Fancy, Frantic, Flimsy Fridays!

June 21, 2013

Many apologies dear readers! Am finally getting a handle on Twitter, Google+, and all the various blogs I need to be a recognized and thankfully appreciated writer.  I am a Mentor in the UCLA Communications Dept, from which I and my brother Michael, matriculated.  My wonderful 'Mentee', Amanda, is as much my Mentor as I am hers!  Consequently I am more comfortable blogging and working on my own Wordpress page:  http://seshirley.wordpress.com.

I just returned from the usual Friday knot of abysmal traffic in Santa Monica - too many people, too many cars! Politicians liken Westsiders to being prisoners in their own homes.  Zig-zag around, find easier times to travel - you all know the drill.

Whilst sitting with no outlet near I began to reflect on the nightmare visited upon us on June 7th.  Every Westsider regardless of political affection dreads the always-Friday visits by Presidents - in this case Barack Obama.  We change dental, medical, library - every kind of appointment we can - to avoid the knot of traffic that will choke us for 4 hrs minimum.  Thank God the President came to Santa Monica June 7, 2013.  As a looked at the double-lines of traffic stopped - with no outlet in sight - exactly at the streets affected by a lone shooter I just shook my head.  With nearly 1500 rounds at his disposal the gunman could have exponentially driven up the dead.

I don't say his name, because it really doesn't matter.  This situation has been occurring with regularity and we all can assign towns, cities, events to this phenomenon.  I have a question that nobody (in the media at least) seems to be asking:  where are these nobodies with no jobs getting the money to acquire such arsenals?  This materiel is not cheap.  I seriously believe that no credit card company would allow many of them credit; so who's picking up the tab for the deranged?

Last week Santa Monica gathered together for remembrances of the victims, those pitifully broken and bloodied bodies caught midway in breath.  We had a remembrance march, stopping at each site where a wonderful life was cut down...all that happened in a scant 13 minutes from the time the shooter killed his father and brother and torched their home, until, thank goodness, he was himself cut down by the most amazing law enforcement I know.  A rampage of 13 minutes. A march of some hours. Masses at St. Anne's and St. Monica Parishes. The gunman's family laid to rest, and the gunman too.

This is just a reflection from a literary Bay City (Raymond Chandler's name for Santa Monica), from a longtime resident whose uncle had long ago retired from the Santa Monica Police Department.  Just a reflection from Anytown, USA, with a hope and prayer that someday the madness will stop.