Altered States

Good news: Uvalde looks like the national tipping point in gun control.

Federal reform, of course, is impossible, because the NRA owns the GOP.

But it doesn't own every governor, making blue-state reforms quite feasible.

My own governor and the Democratic leadership in Delaware's legislature right now are pushing a "historic" package of six gun-control reforms.

The reforms would:

• Raise the age to purchase guns to 21; 
• Strengthen background checks; 
• Ban the sale of assault weapons; 
• Ban the accessories used to turn handguns into AR-15s; 
• Ban high-capacity magazines; and
• Hold gun manufacturers and dealers liable for recklessness.

"We have an obligation to do everything we can to prevent tragedies,” Delaware's governor said Thursday in a news release. "I look forward to seeing these bills on my desk this session.”

Other blue states' governors are pushing similar reforms.

If the governors succeed, as I believe they will, we'll soon find ourselves an even more "divided nation." 

There will be gun-safe states and gun-loving states. 

NRA-free states and NRA-owned states. 

Blue states and red states. 

That's red as in blood.

And that's okay, in my book, because parents can simply pick up and move from a red to a blue state.

If they value their kids' lives, they can relocate.

Sure, the housing is tight in the blue states; but the schools and libraries are better, and the jobs plentiful.

Let the red states relish their militarized weapons—and the weekly mass shootings that stem from them.

We blue-state citizens will send them thoughts and prayers.

Lumber Jack

I don't know of any great man who ever had a great son.

— Anthony Mann

Architect Frank Lloyd Wright had a son named Jack who was tormented all his life by his father's fame.

He hoped some of it would rub off on him, but things just never quite worked out.

At the age of 18, shiftless and unhappy, Jack Wright quit his freshman year at the University of Wisconsin—his father's alma mater—and headed to the West Coast, where he scraped along on menial jobs until deciding to try his hand at architecture. 

Jack smooth-talked his way into a job as a draftsman at a Los Angeles construction company, but quickly grew restless with his junior-man's position. When he announced his intention to move abroad to study architecture, Jack's father offered him a job as office manager at his now-bustling Chicago studio, in lieu of help with tuition.

Jack would last at the studio of Frank Lloyd Wright only four years: his father fired him after a heated argument over salary.

Suddenly jobless, Jack Wright tried something altogether new: designing toys for Chicago retailer Marshall Field. 

Swiping his father's earthquake-proof design for Tokyo's Imperial Hotel, Jack designed a set of notched wooden logs that kids could play with (his US patent application described the miniature logs' purpose as "Toy Cabin Construction"). 

He packaged the logs in a garish green and red cardboard box that featured a log cabin and a portrait of Illinois' favorite son, Abe Lincoln. 

The packaging promised "Interesting playthings typifying the spirit of America."

Jack Wright's "Lincoln Logs" caught on like wildfire. Parents and kids—swept up in a post-World War I patriotism craze—couldn't get enough of them. 

Although they never made him rich and famous—Jack would return to architecture after selling his patent for the toy to Playskool for $800—Lincoln Logs became 20th-century American kids' go-to building blocks, peaking in sales at 100 million sets. 

In 1999, along with the Hula Hoop, View-Master and the Radio Flyer Wagon, they were inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame, 27 years after Jack Wright's death.

Trust Fund Babies

 He had a lifelong desire to earn a living,
which helped keep him grounded.

— Julian Baggini

"Let me tell you about the very rich," F. Scott Fitzgerald famously wrote. 

"They are different from you and me. 

"They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. 

"They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are."

Outside of trust fund babies, who doesn't loathe trust fund babies?

They're loathsome because they're born with immunity to all quotidian hardships.

While the rest of us worry what the boss really thinks, how much longer the car will last, and whether to pay the whole credit card bill this month, they worry about the currents next week off Barbados, whether to hang the Basquiat alongside the Beeple, and what to wear to Saturday's steeplechase.

They're not immune, of course, to overdoses, cirrhosis, cancers, or car accidents.

That, at least, is satisfying.

Numerically, trust fund babies are small in number.

Almost 75% of the super-rich 1% have earned their wealth; and only 16% have inherited "old money" (earned two, three or four generations ago).

Nonetheless, that 16% represents 527,000 people to loathe.

These loathsome people have inherited, on average, $2.7 million, according to the Federal Reserve. 

That's $447 for every $1 inherited by the poor.

And not all trust fund babies are, of course, airheaded wastrels. 

History is rife with trust fund babies who worked hard and changed the world.

Buddha. St. Francis. Lafayette. Cézanne. Tolstoy. Bertrand Russell. Edith Wharton. FDR. JFK. William S. Burroughs. Gloria Vanderbilt. Anderson Cooper.

The list is long.

But we tend to stereotype trust fund babies.

Unfairly advantaged in almost every stage and walk of life, they're spoiled and lazy; vain and vapid; aloof and self-righteous; petty and paranoid.

Bolstered by wealth, they are directionless, and know nothing of failure and hardship.

Perpetual child actors, "their life is a series of highlight reels," says writer Tim Denning.

But the trust fund baby would tell us we're guilty of envy, and that envy's a sin.

"Envy rots the bones," Proverbs says.

Envy is insecurity masquerading as resentment: it invites you to compare yourself to others who, by dint of good luck, enjoy status you lack—and to cultivate hatred for them.

"Envy is a mind game with our sinful nature," says Christian writer Quinn Jackson.

"At its core, envy comes from the lack of belief that God is all powerful, cares about you deeply and has wonderful plans for your life."

Envy is in fact so sinful, Jackson says, it's practically inadmissible. 

To admit to being envious is to admit you're "ungenerous, mean, and small-hearted."

Hogwash.

At its core, envy seeks justice.

Envy resides within the heart of democracy.

Envy isn't hate; it's contempt, targeted, in this case, at unearned moneyed privilege—and the power it wields over us, even if only potentially.

As a member of the trust fundless, that contempt is my right.

You'll have to pry it from my cold, dead hands.

A Horse Named Charley

Charley Horse. A muscular pain, cramping, or stiffness that results from a strain or bruise.

— Webster's Dictionary

In March 1886, a sportswriter for The Louisville Courier-Journal reported that a local baseball player was suffering a "brand new disease" called a Charley Horse.

In fact, sportswriters around the country had been reporting many instances of the new disease.

A writer for The Boston Globe reported that the disease would cause a ballplayer to run around the field "after the fashion of a boy astride of a wooden horse, sometimes called a Charley Horse."

But what, readers wondered, was a pro baseball Charley Horse?

A writer for The Wheeling Intelligencer unearthed the answer:

"The disease consists of a peculiar contraction and hardening of the muscles and tendons of the thigh, to which ballplayers are liable from sudden starting and stopping in chasing balls. 

"Shortstop Jack Glasscock is said to have originated the name because the way the men limped around reminded him of an old horse he once owned named Charley."

While they agreed on the symptoms, not all sportswriters accepted the name's origin story.

A sportswriter for The Chicago Tribune attributed the name to horse racing, where a lame horse was called a "Charley."

A writer for The Grand Rapids Daily Democrat said the name came from manufacturing, where lame horses called "Charlies" were used to pull carts.

And a writer for The Washington Post said that the name came from a ballplayer,  Charlie "Hoss" Radbourn, who often experienced leg cramps while running bases.

While it might seem odd that sportswriters of the 1880s would label Charley Horse a disease, keep in mind that physicians today say that frequent Charley Horses—especially the nocturnal kind—can signal other, fatal diseases, including alcoholism, ALS, cardiovascular disease, cirrhosis, diabetes, kidney failure, Parkinson’s, MS, and lung cancer.

Photo by Rachel Morrison

Gundamentalist Mike

Not only do we have Second Amendment rights because
God gives them to us, but also the Gospel.

— Marty Daniel

Among the scores of abhorrent characters created by novelist William Faulkner, the small-town vigilante Percy Grimm was one of the most abhorrent.

Whenever justice needed a hand, Percy Grimm donned his National Guard uniform, holstered his automatic, and assembled a posse—mostly poker players from the American Legion hall.

In Light in August, while leading such a posse, Percy chases down the escaped mulatto convict Joe Christmas, shoots him, and castrates him, shouting, "Now you’ll let white women alone, even in hell.”

Faulkner created Percy Grimm in 1932.

Years later, the novelist would describe him as a "Fascist galahad," a two-bit storm trooper who's only tolerated by townspeople because they find his patriotism "quicker and truer than theirs."

"He's not prevalent," Faulkner said, "but he's everywhere."

Percy Grimm is indeed everywhere, even today; presently in the form of the gundamentalist.

Like the members of any cult, the gundamentalist simply cannot abide a mainstream viewpoint.

In the case of the gundamentalist, the mere hint of "gun control" unleashes a Grimm-like fear of miscegenation.

I'll give you an example.

This Wednesday, local police arrested a crazed gunman in a town near me, just 24 hours after the mass shooting in Texas.

Their report, posted on Facebook, identified one of the gunman's weapons as an AR-15.

The police report generated a heated discussion about the right to own AR-15s for hunting.

When stating her opposition to the weapon for that (or any) purpose, Diane mistakenly called the AR-15 an "assault rifle," instead of an "automatic rifle."

That provoked Gundamentalist Mike to scold Diane for her Liberal's ignorance:

"Good lord!," Mike wrote. "AR stands for 'Armalite,' not 'Assault Rifle.' 'Assault Rifle' is a fake, Democrat talking point used since the 90’s. Picture a stock Mustang or Camaro. Then picture that same car with 'accessories' designed to make it look more sporty, or badass, if you will... plus with engine/drivetrain work designed to make it perform better than factory. That’s all an AR-15 is. It’s a hunting rifle, with accessories."

Diane, ladylike, apologized for her error, prompting Liberal Tom to jump in and say to Mike, "What a bunch of nonsense! You are trying to tell me that an AR-15 is just a .22 bolt action with accessories. The AR-15 is not a hunting weapon."

After much insult-trading between Mike and Tom, I commented to Mike, "Well, you sure do love your guns. Guess they substitute for virility."

Mike replied, "Hardly. And a very typical, and pedestrian statement. But as a gun enthusiast, yeah they’re pretty cool. It’s OK to be scared, just don’t belittle everyone else who isn’t."

He punctuated his comment with a half dozen predictably puerile emoticons.

"Who's scared?" I asked.

"Apparently you," Mike replied, "if you think having a gun has anything to do with manhood. That’s just a stupid fucking statement. It’s OK to be scared of them, I just don’t happen to be."

I then offered gun-loving Mike—who looks like a biker—some food for thought. 

"Men experiencing SD are no more likely to own guns than men without SD," I wrote. "However, the members of the Second Amendment Cult work overtime to compensate for inadequate genitalia by decking themselves out as angels of death. The cult itself connects gun ownership with SD."

Mike responded, "That wins the Internet for the stupidest comment of the day so far."

With Percy Grimm in mind, I replied, "The failure of a mythical America to materialize has resulted in a flight by White men into predictable defense mechanisms: regression into childlike tantrums and abject dependence on unquestioned authority; the projection onto the historical victims of violence—including castration—the desire to perform symbolic castration by taking away 'our guns;' the projection onto the victims of sexual predation, whose supposedly dangerous sexuality must by controlled by laws and police power, the desire to take 'our' women; the seemingly natural identification with the real oppressor, whose interests his victims force themselves to believe are their own, and whose bidding they will willingly do, if it gives them an opportunity to assert illusory power. This can be understood to be, at least in part, a psychosexual disorder, common to modern men struggling to survive contemporary capitalism in multicultural societies."

That quieted Mike.

And with that I feel it's now time for coffee.