human nature

The Banshees of Inisherin

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I’ve called my kids banshees a few times as the word is just passing parlance in popular culture. Like hyenas, chickens with their heads cut off, holy terrors or league of demons. I’ve never put the effort into finding out the meaning of the word.

In Irish mythology banshees are wailing female spirits that herald death on a family or community. The etymological definition is literally woman of the fairy mound; bean (woman) + sidhe or shee (fairy mound). The fairy mounds are the population of mounds that riddle the landscape of Ireland. The banshees sing mournful lamentations over the dying.

The Banshees of Inisherin is a quiet, simmering, tale about a pair of lifelong friends that have a break up. One friend is a dim-witted, kind, naive fellow (Pádraic) and the other is a seeking, brooding, fellow in an existential crisis (Colm). There is an age gap between the fellows and Colm dwells in his elder years of life. Colm decides, one day, to end his friendship with Pádraic for the simple reason that he doesn’t like him anymore. Or is it that simple of a reason? Is it, rather, that they will not grow so long as they wallow in this friendship? There are other characters on this Island off the coast of Ireland that weave the thick tapestry of this community. An eager young man (Dominic) who is looking for potential, a pair of gossiping bar mates, Pádraic’s sister (Siobhán) who is being stymied in this dead end town, an abusive policeman and father to the eager young man, an irritable priest, a nosy shopkeeper and a demented, old townswoman who is haunting the townsfolk.

The narrative on friendship is a heartbreaking one. We watch the affable Pádraic be told by his hallowed friend that he no longer likes his friend anymore and we watch Pádraic’s face collapse, muscle by muscle, into shame and hurt. Yet Pádraic keeps hope or, rather, he resists letting his friend go and the movie twists and turns like the stone walls meandering the Irish countryside until, mournfully and decisively, the stone ravages any persisting good feelings between the two pals. Meanwhile on the mainland the Irish Civil War of 1923 is playing out.

Pádraic looks on in the direction of the war and says,

“some things there’s no moving on from, and I think that’s a good thing.”

Is it a declaration that he’ll never stop fixating on his friend? Is it a declaration that he’ll never quit seeking revenge? Is it loyalty to one’s roots despite its demise? Is it a philosophical statement that infighting, despite lapses and interludes, will never stop? And why is that good? Is it our mortal struggle to find purpose, to find home?

This movie was written by playwright Martin McDonagh who wrote In Bruges and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. In the Roger Ebert review of In Bruges he mentions, “every once in a while you find a film like this, that seems to happen as it goes along, driven by the peculiarities of the characters.” I think that is exactly what is happening in Banshees of Inisherin. The character of each man drives his actions rather than logic. And in a review of Three Billboards there are such observations of McDonagh’s script as, “anger is not treated like something to be cured”, “it is more about cause and effect than crime and resolution”, “allowing almost all of his characters to be deeply flawed”, and “the world is more complex than most movies would have you think”. I think those observations apply here as well. McDonagh does a great job writing dark dramedy’s. I feel like the Irish (and the Russians) are good at that. I laughed consistently through the movie but was equally heartbroken and eager to see the drama to its end. I loved Brendan Gleeson in the 2014 movie he was in called Calvary. Once again, like In Bruges, he pairs with Colin Farrell in this movie.

This movie is unique in that you don’t have the gnawing feeling that the shocking calamity should be further attended to, like “why isn’t anyone asking more questions?”, “where are the police?”, “who is going to intervene?”. Instead, McDonagh let’s the character’s choices just be and it isn’t out of place in this insular community where they all seem stuck and their only future is waiting for some news whether or not the news changes anything. I also don’t think I’ve ever seen a movie about adult friendship break up or certainly not one that is treated with this much thought.

In the final scene Colm is left with his last instrument and like a banshee he sings his lamenting song.

The Banshees of Inisherin

The Whale

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Honestly,

I have regarded Darren Aronofsky as my favorite director for 20 years. He competes in a space that he shares with provocateur directors such as Lars Von Trier and David Lynch but I have an affinity with his films, unlike the others. The first of his films I saw was Pi when I was about 17 years old. It was unlike anything I had seen before. Subliminal glory between the lines of brutalizing flesh. And every film of his after wrestles with threadbare flesh trying to make contact with glory.

His most recent incarnation The Whale grapples with this same universal and persistent question that is the substance of all his films; what is the meaning of all this?

It’s no coincidence that I have such an affinity with an Atheist Jew who can’t resist existential questions that have spiritual overtones. He and I, or at least his art and I, have the same curiosities, wrestle with the same nagging life pangs, both wish for truth to break through the veneer. The caged bird does indeed sing. We’re all caged inside our flesh, our vices, our peccadilloes. The spirit is caged inside the body.

There is a scene when the missionary, Thomas, discovers Charlie’s lover’s Bible and the passage under Roman’s 8:13 is highlighted.

For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”

The Whale is the most acute examination of the body as a cage that Aronofsky has explored to this point. The film is a slow burn. It is quite a passive film compared to Aronofsky’s last film mother! that was frantic chaos. The passivity is purposeful. Charlie puts up no resistance to the fate of each day. He is Superman at weathering blows. The few loved ones in his life, at first sight, are uncomfortably abusive. We, the audience, can’t believe the cruelty.

There is a scene where his estranged daughter manipulates morbidly obese Charlie into getting to his feet and walking to her that reminded me of a perversion of Christ’s walking on water. He ends up crushing the end table under his weight and flopping down into a devastating heap that is utterly heartbreaking. His daughter storms out the door in disgust.

There is another scene where we can infer that his daughter smashed a plate that had food remnants on it that Charlie was using to feed a bird on his window sill, the one creature who gave him comfort. Again, how evil of her. But there is more than first sight with Aronofsky films. We learn through its slow crescendo that the finale to this story is about freeing the caged bird. When that bird feeds at Charlie’s plate each day it grows dependent, it has no desire to explore, it becomes imprisoned in its domestication. The missionary, too, is caged in his assumption that his past is irredeemable. His daughter is caged inside her abandonment. Charlie’s lover is caged inside his religious hypocrisy. Charlie is caged inside his grief.

It was quite a poetic, quite biblical, ending. During the entirety of the story it is downpouring outside. The following is borrowed from Alissa Wilkinson writing for Vox:

“The real apocalypse is happening at Charlie’s house, at least if we take “apocalypse” to mean a moment of revelation. [The GOP primaries of 2016 are playing on tv in which Ted Cruz beats Donald Trump in Idaho where the film is set]. We know — everyone knows — that these are the last days of Charlie’s life. It’s raining continually outside, like a flood is coming. Charlie is obsessed with an essay he keeps reading about Moby-Dick, an apocalyptic book if there ever was one, about a man with an obsession and a death wish. There’s an atmosphere of dread, both of what’s about to happen in Charlie’s house and what’s going on beyond its walls.”

But in the final scenes the clouds break to sunlight. Weight becomes weightless, flesh walks on water and the spirit is freed from the body.

Charlie exclaims near the end that he thinks it’s impossible for people to be completely careless. Implying that our inherent nature, our instincts, care. In a world that so obviously perpetuates bad, is this sentiment true? I’m perplexed by this existential supposition. There is also Charlie’s obsession with honesty. He implores his students and his daughter to write honestly. Despite his own refusal to confront his flesh. It’s another perplexing theme.

But Aronofsky once again succeeds in creating a picture like that of Michelangelo’s “The Creation of Adam” in which man is reaching out for the spark of life from God.

The Whale

Rousing A Deaf World

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Um, Happy New Year?! Ahem, cough. It feels silly saying it.

What was 2020? It was something with potential in the beginning. It was something to be concerned about in the middle. It was something to suffer from the middle to the end. Now 2021 looms and with fear and trembling we hope for something better. C.S. Lewis writes, in The Problem of Pain, that God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience but shouts to us in our pain. Pain is God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world.

When I wonder why the crises of this year happened to me several things come to mind. First, why not? Why shouldn’t this happen to me or you or anyone? This virus is a force of nature. Death is a force of nature. Pain and suffering is a force of nature. Second, the timing is just coincidental. Had this been spread over a decade I may not have felt so flagellated. Or, is it coincidental? Did all this occur for some purpose? Is God shouting at us in our pain?

I did a poor job suffering. It was completely unfair to be forced out of work. It was frustrating to be ignored by the unemployment insurance agency. It was panicking to not know how long I wouldn’t work. It was enraging to suddenly lose my dad and under Covid restrictions and deprivation. It was reeling to have my mom diagnosed with cancer, break her wrist, discover her lung disease in a matter of a couple months. It was heavy to have another development of crisis; my father in law become critically ill, sedated and intubated, with Covid, transported to a hospital 182 miles away because that was the only open bed for an intubated patient, 40-some days in the hospital. All of this happened in 4 months. And under these 3 crises were other little burdens. My dads estate, his girlfriend, more stints out of work, not seeing eye to eye with friends interpreting the world and the pandemic, the mosh pit that is social media.

The layers of emotion have been depleting. Disbelief, shock, rage, anger, bitterness, depression, recovery. I haven’t only been grieving the death of my dad but also the death we seem to be living in. It has been an unprecedented year when we try to lean on the things that bring comfort and hope. Funerals are taboo, hugging loved ones, taboo, in person church, taboo, a day with girlfriends, taboo, a spa day, taboo, travel, taboo, gathering for holidays, taboo. At least I have this forum of writing. And everyone’s opinions; they are all shouting. The cacophony of voices are noisy. The noise is not helping.

Somehow, in the last month, a perseverance has overcome me. I think it’s reinforced by my being back to work. No matter how much we complain about a work day there is something essential and purposeful about working. But I think this new resolve is also because we have to be over the hump. It has to finally be Thursday right? If it’s Thursday then I don’t want to think about Monday’s complaints anymore. I want to look to the weekend. I want to look to Sunday.

In the spirit of looking into the light let me share some glimmers of life while we all experienced death groans this last year.

My baby, Wyatt, turned one. My eldest, Isla, turned four. I worked on my husbands ancestry lines. I refinished an old solid wood dresser from my husbands childhood. I got to see my out of state sister twice and for extended periods of time. I got to meet friends of my dad I never knew, I got to hear stories about his life. I got to spend a lot of time being my moms caregiver and discussing old stories together. I got to learn a lot about lung disease and cancer. I got to learn a lot about the rare autoimmune disease LEMS and the rare drugs that treat it; Firdapse and Ruzurgi. In fact I got to learn a lot about the rare disease/drug industry; development, competition, the FDA, cost, and loads more. My little ones have done many adorable things that I wish I had written down. Last week Isla used the word “technically” correctly in a sentence. She also told me she saw God (the nativity scene at all the churches). I’ve tried to emulate my kids during this time. There is something so educational and wise about a child’s innocence and ignorance. At their ages they don’t know what despair is yet. 2020 is any old time for them. They laugh and find joy. They don’t pout because of existential dread. They just pout for time with the other’s toy.

I think God is shouting at me to unlearn my self-pity. And perhaps a crises year was the megaphone. When our self-sufficiency is stripped there is still one comfort to lean on; Him.

Rousing A Deaf World

Can You Raise Your Child Free From Dogma?

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Many modern families make it their aim to raise their child as a blank slate, upon which the sovereign child makes his own choices, forms his own opinions, finds his own identity, and writes his own story. The archipelago child: free to be uninfluenced and untouched by a point of view. There are two approaches: I will not introduce any dogma into my child’s mind, therefore they’ll be unladen of bias or I will offer a glimpse into all dogmas so that my child can infer what they may and piecemeal a unified whole. The result will be a cultured, unbiased, sensitive and understanding person.

Is it possible to fulfill either of these approaches? With the first approach the parent is ultimately relinquishing their parenting and resting their child in wait for some outside influence  to impress their mind. It takes the culpability out of the job of parenting. The parent with the first approach, down the line, could say “I didn’t impress any beliefs on my child, in his freedom he decided his beliefs on his own, I am blameless.” Or, from a different perspective, the parent with the first approach is explicitly culpable for not introducing the best, the correct, worldview. But this implies transcendent, objective truth, that there is a right and a wrong. There is. I’ll get to that later. With regard to the second approach, is it humanly possible to expose your child to all dogmas and theories that exist let alone the meaningful parts of them in their entire applicable context? If you’re leaving out certain ideologies then are you not unwittingly shaping your child’s ideas and submitting them to dogma?

The first principle a child learns as they grow up is no and yes.  It is a valuable principle!

They desire something that they shouldn’t have because it’s not in their best interest. Why has it been decided they shouldn’t have it? Many would say cultural conditioning. That some force; paternalism, sexism, Puritanism, laid a foundation for behavioral expectations and now it’s time to shatter that ceiling by washing our kids of expectations. A sort of contrary rebirth. Not a rebirth to orthodoxy but a rebirth to abandon.

Yet there remains some universal manipulations we beholden our kids with. They desire to avoid a nap but the parent knows a nap reduces fatigue, resets their mood, lends itself to growth, etc. The very first dogma a parent will introduce their child to establishes the parent’s outside authority on the child. Parents represent God to small children. Second, it establishes truths and the right and wrong way to behave in accordance with the truth.

I know what’s best for you at 1 year old, what is best for you is a nap because it will reduce fatigue and help you grow. Child, it is right that you fight your natural desire to resist a nap and wrong that you give in to your nature. This is the first, elementary dogma you introduce your child to: fight your natural desires for the sake of your life. Does this sound extreme? If a child doesn’t learn obedience to truths that restrain their desires then they may fall subject to a burnt hand on the stove or hit by a car for not looking both ways or even more complicated and tragic events.

Right off the bat you’ve established right and wrong. But some parents, being exposed to and educated by enlightened progressive theories, will negate the most primitive, basic common sense and appointed authority that they have to undermine such oppressive bulwarks like right and wrong. Opinion, desires and tastes are the weathervane. Madcap opinions that are evolving, unauthoritative, lawless and meaningless. After all how do you write law on one man’s opinion? Law is written using precedent, wisdom of the elders, and inalienable truths. Law has survived the ages and been useful because it’s true. Yet we guffaw truth and encourage the child to navigate life with some intrinsic knowledge she has that is superior to an adult’s long-forged, accumulated wisdom. So open-minded that her brain falls out.

What is it that motivates people to find dogma repugnant? One thing. When it is established that this way is the right way, it means another way is wrong. If there’s a good then there is a bad. It creates grouping, ranking, a pecking order. It creates limitations, failures, hurt feelings. How can we, humans, decide a way is right over another? Especially if it hurts someone else’s feelings. That’s the second truth your child will learn after no and yes: life is not fair. From birth we are born with disadvantages, some of which will be impossible to overcome. The fact that we are born into a material body that is hurtling toward entropy makes our life unfair. This machine of a body will fail us and someone else’s machine will be better. So, too, about the principles of life and how they match/mismatch our desires. Is a principle untrue if it’s at odds with my nature? A common cultural sentiment is “be who you are”. Or is it that my nature is a beast that needs the principle to groom it? “Become who you are.”

How do you know what’s true?

What’s right for a moody, exhausted child?

That’s how simple truth really is. One just needs eyes to see.

To paraphrase GK Chesterton, when a person chooses not to believe in what’s right, it’s not that they believe in nothing, it’s that they believe in anything. The mind is not a vacuum. Some thing will fill it: religious dogma, the culture’s dogma or the State’s dogma. There is no such thing as dogma free. Start teaching your child the truth or another force, benevolent or malevolent, will start indoctrinating your child for you.

Can You Raise Your Child Free From Dogma?

Something needs to happen

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-homicide, gun control and the American, or more directly, human experience

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In 2012 Chicago had 450 deaths by shooting, Detroit 350, LA over 500, New York City 400, Philly 300, D.C., where our legislators meet on capitol hill, 100.

Chicago’s murder rate matches all of Japan and is higher than Spain, Poland and pre-war Syria. But Chicago isn’t even the worst. New Orleans and Detroit are in competition year to year for the number 1 spot of most murders by firearm per 100,000 people.

Of course where there is a higher population there will be more murders. Let’s break it down by gun murders per 100,000 people. Chicago had 18 murders per 100,000, New Orleans 54, LA 7, Philly 21, NYC 5, D.C. 13, Detroit 57.

Interestingly, New York, California, Illinois and Pennsylvania have the strictest gun control laws yet house these cities with high murder rates by firearm.

Firearm related deaths in the US are 3 per 100,000. This paints a better picture but cannot be considered a relief.

65% of the time males are murdering other males. 22% of the time males are murdering females. 90% of black men kill other black men. 84% of white men kill other white men. Which busts the myth that racial tensions are leading to murder. An FBI statistic says while black Americans constitute less than 14 percent of the population, in more than one out of two homicides, the fatality is a black person.

Murder rates are falling but it could be due to the skill of medical professionals or the lack of proficiency of gunmen than decreased violence. Or could it be more?

Does being an NRA member predispose one to homicide? The NRA has 3 million members, which is a large number but is relatively small compared to the 70 million Americans who own a firearm. Lets say all firearm-related homicides were done with legally licensed firearms. Out of at least 70 million guns owned legally in the US 11,000 would be used to murder someone. This means most people who own a firearm don’t murder and even less people who own a firearm belong to the NRA. About half the NRA members have their firearm for protection and the other half for sport (hunting and target shooting). 74% of those that do belong to the NRA support expanded background checks at stores and gun shows.

What about gang-related homicides? Classification of a crime as gang-related is somewhat elusive much like a hate crime. The LAPD classifies a homicide as gang-related if the victim or the assailant is known to be a gang member but in some cases, a crime can be classified as gang-related if it occurs in a neighborhood where there’s an ongoing rivalry. In LA and Chicago 60% of homicides are gang related. NYC is much lower with 9% gang related homicides, which many accredit to the expansion of the ‘stop and frisk’ program under Rudy Guilliani.

Many homicides by firearm are committed by people with a criminal history. This speaks to recidivism. Recidivism is one of the most fundamental concepts in criminal justice. It refers to a person’s relapse into criminal behavior, often after the person receives sanctions or undergoes intervention for a previous crime. Recidivism is measured by criminal acts that resulted in rearrest, reconviction or return to prison with or without a new sentence during a three-year period following the prisoner’s release. Within 3 years of release 2/3 were rearrested. Within 5 years of release 3/4 were rearrested.   71% of those that relapse are violent offenders. Why do offenders recidivate? Many offenders had an extensive criminal history before prison which means they were quite used to a lifestyle of crime. They had developed bad habits, criminal habits, and probably collaborated in these bad habits within their community making it quite easy to reacclimatize to their criminal lifestyle once immersed in their familiar environment again. Also, while in prison they’re exposed to inmates that have a higher propensity to crime and may increase criminal behavior and reinforce anti-social attitudes. In short, prison hardens many of them emotionally and gives them connections to even more criminal conditioning.

There is also the ‘broken windows theory’. Here are some examples of the theory:

Consider a building with a few broken windows. If the windows are not repaired, the tendency is for vandals to break a few more windows. Eventually, they may even break into the building, and if it’s unoccupied, perhaps become squatters or light fires inside. Or consider a pavement. Some litter accumulates. Soon, more litter accumulates. Eventually, people even start leaving bags of refuse from take-out restaurants there or even break into cars because they’re inconspicuous from litter accumulation.

This describes the deterioration of neighborhoods into the downward spiral of crime.   Serious crime such as rape and murder are the final result of a lengthier chain of events. Mild disorder turns into major chaos if left unaddressed. The disorder also strikes fear into the minds of citizens who are convinced the area is unsafe. So the citizens withdraw from the community and it further falls into disrepair. There is physical disorder and social disorder. Physical disorder is run down buildings, abandoned vehicles, vacant lots filled with trash. Social disorder is panhandlers, noisy neighbors, groups of youth congregating on corners. While the broken windows theory may describe that a normally ‘good’ person may be persuaded into bad behavior and then act on it, it doesn’t explain what would tempt a person to see a broken window in an abandoned building and thus smash another one. Why one person would and another person wouldn’t smash the window is a crucial question.

A University of Texas study found that 84% of women and 91% of men have had at least one clear fantasy about committing murder. The idea of murder is not a monstrous deviation that only crazy killers think of. As the stats show many people fantasize about killing and nearly all people express a willingness to kill in some circumstances—to prevent being killed or to defend their children from killers. Interestingly, men indicated an increased willingness to kill when their status or reputation was threatened which are important qualities in attracting a mate. They also expressed a willingness to kill when their mating prospects become dire. Husbands that kill their wives often do so when they’ve discovered their spouse was cheating or after the couple has separated. 85% of these murders happen in the first year of the separation when it becomes clear that she won’t go back to him.

If a desire for a mate is not the impetus, it could be a desire for a drug or a desire for a piece of property or desire for a status.

The leading manifestations of homicide are ‘competition killing’ and ‘revenge killing’. Of course, there’s also random killing and disturbed mental health killings. But most homicides have motive. Most people don’t act on it but why not?

The why has to do with human nature and its conflict between right and wrong or good and evil. This manifests mentally as values and physically as the skill of restraint people have over their actions. This, in my opinion, is the most foundational point that needs to be addressed when confronting gun violence.

Something indeed needs to happen and that something is cultural. Change the values of the culture, equip people with better conflict managing skills, and everything else will fall in place the most it can. Of course, in this life because of our fallen nature there will never be utopia but reduction can happen.

Let’s start with the history of American culture, it sure has been rich hasn’t it? In the frontier days you had order but few laws, now you have laws but little order in many metropolises. We had the first pious Puritans, then the survival of the fittest vagabonds of the wild west, then the tragic era of enslavement, the turbulent toughness of new life experienced by the early tide of immigrants (mine were fleeing the potato famine in Ireland), the early gangs of New York, later the mafias, the depression of the 1920’s, women’s suffrage, the civil rights era, a revolution of ideas from the 1960’s, the rise of recreational drug use, several major wars, the ‘death of God’, the rise of popular culture and technology making our experiences and exposure ever so instant and global. America became a unique mosaic of different cultures and attitudes. Where does this leave us? Now. How does it leave us? Right where we started. With the problem of good, evil, brain chemistry, and social skills. It is a problem inherent in our nature.

As John Locke stated, self-defense is the first law of nature. Each human being owns his or her own life and no other person has a right to take that life. Those who would attempt to stop you from defending yourself, are attacking the very right from which all other rights are derived, protection of one’s own life.

Life is our only inalienable right and all other rights emanate from this. It’s no surprise then that our 2nd constitutional right is a right to bear arms. Defense of one’s life from death and tyranny is the substance of this right. It’s not mandatory for anyone else to save your life, though one does have a moral obligation to act on behalf of life, you are responsible for your life. A society that doesn’t value, or undervalues human life is one that breeds corruption.

Of course, you value your own life. A will to live is inherent to our nature. But what would compel us to value another’s life? If it’s your own opinion of right and wrong then what if you change your mind? Your opinion would be subject to the waxing and waning of your own heart or mind, right? Why would your definition have any more legitimacy or authority than another person’s definition? In other words, where does the all encompassing, inalienable right to life for human beings come from? It is no surprise that the value of life has deteriorated since the deterioration of an objective authority. Luckily, the value of the inalienable right to life still impresses on our laws and society even though many of us have discredited the authority from which this value comes. Most of us just accept that my neighbor’s life is valuable and that he has a right to live regardless of where this right comes from. Most, but not all. To many this right to live means little or worse yet, nothing.

Just like the broken window example. You start with their property and end up taking their life. If you don’t value the ownership someone has of their property then why would you value their person?

It could start very subtly. On the micro scale: eliminate the influence of the father, the absence of the father creates a poverty and dependency on the state, it creates a pressure on the mother to solely provide morals and care of basic needs and often the state shapes the child’s idea of right and wrong. On the macro scale: eliminate an objective authority, beef up state authority to take its place, undermine inalienable rights on behalf of popular opinion, undermine objective ideas of right and wrong. Over time, this perpetual cycle creates a hostile culture that is missing the influence of good morals and restraint on acts of evil. If accountability to fixed truths outside yourself are missing, then a domino effect takes place in which the citizen isn’t accountable to the family, to the community, to the human race. People that fantasize about murder but don’t become criminals have a respect for the value of life or at least a fear of the embarrassment or consequences if they were to commit crime. Interestingly, in the study I mentioned above most people who had a fantasy about murder but never acted on it said the reason was that they were afraid they would get caught. But I have an optimism that many also don’t act on it because they know it’s wrong.

If the values are missing then any object will do to get what one wants. A fist, a knife, a gun. These are all just instruments. While there is evil, an apathy for authority, a breakdown of family and community, disrespect for people’s lives, there is crime. Take away the guns. They’ll be replaced by some other instrument. Instill values, instill (dare I say) a fear of authority, cultivate social skills and you will see a reduction in the use of a gun, or any instrument, to take another’s life. How is this done? Familially, locally, spiritually, culturally. Capitol Hill is an abstraction. Capitol Hill won’t change one’s mind and it won’t prevent the act. It will only define the consequences.

*I believe there’s room for revelation too and I thank God for that

Something needs to happen