Yet Another School Shooting

One of those long Facebook posts that I though better of and decided to move over to the blog....

The relationship of mass shooting to gun deaths is kind of like the relationship of airplane crashes to transportation deaths. By every measure (total deaths, per capita, per mile traveled) automobiles are 10s or 100s of times more risky than airplanes - but when a plane goes down, it's all over the media in a way that more mundane automobile accidents are not.

I'm not a gun advocate in any way, but the reality is that nearly 2/3 of gun deaths each year are suicides. And of actual homicides, most are by handguns (not assault weapons or rifles) and most victims are young men of color. The high visibility "gun issues" (mass killings, police killings, police deaths) are a thin slice of the actual number of gun deaths.

Banning assault weapons may make us feel better / safer but will only make a small dent in the "gun problem" this country finds itself in. I think the random nature of mass killings, and the way they extend violence out of more at risk communities, and into presumably safe spaces (schools, churches, performance spaces, whiter, and less economically disadvantaged) creates a more visceral reaction among the middle class and well to do. They shatter our illusion of safety and protection.

Mass Shootings Are A Bad Way To Understand Gun Violence FiveThirtyEight, Oct 3, 2017

This page gets to the heart of the matter, and there's a really interesting statistical tool that let's you peel apart gun violence by race, by age, by gender, and by type. The only thing it really lacks is a "type of firearm" pulldown which would, I think, be useful and informative.

As I mentioned, I am not a gun fan in any way; I'm a proponent of zero gun rights and if not that, highly regulated gun ownership. But I'm also a pragmatist and a numbers geek, and I watch with curiosity as the reaction to a mass killing far outweighs the statistical significance of the event. 

Six Feathers

There’s a pottery vase that a friend made sitting on a bureau in my living room. It has contained six feathers since last June when the 2017 teacher training ended. This afternoon, those six feathers moved up to the yoga room, placed into a mason jar on my altar with dozens of others - too many to count. It’s an almost ludicrous collection, keepsakes from many weekends, many journeys, many lives.


The living room vase now contains one red feather. I trust it will be filled up again come June...

Oreck Commercial BB900DGR XL Pro 5 Super Compact Canister Vacuum

This got delivered yesterday and I'm kind of smitten - replacing a Dirt Devil Featherlite that I bought in 2013 (when you blog about your vacuums, such dates are easily researched) which was starting to be a problem (power switch broke, attachments cracking). I mostly used it to vacuum stairs, but with the new vacuums shoulder strap, long cord, and light weight I'm already seeing myself cleaning edges, corners, ceiling cobwebs, etc. a lot more often. It will probably make a nifty car vac in warmer weather. It's also easily converted into a blower and I have no such applications but I'm sure I'll think of something. Maybe science experiments around Bernoulli's Principle or demonstrating airplane wing lift.....

I love the rugged, 30' red cord. I also own an Oreck Professional upright which is amazing. In an alternate universe I'm happily cleaning hotel rooms with my professional grade vacuums.

I've owned exactly three canister vacuums in my life - a Kenmore I bought in '83 that lasted 30 years, the Dirt Devil (5 years) and now this. Probably the last canister vacuum I'll own. It was a bargain ($90) and has the sort of clunky ruggedness and lack of any sort of design sense other than the functional that I appreciate.