Guns: Third Leading Cause of Death in Children in US

For people on top of hierarchies, guns apparently are very important. Got to keep all of those lower scary people in line, and make sure they don't want to take away any privilege of the top.

It doesn't matter to them that now, the third leading killer of children in this country is guns. An average of 1,297 children die annually from gun-related injuries.

But of course the top views these deaths as isolated incidences. According to gun advocates, their right to carry a gun and forcing a violent society on everyone else is not a problem, as long as they get what they want.

http://www.newsweek.com/guns-kids-third-leading-cause-death-627209

Top Excluded: Congress Exempts Itself From Health Care Bill Limitations

In hierarchies, the top does not expect to live by the same rules that they inflict on lower groups. The top believes themselves to be superior, so they deserve more of whatever is desired.

True with health care. Republican congress members want to keep the popular parts of Obamacare for themselves and their staffs, but not for the general public of the United States. Congress persons and their staffs are a protected class.

https://www.vox.com/2017/4/25/15429982/gop-exemption-ahca-amendment?utm_campaign=vox&utm_content=entry&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook

Catholic Bishop in Illinois: No Communion or Funeral Rites for Same-Sex Couples

The hierarchical Catholic Church is continuing in it's ways of creating and encouraging hierarchies.

An Illinois bishop has decreed that he will allow no communion or funeral rights for people in same-sex marriages.

Bishop Thomas Paprocki bans priests and parish staff from performing same-sex marriages or allowing same-sex weddings or receptions at any Catholic facilities. People in same-sex marriages "should not present themselves for Holy Communion, nor should they be admitted to Holy Communion." A person in a same-sex marriage who is facing death may only receive communion after expressing "repentance for his or her sins."

Finally, Paprocki writes that "unless they have given some signs of repentance before their death," people in same-sex marriages may not receive a Catholic funeral.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/06/23/534127330/illinois-bishop-decrees-no-communion-funeral-rites-for-same-sex-spouses?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20170623

Will Donald Trump Ever Experience Life Off the Clueless Top?

Paul Waldman, in an article in The Week, Donald Trump is described as a man who has spent his life defined by the fact that the rules do not apply to him. If he is faced with a situation when the rules do apply to him, he responds by becoming erratic, petulant, self-pitying, and in short, loses control.

Trump does not know how to follow the rules, as he has been given the immense privilege of the top of the hierarchy all his life. He has no idea how to cope with being treated even close to accountable, and is showing typical moves of people on top, who act that any nudge from below feels like a steamroller.

Waldman states, "Who is this joker to tell him what he can't and can't do? So what if there are 'rules' and 'laws'? He's Donald Trump!"

Will be see a man, so used to the privilege of the top, be required to experience even a glimpse of how most of the rest of the country lives? Time will tell.

http://theweek.com/articles/706156/trump-used-breaking-rules-impunity-that-undoing?utm_campaign=newsletter&utm_source=afternoon&utm_medium=06_17_17-article_1-706156

Steve Scalise Shooting - Will It Make Republicans Think?

In hierarchies, people at the top assume they will not be held accountable for their actions, and, their decisions that harm others do not have anything to do with the decision makers. They have long rationalized that problems in our country are caused by others, and have nothing to do with what people on top do, who have the power and resources to set policy and to make changes.

As Louisiana Representative Steve Scalise was shot while playing baseball, do any of us believe that Republicans will rethink their support of guns belonging in the hands of anyone and everyone?

Will Republicans change their minds when the problems with gun ownership adversely hurt one of their own?

Probably not, as instead, they will blame lower groups, and not themselves for being part of the problem.

Comey, Feel What It Is Like for Women with a Predator Boss?

In a wonderful article by Nicole Serratore in the New York Times entitled, "James Comey and the Predator in Chief,"  the author describes Comey's private dinner meeting with Donald Trump as "the experience of a woman being harassed by her powerful, predatory boss. There was precisely that sinister air of coercion, of an employee helpless to avoid unsavory contact with an employer who is trying to grab what he wants."

Comey was "stunned" to find himself in potentially compromising positions. 

Ms. Serratore comments that for a woman who has spent a lifetime wrestling with situations where men have power they can abuse, this was disturbingly familiar. That reaction — the choice of stillness, responses calculated to neither encourage nor offend. Comey said he wanted to avoid granting any favor while avoiding the risk of direct confrontation — a problem so deeply resonant for women.

She goes on to ask, "Mr. Comey, you are not alone. How many of us have played over and over in our minds an encounter that suddenly took a creepy, coercive turn? What did I say? Were my signals clear? Did I do something ambiguous? Did I say something compromising?...What woman has not tried to remain invisible from an unwelcome pursuer’s attentions?"

"Mr. Comey did not want to be left alone with his boss again. We’ve been there, Jim."

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/08/opinion/james-comey-and-the-predator-in-chief.html?_r=0

Brooks: Trump Project Asserts That Selfishness if the Sole Driver of Human Affairs

In an opinion piece in the New York Times, David Brooks quoted two of Donald Trump’s top advisers, H. R. McMaster and Gary Cohn, “The president embarked on his first foreign trip with a cleareyed outlook that the world is not a ‘global community’ but an arena where nations, nongovernmental actors and businesses engage and compete for advantage.”

In other words, the purpose of our lives is to climb the hierarchy, according to two of Trump's top advisors. If you are a white, hierarchy-conservator, able-bodied, Christian, heterosexual U.S. born male, why not, you have all the advantages to get what you want in the U.S.  Looks like a good goal to them.

And Brooks responds, "That sentence is the epitome of the Trump project. It asserts that selfishness is the sole driver of human affairs. It grows out of a worldview that life is a competitive struggle for gain. It implies that cooperative communities are hypocritical covers for the selfish jockeying underneath."

Radical Republican commitment to hierarhcies all the way.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/02/opinion/donald-trump-poisons-the-world.html?smid=fb-share

Pence: Climate Change is an Issue of the Left for Some Reason

Vice President Mike Pence:

.@VP: "For some reason, this issue of climate change has emerged as a paramount issue for the left - in this country and around the world." pic.twitter.com/1UgRsgVkj1

— Fox News (@FoxNews) June 2, 2017

Aren't we glad that "the left" at least isn't more dedicated to wealth than the radical Republicans that now rule the GOP? Clueless at the Top, and reaping more benefits day by day. So typical of people on top, and wanting to stay there.

 http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/336070-pence-for-some-reason-climate-change-is-a-key-issue-for-the-left

Helen Carroll, LGBT Sports Advocate, Retires

Helen Carroll, the legendary coach, athletic director and advocate who has fought for LGBTQ equality in sports for much of the last 40 years, is retiring from the National Center for Lesbian Rights.

Carroll ran the sports project for the National Center for Lesbian  Rights for 15 years. Before that, she was the head coach for women's basketball at UNC-Asheville, where she won the NAIA national title in 1984, the only national championship ever for the school. Later, Carroll was the athletic director for Mills College.

Carroll, along with Pat Griffin and Sue Rankin, were often referred to as the “godmothers” of the LGBTQ sports movement.

Best of luck in your new endeavors, Helen!!

http://www.outsports.com/2017/6/1/15723406/helen-carroll-nclr-lgbtq-sports-retire