No pain. No gain.

In his New York Times editorial, Juliet Lapidos hit the nail on the head:

Who’s to Blame for the Fiscal Cliff Impasse?

By JULIET LAPIDOS

"Republicans are trying to blame the apparent impasse in fiscal cliff negotiations on President Obama and the Democrats.

"Earlier today, Speaker John Boehner projected wildly in conversation with reporters: “I did my part; they’ve done nothing. I’m convinced that the president is unwilling to stand up to his own party.”

"And Mitch McConnell, the Senate G.O.P. leader, reached for an extended, extremely confusing sports metaphor: “They’ve been playing Lucy and the football with the American people for months. They’ve said no to every single proposal that’s been offered to avoid this tax hike—including their own. They’re running out the clock. Moving the goal posts. Sitting on their hands. They aren’t doing anything.”

"One cannot move the goal posts while sitting on one’s hands, but regardless, the notion that the president has “done nothing” is patently untrue.

"Mr. Obama said repeatedly during the campaign that tax rates should rise on income over $250,000. After winning re-election, he proposed raising $1.6 trillion in new revenue. Then he moved the goal posts to $1.4 trillion. Then $1.2 trillion. He also offered a new tax hike threshold of $400,000, essentially re-defining what it means to be wealthy. Mr. Obama even suggested limiting the growth of Social Security benefits, despite the fact that, less than a month ago, he said Social Security would not factor into deficit negotiations.

"The goal posts have moved: 400 billion dollars closer to the Republicans."

Now here is why the President is not compromising further:

He won and he won big. And his campaign was about being reasonable when it comes to taxes and spending.

It is time for the GOP to recognize they lost the election and if they plan to ever win another, they better get to work with this President and fix the financial crisis that faces America.  He has already compromised. It is time for the Republicans to do likewise. Otherwise, I am afraid that the American public, who in recent polls voted 2-1 that the GOP was the problem in the financial negotiating process, will see to it that the GOP loses even more face than they did in last November’s elections.

Here is some advice for both the White House and Congress: Raise revenues. Cut spending‑ but do not take a slashing knife to Social Security or Medicare. There are other places that need cutting first. Remember, Social Security is not supposed to be part of the general fund to begin with and was only made so because Congress couldn’t balance a budget without it.

But if you have to cut into entitlement programs do so in a way that people who are depending on them now and in the next five to ten years suffer the least and other who have the time, can pay into them to build them back up. As the economy improves, you are going to see a lot of the deficit come down. And if you have slashed the muscle out of some of these programs they will never be back to the strength they need to be to assist all Americans.

As for our national health insurance, cut the Pentagon budget deeply before you touch that.

And throw Grover’s pledge out. It is un American and not working in the best interest of our country. We are all going to have to shoulder some of the burden. That means all of us will have to pay higher taxes. That comes with the mess we’ve gotten ourselves into. It is time to get out of it. It is bad medicine, and tough to swallow, but it is what will cure us. 

Now get on with the business of doing what we sent you there to do. Grow the hell up and run the country…together. Not as parties, but as grown, adult Americans.

No guns on set…or…rewrite the scene with the gunfight.

Hollywood bares responsibility for the gun-toting images that infect our society. The violence they paint with such lavish brush strokes on the silver screen and on our TV screens is as much a part of the problem in our society as the guns themselves. We have become a society that glorifies violence. And TV and movies play a huge role in that

We have created the gun as the answer in our dramas. We have condoned violence to the point that it is now accepted. Anti-social behavior is the norm and is called out as the way to be. The weirder the better; the scarier the more wonderful; the bloodier the bolder— that’s Hollywood. Imagination has been left behind to the history files of Hitchcock and other directors who allowed audiences to build the dark side of the story in their own minds, not having it shoved in front of our eyes in bloody Technicolor. Now we’re shown every flake of brain bits from every gunshot in our movies— some in slow motion. More arms. Bigger arms. More killings. Welcome to the world of Hollywood and the gun — where art imitates real life.

I am no prude. I don’t want there to be censorship in America.

But I have taken my own steps to help bring order and civility back into art. I have removed the gun violence out of my books. I have taken the crazy, unabashed criminals and their street-talking language far from the crime scenes in my works. In fact, I destroyed two books of a trilogy simply because I felt they had become too dark and served no purpose other than to tease the reader with violence and death. (This actually occurred after the Aurora, Colorado shootings. I could no longer stomach being a part of the problem of glorifying violence in our society.) If there is going to be a crime solved in my work from now on, it will be solved with the brain, not the bullet. It may be a small step, but I will not longer be a part of the machine that idolizes this conduct in America.

And Hollywood should follow suit.

Just as the NRA will scream bloody murder and kick and pout like a child over gun legislation, the forces along Sun Set Strip and in Culver City and in the studios in the Burbank valley will cry foul, too, when the nation wants their movies and TV shows changed. But it is time we look at all our media squarely in the eye and raise the question and concern if it is enticing young minds to act in criminally insane ways. “Putting a cap” into someone’s head is easy language to digest and incorporate into culture. Our art needs to take a higher road.

The road we are on is driving us to ruin.

Just as there are those who believe PORN warps minds of young viewers and should be limited if not removed all together; evil violence does the same. And when it is so prevalent as to seem like it is being worshiped, then those portraying that violence in and to our society have become a huge part of the problem.

Instead, we must depict how we work out our differences peacefully, rationally and with emotions in check. This is rarely glorified in film. It is NOT as exciting as a shoot’ em up. The blast of automatic weapons is fun and exhilarating. It is like watching a train wreck.

Perhaps this is why our entre society has become so uncivil (myself included) and contentious in every discussion. Reality TV has set up quarrelling and fighting as good TV scripting. Mechanics in a motorcycle shop or chefs in a kitchen getting into arguments and fighting over the wrong nut or nutmeg have become high art in America. Violence, in all forms, corrupts the mind.

I was watching TV the other night, and right in the middle of the national coverage of the horrific disaster in Newtown, there was a promo for Cowboy week at Christmastime.  A shoot and be shot-filled week of rifles, pistols and people going down in a blaze of gunfire featured on TV.

Really?  We needed that at that time?  Really?

And the news channels don’t get off without some scorn here, either. They have all plastered the killer’s picture and name on their screens and devoted entire segments of their evening and morning news shows to him, his family history and the role his disease may or may not have played in this massacre.

Quit giving these shooters airtime.

That is what they are hoping for. To go out in a blaze of headlines and TV coverage. Wall them off from coverage. We don’t need this information. And they need to know they will NOT become famous posthumously for killing a school-full or theater-full of innocent people; then shooting themselves. Instead, they will remain faceless, nameless people. They will not be remembered in the media or in the minds of the country. That is the last thing these crazies want. They want the notoriety. Let’s not give it to them on the evening news.

So I call for the writers, producers, directors and actors to re-examine their scripts and the messages they are putting out about the glorified violence in our society. It is time we heal rather than fight. Time we stage a come back for common sense. Just as more guns in society is not the logical answer for our problems, more violence on our screens isn’t either.

And Hollywood don’t cry First Amendment Rights!!!…because remember, the NRA is crying Second Amendment Rights!!!! just as loudly.

And you both are wrong.

I lost a friend today because of guns.

I apparently alienated an old friend yesterday with my notion that America needs to sit down and have a rational discussion about guns. That old friend was outraged at me

 He yelled, “You are trying to ruin America.”

I told him I was looking for a rational discussion and ideas to help solve the ever- increasing gun violence epidemic that grips our country…and he all but yelled at me… that Obama and I were after his guns, as if he were the only person in the world with guns. I explained to him it was not the case, but he railed on. 

I finally told him to either shut up or hang up. I wasn’t going to talk with him any longer. He had had a chance to say his piece, he had done it and I still thought we as a people should come together and talk about this issue, rationally and calmly. There are great ideas floating around, many of which I have shared in the last few days at this blo9f and other sites that are good thought-starters.

But if you are going to be so closed-minded as to shout and call the President and me pejoratives, I have no use for you any longer.

 I now have one less friend.

 I don’t care.

There comes a time when you have to stand up and be counted on, to do what is right.  If I lose a friend because of that, so be it.

We still need to come together and discuss this. Rationally and creatively and openly. We need gun owners and gun advocates and sportsmen and farmers and ranchers and law-enforcement officers, anti-gun folks and gun restriction folks as well as members of both parties from Congress and the Senate plus judges and lawyers to sit together and talk about this.

 We need solutions. But we need to start.

 I am lighter one less friend today. It is sad, but not nearly as sad as 20 dead children at the hands of a crazy man and his guns in Sandy Hook.

Too many guns. Too many excuses.

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This is an argument setting forth on the web in great volume.

AMENDMENT II

“A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

We do not have a well regulated militiaTop of Form.”

We do have a well-regulate militia...it is called the National Guard and they do not need citizens with assault rifles...or guns with twenty-plus round clips...When the 2nd Amendment was written we had no organized citizen soldiers like the Guard...but we do now, so we need to revise our unrestricted gun ownership laws to reflect the times in wihch we live now. Not in the 1700's. 

Guns are fine...let's license them like cars... like planes...like a million other things that have to be registered.

If every time a gun is sold or changes hands a title has to be drafted and logged in and registered, if there was a 28-day waiting period for background checks and metal stability checks, if we had a limit as to the amount of guns bought and sold in a year and the types (we do not need assault rifles… period nor do we need huge magazines for handguns…) the we can start to limit the amount of damage and carnage created like we saw in Sandy Hook. 

We will never stop all killing…but we can limit the amount by limiting the access to guns and bullets.  I recently wrote that if someone wants to perform sport shooting I am fine with that. No problems. Hunting, too. But that can be done simply enough with registered, insured, titled guns. In fact, sport shooters could join clubs and keep their firearms locked up safely at the club where only the member and the club pro could have access to them. Again, not denying the shooters their guns, but denying access to crazies trying to get guns.

These are the thoughts (starters only) we need to have in our nation about the control of guns.  Many have written me in support of what I have said and a few (very few) have written, pushing back.  I expect some push back. But every time I get push back I think of those 20 innocent faces of the children murdered in that school and think….enough.

I like to shoot guns. I’m quite good at skeet. I was trained well. And it is fun. Shooting is supposed to be fun. And safe. But driving is too and yet, we can title, license and insure automobiles and drivers…why not guns?

Back to original argument…We have a well-regulated militia in America now. Why do we need so many guns? The intent of the law has been fulfilled. The amount of the guns supported by the law is ridiculous.

Here is why we must have gun contol.

Here is all you need to know why we must have gun control...

‎1. Charlotte Bacon (DOB 2/22/06)

2. Daniel Barden (9/25/05)

3. Rachel Davino (7/17/83)

4. Olivia Engel (7/18/06)

5. Josephine Gay (12/11/05)

6. Ana M. Marquez-Greene (4/4/06)

7. Dylan Hockley (3/8/06)

8. Dawn Hocksprung (6/28/65)

9. Madeleine F. Hsu (7/10/06)

10. Catherine V. Hubbard (6/8/06)

11. Chase Kowalski (10/31/05)

12. Jesse Lewis (6/30/06)

13. James Mattioli (3/22/06)

14. Grace McDonnell (11/04/05)

15. AnneMarie Murphy (07/25/60)

16. Emilie Parker (5/12/06)

17. Jack Pinto (5/6/06)

18. Noah Pozner (11/20/06)

19. Caroline Previdi (9/7/06)

20. Jessica Rekos (5/10/06)

21. Avielle Richman (10/17/06)

22. Lauren Russeau (6/1982)

23. Mary Sherlach (2/11/56)

24. Victoria Soto (11/4/85)

25. Benjamin Wheeler (9/12/06)

26. Allison N. Wyatt (7/3/06)

Guns don't kill people...they just make it real easy to kill people.

Last Thursday ( a little over a week ago) I wrote a daily blog concerning violence in our country‑ violence with guns. In the blog I was calling for a nationwide discussion of the second amendment and what the intent of that amendment, when it was written, meant.  I decided not to publish that blog that day. Then as of yesterday, with the horrible news from the Sandy Hook Elementary school in Connecticut, I could no longer stand by without saying what I think.

I think that either:

(A) The founding fathers got it wrong when considering the second amendment or

(B) we have misconstrued what they wanted to protect by being so overboard in our protection of guns as to become stupid in our protection of our people.

In either case, I think we need a national conversation about guns and gun ownership and the Constitution.

I have been a sportsman all my life. I have hunted. I am a fairly good skeet shooter. And have over the years owned a lot of different guns. I am no longer sure I support the Second Amendment as it is being interpreted in America today. Friends of mine said, ”John you can make this a crusade. Too many guns out there. Too much control by the NRA. Too much money against you.”  Tell that to the twenty grieving parents in in Connecticut this morning. If we don’t start we will never get it done. If we take that advice my friends gave me— if we had gone down that road 150 years ago…then slavery would never have been abolished.  Wrongs have to be righted. And out-of-control gun violence must be stopped.

Lets get together and discuss guns. Rationally and without yelling and screaming. Lets discuss the code of conduct with guns and the society stung with the violence that comes about from guns. Lets find a way to end this senseless killing.

I heard a line from a movie the other night being repeated by two small boys playing in our neighborhood.  “I’m gonna put a cap in your head, man.”  One of them said. They were talking about shooting each other but the language is so loose and so street-level that the act of killing someone has been reduced to ease of spiting out a window.

The gunman in Connecticut didn’t put a cap in 26 heads. He took 26 innocent lives. There’s a big difference. One is a non-thought The other is murder. They are both acts of murder.  On the same day as the Connecticut shootings, in China a deranged man attacked 33 children at an elementary school. No one, as of this writing, was dead in that attack. Why? Because he used a knife. Knives are harder to kill people with. Knives versus guns? It is going to be a hard discussion, America. But we need to have it.

And don’t tell me guns don’t kill people.  A semi-automatic .223 Bushmaster rifle and two 9 mm’s killed 27 in Connecticut elementary school yesterday.

Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution:

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Where was the act of a militia yesterday?

What to do before the world ends on the 21st.

I have been wondering what I should do before December 21, 2012— the end of the world as the Mayans knew it.  I could take a quick trip to Europe. See pris one last time. Visit London. Go hang out with the Germans.  Or, I could go to the Great Wall of China. Maybe I could go take out the idiot in North Korea.  Or the ones in Iran.  No, they deserve to suffer like the rest of us will. I could visit Africa or South America. I could go surfing in Australia or New Zealand. Maybe take a dip in the Indian Ocean in Aceh.

There’s lots to do.

I could go and take a swing at Mitch McConnell. Or take a shot at Rush Limbaugh… proverbial or otherwise.  Hannity, too. I could go to Lake Louise in Canada or to Victoria on Vancouver Island. Maybe do some fly fishing in Scotland.

I could lease a new Ferrari. Who cares, I’m not going to have to pay for it. Jump in and drive it like mad. Ferris Bueller’s day off like mad. I could kidnap a Hollywood movie star and make her dance for me on a brass pole. (Does my wife get this blog?)

I could take all my money out of the bank, buy a bunch of food and feed all the poor I could find for one day. Maybe two.  I would need some help, so keep the 20^th and 21^st open.

If the world was going to end on 12.21.12, I could watch my top ten movie list one last time: I’d start with number ten — Toy Story and end up at number one — Shawshank  Redemption. I could reread Gone With the Wind. But why? I could take a long walk through a national park; say Zion for example.

I could sit and watch all the hoards of people fighting each other, trying to escape the coming doom.  Maybe I would buy a video camera and record their antics for some lost space traveler who might stumble upon the planet in say 2895.

I could set sail on the Gulf in a stolen yacht. Who cares if they chase you and try and catch you? The end of the world is just hours away.  Maybe I would go and free all the prisoners in all the prisons around the world. Maybe I would cook a giant meal and invite my friends over.

Maybe I would take a nap. All this planning is making me tired.  If I miss you on the 21^st, have a good hereafter. If we are both still around on the 22^nd, the Ferrari is your problem…I’m telling them you stole it.