I was going to take a few more notes on various things I noted in my journal this morning, and then I saw the report of another school shooting. I say "another" though there hasn't been one that I know of since the pandemic shut schools down just over a year ago. This one was at a magnet high school in Knoxville, Tennessee. A police officer was shot as well as students. The report I saw said no information had been given out yet as to whether or how many people died. We'll be told tomorrow if not tonight that there is no reason for additional controls on firearm sales; we just need to direct our thoughts and prayers in the right direction. Damn! I had almost forgotten the number of school shootings we once had.
I own three handguns and two rifles. My father was a duck hunter in his youth and a bit of a gun collector in later life. One of the handguns I have, while not the one he had (and sold), is the type that was his favorite. I have only ever shot soda cans, paper plates, or paper targets. If the government passed something saying I could no longer have those five guns, I would be willing to turn them all in. The problem is that were such a law to be passed, too many people would actively perhaps violently protest and refuse to surrender their firearms or put them into hiding to pull out as needed. The last four years and especially the last four months have shown me just what people who call themselves Americans are capable of. Shit!
So, the governor of Michigan has called for more vaccine doses to help fight the surge that is happening there. So far the feds have said no, but they will help with distribution and administration of the vaccine doses Michigan is scheduled to get. The CDC Director says Michigan should "shut things down" rather than try to depend solely on contact tracing and testing until enough vaccinations have been carried out. She said, "If we try to vaccinate our way out of what is happening in Michigan, we will be disappointed..."
Nationally, cases and hospitalizations continue to rise, but at least death rates are declining. The nation's death toll is now over 562,000. There are bad signs, though. Demand for vaccination is dropping in the South. At the same time, variants are starting to infect more kids even as schools are re-opening. New research confirms that existing vaccines don't work as well against the South African variant. The UK variant is driving the surge in Michigan but, as noted above, how that surge should be addressed is open to question. A CNN email update noted, "What's next: If we don't control the virus well enough, we could spend years living through new variants--some of which might be more deadly, and some of which might be more resistant to vaccines."
This has been a downer of a daily summary. [Insert more profanity here.] To end on a lighter note, here's the text of a note in this morning's local paper that I cut and taped into my journal.
JUDGE KILLED: A Florida woman who claimed she is Harry Potter fatally struck a federal judge visiting from New York and seriously injured a 6-year-old boy after swerving her car onto a sidewalk, officials said. Nastasia Snape, 23, is charged with vehicular homicide and other felonies for Friday's crash. --Associated Press
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