....I ask myself ~ is all hope gone?...

I don't think so.  I hope not.  This business in Connecticut has me all bolloxed up.  I don't have children (a combination of inability to carry and a very quiet biological clock).  To be honest, most times I don't even *like* small children (I don't steal their candy, or tell them the Easter bunny is a big fat lie or anything like that), I just don't have any experience being around them for long periods of time.

But I have a younger brother.  He's going to be 50 (gah...it pains me to write that) in March.  When I heard about this horror in Connecticut yesterday, I immediately thought about this favorite picture of the two of us:

It was taken when we were both under ten years old.  The cabin in the background is where my grandfather was born and we were visiting there with him.  We must have have gotten bored and wandered away and someone took this photo.  I love it...it shows two children simply being children and enjoying the sun and family and just being alive...something those sweet little ones in Newtown will never be able to do.  

Most people who know me think I'm some sort of tie–dye wearing, bleeding–heart liberal, but I like to think of myself as a "nice"–ican or a "kind"–ocrat.  I hate knee–jerkism on both sides of the aisle.  I think that people who need it should have assistance, but that it shouldn't be permanent enough to cause it to become a generational source of income.  I think people with eleventy billion dollars in assets should probably pitch in more, but more importantly should do good things with the blessings in the their bank accounts.  I don't think kindness and generosity and love and morality can be legislated.  

I don't have any answers.  I don't think now, when the details about this horror are changing by the minute, is the right time to start debates.  I guess the one thing I will say is that I don't understand why anyone (excluding military, law enforcement, blah blah blah) needs assault weaponry.

If Nick Lowe hadn't already written this, he would have surely written it yesterday:

"What's So Funny 'Bout Peace, Love and Understanding?"