Life – Page 5 – Abnormal Capitalist

In a Home Surrounded by Homicide

Cynthia Glover has arranged her bed so that it faces the front door. On many nights she lies there until the pop of gunfire is replaced by the hiss of air brakes from the first school bus of the morning. Then the 56-year-old can doze off, her pit bull and her husband by one side, a loaded 9mm handgun by the other. It is chrome and holds 17 rounds.

• • •

Glover used to watch the movies with her four children, sitting on the couch as she held them, rocking back and forth. Then they grew up, and three of them were shot and killed in separate incidents. So was one grandson. Now, she worries her last child will be next.

→ The Washington Post

Will You Work For A Murderer?

And he thinks: Can I possibly work for such a regime, and still look at myself in the mirror each morning?

Which is the question that we, as a nation, must ask ourselves now. Even if we still needed Saudi Arabia’s oil, which we do not; even if Saudi Arabia was a strong and principled ally in the region, which it is not; even if it helped push the Palestinians toward peace, or kept its promises in Yemen, or bought the weapons that Trump thinks it is going to buy. . . . No matter what Saudi Arabia offered, could its supposed friendship be worth shrugging off the ensnaring and killing of a critic whose only offense was to tell the truth?

Is that the country we want to be?

No.

→ The Washington Post

XXXTentacion’s Death Is a Reminder to Mourn, but Not to Forget

As the rapper Jidenna tweeted, “For those who are so woke that their compassion is asleep, remember this…if Malcolm X was killed at the age of 20, he would have died an abuser, a thief, an addict, and a narrow-minded depressed & violent criminal. So, I believe in change for the young.” His point is not to equate XXXTentacion with Malcolm X, but to put some perspective that young and lost souls can sometimes evolve into something greater given the opportunity. Whether XXXTentacion would have made good for his wrongs we’ll never know.

And from The Atlantic :

XXXTentacion may have spent his career trying to convince his most ardent young fans that they’re worth more than they believe, but his legacy—of trauma endured and seemingly unrepentantly inflicted—reminds us that worth has never been distributed evenly.

→ HighSnobiety

Trump’s Victim-Blaming Response To The Mass Shooting

Would we really rather lock up people than lock up guns? And is all that supposed to be facilitated with an ethic of mass mutual suspicion? Perhaps the next move of America’s gun promoters will be to place the blame on some other group of people with backgrounds and beliefs that the majority finds jarring. Will they keep drawing the circle of the good with an ever smaller circumference, until it resembles nothing so much as an armed camp, packed with guns? President Trump might call that a great and safe community. And whom will he blame then?

→ The New Yorker

This Is Danny Pearl’s Final Story

“What is grief?” I recently asked psychologist Steven Stosny, posing the obvious question I’d avoided for so long.

“It’s an expression of love,” he told me. “When you grieve, you allow yourself to love again.”

“How do you grieve?” I asked him.

“You celebrate a person’s life by living your life fully.”

• • •

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed never said a word to the court in Guantánamo that day. When the last words of the 88-page charge sheet were finally read at 10:28 pm, 13 hours and 5 minutes after the proceeding began, the judge cracked his gavel and just like that the arraignment came to a swift, odd end.

KSM stood up and smiled, and I watched as he picked up a stack of books draped with his tazbi, his prayer beads. A minute later, he was gone. And what was I left with?

Relief. Relief that I could finally feel sad that Danny would never come back.

→ Washingtonian