How the French see US after Uvalde

My friend Andre Berthou in France sent me this political cartoon.

It changes a "Masks required" sign near a school to "Helmets required." The kid is wearing a helmet and a backpack.

I'm not sure what's sticking out of the backpack--a slide rule? I hope it's not a gun.

Andre reminds me that from 110 to 119 people die every day from guns in the US.

"It's enormous... So many painful deaths," he writes. "We are very sad looking at pictures of children who have died."

This is the USA that people around the world are seeing. They can't believe we don't have basic gun laws.

He adds, "Countries with 'free' guns aren't democracies. Look at the Taliban."

I googled "guns in Afghanistan" and learned that the nation has a problem with too many guns in everyone's hands. A gun culture--no surprise. The US supplied Afghanistan with a huge number of assault rifles, mortars, and grenades.

In an effort to cut back on the number of guns, the Taliban government is now making gun owners pay for permits.

Ashamed to be an American

Mallory McMorrow, Michigan Senate member

 I feel so ashamed of my country.

We allow assault weapons, guns, and rifles to continue to ravage schools, churches, grocery stores, music performances, and bars--anywhere people are gathered.

We have a long history of racism, worshipping guns, empowering the wealthy, oppressing workers, and not caring about the poor.  We don't have health care access for everyone.

We are not a democracy.  The majority voted against Trump in 2016, but the minority's choice was empowered by the Electoral College.  

The majority want assault weapons banned.  The majority want background checks and other commonsense gun control laws. But Republicans in the US Senate are blocking all these needed laws. 

Spreadsheet compiled by Daily Kos

The 50 Republican senators represent only 43%  of Americans.  The 50 Democratic senators represent 56% of Americans. Yet the Republicans can veto gun laws because of how the Senate was designed.

North and South Dakota have only 1.6 million people, yet those people get four senators.  California has 40 million people, but they have just two senators to speak for them.  The US is not a democracy.  The Senate and all elections are rigged in favor of rural minorities.

Here's how Sabrina Siddiqui summarized the problem in The Guardian in 2018:

What that means is that California, which has a population of just under 40 million, holds the same representation in the Senate as Wyoming, which at roughly 579,000 is the least populous state in the country.

“That’s a radically undemocratic principle, and it gives rise to what we see,” said David Golove, a professor at the New York University School of Law, “which is that the minority populations are going to have a disproportionate impact in the United States. That tends to mean conservatives have a disproportionate influence over the Senate.”

"The Senate is inherently anti-majoritarian,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of Berkeley Law at the University of California. 

Australia banned assault weapons in 1996 after the massacre of 35 people in Port Arthur, Tasmania.  There have been almost no mass shootings since then, according to international arms control advocate Rebecca Peters speaking on Democracy Now.  Thank you to my friend Almut in Hennef, Germany, near Bonn, for this information.

I'm ashamed as I message her online, ashamed before my friends Catherine and Andre Berthou in Sevres, France, and Katharina Gursoy in Berlin.  

I fear what my third-generation cousins in Denmark think about the US.  We elected a horrible president in 2016 and we are impotent as our Senate blocks gun control.

New Zealand banned assault weapons after a shooter murdered 51 people in 2019.  There have been no mass shootings since then. Vice reports:

After the Christchurch mosque shootings in 2019, legislation to restrict semi-automatic firearms and magazines with a capacity of more than 10 rounds, and provide an amnesty and buyback of such weapons was introduced and passed by the New Zealand parliament 119 to 1.

Steve Kerr of NBA speaks out on Uvalde

Both Republicans and Democrats are throwing up their hands and saying nothing can be done right away.  Republican senators fear losing their jobs. Dems fear losing the House in the November 2022 election; if they still control the House and maybe the Senate, they will try to pass gun control laws in 2023.

BUT STILL, WE CAN WORK TO MAKE SURE THE GOP IS DEFEATED ON NOVEMBER 8, 2022.  

WE CAN ALSO MARCH AND PROTEST AND TURN TO NONVIOLENT DISOBEDIENCE. 

The last big March for Our Lives drew 1.6 million people on March 26, 2018.  

WE WILL MARCH AGAIN ON JUNE 11, 2022.  March and/or donate. 

Remember the great majority supporting common sense gun control as demonstrated in the Politico/Morning Consult poll conducted after Uvalde:

Rep. Abigail Spanberger (VA)
with Lawrence O'Donnell
on The Last Word, MSNBC
March 26, 2022

• Requiring background checks on all gun sales: Eighty-eight percent strongly or somewhat support; 8% strongly or somewhat oppose. Net approval: +80

• Banning assault-style weapons: Sixty-seven percent strongly or somewhat support; 25% strongly or somewhat oppose. Net approval: +42

• Preventing sales of all firearms to people reported as dangerous to law enforcement by a mental health provider: Eighty-four percent strongly or somewhat support; 9% strongly or somewhat oppose. Net approval: +75

See also:

"Democrats got millions more votes--so how did Republicans win the Senate?" The Guardian, 2018.

"How minority rule plagues the Senate: Republicans last won more support than Democrats two decades ago," Daily Kos, 2021.

"Why Republicans won't budge on guns," New York Times, May 26, 2022.

"After Uvalde, Democrats need to stop posturing and start acting," WBUR Boston. 

"Australia's 1996 gun law reforms," Injury Prevention, BMJ.com.

"Gun control: New Zealand shows the way," International Bar Association, 2019.

"Gun law in New Zealand," Wikipedia.

March for Our Lives, June 11, 2022, marchforourlives.com.

Rosemary Radford Ruether (1936-2022)

Rosemary Radford Ruether in 2016
with Elizabeth Moore (on right)

Rosemary Radford Ruether, one of the first and foremost Catholic feminists, died on May 21 in Pomona, California, east of Los Angeles. 

On Sunday I received the notice below from a friend in Claremont, CA, who sent it to all members of our Women-Church Convergence group. We met for worship monthly for twenty years on the campus of Pilgrim Place, a retirement community, but were unable to gather during the Covid-19 lockdown. 

Rosemary attended and shared in our liturgies after she retired and moved to Pilgrim Place. Her book Women-Church: Theology and Practice of Feminist Liturgical Communities (1986) started the Women-Church movement. 

The announcement below (slightly edited) was spoken by Mary Fry to retired Christians gathered for Sunday dinner at Pilgrim Place on May 22.  

Today it is my honor to announce the death of Rosemary Ruether. She died yesterday afternoon surrounded by her family. As a member of the Spiritual Care Team at the Health Services Center of Pilgrim Place, I shared in ministering to her during these last years. 

Rosemary and her husband Herman moved to Pilgrim Place in 2002 after building their own home on Eighth Street. 

She was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, on November 2, 1936, going to grade school and high school both in Washington, D. C., and in La Jolla, California. She earned her B.A. at Scripps College. She went on to get her M.A. and Ph.D. at Claremont Graduate School and at the Claremont School of Theology, studying classics and early Church history. 

Rosemary taught at Immaculate Heart College from 1963 to 1965 and then moved on to Howard University School of Theology from 1965 to 1976. She was the Georgia Harkness Professor of Applied Theology at Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary and a member of the graduate faculty of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, from 1976 to 2002. From 2002 to 2005 she held the post of Carpenter Professor of Feminist Theology at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California.

Rosemary Ruether was the author or editor of thirty-six books in the areas of theology, feminism, ecology, and social justice. Two of those she wrote are Gia and God: An Ecofeminist Theology of Earth Healing (1992) and Christianity and the Making of the Modern Family (2002). She also held twelve honorary doctorates, the most recent from Edinburgh University and from Uppsala University in Sweden. 

Rosemary lectured at many universities and Church conferences throughout the United States and worldwide. Many residents here at Pilgrim Place remember taking her classes here in Claremont or at other colleges. 

Herman Ruether still resides in the Health Services Center here. They have three children Becky, David, and Mimi as well as two grandchildren. Herman and Rosemary together wrote The Wrath of Jonah: The Crisis of Religious Nationalism in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (1989). 

Rosemary was an advocate of women's ordination in the Roman Catholic Church, affirming women's capacity to serve as priests. She participated in liturgies in which women were ordained despite official sanction. 

Although she lost both speech and mobility after her stroke in 2016, her warmth and cheerful outlook continued. On a personal note, I will remember that Rosemary always had a wonderful smile and a twinkle in her eyes that warmed my heart every time I saw her and made me feel that she was glad I was there. 

Let us now have a moment of silence to remember a wonderful lady, Rosemary Radford Ruether. 

--In memory of Rosemary, offered by Mary Fry on Sunday, May 22, 2022

Violence Prevention with Jasmine and Angelina

Angelina Rivas, Class of 2022

Violence makes headlines.  Violence prevention doesn't usually reach the front page or the television screen.  

Let's take a moment to turn away from the horror of an 18-year-old murdering ten innocent people in a supermarket because he was a hate-filled racist.

Instead, let's remember the 3.7 million students who are graduating from high school this year in the USA.  They are hard-working and ambitious.  Most of them sat in classrooms and played sports with students of many races and nationalities.

Many of them marched in bands or participated in clubs made up of Black, Asian, Latinx, White, and Indigenous students.  They worked together to do community service.  About 60% of these graduates have earned college admittance and plan to start another 4-5 years of academic work this coming fall.

Today I want to honor two hard-working students who are not only graduating from high school but working to prevent violence.

Jasmine Lopez and Angelina Rivas were among the 200 or more seniors honored last night in a Scholarship and Honors Program for outstanding students graduating from Santa Monica High School.  

They were also chosen for this year's Kathy McTaggart Scholarship for Violence Prevention. 

Jasmine commuted into Santa Monica from a neighborhood that used to be plagued with drugs, gangs, and violence.  

"The only thing that made me feel safer were the bars on all our windows," she wrote in her application essay.

But then her family started a local Neighborhood Watch, got the Next Door app, and began hosting a monthly meeting in their house.  They targeted a corner shop that appeared to be selling drugs.

Anne Linstatter with Jasmine Lopez

"We called the police so much and put that corner shop on their radar," Jasmine recalls.  "Sure enough, it was a human trafficking shop that laundered money as well as a warehouse for illegal drugs." 

After a SWAT raid, the owner was arrested, the shop was sold, and the neighborhood became calm and safe.

At Santa Monica High School, Jasmine became active in student government, cheerleading, and the Latinx Leaders Club (president during her senior year).

When she was presented with an award for leadership in student government, another student leader described her as "not afraid to speak her opinion."  

She plans to attend Mount St. Mary's University in west Los Angeles, majoring in business. 

Angelina Rivas is the other winner of this year's scholarship for violence prevention.  She lives in the Pico neighborhood of Santa Monica.  Both she and Jasmine held part-time jobs during three of their four years of high school.  

Angelina received the McTaggart scholarship because of her work to combat domestic abuse and teen dating violence.  She has been a peer leader for Margaret's Place, an intervention program to provide mental health services for students who have been impacted by violence in their home, school, or community. 

She helped coordinate campus organizations on teen violence, sexual assault awareness, and mental health awareness, making flyers, announcements, and wristbands.

Angelina will be attending Stanford University, and she wants to work for the Human Rights Council of the UN. 

Have you found ways to counteract the violence we hear about so often in the news?

Perhaps you are focusing on gun control or better understanding among people of various races, but don't forget the graduates bravely moving on to build the future.

One small way to help them is to contribute to the Katherine McTaggart Scholarship for Violence Prevention at Santa Monica High School. 

Kathy

Dr. Antonio Shelton, Principal of SMHS,
with college counselor Julie Honda
and Samohi Alumni donor
Evelyn Lauchenauer

 was a licensed therapist who worked with at-risk teens and their families for 16 years as a school-community partnership coordinator in the Santa Monica-Malibu School District.  She died in 2012. 

Send your check to:

Santa Monica Education Foundation 

c/o Samohi Scholarships

1645 - 16th Street 

Santa Monica CA 90404.  

Make it payable to Samohi Scholarship Fund, specifying McTaggart Violence Prevention for 2023 seniors.

Thank you for joining with Jasmine and Angelina to promote awareness of mental health and nonviolent solutions to problems.

For more photos, see https://photos.app.goo.gl/w4aGMjQNg7dSvshJ6