Two stories I found on the pages of the Portland Press Herald today:
- [Maine’s] Riverview Psychiatric Center faces the loss of an estimated $20 million in federal funding because the federal government has decided that the hospital in Augusta has not solved staffing and governance problems.” Full story
- The mother of a Connecticut woman who was shot to death by police after trying to breach a barrier at the White House said her daughter was suffering from post-partum depression. Mother: Daughter in Capitol chase was depressed
Considering the earth shattering news that Republicans are opposing Democrats, it’s understandably tough to remember things that happened a couple of weeks ago, like the Navy Yard shooting where Aaron Alexis, a former Navy reservist, used a shotgun to begin a massacre that left 12 people dead.
A few weeks before, Alexis called police in Rhode Island, telling them that he was getting messages from his microwave, according to the Associated Press.
“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation,” wrote Henry David Thoreau.
But just look what happens when those desperate folks stop being quiet.
It’s easy and sexy to argue about the Affordable Care Act, gun control . . . my guy versus your guy.
But the silence becomes deafening if we dare mention other topics that (not surprisingly) have a direct and immediate impact on all the other stuff we love to debate.
Fewer than 24 hours after the incident in which a depressed woman was shot (justifiably) by Capitol police, that story has already become buried under the weight of Congressional bickering.
And the Aaron Alexis story did not fit into any of the convenient arguments for or against gun control. Don’t expect any tearful Congressional testimony there.
I return you now to the sport of pointing fingers and assigning blame. Enjoy.
LESSONS IN MEDIOCRITY 