All souls

I understand that 2017 was the worst year in in modern history for mass shooting deaths in the United States, with 345 mass shootings reported…by 1 November, according to the Gun Violence Archive. So 2018 has apparently responded with, “Hold my beer.”

By way of illustration, here are just three graphics from that website.

Number of incidents of gun violence of all types—mass shootings, domestic violence, accidental killings, etc., as of yesterday:

Number of mass shootings (which they define as four or more victims, both killed and wounded), as of yesterday:

Number of deaths from gun violence, as of yesterday:

Keep in mind that we still have two months to go before 2018 is out, with endless spewings from the Kleptocrat, his spawn and his ilk to ratchet up the hatred that spills over into these red splotches.

Today is All Souls’ Day, the somber time when Christians remember those who have departed in the faith. In some parishes, the names of the dead are read out in services; for others it’s a private remembrance. Being a California Christian, I’m not too fussed about the “in the faith” part; I mourn all who have left this life, particularly those who did so suddenly, and especially from violence.

The revolting massacre of worshippers at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh last Saturday, and the equally repulsive murder of two black shoppers at a grocery store in Jeffersontown, Kentucky, the same day (by a RWNJ who’d first tried to gain access to an African-American church before heading down to the Kroger), are but the latest in a gush of such killings since February 2017. The task of naming every victim—even just the dead, leaving out the survivors—in that period is beyond me; I don’t even have the heart to list all of October’s victims. I’ll just give you those who were murdered last Saturday.

Tree of Life Synagogue, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania:

Richard Gottfried

Jerry Rabinowitz

Cecil Rosenthal

David Rosenthal

Sylvan Simon

David Stein

Melvin Wax

Irving Younger

Joyce Fienberg

Rose Mallinger

Bernice Simon

Kroger Supermarket, Jeffersontown, Kentucky:

Maurice Stallard

Vickie Jones

May their memory be a blessing.

Civic improvement

I’d not been on the W&OD trail for a while, so when I headed out last week, I found something new:

I’d heard of these little popup libraries. The idea is that you take a book you find interesting and, at some point, return it or leave a different book in its place. In fact, “little free library” is an actual thing, website and all. I’d read about them a few years ago, and came across one of them on one of my walking meetup’s walks somewhere in Sunnyvale. (I thought I’d taken a photo, but I can’t find anything now.)

It’s kind of interesting to see it here, and wonder about the location. I mean—the W&OD is used by people seriously interested in getting from one place to another. They’re either commuting (by foot or bicycle; although there’s one maroon with an electrified unicycle who whizzes through on weekday mornings), or they’re getting in their cardio. I find it odd to imagine any of them stopping to browse the book shelves in the midst of this purposeful activity. (As opposed to, say, putting it near a bus stop. But there might be municipal liability issues involved in that.)

Anyhow, I certainly get behind any effort to encourage reading actual books.

The stuff of nightmares

Well, it’s All Hallows Eve, so the 9^th floor at work must be awash in blood and bones.

And so it is.

I’ve written before about our IT department’s relish for Halloween. From their humble beginnings in the server room two years ago, they expanded out into the atrium last year. I expected them to build on that platform, and indeed they did.

Way more skeletons, way more dark spirits, way more mayhem. Viz:

 

 

 

 

 

(I was looking for at least one of the players to have aces and eights, but I suppose—since they’re all already dead—it’s a moot point.)

However, I thought the particular deck of cards was a nice touch.

The stairs of our two sets of atria are built in the form of the double helix of DNA. Turns  out they were a good backdrop for a giant spider web. (The web turned out to be larger than one of the decorators had imagined from its online listing. But the staircase was up to the task.)

They must have enlisted the help of building services over the weekend to decorate, because hanging some of these specters required ladders, if not the electric scissors lift those guys use to swap out the big art pieces they hang there.

Anyway—ooer.

Water supply

A while ago I noticed this in Costco:

(Organic. Because of course.)

And it must be very popular, this harmless coconut water, because they had a shedload of it in the chiller:

I did not pick any of it up, so I can’t give a review. I was making a beeline for the wine aisles. I have my own idea of what’s “harmless”, and what’s “necessary.”

Gratitude Monday: If you're lost

Dear sweet baby Jesus—I would not have believed that last week could drop below the level of Thursday (from state-sponsored voter suppression to IEDs sent to critics of the Kleptocrat), but then Republican turbo-charged hate rhetoric served up the weekend.

So I’m at a loss about what to be thankful for today and I considered not posting anything at all. Seriously—this has happened only twice since I began consciously practicing gratitude a few years ago. But after this weekend I feel like saying fuck it to everyone and everything.

This being the case, I’ve had to go to my comfort-place: music. I’ve cycled through Mozart, Chopin and Bach, and through Clapton, Piaf and Lennon-McCartney. But I keep coming back to Eva Cassidy’s voice for the warmth and hope I so desperately need if I’m going to make it through the next hour, week, year. Eva is how I’m shielding myself from the fuckwittery all around us, connecting myself to the good that I know is out there (even if I cannot feel any of it at the moment).

I’ll share this one for precisely that reason:

And this one because it breaks my heart every single time I hear her sing it: