A Hard Heart

"Your rifle is only a tool. It is a hard heart that kills."*


The Aurora victims' pictures grasp my heartstrings and rip them asunder. Portraits of living, loving men, women and child with no notion of the horror to befall them. Innocents, chosen at random, swept up in a vortex of madness. It's hard not to look at them, hard to meet their eye and know what their last moments held in store. Photos snapped by family members, friends, colleagues now left to fill an unfillable void, still an unappeasable longing and search, often in vain, for a way to stop the pain. Aurora police officers rushed headlong into danger and unfathomable carnage, and saved lives. A job well done by men and women who will carry the sights and sounds of that movie theater to their own graves.

The booking photo of the murderer, self-satisfied smirk forever underscoring an empty vessel, looks hauntingly familiar. It is the face of sociopathic indifference, of a lack of empathy for others so profound it defies common sense definitions. To label him evil is to distill out the bitter poisons of human loathing inside of him, only to reveal his deeds in the frankness surrounding the five o'clock news. This is a man who will never again be free, if there is any justice in this society. The perpetrator of another gun crime.

Guns. The mere mention of them turns a normal conversation into a raging inferno. In the aftermath of "another massacre" at the hands of a gunman, normally kind people carry on like preachers at a revival, all fire and brimstone about banning weapons, banning ammunition, banning trigger fingers. Removing the means of killing so many, so quickly. Rage, against the dying of the light.

They have a point. What would the average citizen – hell, the average police officer – need with an AR-15 magazine that holds fifty rounds? In fact, to go farther, an AR-15 is an assault rifle. Why should someone outside of the military or law enforcement (with restrictions) have access to such a powerful, frightful tool?

Painful Introspection

The Penn State internal investigation is out. I have read lowlights. I have listened to writers on talk radio discuss it. I have been made heartsick and disgusted.

Nothing perverts the goodness of men more readily than fame and fortune. In a post "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" I discussed the preliminary information available when the scandal broke. The new information tends to suggest I was wrong.

It was much worse.

The takeaway is obvious. Serious individuals with important jobs made clear their priorities - their reputations and that of a powerful university over the safety of children. Covering for the criminal, corrupting themselves, guaranteeing that more children would become forced victims.

I look in the mirror each work day and hope I am worthy of the uniform I will wear. I'm no different than any other adult vested with responsibility for the welfare of others. I refuse to believe otherwise.

Even now.

Do You Copy?

"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery." Charles Caleb Colton.

In the world of radio communication, nothing is as important as ensuring receipt of a transmission. A police officer sending out vital information to another is wasting her time if the intended recipient does not "copy," does not receive the data and understand its import. That kind of stuff slips into day-to-day conversation as well - "repeat?" or the ever favorite "en route" entering not just my speech patterns, but the Greer family lexicon as a whole.

A different kind of "copying" finds its way to the pages of social media, with an entirely different communication agenda. It is highly annoying and lends little to personal exchanges.

I refer to the popular and useless practice of copying political punditry links and pasting them, accompanied by a helpful observation or two, onto social media. What was once a fairly harmless neighborhood comprised of friends and family, vacation pictures and grandkids is now awash with charts, graphs and boldly defamatory rhetoric of the most vile kind. It has made being available for conversations with my out-of-town children daunting.

Open FB in the morning and I am likely to be told that - Republicans want the sick and uninsured to die, Barack Obama is a socialist from Kenya, or that Mitt Romney should be arrested for felony violations of Securities and Exchange Commission rules. Often, these posts are accompanied by slick and colorful visuals that helpfully reinforce the less-than-faithful treatment of the facts. The posting "friend" adds "Fairly balanced observations," or "I highly recommend this." My favorite - "HELL, YEAH!!!!!!!" as if the caps and punctuation somehow lend themselves to making the point.

Another Arresting Tour

"Cofidis [bike racing team] hotel raided, [racer] Di Grégorio arrested at Tour de France." Cyclingnews, July 10, 2012

"This Court is not inclined to indulge Armstrong's desire for publicity, self-aggrandizement or vilification of Defendants, by sifting through eighty mostly unnecessary pages in search of the few kernels of factual material relevant to his claims."* U.S. District Court Judge Sam Sparks in Austin, TX July 9, 2012

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/sports/2012/07/09/armstrong-lawsuit-to-block-doping-charges-dismissed/#ixzz20Ex0IdTB

Thirteen years ago, Lance Armstrong put US cycling back on the map with a stunning and unexpectedly dominant Tour de France win. Previously, he had ridden to stage wins and made a bit of noise, but had never been a serious contender. Then, the nearly fatal bout with cancer, admirable comeback, seven straight TdF wins and international scorn. Doping accusations seem to haunt him even after his "retirement." How can that be?
Simple. There are two very good reasons Sir Lance is hounded by investigators.

First, several of the riders around him during his best years have been convicted of doping offenses. Roberto Heras, Jan Ullrich, Tyler Hamilton…. On and on, teammates of his as well as the competition. It is hardly defamatory to say that professional cycling in the 1990s and 2000s struggled with performance enhancing drug use among its elite riders. One might comment, based on a reasonable inference, that attaining success during that era such as…perhaps…winning seven Tours in a row, would require either an athlete of monumental ability (possible) or the use of something other than Powerbars for strength, endurance and recovery. Call me a sentimental fool.

Second, when asked point blank if he used performance enhancing drugs Lance's reply has often been "I've never tested positive" or some variant. Oh.

Trial by Jury

"Sandusky found guilty."

Rejoice not in the vanquished, nor cheer the righteous. Weep only for the weak, the vulnerable, the men left wanting. Strive to make ours a better society. Be humble for the victims.

Remember Joe's broken heart. He suffered, in a way, for those who put their reputations ahead of the welfare of children.

Being the Enemy

“We have met the enemy, and he is us.”*

As a matter of disclosure I must confess to conservative tendencies. They manifest themselves as membership in the Republican Party, that rag-tag but august collection of –isms often confused with big cigars, private jets and seven-figure private sector employment. More accurately, my particular flavor of this pathology is personal freedom, common defense and deference to established law as opposed to outcome-based judicial fiat. Yet, somehow, I and mine have become the enemy of all I hold dear.

I am…gasp…a public employee.

In circles both big and small within the conservative movement I have become anathema, a pariah, a parasitic creature both slovenly and voracious. I work a “non-punishing schedule” (Ann Coulter), am “overpaid” (The Wall Street Journal) and receive lavish, nearly gluttonous fringe benefits (Powerline). Visit the comments section of nearly any national conservative blog, offer a suggestion that public employee pay is not our biggest problem and wait to be pummeled. A guy from Minnesota who has “started a number of businesses” informed me that government was “way too big” and should be trimmed by firing significant portions of the inept workforce.

At the Vent

Over at my other blog - A Vent for my Spleen - I'm carrying on about the true war on women. At least, the figurative one waged on their ability to disagree with orthodox feminist dogma.