As IF Times

Source: As Gunman Rampaged Through Florida School, Armed Deputy ‘Never Went In’ – The New York Times

In case anyone missed it, there was a shooting at a high school in Florida recently, claiming the lives of 17 people.  The perpetrator was an ex student who was previously ejected from the school for numerous instances of unsociable behavior.

How unsociable?  Well the police had been called to his home no less than 39 times by his neighbors for various incidents over the years.  There were other subtle clues to his mental state, namely, self posted You Tube videos in which he publicly professed interest in becoming a mass shooter at a school, accompanied by images of his numerous weapons.  Oh and apparently he had been torturing animals as well.  Other students knew this kid to be disturbed and at least one publicly reported him to the authorities because they felt Cruz was such a menace.  Her exact words were, ” I think he’s going to shoot up a school.”

As we now know, the FBI were given specific directions to his online activities but somehow, no one took it seriously enough to even send an agent to knock on Cruz’s door.  The fact that Cruz used his real name for his online activities obviously confused the law agencies since they couldn’t figure out who or where he was.  At the time of the shooting, at least one and maybe 4 armed deputies were at the school but declined to engage the shooter.

After the horrific event, when fingers began pointing like sunflowers to the setting sun, somehow it was determined that it was the NRA who were the villains.  Like circus ringmasters, the shameless media led by CNN began ginning up the grief of the parents and children and redirected it towards the evil NRA.  Predictably, images of sobbing children filled the airwaves imploring that ‘something has to be done’.  For some reason, the knee jerk response to anything tragic defaults to “the government has to do something”.

In this case, governments were involved at every level.  From the district school level, which had revised their policies to not accosting students for infractions because of racial sensitivities; to the local police who were aware of Cruz from all the disturbance calls; and to the federal level of the FBI who were virtually given flashing red arrows to the existence of this young man.   Even the sheriffs who were posted at the school specifically to provide protection were of no use. There’s a television ad presently running which depicts a bank being robbed; as the patrons look to a uniformed guard, he states, “oh I’m not a bank guard, I’m a bank monitor”.  In the case of the Broward county deputies, life imitates art.

But it’s the NRA’s fault.

Predictably, every time a tragedy of this type occurs, there are the expected shrill wails from the same quarters that ‘government must do something’, which is essentially dog whistle for, ‘take away all guns’.  In this case, government was involved at every step…and they failed at every one of them.  This is the same mentality as blaming restaurants for obesity and then having governments regulate them.  Heck, may as well outlaw forks.

Blaming the NRA and expecting the government to guarantee everyone’s safety perpetuates a level of willful ignorance that seems to draw in more naïve people all the time.  As Rahm Emmanuel once stated, ‘never let a good disaster go to waste’. How do we know this tragedy is being used for political leverage? Dana Loesch, a spokesman for the NRA made the observation that crying white mothers made for very effective TV.  But does anyone see images of crying black mothers from a weekend, every weekend of shootings in Chicago?

Source: You can use Alexa to send SMS messages now, if you’ve also got an Android phone – The Verge

It all started with the TV remote.  When the television was first invented, it represented a significant milestone in the way that people consumed their entertainment.  It quickly supplanted all other forms of household amusement to be the premier mode of distraction for the modern home. Television obviated the need to read books which required the onerous and repetitive task of turning pages.  It also put aside the need for people to think, but that’s a topic for another discussion.  When someone invented the TV remote, the appearance of the couch potato soon followed.  Now it was no longer necessary to travel the 6 or 8 feet to turn the channel; all that was required were  hands with opposable thumbs.

Fast forward some 70 years to our modern time and we find that there is a never ending wave of inventions, discoveries and ideas to make our lives ‘easier’, more ‘efficient’ and just generally better.  Some are admittedly ingenious, such as the vacuum cleaner, flush toilets and of course, rolled toilet paper. However there have been  many inventions that are frankly in search of a need, such as flavored diet coke, the X games and of course, selfies.

After TV, the smartphone has had the most significant effect on society.  The proliferation of smart phones has impacted the human experience in two visible ways, both having to do with expectations.  The first is by creating a society where expectations and comparisons are foisted upon people by their inclusion (or not) in social cliques; with people they don’t even know, by virtue of social networking.  The second is by creating the illusion of convenience via all kinds of phone apps.  As we know, there are apps for most anything ranging from the very useful, such as your horoscope,  to the truly picayune, such as other people’s horoscopes.

But it’s not just phone apps.  On a regular basis, there’s revelation of some new invention that truly pushes the horizons of human laziness.  Think of the trend for self driving cars for instance; as if taxis didn’t already exist.  Think of Tinder; people are too lazy to go out to meet someone; they just move their finger on a screen like ordering a pizza.  There are apps connected to services that send entire meals to your house for those too ‘busy’ to cook.  As if anyone’s that busy or important.

One of the most popular gifts during the recent Christmas season were those devices such as Google Home and Amazon Alexa that aspire to be the home’s  information and control center.  These machines allow users to call things up on demand just by issuing commands from across the room.  As per the linked article, these things are even able to send text messages for you, eliminating the need to actually move your hands to fiddle with a phone.  With ongoing inventions, man is evolving from a couch potato to a mashed couch potato.  We’ll put a twist on that famous quote attributed to H.L. Mencken about the gullibility of the American public by re-stating as, “nobody ever went broke betting on the laziness of the American public”.  I’m not convinced man is moving forward if flicking fingers is the prime social skill.