Over the last couple of days, I've been thinking a lot about the Right's aversion to gun control efforts and the insistence that it's "too soon" to discuss those efforts in the wake of tragedies. Intuitively, that latter response seems especially baffling to me. In the days following a hideous car accident -- one that likely resulted from some problem with an automobile's construction or design -- we wouldn't insist that it was too soon for the manufacturer to begin looking into the problem and consider issuing a recall. So why, when guns are involved in tragedies that take the lives of too many Americans, are we so hesitant to discuss policies that might prevent those tragedies from happening in the future? Why is it too soon to talk about saving lives?

And as I think about it, I think it partly comes down to an issue of trust. The Right might sincerely disbelieve the premise that gun control measures will actually help, but more significantly they believe that liberals also don't believe gun control measures will have any positive impact. Instead, the Right maintains that this is a Right/Left culture-war issue. Liberals simply want to take their guns because liberals hate guns in principle, and fuck those liberals and everything they stand for. This isn't actually about saving lives or preventing tragedies; it's about trying to screw over one's political enemies. Those libtards are just taking advantage of bad press and dead kids (for shame!) to push their anti-gun and anti-conservative and big-government agenda. And that's all well and good, libs, but we should at least call a temporary truce to mourn the dead. The Right's not saying it's too soon to advance potentially helpful policies (note how quickly Trump tweets about restricting immigration and railroading/executing suspects following incidents where he believes "radical Islamic terror" is to blame); they're saying that it's too soon for that antagonistic back-and-forth that now characterizes our politics. (more...)

Admittedly, I oppose the death penalty in the vast majority of scenarios we're likely to encounter. I'd support it for the Joker -- dude breaks out of Arkham every other week and murders at least thirty people every time he hits the streets, so killing him would be in the interest of public safety. But insofar as our criminals are contained and aren't continuing to menace the public at large (by, say, running a criminal empire and ordering hits and the like), I don't support killing them. I maintain that killing people who are no longer a threat diminishes us. (And, of course, there's the possibility of condemning innocent people and the reality of disproportionate application of the death penalty along racial lines and all of that jazz.)

In any case, whether one supports the death penalty or not, I hope that most of us could agree that there should be some discussion whenever we seek to apply it -- that we should consider what we hope to achieve by it and whether it upholds or runs counter to our values and aims in particular instances. Might it actually be a deterrent in this case? Will it instead make a martyr of a perpetrator and inspire others of his ilk? Could it deprive us of the opportunity to learn more about the perpetrator? Insofar as we could convince him of the error of his ways, could it deprive us of a potential ally? And so on. In short, whatever one's feelings about the death penalty, it should not be taken lightly.

It should definitely not be the kind of thing a US president demands, in all caps, without qualification or apparent thought.

I actually thought it was okay -- certainly among the least egotistical examples of public speaking ever offered up by the Donald. I bristled a few times (referencing "all talk, no action" politicians seemed ill advised considering he just applied those words to a man who nearly died fighting for civil rights), and I laughed when he promised to "never, ever let [us] down" (dude lets me down every time he spews inanity via Twitter). But my expectations were very low and he did exceed them -- and I was able to sit through the entire speech while sober -- so I give him props for that.

At the high school where I teach an SAT prep course, there's been some controversy over a student essay. Apparently, after reading and analyzing Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal," students were assigned to write their own satiric piece -- and one student wrote a piece about racism that a number of students found highly offensive. (Some of those upset students are in my class; before Wednesday's session began, I read the essay and we chatted about it briefly.) (more...)

There's been lots of speculation about the reasons for Bernie's apparent lack of support among black voters -- but has there been any analysis of the extent to which black voters support the perceived frontrunner in Democratic primaries? Even Obama didn't gain traction among blacks until the narrative shifted and he was the candidate with momentum. (more...)