mass shooting down here in Texass, but look at Chicago. They kill that many every weekend.

    And as hateful and disgusting as I find him, he is correct.

    But so fucking what? Our city is flooded by guns. We’re a fucking NRA wet dream. Every swinging dick and his brother has a gun and they use them indiscriminately. You can get a gun in Indiana easier than an antihistamine and the Hoosier State is minutes away from the city. Straw buyers bring a steady supply of firearms –overwhelmingly handguns in our case– to the gangbangers and lowlifes who slaughter each other by the bushel.

    I cannot bear this disingenuousness. Guns are a problem in every fucking state. Every fucking county. Every fucking city. Every fucking town. Whether its a mass shooting in Texass or a series of killings in West Garfield Park or Englewood, who cares? We’re drowning in blood. No other civilized nation faces this problem day after day and week after week. The death toll by gun in ‘Murica –including suicides– was more than 45,000 in 2020. Auto accidents claimed 39,000 lives in the same year.

    BTW, expect our beloved SCOTUS to scuttle the 108-year-old law in New York State requiring stringent requirements be satisfied before citizens can conceal carry soon.

    We are fucked.

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  28. Sherri said on May 25, 2022 at 8:27 pm

    Republicans have made it clear who they are, and what their values are. The only time Republicans we’re interested in gun control was when the Black Panthers were carrying guns, and that’s because they represented a threat to the power structure. Black people carrying guns is fine with Republicans as long as they’re shooting other black people. The Republicans think that God gave them the right to bear arms, and they say so regularly.

    The Dems say they believe in “common-sense” gun control, but their actions say, ehh, who cares? Not nearly as important as maintaining a crusty old Senate rule which has been heavily used to prevent progressive legislation during its lifetime. I fail to see why they are so keen on keeping it that they’ll sacrifice everything else to it, when everybody can see that as soon as it gets in the way of what Mitch McConnell wants to accomplish, he’ll dump it in a heartbeat and never look back.

    Gun control. Reproductive rights. Voting rights. What are they saving the filibuster for? Because of the constitution, because of gerrymandering, the Dems need to win by like 5-6 points just to break even, but what are they doing to inspire anybody to show up to vote? “Hey, vote for us, so you can watch Joe Manchin drive off in his Maserati to host oil execs on his yacht while he stops everything we want to do?”

    I

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  29. Julie Robinson said on May 25, 2022 at 8:28 pm

    We just got home from a show at the Fringe Fest called God is a Scottish Drag Queen. There’s some clips on YouTube if you want some laughs. I needed the laughs and the distance. Chef’s kiss.

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  30. alex said on May 25, 2022 at 9:31 pm

    Today getting deluged with texts and e-mails from the Brady Campaign and stuff in the mail too. I’ve already given them plenty but it never stops, nor do all these out-of-state Democrats hitting me up for money. Even though I’m sympathetic to their cause, I’m tired of having unusable e-mail and that’s pretty much what it has become. You donate to one charity and they sell your info to all of them.

    I get the third degree trying to buy needles for my insulin pens but I could have an AR-15, no prob. The officious twits in the pharmacies these days are on my last nerve too.

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  31. Mark P said on May 25, 2022 at 11:31 pm

    Assuming something vaguely resembling the US is still here 100 or 200 years from now, and it’s not a facist nightmare, I wonder if people will look back on this time of madness and wonder how any halfway decent people could allow their children to be massacred so that fat Red Dawn wolverine wannabes could buy military style weapons. It is insane.

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  32. Dexter Friend said on May 26, 2022 at 1:48 am

    All we can do is wait for the next shooting. We know it shall happen , and soon. It’s just in the cards.

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  33. Deborah said on May 26, 2022 at 12:03 pm

    There should be more politicians doing what Beto O’Rourke did. Show your anger, it’s completely justified.

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  34. Sherri said on May 26, 2022 at 1:45 pm

    Joe Manchin says he’ll do anything to support gun control, except get rid of the filibuster, which is the only thing saving us from total insanity. Joe Manchin sees himself as a brave hero standing in the breach holding back the barbarians. I see a stupid old man who has lost touch with reality. The barbarians are here, Joe, and you’re helping them.

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  35. Julie Robinson said on May 26, 2022 at 2:12 pm

    Two more sad deaths: 1. The actor Ray Liotta, 67. 2. Joe Garcia, husband of slain Uvalde teacher Irma Garcia had a fatal heart attack yesterday. Married 24 years, four children.

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  36. Bruce Fields said on May 26, 2022 at 3:17 pm

    “I’m tired of having unusable e-mail and that’s pretty much what it has become.”

    Have you had trouble opting out? Yeah, it’s whack-a-mole to a certain degree, but I donate to some stuff, and have usable email, and it’s not like I’m spending all my time chasing unsubscribe links either.

    For a long time I didn’t just because I thought: oh, yeah, X is something I really care about, of course I should get their newsletter! And then I realized it was just all too much and I really needed to be able to focus on the things I could deal with and just write a check once a year for the rest.

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  37. Dorothy said on May 26, 2022 at 4:27 pm

    Alex I have two email accounts. The first one is a Hotmail account which was my first ever email address. Nowadays I use that as a junk email collector – if I sign up for a store or a warranty on a new appliance that I will not really need to interact with very often, I use the Hotmail account. For everything else I use my Google address.

    Funny thing – I got three emails today presumably from someone who set up an interview at a Wendy’s to be a Team Leader – at three different Wendy’s locations: Florida, Texas and I forget where the third one was. Now my Google calendar keeps popping up with reminders that I am due at an interview within the hour. I marked the emails that set up these interviews as spam. But I can’t understand how they even got created. I’m retired and not looking for a job – I haven’t looked for a job since November 2013.

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  38. David C said on May 26, 2022 at 6:10 pm

    We have four email accounts. We each have a friends and family one which we’re very strict about giving out. We have one for e-bills which I hate but increasingly have no choice. We have a whatever else email. The last one gets abandoned about every couple of years. It seems to work out well.

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  39. Deborah said on May 26, 2022 at 6:44 pm

    LB and I dug five 3 gallon holes in the ground today. 3 of the holes were for honey locust trees and the other 2 were for Russian sage plants. In NM there is a soil that is underneath the top soil called kaliche. It’s like concrete, very hard to dig into, you have to soak it to get it to give. We’re eating at a place called Cowgirl that has excellent burgers so we don’t have to make our own food. Tired.

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  40. Little Bird said on May 26, 2022 at 7:32 pm

    Tired to the point where moving hurts. We’re home, and we’re not going ANYWHERE. While bedtime might early tonight, wake up will probably be late tomorrow morning.

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  41. alex said on May 26, 2022 at 11:28 pm

    Well, I just spent the evening purging my e-mail accounts of spam and marking things as junk and unsubscribing to as many things as possible. We’ll see whether this helps. I haven’t resorted to blocking senders but that’s up next if they persist.

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  42. Mark P said on May 27, 2022 at 12:20 am

    Deborah, we have a layer of rock-like soil just under the surface on the small mountain where we live in NW Georgia. I was planting something and using a gasoline-powered augur to get through the hard layer. The auger caught and stopped, so the handles tried to twist. That was one of the last straws for my rotator cuff. Not long afterwards I completed the tear by trying to dip out hard ice cream. That’s right, I tore my rotator cuff dipping ice cream. Surgery followed soon afterward.

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  43. Dexter Friend said on May 27, 2022 at 1:28 am

    Mark, that rock-hard Georgia soil is what Tennessee moonshiners drove down to harvest to built foundations for their stills deep in the hidden hollers of East Tennessee. Yeah, I finally found those old Popcorn Sutton videos on YouTube. He was quite a character for sure.

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  44. Deborah said on May 27, 2022 at 8:19 am

    I spelled it wrong, it’s caliche https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caliche

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  45. Connie said on May 27, 2022 at 9:09 am

    The living room carpet is gone, the furniture is moved to bedroom. Painters start tomorrow, new carpet on Tuesday. As expected there is a very nice circa 1960 hardwood floor.

    So I am stuck on the enclosed porch for a few days and this is what I just saw: man walks by pulling a blonde toddler in a wagon. And Dad was packing, visible holster on his hip.

    This giant subdivision is one of the quietest places I have ever lived.

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  46. Jeff Gill said on May 27, 2022 at 12:55 pm

    The day after Uvalde, I was in four school buildings, had conversations with six administrators. Three of them as we talked mentioned versions of “why are so many calling for restrictions on law abiding citizens after an evildoer does something like this.” In my day job, I have a badge on and resemble law enforcement enough (I’m an attendance officer for the county) that I’m sure all three assumed my agreement with a strongly pro-gun viewpoint. I pushed back as far as time and circumstances allowed, but once they realized I wasn’t on that team, they changed the subject.

    I bring this up just to caution that if you’re assuming all teachers and principals and counselors agree with ending firearms sales on demand, et cetera, you’ll find some surprises out there. Shouldn’t have been, but I sure was.

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  47. brian stouder said on May 27, 2022 at 1:25 pm

    Well, the press conference was pretty much catastrophic. I’d say ridiculous, but ridicule doesn’t fit the flat failure of first responders at our latest terrible act of domestic white-guy terrorism

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  48. jcburns said on May 27, 2022 at 3:25 pm

    I’m on team “fewer people getting killed by weapon-toting crazy people in schools, churches, and so on.”

    I sure wish some of your colleagues would get on that team, Jeff.

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  49. Julie Robinson said on May 27, 2022 at 3:41 pm

    Yeah, I’m on team lets take away all the AR-15’s and give them muskets instead. There, Second Amendment is fully actuated.

    A woman I follow on Instagram has collected all kinds of posts with information about the massacre. A couple that impressed me: 1. The town of 13,000 spends 40% of its budget on police, and have a swat team and impressive equipment they’ve bragged about. 2. Since 2017 Robb Elementary has doubled the amount they spent on school security. 1 & 2 totally refute the “good guys with a gun” meme.

    3. From Sara Spector: “As an ex prosecutor from Uvalde, I can say based on my past interactions with Uvalde PD, you will never know the truth about what went down in that school until every inch of video tape is released to the press”.

    The hits just keep on coming.

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  50. Jim said on May 27, 2022 at 3:47 pm

    Where the guns came from: https://apnews.com/article/uvalde-school-shooting-buffalo-supermarket-texas-d1415e5a50eb85a50d5464970a225b2d

    Rex Huppke used numbers to support Jeff B’s comments about Chicago violence and refute Gov. Abbot’s lies in USA Today, but I can’t link to it.

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  51. Jim said on May 27, 2022 at 3:58 pm

    Uvalde has a NINE PERSON SWAT TEAM!! And they waited for CBP? Jesus.

    https://slate.com/business/2022/05/police-uvalde-shooting-new-york-city.html

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  52. David C said on May 27, 2022 at 4:31 pm

    The cops chicken shittedness is the other side of the shoot first coin. Being a cop is just barely in the top 25 most dangerous jobs sandwiched between grounds maintenance workers and maintenance workers. That’s right, the guy who mows lawns for a living has a more dangerous job than a cop. Thank you for your service Mr. or Ms. lawn maintenance person. The cop’s training has made it less dangerous for themselves and more dangerous for us.

    https://www.ishn.com/articles/112748-top-25-most-dangerous-jobs-in-the-united-states

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  53. Sherri said on May 27, 2022 at 4:34 pm

    1. Police officers have no duty to risk their lives to protect you from violence. It’s a myth they like to perpetuate, but the paramilitary training and the cool toys are to protect them from you, not to protect you from violent offenders.

    2. Police lie, regularly. Media outlets should never publish police releases as fact without verifying them independently.

    3. Adding armed guards to schools increases the likelihood of deaths in the event of a shooter, by a factor of 2.63. More guns, more deaths.

    4. There is no reason for any civilian to own an assault rifle. There is no reason for any civilian to own body armor. This month, two 18 year olds were able to legally buy both, even though they could not legally buy alcohol or cigarettes.

    5. It’s absolutely insane that gun manufacturers can produce products whose only purpose is to kill human beings and face no liability for doing so. The second amendment only guarantees the right to bear arms, not protection from the consequences of doing so.

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  54. Mark P said on May 27, 2022 at 4:39 pm

    The best thing that can be said about this country is that it is dysfunctional. I’ve said many times, whom the gods would destroy they first make mad. Well, we’re there. Now we’re just waiting for the “destroy” part.

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  55. Colleen said on May 27, 2022 at 5:45 pm

    Ditto Sherri at 53.

    I am more than a little concerned by how many gun toters there are in my neighborhood. I mean, we all have cameras on our doorbells, alarm systems, it’s a pretty quiet suburban mcneighborhood, and I can’t tell you how many times there has been a FB discussion about something neighborhood related in which someone mentions having a gun.

    I would like guns to be more regulated than Sudafed. Bottom line for me is that when we compare ourselves to other countries, we are clearly doing something wrong,and we should try to fix it. Instead we double down and continue with our disgusting fetishizing of weaponry.

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  56. Little Bird said on May 27, 2022 at 6:22 pm

    There’s a gun shop in the “mall” near my home. There are regularly men carrying guns through the mall and the various shops there because “they were going to the gun shop” for whatever reason. Nearly all of the customers there wear camo. There’s a part of me that wants to just walk straight into them and claim that I didn’t see them…. But I don’t want to get shot.

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  57. Jim said on May 27, 2022 at 7:04 pm

    Sherri at #53: I agree almost completely, except for the SWAT part. Active shooter situations are one of the things they are literally supposed to address.

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  58. LAMary said on May 27, 2022 at 7:40 pm

    In the Nextdoor app there are frequently comments about homeless people doing something like taking a dump in someone’s planter or picking fruit off their tangerine tree. There are always replies that suggest getting a gun and threatening to use it. Even here in mellow LA there are people who feel the need to threaten death to fruit thieves.

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  59. diane said on May 27, 2022 at 10:29 pm

    I don’t dare feel hopeful but I am very surprised. I have a very MAGA cousin who posts standard MAGA stuff on FB and today she posted a typical meme “Joe, forget Build Back Better just put the country back the way you found it” but also in a separate post said “We need common sense gun laws and all the Senators that are owned by the NRA need to be voted out.” I almost fell off of my chair.

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  60. Dexter Friend said on May 28, 2022 at 1:49 am

    Jeff Gill, your findings do not surprise me, as weapons and more ordnance are the answer in most people’s heads around here. It’s in their DNA, their acquired belief system, and their planning.
    The local paper is The Bryan Times. They used to print it here, but now farm the printing out, so for years they tried to sell the large facility , and they did. The Bryan Times building is now a gun range. The business of the paper is an office on the quaint town square. Progress, a perfect example of the times. The parking lot is now filled with huge trucks, all with window gun racks.

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  61. Sherri said on May 28, 2022 at 3:03 am

    SWAT teams may do active shooter trainings, but that doesn’t change the fact that they have no affirmative duty to endanger themselves to protect anyone else from violence. This has been determined in court; Castle Rock v Gonzalez is the key case, decide by SCOTUS IN 2005.

    https://www.salon.com/2022/05/27/uvalde-timeline-exposes-an-ugly-truth-the-police-have-no-legal-duty-to-protect-you/

    SWAT mostly serves warrants.

    The police in Uvalde had apparently done active shooter training as recently as two months ago, but when the time came, the choice was made to ignore the training and protocol, and wait.

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  62. Suzanne said on May 28, 2022 at 8:49 am

    Several years ago, I was at gathering which included a number of clergy. I sat at a table with several who were discussing their guns. One young one mentioned he was planning on buying a purse for his wife that had a gun pocket in it. They have several small children. Clergyman B then piped up that he had his own gun range on his rural property and clergyman A was welcome to come use it any time. Then clergyman B made a comment about how ridiculous is really was that they had all these guns because we live in such a incredibly safe area.

    My Facebook feed has been filled with people who live here in my very safe area who know that the solution to the gun problem is to bring back prayer in schools, make sure there are fathers in the homes, take away social media, etc, including one city councilman who added that his neighbor had 200 guns but that didn’t scare him because he knew his neighbor and he was a responsible gun owner. I cannot even remotely comprehend why someone would feel the need to own 200 guns.

    It’s amazing the knots people will twist their minds into to avoid saying maybe guns are the problem.

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  63. Marge Taylor said on May 28, 2022 at 9:18 am

    Kendallville In is one example how America has changed. Not too many
    years ago, this town had three fabric shops. Today only Walmart has a sized down area. But this town has three gun stores.

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  64. Jim said on May 28, 2022 at 9:33 am

    Sherri: yes, Castle Rock vs Gonzalez is yet another stunning SCOTUS decision that has gotten us here. This Tom the Dancing Bug comic encapsulates the absurdity of where SCOTUS has gone: https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/comics/strips/?name=tom-the-dancing-bug&itid=sf_entertainment-comics

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  65. Julie Robinson said on May 28, 2022 at 12:42 pm

    Marge, Dorothy and I will join you in chanting: No More Gun Stores! More Fabric Stores!!!

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  66. Mark P said on May 28, 2022 at 2:23 pm

    I’m sitting in the ER waiting room right now, waiting to find out where my sudden shortness of breath came from. I was about 90 percent sure last night that it was Covid. Now I’m not sure. I find myself hoping it is Covid because the alternatives are worse. Not where I wanted to spend my Saturday afternoon.

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  67. Icarus said on May 28, 2022 at 8:23 pm

    Myself and the kids got our 2nd booster yesterday. Nightingale doesn’t qualify yet. Arm was just a tad sore nothing noticeable. In fact, I didn’t feel anything when the shot was given.

    At 3 in the morning I had the shivers but I just grabbed an extra blanket. Of course today I made the mistake of trying to power wash our driveway under the hot sun, so that drained me and I took a 2 hour nap.

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  68. Sherri said on May 28, 2022 at 8:47 pm

    Hope everything’s all right, Mark.

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  69. Mark P said on May 28, 2022 at 9:27 pm

    Thanks Sherri. It turns out it’s nothing I expected. I have blood clots in both lungs. I don’t have any risk factors like a recent long trip, recent surgery, or an extended period of bed rest. Just a family history of blood clots. They seem fairly optimistic about it. My vitals all looks good. I have a friend in Denver who had the same problem and he’s recovered with no continuing symptoms. I’ll soon (ha!) be in a regular room and I’m hoping to borrow a phone charger and get some ice cream. I’ve had a glass of orange juice all day. And I have 10% on my phone.

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  70. Deborah said on May 28, 2022 at 9:36 pm

    Take it easy Mark, hope you feel better soon.

    Post Covid my husband and I are suffering from allergies. Tree pollen is bad here in Santa Fe now, yellowish green powder is all over the streets and sidewalks, humidity is 8% last time I looked today, so it’s flying around. High winds too. LB and I have been spending a lot of time outdoors gardening lately.

    The fires were doing better for a few days because it actually rained in the city a few days ago and snowed in the mountains, but now the winds are whipping it up again. So far about 400 homes have been destroyed and they say the Calf Canyon fire definitely started because of a “controlled” burn back in January that didn’t get completely put out. I didn’t know that was possible, smoldering that long, but apparently it is. There were 2 fires in the area, Hermits Peak and Calf Canyon then they merged into one, then separated again. There are some other fires in NM but further away.

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  71. Suzanne said on May 28, 2022 at 9:40 pm

    Mark, blood clots in both lungs is what sent me to the hospital this winter and the blood work from that episode is what led to my leukemia diagnosis. The blood clots disappeared fairly quickly with blood thinners & oxygen. I only wish the leukemia would disappear as quickly.
    Best of luck to you. Eliquis will be your new best friend.

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  72. jerry said on May 29, 2022 at 1:33 am

    Friday was our wedding anniversary – 55 years, it doesn’t seem possible. Saturday we went in to London to see My Fair Lady at The Coliseum. It was the Lincoln Centre production. Very good with a stunning set. We went to the matinee as it meant we didn’t have to rush for the last train – we are indeed getting old. And for some reason we both slept badly. So Myra is busy writing her weekly missive to our sons while I am admiring a beautiful day outside.

    I’m not listening to the news, deliberately. Just enjoying a beautiful day. I wish you all the same.

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  73. Dexter Friend said on May 29, 2022 at 2:05 am

    Congrats on 55 years for Myra and Jerry. Since I was a small boy and a traveling troupe performed scenes from the new Broadway play “My Fair Lady” at our school in 1959, it’s been my favorite play, and I loved George Bernard Shaw’s “Pygmalion” as well. I have watched both movies a hundred times but only saw the stage play once. Anyway, cheers.

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  74. Mark P said on May 29, 2022 at 8:04 am

    Thanks everyone. A nurse charged my phone overnight, the one bright spot so far. Oh, and they both ought a turkey sandwich, so another bright spot. I may go home today, but more likely tomorrow.

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  75. Jeff Gill said on May 29, 2022 at 9:08 am

    Mark, my best wishes and blessings to you. Glad you didn’t wait longer! And that they have a plan that looks like a healing path.

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  76. alex said on May 29, 2022 at 9:41 am

    Wishing you a speedy recovery, Mark.

    Suzanne, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised re: clergy and guns. My parents were lifelong friends with a couple from Rochester, NY, who belonged to a Wesleyan church. As a retirement gift for their pastor, the congregation bought him an assault weapon because that was what he wanted.

    This weekend we held a belated memorial for my mom, who passed away in February. Today going to see what odds and ends remain at our favorite greenhouse as we still need flowers to fill all of our outdoor pots. Tomorrow heading for South Bend to pick up some dock parts as we need to rebuild. The tree that fell and smashed our old dock remains in the water and the tree guy who was supposed to show up yesterday blew it off, so I have no idea when we’ll get that resolved.

    My dad keeps fainting and falling down all the time and probably shouldn’t be left alone at this point, so I may just give my employer an ultimatum: Let me work remotely or I’ll find another employer that’s more accommodating.

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  77. basset said on May 29, 2022 at 3:28 pm

    Joining everyone in wishing Mark a quick, comfortable recovery.

    “My Fair Lady”… for some reason I can remember Weekend Update anchor Brad Hall singing on SNL to the tune of “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly”:

    “All I need is a desk somewhere
    Thirty minutes of network air
    Someone to spray my hair
    Oh, wouldn’t I be newsworthy?”

    Just looked it up, he hasn’t been on SNL for close to forty years. And I can’t remember stuff that happened yesterday.

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  78. susan said on May 29, 2022 at 3:36 pm

    Years—decades—ago, I bought a recording (LP) of My Fair Lady, the Spanish version. Because I wanted to hear “The Rain in Spain,” the Spanish version. Just how would one translate that?

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  79. ROGirl said on May 29, 2022 at 4:21 pm

    Mark, wishing you a speedy recovery and quick release from the hospital.

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  80. jcburns said on May 29, 2022 at 5:53 pm

    Mark, sure hope you recover speedily.

    We were just listening to this NPR story, which covers the struggles of small indie bands as they tour, and, specifically, how little some of these event venues—like SXSW!—pay the bands to appear. Yikes.
    Thinking of Kate and friends in that context, of course.

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  81. Julie Robinson said on May 29, 2022 at 6:43 pm

    jc, I’ve been thinking of that myself, given a week in which we saw three shows at the Orlando Fringe, and Paul McCartney. McCartney is still fabulous, but the tickets were ridiculous, the parking was ridiculous, the refreshments were ridiculous, and the merch–well, no doubt LAMary could tell us, but we didn’t venture in any of those lines. (And there were still people in line for merch as the show ended.) Cha-ching!

    The Fringe costs $10 for a button, which supports the venue costs, then each artist or cast keeps 100% of the proceeds for their show. If your show is well-attended you do pretty well since you perform multiple times over two weeks. OTOH you have to feed and house yourself for two weeks. Our daughter has hosted in previous years, but right now we just don’t have space.

    So the Fringe artists may be struggling, but they are part of a venue that treats them fairly. If you get 100 people at $15 per, you’ve done pretty well.

    Congratulations to Jerry and Myra, and I agree about matinees! Mark, feel better soon, and hope you aren’t going crazy with boredom over the long weekend. Alex, is your dad drinking enough water? That’s often an issue for eldsters who are tired of running to pee all the time, but our body chemistry gets off if we’re dehydrated.

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  82. David C said on May 29, 2022 at 7:30 pm

    I listened to an interview with William McCarthy of the indie band Augustines. The the only reason they broke of was money. They weren’t fighting over it. They weren’t making enough of it. He said they were famous, just not famous enough. Sad because they were a great band.

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  83. Deborah said on May 29, 2022 at 10:06 pm

    We had a dickens of a time getting uncle J to drink water when he was way into dementia. He got dehydrated at one point where he had to go to the ER. It was very difficult getting him to do it, he was stubborn when he wanted to be.

    There is a fringe opera in Chicago which has catapulted some musicians into success. We went to it one time a few years ago and it introduced me to what has come to be one of my favorite poems, Refrigerator 1957, set to music http://thomaslux.blogspot.com/2012/12/refrigerator-1957.html. I can so relate to this poem, I had the exact same experience as a kid growing up.

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  84. Dexter Friend said on May 30, 2022 at 1:29 am

    I started being a water bottle carrier when I began daily cycling in 1975, and I still have a water bottle near all the time, so for 47 years I have been hydrating alright. I have told of quitting alcoholic beverages 30 years ago, and when I did that, my coffee consumption went sky-high. For a string of about 15 years I was probably a coffee fiend, in the vernacular of those days.
    Now in my 70s, I only desire one mug of coffee per day, and a decaf cup in the evening. With age, my coffee urges dwindled slowly. I do drink 10 Diet Coke cans per week on average.

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  85. alex said on May 30, 2022 at 8:42 am

    Hydration… That hadn’t occurred to me. I always find him sipping wine and beer mostly, which may be part of it. But I suspect my dad’s problem is primarily hypotension, getting up and moving too quickly after long spells of being sedentary.

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  86. john (not mccain) said on May 30, 2022 at 8:56 am

    Can we get a Memorial Day for all the people who’ve died because of how great the 2nd Amendment is?

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  87. Mark P said on May 30, 2022 at 11:58 am

    Well, I’m leaving the hospital in a few minutes. I have to admit there were a few times I was more than a little worried, but it all seems good now. The only glitch was that the first anticoagulant they prescribed was Eliquis, at $600 plus for the first month and about $270 a month thereafter, with my Medicare Rx plan. They switched me to Xarelto for about $60-70 for the first month and $47 a month thereafter. Lots more affordable.

    Thanks for all your expressions of concern. It means a lot to me.

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  88. LAMary said on May 30, 2022 at 12:13 pm

    Eliquis and Xarelto: two things advertised during network news and Jeopardy, both geezer demographic programs.
    Julie I’m sure McCartney concerts are very profitable for the merch guy. The Mongolians were not in that league but last summer’s Guns n’ Roses tour was a gold mine. Old metal bands are pretty good too because the fan base from the 80s and 90s have the cash to buy ugly t-shirts. The Korean boy bank BTK played the SoFi stadium here a few months ago and the merch stand opened a week before the concert and there were lines every day. My son was not part of that situation and although he’s sure the merch guy made out very well he does not regret missing it.

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  89. LAMary said on May 30, 2022 at 1:13 pm

    https://reddit.com/r/facepalm/comments/v0oinv/thoughts_and_prayers/

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  90. Suzanne said on May 30, 2022 at 2:09 pm

    LA Mary, that clip is great. That speaker rolls the whole (small) crowd and they don’t even seem to know they’ve been rolled. Not the brightest bunch but then, that’s how Mr La Pierre was able to make millions off of them.

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  91. LAMary said on May 30, 2022 at 4:02 pm

    I’m watching an old Dick Van Dyke rerun while eating lunch and suddenly I see Mike Huckabee holding a guitar and hustling some sleep aid medicine. I had to confirm what I saw and typed Mike Huckabee into Google and the first thing that popped up was “why is Mike Huckabee doing commercials?”

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  92. Deborah said on May 30, 2022 at 5:02 pm

    This is an interesting article (to me anyway) about the Japanese interment camp in Santa Fe https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/japanese-americans-fought-for-their-country-the-u-s-even-as-families-were-detained-in/article_3c719f78-daa8-11ec-9473-6304a6087b0e.html
    There’s paywall but I doubt that many of you have used 3 free articles this month in the local paper, The Santa Fe New Mexican. I didn’t know this camp existed in Santa Fe until a few months ago. It’s actually close to our place here, I’ll have to check it out sometime soon.

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  93. brian stouder said on May 30, 2022 at 5:09 pm

    Haven’t watched The DVD show in ages, but my mom loved that show! I’ve probably seen every episode (twice or more!), which is half the attraction, as (way back in the day) my mom loved that show; that – and “old” (pre-Alex Trebeck!) Jeopardy….what was that host’s name? That was front of mind, as my son and I did the Indy-500 thing Sunday (good seats about 10 rows up on the main straight across from Helio Castroneves’ pit), which made the old guy (me!) say to Grant (my son) something like ‘back in my day, this was on TV, but not live (at least in Indiana), and we’d all listen to it on the radio, and then watch it on tv that evening’……which truly seems to be a million years ago!

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  94. brian stouder said on May 30, 2022 at 5:12 pm

    Who is Art Fleming?!(and I didn’t google that – it hit me right after I posted it!

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  95. jcburns said on May 30, 2022 at 5:45 pm

    Hey Joe:

    “Remember – flags at half staff at dawn, full staff at noon.”

    …where does that come from? I never came across that before.

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  96. tajalli said on May 30, 2022 at 8:15 pm

    jc: The flag is at half-staff to honor the dead and then the flag is raised “briskly” at noon to honor the war heroes.

    https://www.va.gov/opa/publications/celebrate/halfstaff.pdf

    IMHO everyone who died and everyone who survived is a hero because of the tremendous teamwork required.

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  97. jcburns said on May 30, 2022 at 8:42 pm

    Yeah, I get what they’re going for, but who came up with the raising “briskly” at noon? Noon eastern time? What about Hawaii? What happens at dinner time?

    Sounds like Eisenhower had a lot to say about half-staff generally, but why just the morning? Arrrgh.

    This is why I was never an Eagle Scout.

    By the way, if you have a really really large American flag that flies over an RV lot on I-75, if you have it at half-staff, is it OK for it to kind of drape damply on the Winnebagos in the front row?

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  98. tajalli said on May 30, 2022 at 9:15 pm

    jc: To define noon, please check a certified ephemeris for sidereal time. At dinner time, one feeds the cats. Always.

    For half-staff with really large flags, please observe the proper ratio between horizontal dimension of the flag and flag pole height to avoid letting the flag touch the ground, a definite no-no. Minimum ratio = 1/(3π) .

    There is only one exception to the ground-touching rule, interestingly enough. It’s an issue of location and remedial actions.

    If you are in an RV on I-75, you must also tromp on the flag with muddy boots if it does touch and then blame the Democrats. Blaming the Democrats fixes everything.

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