The Uvalde Massacre (with addendum)

A few thoughts....

As of this writing, nineteen dead students and two dead teachers.  All massacred by an eighteen-year-old monster, with malice aforethought.

Most of you know me as a teacher of high school students.  I have been a teacher in that role since February 1998, when I started teaching classes of homeschool students, most of the students in Grades 8-12. 

Before 1998, however, I taught elementary school students in a private school, from 1978-1997.  Furthermore, in that private school, I taught Grades 2-4 from 1978-1986.  I know first-hand that students in that age group are "babies," as Judge Jeanine Pirro called them yesterday on The Five.  As a former teacher of the same student age group as that of Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, when the story broke yesterday, I felt as if I'd been punched in the stomach.  

The story of the massacre also took me back to a period of my life some thirty years ago.

I well remember when the school where I worked had to "harden the target" from spring to the close of school that year — because of the maniacal estranged husband of one of our teachers.  He was threatening, in his words in a phone call to the school's office, to "shoot up the school."  All of a sudden, within only a few minutes, we had armed guards to protect us and could not allow our classes to have free-play time outside; neither could students wait outside for their carpools without armed guards posted.

I still recall the youngest students' terrified faces.  The bogeyman under the bed had suddenly become very real for them.

The situation was so strained even weeks after the initial threat that the teacher with the maniacal estranged husband resigned her position to protect the school's students in future school terms.  What's more, she herself had to go into hiding to save herself.  She lost her teaching career — and she was a fine teacher.  

And the school where I worked did indeed lose considerable enrollment for the next few years.  Understandable, in my view.

Frankly, I don't have a positive view of "hardening the target" by fencing in a school and by having armed patrols in a school, particularly in a school with students as young as those in Robb Elementary School.  Maybe "hardening the target" is what we must do to protect students and teachers.  But the impact on education under those circumstances is not a good one for the promotion of learning.  I've seen and lived that impact myself.

Here's what I know for a fact about the aftereffects of the Uvalde Massacre....

The parents affiliated with Robb Elementary School will never be the same.  Neither will the surviving students.  Neither will the surviving teachers.  And the change will not be a good one.  Lord, have mercy!

Addendum

I found something quite interesting at the WaPo, and this might "explain" why Ramos attacked Robb Elementary School: 

...Uvalde High School school [seniors] had visited Robb Elementary School just a day before the massacre, wearing their graduation robes and high-fiving the grade-schoolers, who lined up in the hallways — a community tradition....

See this Tweet, dated Monday, May 23, the day before the massacre.

Salvador Ramos was not on track to graduate with his class this year.

The COVID "Vaccines"

Over and over again, we hear that the COVID vaccines — not really vaccines in the traditional sense — prevent severe illness, hospitalization, or worse.   Statements so laudatory of the COVID vaccines are not based on science, however. Rather, they are merely feel-good statements based on emotion or perhaps a  manifestation of magical thinking.

Whatever,  

If you got the COVID vaccines and had no ill effects, good for you!  No sarcasm implied or intended.  

My situation is different.

You see, prior to the arrival of COVID, I already had a history of two severe reactions to live vaccines: (1) after a live vaccine at 6 months of age, I had febrile seizures, followed by over a week in pediatric intensive care; (2) after a live vaccine for chickenpox at age 64, I developed a problem with my renal system, to the point that I required surgery. Because of the latter development, a neurologist, a urologist, and a primary-care doctor all stated, independently of each other: "No more live vaccines for you!"  Not a single one of the aforementioned doctors is an anti-vaxxer.   

 

Then along came COVID-19. In March of 2021, my primary-care doctor ruled out my having any mRNA vaccine. In his words: "MRNA vaccines are not exactly live, but they are close to that. Considering your history with vaccines, let's go with the J&J shot."  A risk-benefit analysis. 

My significant reaction to the COVID vaccine didn't set in until about 3 weeks later, and I've yet to fully recover from the respiratory issues that arose.  When I informed my doctor as to the negative effects I was experiencing, he said: "Worse than many, but not as bad as some."  Of course, followed by "Call 911 if you need to."  

Hmmmmm. Maybe I should have stuck with social-distancing only.  

So far, I haven't needed medical intervention. 

Now, with the passage over a year, we are hearing more and more that there are indeed people who have had severe problems with the COVID-19 vaccines. Consider the following information (only two samples of many I could have chosen):

and, albeit over 10 minutes long;

 

Full disclosure: some sources have discredited the above and have deemed it "misinformation" or "disinformation."  Is it, though?

The fact remains that we don't know what we don't know.  Furthermore, that little bit of information about FDA's wanting to put a 75-year lock on certain information related to COVID vaccines does not promote confidence in Big Pharma's products.  See this article.   

Whatever the truth about COVID-19 vaccines, all of us should be able to see that experts are contradicting experts — and sometimes experts contradict themselves within as little as 48 hours!  "The science is evolving."  Or something.

I can't advise you as to what to do about these vaccines for yourself or for your children (or grandchildren).  But I know that I'll have to think long and hard about getting any kind of booster.

I'll close this post with the following, relevant to more than vaccinations per se....

In 1901, Churchill wrote to H.G. Wells: 

Nothing would be more fatal than for the government of states to get into the hands of the experts. Expert knowledge is limited knowledge: and the unlimited ignorance of the plain man who knows only what hurts is a safer guide, than any vigorous direction of a specialised character. Why should you assume that all except doctors, engineers, etc. are drones or worse?

Never Forget

Eighteen years ago today....


It will never be distant history for me.

For me, it is as yesterday.  And my anger still burns.

All those hours waiting to hear if two of my homeschool fathers were still alive. Phone services of all types were in a knot, and the wait seemed endless. Both of these men were unharmed, but one had a very close call: he was supposed to be in one of the Pentagon rooms directly hit that horrible morning. Thank God that he was called away to Capitol Hill a mere fifteen minutes before American Airlines Flight 77 struck the Pentagon.

And who can forget watching live the collapse of the Twin Towers after being struck by American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175?

And there were those long minutes awaiting the location of United Airlines Flight 93. Thank God for the patriots aboard that flight.

Yes, eighteen years is a long time ago.

But not for me.

And I will never buy into the whitewash of Islam.

Unmitigated Hatred

Certain never Trumpers and Progressives.

Leftist blogs.

GOPe sites, especially Twitter.

WaPo and the NYT. I subscribe to both and see the comments in addition to the articles.

Now comes this!  Surreal!

Thank you for your kind words @The19StrongShow! You are amazing. Sadly,nothing is off limits for some. @StJude is the best pediatric cancer research hospital in the world and a true national treasure - we will win this fight! #HatersGonnaHate 🇺🇸🇺🇸 https://t.co/DDxJD8BL6H

— Eric Trump (@EricTrump) July 8, 2018

Read the full article HERE.

Surely, the tone of American politics has been this vile before, hasn't it?  But I myself have never seen the chasm so deep and wide.

Attorney-Client Privilege Violation?

Yesterday, April 9, 2018, the FBI raided Donald Trump's attorney's offices and home, and seized various materials, including but not limited to materials related to Stormy Daniels.

I happened to be at a client's office at the time this news broke. This particular client is far left in her political orientation and was clapping her hands with glee upon hearing the news.  She is, once again, for the umpteenth time, certain that President Trump will now be impeached.

When I asked my client, "But wasn't Mueller supposed to be investigating Russian collusion with regard to the General Election of 2016?" she swept away my statement as irrelevant.  

Please watch the video below to see liberal Alan Dershowitz's take on the above-mentioned FBI raids yesterday (never mind Hannity's often-irksome zeal to support Donald Trump and "get" Hillary):

Is Mueller overstepping the bounds of the investigation for which he was appointed?

Are we seeing the end of attorney-client privilege as a consequence of the Mueller investigation? If so, that is, in my view, a slippery slope?

Related reading: The Summer of Impeachment? by Erick Erickson. Excerpt:

...For a long time there have been rumors that among the payments made by or on behalf of Trump were payments made to women who had had abortions. This is perhaps the one thing that could get evangelicals off the Trump wagon and anything related to that is now in the hands of federal prosecutors....

Read the rest HERE.

No Justice For Staff Sgt. Mark Allen?

In the search for Army deserter Bowe Bergdahl, who walked away without a weapon from the field of battle, Staff Sgt. Mark Allen suffered a grievous head wound and was left unable to speak and is paralyzed over much of his body.

Read more HERE.

Those wounded in searching for deserter Bowe Bergdahl got this lame apology from said deserter as the defense opened their case in court.

Staff Sgt. Mark Allen before he was wounded

Staff Sgt. Mark Allen with one of his therapists

The Allen Family

What might some form of justice be for Staff Sgt. Mark Allen?  My opinion below the fold.

The Collective Shrug — Not For Me

A young girl reacts as police officers secure an area following a shooting incident in New York on October 31, 2017. (Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images)

From At site of NYC terror attack, the school bell rang — then hell broke out:

Halloween turned truly terrifying for students and parents Tuesday when a driver went on a deadly rampage in front of several lower Manhattan schools — right as the afternoon bell rang.

Kids ran screaming down the sidewalk after the killer plowed his van into pedestrians and then emerged waving guns and shouting “Allahu Akbar.”

“Two women and a group of children — maybe 10 children — they’re running towards me. I hear one girls screaming, ‘Someone has a gun!'” said witness John Williams.

Frantic parents feared the worst as they waited to pick youngsters up from Independence Primary School.

[...]

Students from Stuyvesant High School and Borough of Manhattan Community College made it out of class in time to witness the carnage — bodies laying lifeless in the bike lane and victims were trapped inside a mangled school bus....

Read the rest HERE.

Over the next few days, we will, once again, see the same pattern: mourning with prayer vigils with candles, the placement of flowers, balloons, and teddy bears — and whatever else.

And, of course, the intoning of "Islam is a religion of peace."

Advice to accept the new normal and the mantra, "If you see something, say something."

In other words, after a few days or maybe a week, a collective shrug.

But I, for one, cannot become inured to all this.

I refuse to become inured to all this.

I must not become inured to all this!

Because, if I do, I surrender my heritage as a Westerner.

Trump's Press Conference Of February 16, 2017

(Two posts today, and they are related)

Pod people are being created.  Hordes of them.

Last night and this morning, I watched some of CNN's and MSNBC's coverage of yesterday's press conference held by Trump.

Jarring!

CNN and MSNBC are bizarrely disconnected from what really transpired.

At one point on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Mika Brzezinski (and the daughter of Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski), the woman on the anchor desk, rolled her eyes to the heavens as she said the word "President." Following by a sigh, of course,

What alarms me is how many Americans will never actually watch the press conference. They'll just assume that Trump is unhinged because CNN and MSNBC have said so. These same Americans avoid Fox News like the plague. Not that some on Fox News aren't circling like sharks, too.

And you can bet that Trump is being excoriated this morning in classrooms all over the country — middle school through graduate level. And not only in social studies classes. English classes will also be infested with these "discussions."

President Trump is being presented as "unhinged" and unfit to be President. The same is coming from many supposedly on the Right: David Brooks and Michael Gerson, just to name two examples.

Watch your back.  At your workplace and at home.

THIS IS WAR!

Post-Debate Thought

Comment I made yesterday during the second 2016 Presidential debate:

You know what I'm sick and tired of?

All sorts of "news" and entertainment media acting so offended and and horrified about braggadocio-male Trump when those same media people entities have been debasing American culture and the traditional American ethos for at least three decades!

And for the record...Donald Trump did apologize — at least twice.

Never Forget

The class entering high school this year will be the first high school class not to have any firsthand knowledge of 9/11/2001, when jihad came to America.

These students will have only textbook knowledge.

For these young people, taking off their shoes and being run through scanners at airports, and elsewhere, as well as constant monitoring by security cameras — and all the rest of a world altered for the worse by Islamic terrorism — seem normal and ho-hum.

They have never known a world without Islamic terrorism. They do not know the freedoms we once had.

Worse, they consider 9/11 as nothing more than a National Day of Service.

In my view, 9/11 should be a day of solemn remembrance.

Boiling the frog is winning the day right now. Too many are too busy with their electronic devices to care about the future of the ideals of freedom and democracy.

Jean Raspail's The Camp of the Saints looms large on this fifteenth anniversary of 9/11.

[The novel The Camp of the Saints is online HERE. Read it!]

Islam And The Presidential Candidates — And A Thread For Discussion Of The September 16, 2015 GOP Presidential Debate

The Clarion Project offers this resource....

U.S. Presidential Race 2016: See what all the candidates are saying about Iran, ISLAMIST RADICALISM, the threat at home and much more

Please see the outgoing links at the tabs "View [the candidate's] Platform" for more information than is provided on the first page of the above link.

Sloppy Legislation = Tyranny

[BUMPED TO THE TOP FOR NOW]

Please watch this short video before reading the commentary below the fold:

Our Twilight Zone (Commentary Added)

Consider this (click directly on the graphic to enlarge it):

Below the fold is the commentary that I posted at Infidel Bloggers Alliance on May 8, 2015:

The "Insufficiently Engaged" President

Thus has the Washington Post reported.

The most recent evidence of Obama's being "insufficiently engaged": Even MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski Can't Understand Why Obama Won't Visit the Border.

Remember back when — when, in New Orleans, Obama criticized George W. Bush for not visiting "down here on the ground" during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina?

Look here, Obama supporters.

You can whine all you like about "phony scandals" (IRS, Fast and Furious, Benghazi, the ObamaCare rollout, the VA delays, etc.).  But your man's failure to visit the border last week exposes your man as the narcissist and failed leader that he is.

Furthermore, in the process of this particular failure of leadership, Barack Hussein Obama has likely doomed any needed changes of or any needed adjustments to our nation's immigration policy.

The midterm elections will be held on November 4, 2014. We'll find out then if American voters have learned anything since November 2012.

(hat tip to Mr. AOW for the first link and the above video)

Thought For Today

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 10,000 Baby Boomers reach retirement age every day.

There is a tsunami upon us, and America has not prepared for it. In fact, most individuals have not significantly prepared.

Aging Boomers is but one problem threatening our nation's economy. See Robert J. Samuelson's essay "America’s Demographic Denial" (March 2, 2014).

Even worse, America has become a nation willing to surrender individual freedoms.

America's best days are over.

The weather here today, however, is going to be a real taste of spring. Therefore, I won't be dwelling on the ugly realities but rather enjoying this earthly life, a gift that doesn't last forever.

Thought For Today

I've been rich.

I've been poor.

Rich is better in several ways.

But it doesn't necessarily follow that being rich always made me happier.

Benjamin Franklin observed:

Content makes poor men rich; discontent makes rich men poor.

America Today

Kid posted the following comment at GeeeeeZ! on June 28, 2013. In my view, Kid's comment is an accurate summary of the sad plight of America today:

[P]oliticians spend the vast majority of their time stealing money for themselves, friends, and masters.

On occasion, especially around election time the crack the door open to 'speak to the public, and say stuff they feel appeals to the people who vote for them.

Any input from polls, campaign strategists (marketing people) etc all boil into one pot labeled demographic marketing results.

A consensus is reached describing what position they must verbally (not voting) take on each popular/in the news issue. Marketing tells them to support or not the gay community, abortion pro-choice or life or whatever, and if the results weigh heavily in one direction then they take a hard verbal stance one way or the other. Has no bearing on how they'll actually vote later on.

If the marketing results are unclear, then they simply take all sides of the issue. ie john fing kerry in 2004 "I will never allow others to make America's decisions for them but We must have a global test". Diametrically opposed statements in the same sentence. They do it all the time.

They are public opinion whores at election time and vote as needed once they are voted in. If any fur flies as a result of one of their votes, they simply give some lame ass excuse like "I had to vote to allow your 1st born to be killed so I could pull in the democrats later to vote to allow you to decide what underwear to wear tomorrow."

It is 101% bullsh*t. Sorry Z, but it's so insulting it's indescribable.

The only thing I don't understand is how they can keep from splitting their sides when giving interviews to 'the media'.

Unreal. Picture politicians sitting in a van near a grade school with writing on the side that says Free Candy and Puppies.

Why anyone would give one of them the time of day is now beyond me, let alone send them money. Good God.

My thoughts about the above:

The Cost Of Jihad

Although commendable that so many of the direly injured have positive and determined attitudes in the early days after having been maimed for life, these people will be inundated with bills and lifestyle changes.  They will endure phantom pain.  They will suffer excruciating neurological pain, pain that medications barely assuage.  Putting the terrible event behind them and their families will be impossible!

From this April 25, 2013 article in the Huffington Post:

The Iconic Image For the Jihad Attacks On The Boston Marathon

I wasn't going to post the above image here at Always On Watch and, indeed, have waited nearly ten days to do so.  Ever since the jihad attacks on the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013, however, I have been unable to push aside thoughts about those maimed.

Recommended Reading

(Two posts today.  Please scroll down)

See Smoke coming out of the keyhole by Tammy Swofford in the Daily Times Pakistan.  Denial is temporary, reality is inevitable.