Average Tuesday Update

My team came in third at trivia on Monday, which sounds decent until I tell you we were first and fell from grace, as happens probably 75% of the time. 

The weather has been cooling off to a more mild/pleasant temp, which is really great so I don't have to take 2-3 showers a day to keep cool anymore, or wake up in the middle of the night feeling like I'm on fire.

I've been spending a lot of time lately hanging out with other mommas and mommas-to-be. Food is always involved.

I'm terrible at sleeping properly and only getting worse. After a few hours at a time I can't get comfortable anymore. Boo.

We have been re-watching Parks and Recreation all the way through again because it is quite possibly the most re-watchable series, in my humble opinion. The show ended three years ago, but it's just as poignant as ever, during these times where politics are so polarized. I think Leslie Knope and Ron Swanson's friendship, despite their polar opposite beliefs about the role of government, could save the world, or at least make it a better place. Not to mention, this recent story made me fall in love with the cast all over again.

I'm going to cook some gnocchi now, because it's delicious.

Video Killed the Radio Star

The thought occurred to me recently that there are no current good/well-known bands (at least none that I am aware of) that are putting out songs about all the weird stuff that is happening around the world, politically and in current events. It's possible that there are some out there, and maybe this is just a sign of my age and how I learned to acquire music when there was a different way to share and be into it (when there were actual physical stores where people would hangout and you'd find out what was coming out soon, and when you would make intentional mix tapes or CD's for friends, etc.). Anyway, the only example I can really think of in recent years was MIA's "Borders". Everything else that is out right now just seems to be the typical pop stuff about love and breakups and partying. Maybe it's just the long trough after a peak, since it kind of goes up and down - the 60's and 70's gave us a lot of politically inspired music, then the 80's were a lot of pop, and then 90's and early 2000's music was more socially and politically driven again. It just feels like we're long overdue for some substantive musical commentary again. 

It anyone has recommendations of new stuff that is good along the lines of what I'm talking about, I'm all ears. 

The Topic of the Hour

There is this strange idea that many Americans have that people in other countries do not, that guns = freedom and freedom = guns. This idea gets extended to the more seemingly personal the idea that if anyone wants there to be less guns, they are trying to take away your individual freedom. Thinking like this simply doesn't exist in other countries for the most part, because no other country's national identity was forged so much in the idea of taking up arms against an oppressive regime. 

In almost all other developed countries, people want their governments and police forces to protect them, and they see less guns as freedom from having to fear rampant gun violence.  They see access to education, healthcare, paid parental leave, and other resources and services as freedom to do what they want with their lives. 

I honestly feel sorry for anyone that equates freedom exclusively with access to guns. There is so much more to life than that. It's also sad because it goes hand in hand with this paranoid way of looking at life, like there's always someone out there looking to attack or take advantage of you. I'm not suggesting one should be naive and trust everyone, but it's sad if someone always feels like life is "me vs. them" or "me vs. the world" - how lonely. It's what can ultimately lead to the toxic thoughts that foment in the kinds of people who tend to perpetrate gun violence. In other countries where freedom isn't equated with guns, where there aren't anywhere near as many guns as people, there isn't this same paranoia that someone is out to get you behind every corner. Police don't come on every scene treating everyone they deal with like they could have an assault weapon, because the chances are very minuscule, whereas in the states police sometimes accidentally shoot people during routine traffic stops because they feel they need to react as though everyone is armed.

Which leads me to this idea of arming teachers with the goal of keeping students safe from gun violence. It's absurd for many reasons.

1 - I don't know a single teacher who wants to be armed or wants there to be more guns around them than there already might be. If you show me a teacher who wants to be armed, I would question their motives for becoming a teacher in the first place. Most become educators because they want to mentor and better the lives of their students and empower them with knowledge to solve problems. Guns and violence are the antithesis of this. So, even if the law changed and teachers could carry guns, very few, if any, would. As a teacher, being expected to use a weapon or take a bullet for my students should not now, or ever be, part of my job description.

2 - The gun would have to be locked away safe from students, so then it wouldn't be easily accessible. If it's too accessible, a student could get access to it and start an incident.

3 - In an active shooter scenario, anyone else who also shows a firearm that isn't wearing a police or SWAT uniform could easily be confused as a perpetrator and then get shot, or at least make the real law enforcement take longer to figure out who the perpetrator is

4 - Educators are already paying for many of their supplies out of their own pockets. Many schools cannot afford to give teachers the resources they need to teach, or pay them what they are worth, and now there would be another huge cost added on top of that? Yeah right. 

This current national conversation angers me because it wastes time and takes away from actual productive solutions being offered and considered. 

Numerous countries have dealt with their gun control issues and successfully reduced the number of incidents and people killed, and all of them have done it by somehow reducing the number of guns in circulation and making access more difficult. This is fact. Anyone who argues that more guns make people safe is willfully ignorant at this point. If that were true, America would be the safest nation in the world instead of one of the most dangerous, in terms of gun violence. 

There are thousands, maybe millions of American teens who are speaking out against violence because they have already seen enough in their lifetimes. That doesn't seem radical or hard to believe at all to me, and yet the conspiracy theories are swirling. In any case, I have hope that something will change as long as the people don't let this topic just fall by the wayside yet again. I don't want to hear anymore sickening news stories that could have been prevented by the implementation of common sense laws, like banning assault weapons and improving background checks. There is no reason it should be easier to get a gun in Florida than it is to vote. 

Birthday Fun

Michael is a pretty good frisbee player, code writer, cat trainer, boardgamer, knitter, and miniature painter. He's perhaps most talented at planning birthdays, though. He is somehow able to produce professional quality projects, whereas when I make things they look crafty and homemade. 

He surprised me by taking the day off work on my birthday and planning a full day of fun activities, with some relaxing moments in between. It was kind of like being on vacation in our own city for a day, and most importantly, he had booked a carshare for the day in order to chauffeur my pregnant self around. We kicked it off with breakfast sandwiches, there were a few clues and puzzles to solve that he devised in order for me to acquire/plan the day's schedule, yoga, boardgaming, a foot massage, lunch with a friend and her mom and bub, time to read on the beach, my first ever birthday swim in one of the oceanside pools (the waves weren't safe to swim in, and when you're born in February in the northern hemisphere, you never get to have a pool party), a short nap, delicious dinner at Pony on the Rocks, walking around Circular Quay for the Chinese New Year lantern festival, gelato from Messina, and we finished it off with a movie at home. It was a full schedule, but every activity was enjoyable in my current state. I've been lucky to have some pretty spectacular birthdays in the last several years, whether they were personalized clue scavenger hunts from Michael, hiking in Taiwan, ski trips, or special weekends with out-of-town friends. My "last birthday where I matter" as Michael jokingly calls it (meaning the last one where I am not a mom yet and have to always worry about someone else), was better than I thought it would be, and was really just as perfect as it could have been in the absence of some of my friends and family from home. So far, I have no complaints about 35.

Black Panther

We saw Black Panther tonight. I liked the cast, as there were many actors and actresses from other shows and movies I like. I particularly like Danai Gurira as a general (of course, since I'm a TWD fan), Angela Bassett was a gorgeous and regal choice for the mother, and Forrest Whitaker, Daniel Kaluuya, Michael B. Jordan, and Andy Serkis were all great familiar faces in new roles. The oddest choice, though, was Martin Freeman as an American. I like Martin Freeman, but even with an American accent, he doesn't act or look particularly American. Anyway, it was great to see a predominantly African American cast carry a movie a mainstream Marvel movie, with only two white token (or in this case, Tolkien, since they were both from the LOTR movies!) characters. I'm not that big of a comic book/super hero movie fan, other than the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, so it was nice to see Marvel do something different from their usual formula. 

Apparently the African accents were all over the map, which bothered lots of people, but since I am too ignorant to discern the difference between a lot of them, I didn't dwell on it. The only one I noticed was Andy Serkis sounding South African, which seemed to make sense to enough to me.

One thing I thought that was contradictory was that the Wakanda people are this advanced and intelligent society that would rarely resort to violence, and yet the way they confirm their new leader is with hand-to-hand combat. Huh? Why?

There was a lot of interesting social commentary in the film, some of it I'm sure went over my head as someone who is neither African nor African American. The main theme I got most from it was the general dialogue about whether or not those that are well off have a responsibility to help those that are not, and how it creates inner conflict for individuals, and outer conflict between groups. I'm sure someone of a different background would read differently into the conflicts between characters and cultures, so it would be interesting to talk about it with a diverse group of people. 

Amazing Things Will Happen

One of my all-time favorite speeches... an oldie but a goodie...

Sick. Of. This.

I try to even out my posts so that if I have posted negative stuff recently, I balance it with something positive. It's hard to do that today. As many people are, I am still very bothered about the most recent school shooting in the US, and all of the ones that have happened in the last many years. Every time it happens, I like to think more people will be called to action, but it's never enough to get anything to change. We hear the same arguments on both sides and nothing changes. I do hope that these kids and all survivors from these incidents will continue to be more vocal and involved so that something might actually change this tine.

These shootings bother me because I am a human being and I feel bad for those that have to live through these senseless tragedies. They bother me because I am going to be a mother and I am going to have to worry when my child eventually attends a school in the US and I will have to drop them off wondering what could happen to them. These incidents bother me because I am a teacher, and using your body as a shield to protect your students is not, and should not, be in the job description. 

Maybe all politicians should have to spend a day or more with a survivor or the surviving family members a victim has left behind, and hear about the horror they've had to live through and how it still affects them every day. Maybe then it would be easier to say, "No thanks" to that extra donation from the NRA, and maybe then they'd realize, oh yeah, this should have been a huge priority a long time ago. And, maybe people that want to own guns should also have to do the same. They should have to talk to real victims of gun violence one-on-one, so they have to think about the real consequences of what more guns circulating in our society lead to. Try explaining to someone who's had to bury their child or who can no longer feel from the waist down why your right to own a gun is more important than their rights.

I just honestly don't understand people's priorities at this point when it is crystal clear that more regulations on gun ownership and usage would at least lessen the problem - just like they have done in so many other developed countries and had positive results.  It is also painfully obvious that mental health is a big problem in the US, and cutting healthcare and services to the people that need them isn't going to make it any better. There is no reason that a teen who showed many obvious warning signs in advance of the incident should have had such easy access to many guns, let alone one. It just really disgusts me that people who have the power to do something continue to let this happen over and over again.  Literally every time this happens, The Onion reposts the same article, changing only a few minor lines. It remains true every time, disappointingly. 

This is not a situation that has no solution. There are infinite possible solutions, and many different models that we could try, and the US has yet to try one. I'm sick of excuses and arguments. I'm sick of thoughts and prayers. The only thing I want to see now is action. Anything less isn't good enough. Clearly, not acting has yielded continuous shootings. At this point, everyone in charge who has so far been unwilling to act in some way should be replaced with those willing to try something. Even for those who think gun control is not the answer; fine then, what's your plan for mental health or school safety or some other angle? If you don't have a possible plan or solution? Get out, then. Make room for people that have a backbone. I'm sick of this.