America's culture of death will be its undoing
Lives have become expendable, right down to our children
Sree’s newsletter is produced with Zach Peterson (@zachprague). Above: CNN Graphic.
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ANGRY MEN KEEP KILLING CHILDREN WITH AR-15s and we simply refuse to do anything about it. Our national political leaders are feckless on guns, the governor of Texas can’t put together a coherent sentence, and the Uvalde police behaved disgracefully both on the scene at Robb Elementary School and in the aftermath.
This is so shameful:
The timeline is even more horrific than that:
The Uvalde police force receives 40 percent of the city (population 12,500) budget, and they had conducted training specifically about active shooter situations just months before last week’s rampage. This whole thread by NYT journalist Mike Baker is worth reading, but this is the one that really hit me:
Read through that thread. The guidance all of these officers received — which is surely at least somewhat similar to that received in precincts across the country — is quite specific about the risk involved, and the expectation that such risk is the very underpinning of the job.
19 kids are dead, and only something like this can take what happened in Buffalo out of the news — a news cycle very specific to the United States. It’s usually the same story, too. An angry young man is extremely online, regularly telegraphs what he’s going to do, gets a gun, and kills people — and it’s usually with an AR-15 that he purchased legally.
There’s no reason to expect anything from the Senate on guns — the same Senate that passed emergency protections for Supreme Court Justices soon after the Roe draft leaked. Despite broadly popular ideas like age limits, strict registration, and waiting periods, I have no reason to believe anything will get done and I’m hoping beyond hope that I am pleasantly surprised over the coming weeks.
America has a culture of death unlike anywhere else. Sandy Hook was really the harbinger — when there was no meaningful action taken after a bunch of toddlers were gunned down at school, the ship sailed and we somehow became OK with all of it. New polling shows a huge jump in support for gun-control measures of some form, but until that leads to something, it’s lead to nothing.
Joe Manchin has proven himself to be the power-hungry millionaire coal baron that people said he would be, and he certainly wouldn’t vote on the right side of this. Susan Collins is likely quite concerned, and has certainly penned letters stating as much — and that’s where gun control legislation dies in the U.S. Senate. It’s another sad day in America.
Over the course of a few days — in Buffalo and Uvalde — the reality of life in America was laid bare yet again. Hateful people armed with rifles usually reserved for infantry are killing people and driving fear into the heart of communities all over the country. Hate is on the march and people are dying.
Over the last 2+ years, a pandemic that we’ve spent half of our energy trying to forget has killed at least 1 million people and is still ravaging many parts of the country. Despite this, mitigation efforts are largely nonexistent. Now, we’re just going to dinner again.
To be OK with this level of suffering is simply disgusting.
Just last week, I wrote about guns and hate in America and the resilience communities around the country are being forced to display. I’ll end this essay with the same five sentences as I did then.
Toughing it out is killing us. It’s building a culture of fear. It’s letting terrible people with terrible motives win.
I’m sick of toughing it out, and you should be too.
— Sree / Twitter | Instagram | LinkedIn | YouTube / Cameo
I appreciate your support of four years of this newsletter or a subset of that time. So grateful to you all! And a big thanks to our sponsors, Armory Square Ventures.
A word from Armory Square Ventures
“Life really isn’t stranger than fiction, but you have to keep reading, and rereading, to know that.” — Xu Xi
We digest harrowing news this week. But we believe artists can and do help. Often they offer quiet wisdom, the kind that travels beyond the material world and public realm.
Two such authors, Xu Xi and Robin Hemley, have written at length on historical moments of tumult both in the United States and Asia. Eschewing platitudes and easy description, both Xu Xi and Robin Hemley have perspectives that travel and offer solace at times like these.
Robin Hemley has a speculative and provocative memoir titled, Oblivion, in which he imagines a new existence for himself rooted in the afterlife.
Xu Xi, from Plattsburgh, in Upstate New York, has authored works such as Insignificance: Hong Kong Stories that reflect on moving out of Hong Kong.
Together, Xu and Robin, both award-winning writers, hold workshops titled, “Authors At Large,” which bring published writers who live transnationally in contact with those who wish to write world literature. We encourage you to connect and commend their dedication and commitment to a gentler humanity.
Tech Tip w/ @newyorkbob: Chips Ahoy? End of Shortages May Be Closer, But Not Soon
By Robert S. Anthony
Each week, veteran tech journalist Bob Anthony shares a tech tip you don’t want to miss. Follow him @newyorkbob.
The past two years have been tough on tech companies. Even those long on ideas and innovation have come up short in terms of new products due to long-term shortages in the key computer chips they need.
However, some recent product announcements indicate that some companies are starting to find the components they need and are now confident enough to roll out products they expect to sell in high volume.
For example, Amazon recently updated its 7-inch Kindle Fire color tablet for the first time since 2019. The new Amazon Fire 7 (16GB RAM $60; 32GB RAM $80) and Amazon Fire 7 Kids, which adds a protective case and a one-year Amazon Kids+ subscription (16GB RAM $110; 32GB RAM $130), have improved quad-core MediaTek main processors, yet still offer longer battery life than the old model, according to Amazon. While the graphics chip has been updated as well, screen resolution remains the same at 1,024 by 600 pixels.
The 2019 Fire 7 ran on software based on Google’s Android 7.1 operating system, which dates to 2016, but the new units, available June 29, will run software based on Android 11, released in 2020, which is good news for app publishers.
On the photo side, Canon recently announced two new additions to its EOS R-series mirrorless digital camera line, both of which are significantly less expensive than their EOS R siblings. The 32-megapixel Canon EOS R7 (body $1,499) and 24-megapixel EOS R10 ($980) use APS-C-size CMOS image sensors, which are fine for consumer and semipro photography, but are smaller and less expensive than the full-frame sensors in the rest of the EOS R series, like the $2,499 EOS R6.
This is good news for traveling photographers since the smaller APS-C sensors can be supported with Canon’s new smaller, lighter RF-S series lenses. Both new cameras offer admirable imaging and video features, but the EOS R7 offers two memory card slots, in-body image stabilization and superior weatherization than the EOS R10. However, the EOS R7 and EOS R10 won’t be available until “late 2022,” according to Canon.
If companies like Amazon and Canon are confident enough to announce high-volume products like these, does it mean that computer chip shortages are finally behind us? Not by a wide margin. But with positive baby steps like these, Black Friday 2022 is starting to look better.
🙌 JOB LISTING! The Rockefeller Foundation is seeking its next Managing Director, Multimedia Strategy and Digital Content. Our firm, Digimentors, is managing the search. This is a prime opportunity to help a preeminent nonprofit craft its message and improve lives around the world. Find out how to apply here.
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