Hi Rick, I received your thoughtful message this morning, but I was reeling from the weekend events and just wanted a break before I read your email.
Now that I have, I wish that I had read it earlier. I appreciated and needed your clear eyed opinion of all that has happened. You steadied me and helped me not to combust with anger at people and want to destroy the cold hearted moron in the White House. Thank you for helping to lower my blood pressure and not think that a horrible ending for our country is inevitable. 🙏
Certainly not a payback for Gaza in most people’s minds, but I suggest that unfortunately some antisemitism flows that way as “ justified “ even though it’s not.
Right on @ social media; i think Australia and China has limited teen use. Nothing saddens me more than seeing someone using their phone on a beautiful Maine day. Virtual life. A 2nd Amendment thought: the originalist Justices should remember a musket was modern in its day, so - muskets only covered by 2 Amend. Hard to mass kill with a musket.PS: I HEART YOUR WRITING STYLE - INCISIVE, WISE, HUMANE AND DELIGHFULLY TAKE NO PRISONERS. RIP Reiners - a saga about a failed brain health system.
As of December 15, 2025, the estimated number of gun-related deaths in the United States for 2025 is over 13,900 homicides/murders (and over 25,000 injuries), while Australia's full annual total is projected to be around 31 gun-related murders.
Thank you, Rick, for your own compelling reasons to do good in the world, in part by doing your best to call out evil for what it is. Your own humility makes those efforts possible and worth it. Never change.
Excellent Rick -"maybe the universe will walk it back. But it won’t. It never does."
I have had the exact thought many times.
I was just walking my dogs and was saying to my friend with us, I hear rumors that it was their son who killed them. We both had had the same first thought, the murders were political, but decided that it would be better if the suspect was the son. Isn't that a horrible thing to even be discussing, who you would prefer the murder to be, a family member or a political nutcase?
Yes, it is an evil world that has gotten out of control and like you, I point my finger squarely at social media and the internet. This technology is just not worth its so-called benefits to society. I And now add AI to it, it's the end of us, it will decide it is God someday, can you imagine that kind of world?
In the aftermath of horrors like the attack at Bondi Beach and the murder of the Reiners, there's one other thing we can count on like night follows day, and that's the predictable awfulness of so-called 'leaders' who will say absolutely the most shitful things possible. Like Trump's instantaneous attack on the Reiners' politics and blaming their deaths on Trump derangement syndrome - with the subtlety of a heart attack, telling the MAGA masses the Reiners had it coming. Like Netanyahu's attack on Australian PM Albanese and blaming this mass shooting on Australia's recognition of a state for Palestinians.
There are lots of things we can do to mitigate the violence we live with, but one of the best and most immediate things we can do is start electing better people. People of real character, decency and class.
Today we'll have some who say it wasn't the method, but what is happening within the person. True, but in our country we have all but shrugged our shoulders and said "until they do the crime, we can't dedicate the resources to deal with them". Severe impotent anger doesn't lurk, it's often out there in plain sight. There are some who would argue that their hatreds and bigotries are natural and rightful to have. That is pathetic. I've watched for half my life as Americans become more callous to the pain and suffering of others, while some rejoice in it. That is not the way.
The Judaic tradition, taken as a whole, gives moral direction, and the Jewish rabbi who was born in Bethlehem gave us more insight into having a good, moral life. Unfortunately, the 'Christian' right want to embrace a small subset of the Talmud and Torah; and an even smaller set of the teachings of Jesus himself. This subset is mostly negative and used as excuses, not growth. A 'Christian' who says he can't live the life Jesus said was good but then says "I believe in Him and so I'm saved" is only deluding themselves. If you can't try to live a good life, then you don't believe. Period.
I can't tell anyone how to reach out and bring others back onto a path of goodness. I deal with my own 'demons', but I can always overcome them and reject what they are saying. I don't believe in an incarnate evil, but we use the term evil to delineate things that are so horrible we want to blame something beyond our keen. Actions can be evil, but there is no power directing it. Walk in the light as an example for others, and even if only a few see it and decide that it is right for them also, you have made a difference.
Now playing: Allan Holdsworth, The Sixteen Men of Tain
Sometimes when tragedy strikes and you have no adequate response for it, the contemplation of great art can be a solace. Allan is the GOAT, a man who couldn't read music yet who singlehandedly reinvented the jazz chord progression. A man whose solos, alongside Charlie Parker and John Coltrane, will be transcribed and analyzed for centuries to come. This album is great art:
Okay Rick, my beloved brother-in-arms, it's time to take the gloves off on the only foundational issue we split over. The Great Textualist Hypocrite Antonin Scalia was dead wrong in Heller and the subsequent cases in that line. The Framers emphatically did _not_ grant an individual right to own a firearm on the same existential level as the right to speech, or assembly, or religion. In fact, the idea would be patently absurd to them, as it should be to anyone. If there was someone, to use the Irishism acting the maggot with a firearm, there isn't a single delegate in that Philadelphia convention hall who wouldn't agree to immediately whip it out of his hand.
In fact, the very idea of civil defense is impossible without discipline. That's why there weren't any 18th-century gun rights ideologues arguing just give everybody firearms and then we wouldn't need a constabulary or a militia like these idjits who try to drive the gun conversation today. And discipline, of course, implies you could have your gun taken away if you misuse it. The Second Amendment was _never_ about personal firearm ownership, a non-issue in a frontier society where at least a shotgun was an essential tool of survival.
Nixon's Chief Justice Warren Burger recognized this egregious puppy in the 70s after the NRA's hostile takeover by ideologues instead of hunters and marksmen and said the NRA's interpretation of the Second Amendment, which saws the first clause about "well-regulated" right off (the way it is in the NRA headquarters lobby) and pretends it's only "throat clearing." Burger called it an unmitigated, ahistorical scam perpetrated by a self-interested lobbying group.
The Second Amendment is about the states' individual rights to organize civil defense. Full stop.
What I got from this is simple: Things are bigger, darker and more ominous than any of us focusing on Trump's latest fits of projectile diarrhea realize.
The darkness isn't just MAGA, it isn't just Trump. It's worldwide and involves God knows how many aggrieved sects. Amazingly, the ones America's white supremacists most love to demonize, Muslims, aren't involved, except in saving lives.
FFS, there's a nascent Nazi movement in Germany, AfD that Vance supports
BTW, if I'd have written this piece I'd have written a paragraph or two about Fox News. In what is the largest, most powerful and influential nation in the world, they preach white hegemony, hate, racism and divisiveness 24/7 and they do it with truckloads of lies.. 10s of millions of Americans lap it up like a thirsty hound dog with a bowl of ice water.
What a terrible weekend. And we're nowhere near the bottom yet.
Hi Rick, I received your thoughtful message this morning, but I was reeling from the weekend events and just wanted a break before I read your email.
Now that I have, I wish that I had read it earlier. I appreciated and needed your clear eyed opinion of all that has happened. You steadied me and helped me not to combust with anger at people and want to destroy the cold hearted moron in the White House. Thank you for helping to lower my blood pressure and not think that a horrible ending for our country is inevitable. 🙏
Certainly not a payback for Gaza in most people’s minds, but I suggest that unfortunately some antisemitism flows that way as “ justified “ even though it’s not.
Right on @ social media; i think Australia and China has limited teen use. Nothing saddens me more than seeing someone using their phone on a beautiful Maine day. Virtual life. A 2nd Amendment thought: the originalist Justices should remember a musket was modern in its day, so - muskets only covered by 2 Amend. Hard to mass kill with a musket.PS: I HEART YOUR WRITING STYLE - INCISIVE, WISE, HUMANE AND DELIGHFULLY TAKE NO PRISONERS. RIP Reiners - a saga about a failed brain health system.
Australia has strict gun laws yet this killing spree was carried out with a register hunting firearm.
There is no way to regulate evil it seems.
As of December 15, 2025, the estimated number of gun-related deaths in the United States for 2025 is over 13,900 homicides/murders (and over 25,000 injuries), while Australia's full annual total is projected to be around 31 gun-related murders.
I always look forward to reading you. You make sense of the darkness. I just want this evil over.
Thank you, Rick, for your own compelling reasons to do good in the world, in part by doing your best to call out evil for what it is. Your own humility makes those efforts possible and worth it. Never change.
Excellent Rick -"maybe the universe will walk it back. But it won’t. It never does."
I have had the exact thought many times.
I was just walking my dogs and was saying to my friend with us, I hear rumors that it was their son who killed them. We both had had the same first thought, the murders were political, but decided that it would be better if the suspect was the son. Isn't that a horrible thing to even be discussing, who you would prefer the murder to be, a family member or a political nutcase?
Yes, it is an evil world that has gotten out of control and like you, I point my finger squarely at social media and the internet. This technology is just not worth its so-called benefits to society. I And now add AI to it, it's the end of us, it will decide it is God someday, can you imagine that kind of world?
In the aftermath of horrors like the attack at Bondi Beach and the murder of the Reiners, there's one other thing we can count on like night follows day, and that's the predictable awfulness of so-called 'leaders' who will say absolutely the most shitful things possible. Like Trump's instantaneous attack on the Reiners' politics and blaming their deaths on Trump derangement syndrome - with the subtlety of a heart attack, telling the MAGA masses the Reiners had it coming. Like Netanyahu's attack on Australian PM Albanese and blaming this mass shooting on Australia's recognition of a state for Palestinians.
There are lots of things we can do to mitigate the violence we live with, but one of the best and most immediate things we can do is start electing better people. People of real character, decency and class.
I'll miss the guy. I still think of him as Mike Spivic...
Stivic, but yeah. "Never been west of the Chicago Stock Yards, now he's a regular Marco Polish."
Back in the days when you could gently laugh at bigotry and bigotry would get embarrassed :(
Thank you Rick. My heart is heavy this morning.
So glad you wrote this, Rick.
Seen on bluesky:
evolution of belief
age 10: the devil exists
age 20: the devil is allegorical
age 30: lol there is no devil
age 40: the devil is allegorical
age 50: the devil exists and walks among us every day
Today we'll have some who say it wasn't the method, but what is happening within the person. True, but in our country we have all but shrugged our shoulders and said "until they do the crime, we can't dedicate the resources to deal with them". Severe impotent anger doesn't lurk, it's often out there in plain sight. There are some who would argue that their hatreds and bigotries are natural and rightful to have. That is pathetic. I've watched for half my life as Americans become more callous to the pain and suffering of others, while some rejoice in it. That is not the way.
The Judaic tradition, taken as a whole, gives moral direction, and the Jewish rabbi who was born in Bethlehem gave us more insight into having a good, moral life. Unfortunately, the 'Christian' right want to embrace a small subset of the Talmud and Torah; and an even smaller set of the teachings of Jesus himself. This subset is mostly negative and used as excuses, not growth. A 'Christian' who says he can't live the life Jesus said was good but then says "I believe in Him and so I'm saved" is only deluding themselves. If you can't try to live a good life, then you don't believe. Period.
I can't tell anyone how to reach out and bring others back onto a path of goodness. I deal with my own 'demons', but I can always overcome them and reject what they are saying. I don't believe in an incarnate evil, but we use the term evil to delineate things that are so horrible we want to blame something beyond our keen. Actions can be evil, but there is no power directing it. Walk in the light as an example for others, and even if only a few see it and decide that it is right for them also, you have made a difference.
…. But the good does not often make the news. Evil does. How do we combat this?
Now playing: Allan Holdsworth, The Sixteen Men of Tain
Sometimes when tragedy strikes and you have no adequate response for it, the contemplation of great art can be a solace. Allan is the GOAT, a man who couldn't read music yet who singlehandedly reinvented the jazz chord progression. A man whose solos, alongside Charlie Parker and John Coltrane, will be transcribed and analyzed for centuries to come. This album is great art:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kC7Fs-HuK8mPBWO7LCharCVGOXTRO6yPE
Okay Rick, my beloved brother-in-arms, it's time to take the gloves off on the only foundational issue we split over. The Great Textualist Hypocrite Antonin Scalia was dead wrong in Heller and the subsequent cases in that line. The Framers emphatically did _not_ grant an individual right to own a firearm on the same existential level as the right to speech, or assembly, or religion. In fact, the idea would be patently absurd to them, as it should be to anyone. If there was someone, to use the Irishism acting the maggot with a firearm, there isn't a single delegate in that Philadelphia convention hall who wouldn't agree to immediately whip it out of his hand.
In fact, the very idea of civil defense is impossible without discipline. That's why there weren't any 18th-century gun rights ideologues arguing just give everybody firearms and then we wouldn't need a constabulary or a militia like these idjits who try to drive the gun conversation today. And discipline, of course, implies you could have your gun taken away if you misuse it. The Second Amendment was _never_ about personal firearm ownership, a non-issue in a frontier society where at least a shotgun was an essential tool of survival.
Nixon's Chief Justice Warren Burger recognized this egregious puppy in the 70s after the NRA's hostile takeover by ideologues instead of hunters and marksmen and said the NRA's interpretation of the Second Amendment, which saws the first clause about "well-regulated" right off (the way it is in the NRA headquarters lobby) and pretends it's only "throat clearing." Burger called it an unmitigated, ahistorical scam perpetrated by a self-interested lobbying group.
The Second Amendment is about the states' individual rights to organize civil defense. Full stop.
Prove me wrong, Rick.
A brutal piece, Rick.
What I got from this is simple: Things are bigger, darker and more ominous than any of us focusing on Trump's latest fits of projectile diarrhea realize.
The darkness isn't just MAGA, it isn't just Trump. It's worldwide and involves God knows how many aggrieved sects. Amazingly, the ones America's white supremacists most love to demonize, Muslims, aren't involved, except in saving lives.
FFS, there's a nascent Nazi movement in Germany, AfD that Vance supports
BTW, if I'd have written this piece I'd have written a paragraph or two about Fox News. In what is the largest, most powerful and influential nation in the world, they preach white hegemony, hate, racism and divisiveness 24/7 and they do it with truckloads of lies.. 10s of millions of Americans lap it up like a thirsty hound dog with a bowl of ice water.
What a terrible weekend. And we're nowhere near the bottom yet.