Gun Insurance Required 

It seems that our state and federal government leaders have grave reluctance, approaching cowardliness toward improving gun control.  Furthermore, would the government be good at enforcement even if gun control legislation was improved?  As evidence by systemic failures and holes in background check system, I have concerns.  A private/government cooperative approach may be to use insurance as a means to manage access to guns and provide incentive to responsive and accountable ownership.  I propose we attach accountability to gun ownership and require insurance coverage to compensate victims of gun-violence.  Then with every licensed gun, there would be a required proof of current insurance, with risk of penalties for both unlicensed as well as uninsured weapons.  Insurance companies would be interested in the additional business opportunity, but also would help greatly with assessing and conferring risk to weapon type, owner stability, and other critical factors of risk.  To legally operate an automobile, you are required to have insurance in addition to motor vehicle registration, and the cost of that insurance is relative to the safety of the vehicle, the driver and its use, storage, as well as location.  Seems like a comparable risk profile would be possible, with great differences in insurance cost for a handgun versus a semi-automatic rifle.  Furthermore, a gun store owner, or other weapons dealer, even private sellers would own the liability for selling guns without ensuring insurance was in place.  For sake of an example, imagine a $500 annual insurance for responsible gun ownership of a personal handgun, while an automatic or semi-automatic weapon under questionable ownership requirements may be nearly impossible to insure, or maybe it’s expense would be 10x the handgun, more like $5,000 annual cost.  This would be prohibitive for many, as it should be.  A lower cost insurable solution may be to keep a high-risk weapon at a range under lock and key to be used only there, and to move it would require a special permit and appropriate insurance.  In this way, gun enthusiasts could own, and use at a target range their weapons responsibly and with proper protections and oversight, bringing insurance costs more in line to the handgun price.  The insurance market would set and control pricing based on risk factors.  The government would only legislate the requirement for insurance.  I hope this may be a more palatable path toward gun control, and should be viewed as a part of a bigger picture of improvements in school protections, mental health improvements, ammunition and direct gun control.   We need a practical alternative to the current ineffective approach to gun control in the US today.  Quite possibly the insurance industry would be a suitable lobbyist balance to the NRA lobby.

 

What A Waste

 

Beautiful, young, future’s many and strong

Possible artists, doctors, inventors, and heroes

We’ll never know what they may have accomplished

We’ll never know the good they may have done

If they’d succeed in life, even if they’d make our lives different

All because they died going to the movies, going to church, to a concert

And maybe worst of all because they were bettering themselves in school

We light candles, and pray, and say what a shame it is

We hear of heroes that shielded others through tears of pain

Then we go on with our day

What can we do, what can we say?

Memorials and flowers and teddy bears, remembrances, until it rains

And in November we’ll vote again without remembering their names

Loving Curiosity

 

Let her free, she will then be your friend

Curiosity will be with you until the end

 

She will guide you in life-long learning

Love her if it’s wisdom you’re yearning

 

Forget salaciousness of celebrity and Hollywood stars

Forget triviality of rumored family and friend’s scars

 

This world of nature, science, math and beautiful art

Of literature, history, and genius we must never part

 

There is so much to learn, and she can teach us

If we let her, and we listen to world wondrous

Thinking is the feeling of a thought

The consideration of all sides

Saying it as simply as possible

Rare and improbable are unique thoughts

All thoughts are vulnerable if shared

But opened and shared thoughts are the most intimate of human actions

And thoughtlessness is the death of feeling and therefore inhumane

Keep thinking!

 

 

It’s complex to make things simple … corollary is, it’s easy to make simple things complex

 

Occam’s razor postulates that the theory with the fewest assumptions is most often the correct one

 

Poetry that people like the best is simple

 

I used to think that telling me that my poetry is deep was a compliment

 

Complexity can be your friend, but simple is better understood

 

I sleep easier with clarity and conviction of simple than I do with complex inventions

 

The essence of a simple solution seems to enjoy being wrapped in complexity

 

Simply said… have a great day!

 

 

 

 

So the House, the Senate, the WH and the Democrats and Republicans cannot get to a budget agreement!  Big surprise!   Somehow “shut-down” doesn’t mean much to our lawmakers, in fact it seems like it just gives them more air time and sense of importance as we careen into the unknown and they blame each other for the lack of a budget again this year!  Low income children’s health care, “Dreamers” are caught in the cross-fire of politic normal, and the dearth of moral imperative.  Maybe someday the issues will be resolved, but at what cost in our national ethos?  Eventually the great people in the military will deal with another “Continuing Resolution” and find a way to protect us.   The dedicated people in the CDC will find a way to contain a flu epidemic while dealing with shutdown.   The security at the capital will be maintained, the floors will be swept, somehow food will make it to our long-tiring lawmakers, so don’t worry… except we should worry about our great country’s direction.

I think that a perfect legislation would establish that members of congress, senate, and White House and all their aides should not be paid during a shut-down.  Also a shut-down should include the federal travel office as well.   Then you’d see the pressure for D’s and R’s to negotiate.   Even the wealthy in office will feel the pressure of soon-to-be-unpaid aides looking over their shoulders as they negotiate.

We are too good to our non-functioning politicians!

I’m reading a book about Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson that is quite interesting.  Da Vinci was obsessed and investigated the geometries of perspective, the optics of light, the effect on the human mind, the shading of lines, and colors and so much more.  Vast curiosity, imagination, and a drive to learn through experimentation and hyper-keen observation were his hallmark traits.  It’s rare that such traits combine with that of a creative and ambitious genius, and at a time in which discovery and learning was so valued by humanity.  There are so many life lessons to be understood.  But the ones that I’d like to draw on (note the pun) are his work on perspective, a favorite topic of mine, as well as shading.

First shading.  Mathematically a line has no width, and hence no volume.  In nature, in everything we can see we cannot see a line.  We see a geometry, a volume, and hence in representing lines in our mind we really see shading.  Leonardo experimented and worked to understand optics, light, and the volume and effect of shading.  And we learn too.  We are taught to think of the world as good and bad, right and wrong, and paths that are clearly defined.  When like in art and math, there are not lines without shades, that paths are not as clearly delineated as our framing would like.  It takes time and experience to understand that our greatest challenges and life-learning is when we are pushing boundaries of hard drawn lines and it is there that we find the shading.

Perspective too, has a way of being fuzzy.  As we look into the distance, items twice as far away are half the size, and so too we find that features blur, color is muted and faded.  It is necessary to journey there to see clearly the features.  It is necessary to keep in mind that as we look into our futures, that those futures are never as clear as you may try to play them in your mind.  They too have a lot of shading and blurring of features.  It is wise to use perspective in life and planning, to see broad directions on where to go and why, but also to know that there are many things that cannot be seen clearly until you are there, and even then we find shading.  Perspective gives us a point of view, that used wisely, is invaluable. While shading reminds us of the complexity of life, keeping the world interesting, and challenging us always…

 

 

 

Maybe tomorrow I will

 

Seize the day or carpe diem

Live with vitality and purpose

Put regrets and worries on the shelf

Think of blessings and joys

Find that energy and drive

Oh my… maybe tomorrow I will!

I know I often try to write something uplifting and positive… not feeling it right now.  I’m still dealing with cough that the “Dude in 9C” was dealing with and it’s been about a month. Many suffer long term illnesses much worse than this, I have real respect for those that endure and continue to keep spirit positive!

 

Illness Normal

 

Whooping is a bad name

Sounds too cute

Gasping or Chocking is a better name

Coughing leading to gasping for air

Has no cuteness about it.

 

Accept it, this is the new normal

Sleep is elusive and scary

Cough is a movement away

And gasping, chocking right behind it

Nothing cute about whooping

 

I experiment… how to calm that feeling of drowning

How to hold breath when everything screams breathe

Air is all around me, and I can’t get any at all

Wide awake, panic, and yet I know I have to be calm

And the air comes in just in time to fuel another spasm of cough

 

During the day, I am upright

So, I get by with short coughing fits

Gasping and drowning is for at night

Sleep in between so I can be up during the day

Courage is prerequisite to go to sleep

 

It’s only been a month, maybe a couple more to go

At first I thought it impossible

Now it’s a new normal, and I’m committed to endure

I have new appreciation for those suffering long term illness

Coping is frustrating, nothing cute about it

 

Carson Michael Flynn

 

We celebrate Christmas in a mere five days hence

The miracle of a baby’s birth two millennia ago

And contemplate the miracle of birth here today

A second wondrous gift from Tracy and Mathew

We celebrate the birthday of Carson Michael

We celebrate life and future of unlimited horizons

We celebrate the legacy of love and commitment

Happy Birthday Carson!