Caught this while looking at a newscast covering the Prime Minister of
Australia in a joint news conferences with our Donald. Australia, a country
I never thought that much dissimilar to us in that it was settled by
Europeans, had what appeared to be a wild and woolly frontier (I mean Tom
Selleck played a cowboy there too), had an original population screwed by
settlers, etc etc, had a 1996 mass murder. And Australia's response to it:
-Australia banned semi-automatic and other military-style weapons across
the country.
-Australia introduced a nationwide gun buyback program,
-Australian independence didn't end.
-Tyranny didn't come.
-Australians still hunted and explored and big-wave surfed to their
hearts' content.
-Their economy didn't crash;
-Invaders never arrived.
-Violence, in many forms, went down across the country, not up.
-Somehow, lawmakers on either side of the gun debate managed to get along
and legislate.
-Zero mass killings in the past 22 years.
-32 Homicides committed by gun in 2014 (24 million people) (500 last year
in Chicago, city of 2.7 million)
-Gun violence in general declined over the following two decades to a
nearly unimaginable degree.
-Suicide dropped by 80%
-In 2015, an unthinkable 22,103 Americans shot themselves to death with a
gun
-2014 Australia's murder rate fell to less than 1 killing per 100,000
people-a murder rate one-fifth the size of America's
For some reason I pictured them down under smirking at us. And it hurts.
The next mind boggler was seeing the show Full Frontal for the very first
time. I think it's a comedy. I wonder why it took me so long? Her humor?
Making fun of the statistics (I hope just the statistics) involved with
death rates (still weird) of women involve in birth in rural areas in the
United states. How it was so much higher, in fact higher than any other
developed country in the frigging world. A women giving birth in the United
States is twice as likely to die as a women giving birth in Saudi Arabia.
Three time of a women in England. Two sets of women contribute to this Black
women die three times more often and rural women die 65% more often. Three
fourths of hospitals closed in rural areas were in states, that had decided
not to participate and accept federal money for Medicaid in their response
to Obama care. The worst? The great state of Texas. My initial response then
was wondering if they had any pride. Of course, how slanted was the
material? Best guess, after all the cute rhetoric, the numbers are indeed
real, and women are indeed dying. One state, California, studied the
problem, and put together procedures to fight those problems. Deaths dropped
to one third national average. Unfortunately I don't know what they started
out at in California.
For some reason I picture them all around us smirking at us. And it hurts.
I think here's a couple of areas we need work on to Make America Great
Again, and bring back the Pride I used to be Proud of. (Can we skip the
parade?)
Watching TV can be dangerous.