Locker rooms no place for press

In spite of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which guarantees freedom of the press, there are some places where journalists don’t belong and are simply not allowed: At times inside a court room with closed proceedings, a jury deliberation room, a medical exam room, and in a legal consultation.

I’d suggest adding locker rooms to this list.

I have multiple reasons for this argument, but one is enough: An individual’s right to privacy, guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. There is also something to be said about plain, old-fashioned common decency respecting another person’s dignity.

Popular culture has gotten so wrapped up in media access that it has lost any sense of conscience. The only thing on our minds in this modern age seems to be whether or not we can do something, rather than asking ourselves whether or not we should.

The landmark 1978 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Ludtke v. Kuhn opened the door for female reporters to enter the locker rooms of male athletes, granting them the same equal access as their male counterparts.

Most people today feel equal access is a good thing. No harm, no foul, right?

But then there were sexual harassment incidents that followed in consequence to this equal access. The most talked about of these events was when Boston Herald reporter Lisa Olson was harassed by members of the New England Patriots after a 1990 NFL game.

Suddenly, the issue of female reporters in men’s locker rooms became a hot-button topic, and the debate over how to accommodate female press members lasted for months.

The topic, though, has seemed to wax and wane over time. It only becomes important when another harassment incident occurs, like when TV Azteca reporter Ines Sainz was the subject of comments made by members of the New York Jets while she waited inside the locker room for quarterback Mark Sanchez after a 2010 NFL game.

I’d like to preface what I’m going to say next by emphasizing that there is no excuse for the behavior of anyone who harasses someone else. They need to own their behavior and accept the consequences of their actions.

However, general common sense would tell a person that a locker room is really no place to conduct any other business than that of the athletes themselves. It is full of smelly, sweaty bodies and rank clothing. It is a loud and obnoxious place, full of chaos and no general order to things. The locker room is a place where a bunch of athletes are just trying to clean up and unwind from a hard day’s work.

As an athlete, the very last thing I would want in the locker room is a reporter waving a microphone in my face, eager for a scoop or an emotionally charged quote. Frankly, the locker room is no place for reporters of any gender. Period.

It is a place where individual privacy ought to be respected, and a person’s sense of dignity preserved.

That is really the best way to settle any debate over whether female reporters belong in men’s locker rooms. Should they be allowed? Per the U.S. Supreme Court, that question has been moot since 1978.

But do they belong there? Categorically no. Not any more than male reporters belong in women’s locker rooms. It is inappropriate to say the least. But it is also a reckless exercise that has trouble written all over its face.

I feel that encouraging women reporters to enter men’s locker rooms to get a scoop for a story is irresponsible, too. It sets up a dangerous precedent that puts these women in precarious, high risk situations where their chances of being harassed are increased.

While we have every right to expect male athletes to conduct themselves as gentlemen at all times, we must also acknowledge that this expectation is simply not realistic, either. The locker room is really the last place one should expect chivalrous or gentlemanly behavior.

And, by the way some of these women dress, I can only shake my head and wonder silently, “what in the world were you thinking?” Who are you trying to impress, and why?

They are certainly not trying to win brownie points with their editors.

Although it would be wrong to assert that a woman asks for harassment by the way she dresses, common sense dictates that when a woman dresses provocatively she should not expect benign or platonic reactions from members of the opposite gender. Ines Sainz and Erin Andrews tend to dress like they are on their way to a catalog shoot for Venus or Frederick’s of Hollywood. I see more legs and skin on them than I do male basketball players. They both seem to dress in ways that do not convey a sense of journalistic integrity or professionalism. If women like them are truly all business as sports journalists, then they need to dress ready for business, instead of seemingly dressing to impress the visual appetites of male athletes from whom they can gain an exclusive interview.

It is common knowledge that men are generally very visual, and are easily stimulated in this manner. No one knows this fact better than men; except maybe women.

When a woman wears a lot of liberal, skin-bearing attire, she sends a message—intentional or not—to men with whom she comes into contact.

Considering how brazenly Sainz dresses, I’ll wager she is not only quite cognizant of this fact, but it may, in fact, be a motivation of hers to attract attention so she can get to popular male athletes first.

Assuming that is true, then she and other women who may think the same way deserve the consequences of their actions. I know that sounds harsh, but when one makes waves, expect your boat to get rocked. Dressing with a measurable degree of sex appeal isn’t going to get a woman respect from men, either. Short skirts and short-shorts, very shapely skinny jeans, platform-sized stiletto heels, and halters or low-cut tops that display obvious cleavage conjure up images of street walkers, clubbing co-eds, or groupies more than they do professional journalists who deserve to be taken seriously; and have their jobs given equal billing.

I submit that athletes and their jobs need to be taken seriously, too. Invading their privacy and sense of personal space by converging in a locker room is not very respectful of professional athletes who are still on the clock.

The Constitutional right to privacy is just as important as the right to free press and the right to equal protection under the law, including Title IX equal access.

The media needs to honor and respect this right as much as it trumpets its right to free press.

The locker room is no place for any member of the media, male or female. It won’t kill reporters to have to wait for athletes to undress, shower, re-dress, primp and unwind for a few minutes before facing the cameras and microphones. Just as reporters must wait for a jury to deliberate before getting the verdict, they also should wait for athletes to finish their business before sharing it with the world.

Just as reporters must wait for a police investigation to be completed before information is released to them, they should also wait until athletes are prepared to face them.

And, just as reporters must wait for the team physician to complete his or her examination of an athlete before their conditions are released, so, too, should reporters be made to wait a few extra minutes for athletes to have the opportunity to exercise their right to privacy.

Verily a scoop, and who gets it first, is not as important as respecting the privacy of the individual. Simply having access to the athletes and coaches should be enough. Where and when that access occurs should be less important.

I’m thinking that if the shoe were on the other foot, and athletes were pounding on the doors of the news room demanding to be the first to read the final draft of a story, reporters might feel a little uneasy as though their right to privacy was being disrespected.

I say all of this as one who has some authority to do so. I spent ten years in the print journalism business, including several years on the front lines of a sports desk. I know about the pressures of deadlines. But I never let that effect my judgment or my perspective. I was a human being first, and a journalist second. I valued my personal privacy as much as the next person, and I had a fiduciary responsibility to honor the privacy of those from whom I sought interviews and information.

Removing all reporters from the locker room isn’t just the right thing to do, it is also a prudent solution to a recurring problem.

Rather than having to revisit Title IX all over again the next time a female reporter feels harassed in a locker room, how about we take the locker room out of the equation entirely? Let’s stop the victimization before it has even an inkling of a chance to start.

And, let’s stop playing the victim, too. Female reporters are guilty of this more times than not. Instead of crying foul in complaint, or in reminiscence of the good old days when athletes got away with brutish behavior, let’s move forward as professionals.

Frankly, I am tired of reading the blogs or columns of female reporters who seem to relish in recalling their own personal brushes with inequality as though they are swapping war stories. They tend to wear these experiences like badges of honor that entitle them to moan, groan and complain about injustice.

How about we get beyond victimization already by reducing situations and scenarios that naturally seem to lend themselves to bad behavior?

Kick out all of the reporters in the locker room, and maintain exclusive privacy for the athletes, coaches, and other team staff. Just because business on the field has concluded doesn’t mean it’s over in the locker room.

Let the athletes finish their business before doing business with the media.

And, most of all, let’s all try to observe the Golden Rule of “do unto others.” If we all tried to practice this a little more often, issues like sexual harassment and locker room access might not be debated.

Climate change remains an unproven theory

Science is a process, not a doctrine. It asks questions and sets out to test them for answers. But our culture seems to regard science in an animate form, like a guru seated atop a mountain.

We put science on a pedestal and submit to it as the final authority on all of our problems and important questions. We rely on science to give us all of the answers.

We even permit science to be the driving force behind public policy, in spite of the fact that science is a search for questions that remain unanswered.
Take the issues of climate change and global warming.
The predominant theory is that man is the chief cause behind both of these phenomena.
Certainly there is plenty of evidence to suggest man-made contamination has influenced the atmosphere. But nothing has been proven yet. Science has not been able to say either conclusively or by consensus that global warming and global climate change are man-caused and man-made.
Even though the American Meteorological Society (AMS) has endorsed the theory that these atmospheric phenomena are man-made and man-caused, not every meteorologist agrees or is ready to stake his or her professional reputation on that. In other words, there isn’t a consensus among environmental scientists.
There still exists skepticism and doubt, which is what science is really all about. It is about not wholly or solely investing in one finding, but instead demands more tests and asks more questions.
But the few skeptics who dare to express dissent are often silenced by the louder voices who have jumped on board the “blame mankind for everything” bandwagon.
Frankly, I don’t know the answers behind the problems of global warming and climate change. I don’t claim to know, either. But one thing I do know is that mankind tends to display a sort of arrogance in thinking that not only is he to blame for all of the Earth’s problems, but that he alone has the power to fix them, too.

If modern science is correct, and the Earth really is 4.5 billion years old, that means it has existed and evolved over eons of climactic changes to emerge in its present state as a globe bursting with diverse life and the means to support it.

The Earth has weathered cataclysmic collisions with meteors, devastating earth quakes resulting in the separation of entire land masses, life-altering Ice Ages, immense and expansive volcanic eruptions, and many more events that, frankly, eclipse in severity and scope anything that insignificant little man has done in the past two centuries since carbon-based fuel sources began spewing smoke into the skies above.
Mind you, I’m not trying to minimize the impact of air pollution. Clearly, polluted air and water have had negative, even devastating effects on the health of humans and animals alike.
But to suggest that man has the power to destroy the very planet that theoretically gave him life is as arrogant an assumption as a suggestion that man can also save the Earth, which is responsible for sustaining, perpetuating, and even selecting the life within it.
Despite the high opinion that we have of ourselves, mankind isn’t really all that.
Should we be responsible stewards of our environment? Absolutely.
Should we be careful instead of careless in the natural resources we use? Certainly.
And, should we do our part to take care of the Earth that takes care of us? Yes.
But that doesn’t mean it is within our power, or even in our charge, to save the Earth.
I’m suggesting that we approach the science of global warming and climate change with a tad more humility than we have.
Perhaps climate change and warming are a little less influenced by the ways of man than the ways of the solar system at large. Maybe El Nino is more of an historic weather pattern dictated by nature than by little, insignificant man.
And maybe, just maybe, mankind happens to be along for the ride.

And my presidential endorsement goes to...

Dr. Ben Carson.

There is something about this man that’s gentle and genuine. I cannot put my finger on it, but let’s just call it a hunch.

I inherited from my father an innate sense which he called a “gut feeling.” I call it a hunch. Same thing.

And, my hunch is that Dr. Carson is the type of person I would feel most comfortable with in the White House. Sure, he is a hard-liner on many issues, and sees a lot of things in black and white. But I can’t fault him there, because admittedly I do, too.

He is running his campaign less as though he wants the office of President of the United States, and more like it is a civic duty or responsibility.

This is in stark contrast to the obvious zeal with which Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are running their campaigns. They clearly want the Oval Office the way a child wants a toy he or she sees on the store shelf. Enthusiasm is not so much the word I would choose to describe their interest. Zeal and want hit closer to the mark.

And, frankly, I get easily offended by candidates who seem to want to be elected to office so badly.

What is it about elected office—and especially a room at the White House—that makes some candidates become so overzealous in their campaigns? Is it because one enjoys long hours reading and writing bills, in complex negotiations with foreign leaders, or handling a diplomatic crisis?

I’ll wager not so much.

Rather it is the appeal of the office, its luster and attention, its dozens of little perks that add up, and, of course, its power. Many individuals aspiring to political office have an ego to satisfy. They want the attention, the glamour, the power, or a combination of all of those. Histrionic and narcissistic personalities seem to mesh well with political office; especially that of Chief Executive, the most spectacular of all of them.

But Carson’s quiet demeanor is a refreshing change from the “yell and sell” ways of conventional candidates.

Trump has tagged Carson as unenthusiastic. Compared to “The Donald,” I’d say Carson definitely lacks the former’s histrionics and narcissism. He’s a much more reserved candidate who doesn’t make his campaign out to be some desperate power grab.

Trump, by contrast, is overly vocal, bombastic, in your face, and is about as graceful in public speaking as a bull in a china closet.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m all for plain speak. But I tire easily of political candidates who seem to do so for their gain; and not so much for the benefit of others.

There are those concerned about Dr. Carson’s qualifications for executive office. He’s a physician, after all, and not so much a business man like Trump or a career politician and lawyer like Hillary and most of the other candidates.

But one reason why Carson has attained and maintained at least No. 2 in the GOP polls is because he is very different from the candidates voters have gotten used to over the years. Voters have grown tired of career politicians simply looking to move up the proverbial ladder on their way to the top spot in representative government. They have also grown weary of politicians who talk a good game, but do not play one. These candidates make big promises, but fail to deliver the goods. They are long-winded, big-winded, and talk a lot better than they walk.

There are just too many of those types of candidates in the race yet again, and voters are fed up with having to choose between the lesser of two evils. They want a candidate they can truly believe in, stand behind, and feel confident about.

Very few of the 2016 presidential candidates can deliver what the voters really want.

But my hunch is that Dr. Ben Carson will hit closer to the mark than any of the other candidates vying for the Oval Office.

He is, in my estimation, at least an honest and decent man who not only has built a professional reputation on doing the right thing, but he wants America to get back to doing what’s right, too.

I cannot advise anyone else on how he or she ought to cast their vote, but as for me at this moment, Dr. Ben Carson has mine.

How many more?

A lot of people are asking themselves and the society in which we live this question hours after a fatal mass killing at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon.

I’m a native Oregonian, born and raised just an hour or two north of Roseburg. My parents called this mill city, situated between the North and South branches of the Umpqua River, home for a few years a decade back. I know the area fairly well.

Like so many other people, whose local communities become the latest casualties of mass killings, I was naturally taken off guard. It was hard to believe that such a tragedy could occur in little, old Roseburg, Oregon.

I’m sure the folks in Newtown, Connecticut, said the same thing. So did the folks in Aurora and Littleton, Colorado, Marysville, Washington, Charleston, South Carolina, Blacksburg, Virginia, and even in my current hometown of Carson City, Nevada, to name just a few.

But happen they did.

The question on all of our minds is why? We ask ourselves and each other this question every time there is a mass killing incident.

For some reason, though, we aren’t comfortable with the answers, so we settle for asking and answering a more obvious question: How did this happen?

That’s a much easier one to field. The “how” is the process or manner in which something is done.

We know how the killings were done, how they were carried out.

Guns.

That may be sufficient for someone like the President of the United States and other politicians who are looking to make a brief sound bite or two on their elected stage. But it isn’t sufficient for me or most other people who want to know why. The only “how” we are interested in is how to stop these killings.

For that, we must summon the courage to look deeper than the surface. We must not be content with scratching the top of the problem and saying that’s enough digging; I’m fine with blaming these incidents on guns.

President Obama, on the other hand, wasted little time pointing his finger at the inanimate object, the tool of destruction, used to carry out the crime. I find it hard to believe that a man with a Harvard education is willing to stop there, and not consider the deeper, more pervasive problems that exist.

To conclude that guns are the problem, and more control or regulation over them is necessary, is to ignore our nation’s more endemic cultural problems.

I doubt Tim McVeigh and his co-conspirators would have agreed that guns are the problem. They didn’t fire a single shot in carrying out the mass deaths in Oklahoma City two decades ago. All they did was load a few trucks with fertilizer, mix them with common chemicals, and boom.

I don’t think Dylan Quick would agree that guns are the problem, either. If you recall, he’s the perpetrator who in 2013 stabbed and seriously wounded 14 people at a community college near Houston, Texas.

Certainly the two brothers who carried out the massacre at the 2013 Boston Marathon would have disputed that guns are the problem. In spite of the fact that they engaged in a shoot-out with police following the bombings, the means of destruction were backpacks stuffed with pressure cookers and loaded with explosive material. Several people were killed and dozens more maimed and severely wounded by the blasts.

Even James Holmes, the shooter convicted in the 2012 massacre at an Aurora, Colorado, movie theatre may not agree. Investigations revealed he had a much greater repertoire of weapons at his disposal than just guns. He rigged his apartment with explosives. So, what if Holmes had decided to plant a bomb or two at the theatre instead? The result would be gruesomely similar: A lot of dead people. And we wouldn’t have raised the old specter of debate about guns, either.

Guns have been used in the vast majority of massacres in the United States. That much is true. But they are not the only common denominator in these attacks.

There is something eerily similar about so many of the perpetrators of public massacres. They have very nearly all been young males teen-aged to thirty-something. Most, though not all, have been Caucasian. Near as I can tell, virtually all of them have been the loner types, either preferring isolation by their own choices, or else bullied into it by others. And, they all have appeared to have some rather deep, pervasive internal problems.

Let’s see what we know so far about the Roseburg shooter. Chris Harper-Mercer was a young, white, twenty-something male. He was single, though he was looking on dating sites. In all likelihood he was a loner who felt alone.

In his own blog, Harper-Mercer lamented Vester Flanagan, the shooter who recently killed a television journalist and new photographer in Virginia by writing this:

“People like him (Flanagan) have nothing left to live for, and the only thing left to do is lash out at a society that has abandoned them. On an interesting note, I have noted that so many people like him are all alone and unknown, yet when they spill a little blood, the whole world knows who they are. A man who was known by no one is now known by everyone. His face splashed across every screen, his name across the lips of every person on the planet, all in the course of one day. Seems the more people you kill, the more you’re in the limelight.”

To me, this is a very chilling statement filled with more truth than even I would care to admit; having come from the mind of a loner nobody who is now an infamous killer.

Mercer-Harper seemed to acutely and intimately identify with the perpetrators of public massacres. He appeared very aware of the “why” question that we all want answers to. And, even in the face of his own warped conclusions on how to deal with feeling lost and alone, he managed to express the ugly truth that has been a bane of America society for decades now.

“For so long we have been taught that what’s important in life is to buy this and have that,” Mercer-Harper wrote in one of his first blogs. “To always have the latest fashion, biggest tv, fanciest car, nicest house, and blah, blah, blah. Well, the truth is we’ve become so attached to these things, our spiritual development has been halted. … This attachment produces so much of the stress and worrying in the world today.”

I really cannot argue with that.

This leads me to the “why” question as I have been pondering it for years now.

Modern society has fostered a culture of hopelessness. Perhaps not on purpose, but in consequence to other messages we have been sending new generations of people, of citizens.

Mercer-Harper spoke of a loss of spiritualism, which is ironic considering that he allegedly targeted Christians in his rampage.

But he was right about spirituality.

America was once heavily spiritual. However, in the last century, American culture has gradually become increasingly secular and agnostic. Our society has gone to great lengths to not only kick God out of school, but to silence Him in public. We have chosen to ignore Him, turn our backs on Him, and declare that He doesn’t exist. With that, we’ve also tossed out the hope that He brings multitudes of otherwise lost souls.

Spirituality, whether Christian or Hindu, Islamic or Buddhist, takes care of what is inside of us. While food and material provide for our physical human needs, spirituality nurtures the “being” in all of us. When we take that away, we remove the hope that our “beings” also require.

I’ve heard modern Christian theologians sum up the definition of hell as being without God; eternal separation from our Creator. If this is accurate, then American culture has created its own hell by turning its back on the one true Hope, the one genuine Comforter to whom we can turn in times of trouble.

Without hope, one becomes hopeless. When one is hopeless, he or she is at high risk of feeling desperate. Desperation leads to irrational thought and action.

Just look at what our culture has promoted in place of hope: Moral relativism, a chance existence, no boundaries, material importance, and male insignificance.

All that matters is what we can see, hear, touch, taste and smell; those things that appeal to our five senses. That’s all that exists anyway, so it is all that is of any significance or importance.

Right and wrong are relative. If it feels good, do it. Gray is the new black-and-white.

Self-control is just another word for social inhibition.

Our existence is by accident, a big bang that happened to lead to the universe and the Earth as we know it today. There is no design to the physical world around us. It’s just matter, that’s all.

Men are losing their places in the family, in the home, and even in their communities. Generations of little boys have been raised by mothers only, and they have learned through observation that they don’t have an important place in the family or in the home. They have been taught in their communities that male leadership is really chauvinism, so there isn’t any place of significance for them in their neighborhoods or cities.

There has even been a trend of single women choosing to become pregnant and raise children without a father, further cheapening and devaluing what it means to be a man in our culture.

Anymore, men have become pixelated on a screen, shooting enemies in a video game, blowing things up in a movie, or fulfilling carnal needs.

Imagine the conclusions that scores of young males are reaching when they observe all of this.

I once worked at a behavioral treatment home for adolescent boys. I remember seeing the boys play video games in their free time, blankly staring at the screen while turning pixelated humans into bloody messes.

Has the value of human life really been summed up in this manner? Has our culture become so desensitized through entertainment media, and digital fantasy, that killing just means earning points in a game?

I am, frankly, chilled to think that I may yet have an understanding of what Harper-Mercer was venting about in his blogs.

His rant about materialism is spot-on, too.

Consider how insane the lines are at Apple stores every time a new iPhone is released. Or the mania, the frenzy of store doors opening on Black Friday. Or, awaiting the release of a long-anticipated movie. I can only imagine that lines for the new “Star Wars” trilogy are probably already forming. Scores of people will camp out for days, even weeks, just to be among the first to get the latest and greatest, the best deal, or see the movie first.

Is our appetite for materialism really this bad?

Are we actually placing all of our hopes and dreams into little electronic devices that will crack and break if you drop them?

What happens when our material hopes do break? Are our hopes shattered with them?

I could go on and on here, literally filling pages of my thoughts on the matter of public massacres, what they mean, and why they happen.

But the bottom line is that our culture has decayed.

Young, impressionable men are feeling devalued, worthless, hopeless and alone. There is nothing to look forward to but the next iPhone, the next great deal, or the newest “Star Wars” movie.

I submit that human beings were meant to be deeper than this. There is supposed to be more to our substance than the messages conveyed by popular culture.

I personally don’t believe we exist by chance, but by design, and with a purpose. I don’t believe men have no place of significance in the home or in the community at large. I don’t believe in moral relativism. Black and white do have their places alongside gray. Feeling good doesn’t always make what we are doing right. Self-control is the key to individual liberty, not a method of inhibition.

And materialism has no soul, no intrinsic value. It may satisfy the “human” part of us for a time, but it will never serve our “being.”

Finally, I believe there is hope, because I believe in someone and something much greater than myself. I am not the end all be all of my own existence. I am part of a greater plan.

My desire is that more people will come to realize this truth, and learn to feel this way, instead of feeling hopeless, helpless, unimportant, and insignificant.

I fully expect that someone reading this commentary will dismiss it as just another rant displacing blame for the Umpqua Community College tragedy from where it belongs. To those I say that the perpetrators of these crimes are solely responsible for their actions. Blame for the results of their intentions lands squarely on them.

However, our society must take responsibility for the culture it has fostered to lead these people to reach their hopeless and desperate conclusions about the world around them. I have a hunch, a gut feeling, that the perpetrators of mass killings in our country have something in common, and it is their perception of the world they live in and their place in it. Our culture has sent extremely negative, self-destructive messages about ourselves and the environment in which we all live.

Our fiduciary responsibility is to hold ourselves accountable for this. When popular culture promotes a shallow, self-centered, materialistic world without purpose or hope, then it reaps what it sows.

The most dangerous weapon possessed by mankind isn’t the gun. It isn’t the bomb, the airplane or the automobile, either. It is something we could never create if we tried, but we all have it.

The human mind.

More destruction results from this weapon than any other conceived or contrived by mankind. The mind is what makes destruction possible, after all. The tools of the trade don’t matter. What matters are the choices we make to use them, the will we possess to manifest the hateful thoughts that are conjured up in our heads.

So, go ahead and heavily regulate firearms. Heck, ban them outright. And what will still remain is the human mind and its ugly capability to destroy.

Ban guns, and there will be an increase in knifings, like what happened in Texas a couple of years ago. Ban blades, and there will be an increase in bombings like the Boston Marathon or Oklahoma City.

If Harper-Mercer had instead set a backpack with explosives under his seat in class, then left to go use the restroom, and detonate the bomb, how much destruction would we be talking about?

There’s an old saying: “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

As long as human beings possess the will for destruction, regardless of motive, there will always be a way for them to carry it out.

Maybe President Obama is content to scratch the surface of a deeper, more pervasive cancer by trying to remove the tumor he sees on the skin. But I am not.

I see a much deeper problem that has only continued to fester, infect and grow. We’ve done nothing to try and halt the spread of this cancer. We’ve only sought to pluck off the tumors as they surface.

But remove guns from the equation, and the cancer still exists, still grows, festers and infects. The body will die in spite of our efforts to treat only the symptoms.

It takes courage to make an incision and open up the body for a closer look at what is really happening to bring these tumors to the surface.

If these massacres are going to be stopped, then we must muster the courage to go much deeper than we’ve been content doing.

It’s uncomfortable, painful, and embarrassing to find out what really lies beneath; but it is necessary to ward off further destruction.

If we choose not to, yet again, then I foresee incidents like Umpqua Community College happening elsewhere over and over again. Same result. Same reaction to it. Same cyclical pattern.

When will we finally get tired of it? When will enough be enough?

For me, the time was yesterday. For the rest of us, the time must be now.

Palin’s endorsement of Trump trivial

So former Alaska Governor and 2008 GOP vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin has endorsed Donald Trump to be the Republican Party’s nominee for President of the United States.

Big flopping deal.

Here we have one political opportunist endorsing another. So what else is new?

In the grand scheme of things, what Sarah Palin does or says these days is trivial and carries little weight with those of us serious about the political condition of our country.

This endorsement is coming from a person who quit her elected post as governor half way through her first term in order to pursue a book deal and a more lucrative career as a television media pundit.

She proved to me that her own self-promotion was of greater importance than the oath she took as governor. That has “opportunist” written all over it.

Trump, like Palin, is an opportunist out to get as much attention on himself as he can. He built a financial empire on his ego alone, and he looks to create a political one for the same reason.

He has more in common with P.T. Barnum than he does Abraham Lincoln. He’s a showman, a shameless self-promoter who will say anything controversial just to get a sound bite, a headline and a quote. It is why he sought his own reality television show. He wanted to stroke his ego, and in a big way.

I think Trump views the White House as the ultimate stage upon which to puff out his chest and bristle his feathers. No other stage can cause an ego to swell quite like the one in the Oval Office.

For Trump and Palin to be spoken of together is kind of like Wild West show legend Buffalo Bill Cody taking a bow with Annie Oakley at his side. No offense to the wild west legends themselves.

Should Trump accept Palin’s endorse and ask her to join his team, then his campaign will come to resemble a freak show even more than it already does. It will become a two-headed monster with double the zeal for self-promotion and attention.

I am saying a prayer that Trump’s campaign will fold sometime shortly after January next year when the primaries hit full swing. By then, the run for president will separate the men from the boys.

God help us all if our choice a year from this coming November is either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. We either choose a person with a deep psychological appetite for the White House, or one who wants it to be his biggest stage yet.

I wonder if Mr. T has considered a third party bid.

Green energy requires serious green

Have you ever wondered why there has been such a big push in the past decade or two toward so-called green energy?

I surmise that the reason has less to do with saving the environment, and more to do with saving the pockets of people who have tied up their fortunes in it.

Solar and wind power sources have been around for decades, but they’ve never really caught on. Kind of like electric cars. There have been fads and trends toward them, but none that have been proven to last the tests of time.

But the people who have tried, to their credit, to sincerely sell these products have found themselves knee-deep in capital debt and no way to dig themselves out.

The only answer has been to create a green energy lobby in an effort to gain not only federal dollars but the national attention that goes with it. The natural results have been legitimacy in the popular culture, and acceptance in the marketplace.

Now you have private enterprise and public entities alike literally investing billions of dollars in solar panels and wind turbines in hopes of curbing the high costs of energy consumption. All the while, the makers of these products have breathed a collective sigh of relief.

Their lobby has paid off. Big time.

These days, green energy is as big a business as environmental protection; another lobby that has cashed in on government money and popular culture’s all too willing nod toward anything that makes it feel good.

What I fail to see, however, are the dividends of this green energy. City fees still routinely go up, not down, despite significant civic investments in solar panels. State taxes also keep going up, not down, even though tens of millions of public dollars have been spent on solar panels and wind turbines. My energy bill hasn’t been reduced even though the utility company has supposedly been adding more and more green energy technology to its production lines.

As an individual consumer, the initial costs of solar and wind technology remain prohibitive. Industry experts, of course, claim that although initial costs are high, they pay off in the long-run.

Perhaps.

But, as a low- or middle-income consumer, I still have to contend with those prohibitively high costs of equipment and installation. For me, the bottom line is still the bottom line. We are talking five figures to get started. How many consumers have that kind of money laying around? And, how many are really going to seek the credit for it?

For those who can afford the initial start-up costs of converting to green energy, more power to you. Perhaps solar and wind power are sufficient to meet the energy needs of individual households…as long as those households can afford to make the switch.

However, the jury is still out as to whether or not this green energy is really adequate for meeting the needs of mass populations.

A close friend of mine is an engineer for an electrical cooperative. He has told me that the inherent problem with green technology is that it cannot provide nearly the same quantity of energy that hydroelectric, coal or nuclear power can.

He reported that solar panels and wind turbines measure output in kilowatts, while hydroelectric, nuclear and coal sources measure output in megawatts. In other words, for every megawatt of energy produced at a conventional, non-green power source, a green source must produce a thousand kilowatts.

This means that, in order for an electrical utility to provide green energy to entire communities, exponentially more power structures are required to equal the output of one structure of coal, nuclear or hydroelectric-generated power.

This means acres upon acres of land must been used to install hundreds of wind turbines, and thousands of solar panels.

And, that means governments must be willing to pay out millions, or billions, more in energy costs to convert to green energy that will power communities with comparable output of electricity.

This means an endeavor that is, literally, years in the making and at a substantial cost to taxpayers and utility consumers.

In the meantime, our country’s population continues to grow. It is soaring, in fact, with figures now above 300 million. This means demand for energy is also growing to meet the needs of swelling urban populations.

I’m not convinced that green energy has what it takes, either in resources or time, to meet this demand.

Until green technology can begin measuring output in megawatts, I do not see it becoming the predominant energy sources anytime soon.

You may be able to run your individual property on kilowatt output, but I think it is a mile-wide stretch to say an entire community can adequately run on kilowatts.

The problem is simple supply and demand. The demand for energy is very high, but the supply from green energy sources remains low. Until that changes, conventional sources of energy will continue to meet the demand.

Current electric cars, too, won’t stand the tests of time the way the internal combustion engine has, because their energy outputs are considerably weaker.

Electric cars don’t have near the range that gasoline-powered automobiles do. An average of one to two hundred miles on a charge is about half the distance a car can go on a full tank of gas.

Electric cars are also hideously expensive compared with their gasoline-powered counterparts. If the Chevrolet Volt had a gasoline-alternative model, it would likely cost about $10-$15K less, on average, than the electric version does. Plus, there’s the problem with the battery. It has a finite life, and after so many miles put on the car, the battery will have to be replaced. Only after the warranty has expired. Then the consumer must fork out thousands of dollars for a new battery.

Gas and electric hybrids have had this problem for years. It is one reason why my sister won’t buy another one when her battery gives out. She’ll trade in the vehicle for the conventional gasoline engine again.

My point with this diatribe is to illustrate how inefficient and ineffective green energy really is. It still has miles to go before it can equal the quantity of energy put out by those dreaded carbon-based energy sources. Until that happens, time and demand are the enemies that will determine the industry’s fate.

What exactly does it mean to be gay, anyway?

I’m confused.

Forty years ago, the gay rights lobby just wanted to be recognized for its existence and its lifestyle. A quarter century back, the gay community just wanted acceptance for its sexual preference. Then fifteen years ago, it sought legitimacy for a biological orientation.

My question is, which is it? The gay rights lobby could not seem to settle on whether it wanted to argue a lifestyle, a preference, or a biological orientation. When it did not win recognition for its existence and lifestyle, the ante was upped to a sexual preference. When preference failed to gain acceptance, then it embraced the notion of a biological orientation.

This latest argument has undeniably been its most successful, because now the lobby can claim legal status based upon something that just is. Kind of like the way a person cannot help the color of his or her skin and his or her ethnicity. Gender, however, has become a condition that is changed with an operation, or series of them. Just ask Bruce—er, I mean Caitlin—Jenner.

Gay rights had a tough sell for legal status back when homosexuality was a lifestyle or a physiological preference, because it was still viewed as a choice, oftentimes made from environmental influences.

But now, all bets are off. The instant some scientist claimed to have isolated a possible “gay gene,” the lobby has jumped on this band wagon and ridden it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Homosexuality, under the genetic theory, then is a biological orientation that cannot be helped or changed. It is what it is.

Really?

Funny how no one in the gay community argued that back when it was just a lifestyle, or when it became a preference. It was then what it was, too.

But a genetic explanation is more politically expedient, and a convenient way to garner sympathy amidst popular culture. They can’t help it, after all.

Can’t help it? Where is your pride? A quarter century ago, gay pride was taking a stand for one’s personal sexual preference. No shame.

But to claim now that homosexuality is a biological force that cannot be helped sort of neutralizes the whole pride thing, doesn’t it? If a gay person is proud to be gay, then why would he or she want to lean on an argument that says their homosexuality is something that cannot be changed. If one is proud, then why would one want to argue they cannot change? Would they even want to if they could?

Furthermore, the gay gene theory seems to violate the laws of nature as it is, and the theory of evolution. No other creature in the animal kingdom exhibits homosexual behavior for the sake of sexual activity. Some animals, like canines and other pack animals, may “hump” others in their group in order to establish superiority and their place in the hierarchy of the pack.

But they don’t do this for sexual gratification or because they are romantically attracted to a member of the opposite sex. Human beings, it seems, are the only creatures in the entire animal kingdom who exhibit homosexual behavior for this purpose.

If homosexuality is indeed biological, then how could it be isolated only to humans? Where is the research on other animals in the kingdom, and why aren’t other creatures found to have the same traits?

In my opinion, the gay rights movement had it right the first time. Homosexuality is a preference and a lifestyle, influenced significantly by environment. There is as much or more evidence of this as there is of a genetic explanation for homosexuality.

But popular culture, in its zeal to embrace yet another oppressed segment of the population, chooses to ignore other explanations for homosexuality. It has blindly accepted the gay gene theory, which is still just a theory. Nothing conclusive has been found over the past two decades of research. Not any more than the research on environmental factors of gayness.

And yet, here we are, on the cusp of social upheaval over gay rights and its blatant intrusion into the sacred religious social institution of marriage, with the full backing of the nation’s highest court. All based on a scientific theory that still has more questions attached to it than it has been able to provide answers for.

Near as I can tell, no “law” of nature has been written yet concerning homosexuality. The questions of how it develops still remain, and the debate continues. But we are content to award legal status to the gay community and give it the full might of the U.S. Supreme Court based on some theory, a scientific notion that homosexuality is like ethnicity. It is biological and cannot be helped or changed.

What in the world are we coming to? What other institutions will be infiltrated and, indeed, invaded by the lobby now that it has marriage ruled in its favor? And if public officials can be jailed, dismissed, disbarred or de-licensed for refusing to perform their duties on religious grounds, then can the religious community expect further violations if it refuses to admit gay members into its folds? Where will the social and legal assaults stop? Or, will they?

Mental health is Nevada’s albatross

During this year’s legislative session, my wife and I approached our state legislators about resources for Nevada’s most underserved population: The mentally ill.

There is a health crisis in our state, one which has grown into an epidemic across the nation, but one that is especially endemic right here in the Silver State.

Having lived more than twelve years in a state that seems to cater to many human vices, this comes as no surprise to me.

Nevada legalized statewide gambling in 1931. Gaming has lasted longer in Nevada than it has in most other states. Ours is also the only state that has legalized prostitution. Urban Nevada is notorious for its 24-hour lifestyle. And, the Silver State has a reputation for easy access to alcohol.

This is not to say that the legal vices in our state have caused a mental health crisis here, but they sure haven’t helped matters any, either.

Gaming, substance, and also sexual addictions are poignant examples of mental health problems that have sprung from the promotion and sale of the vices that cause them.

According to a White House study performed from 2007-08, Nevada ranked in the top 10 nationally for the rate of substance abuse among residents. The rate of illicit drug use and substance-related suicides in Nevada were higher than the national averages, too.

The Volberg Report, released in 2002, cited a problem gambling prevalence rate of 6.4% in Nevada based on year 2000 figures. The information was used by the State of Nevada’s Department of Health and Human Services in formulating its problem gambling prevention strategic plan of 2009.

Figures indicate that Nevada has one of the highest gambling participation rates in the United States, and also one of the highest prevalence rates of problem gambling in the nation.

This information should not be surprising to Nevadans, who have generally accepted addiction-based mental illness as coming with the territory of more libertarian policies toward the human vices.

But what should not be acceptable is the lack of mental health resources available to combat these problems and other mental illnesses that plague our population.

Besides the sale and promotion of various vices, Nevada also has a rather large transient population. Many of these people are homeless, and in desperate need of services; including access to mental health treatment.

In fact, the Las Vegas Review Journal in October 2014 cites Nevada as leading the country in its increase in homelessness. And, the Las Vegas Sun published an article in November 2011 that stated native Nevadans are a minority in the Silver State, consistent with the high rate of transience that Nevada attracts.

Perhaps this is one reason why Nevada’s mental health resources have historically been—and continue to be—woefully inadequate. Why should a state with such a high rate of transience invest money in treating illnesses that come and go with many of the residents that pass through its borders?

Point taken.

But what about those residents who actually live here, want to live here, and must cope with their illnesses in the face of inadequate resources?

I’m not talking about the basic outpatient services. There are a lot of counseling centers and clinics in Nevada. What I’m referring to are more intensive treatment services that offer the kind of support that severe mental illness requires; such therapeutic modalities as day treatment centers and residential care or support for those who struggle to live on their own. These are individuals who have fallen through the proverbial cracks of our community because they aren’t deemed severe enough to be institutionalized, but they are severe enough to pose a risk to themselves or others in the community due to significant functional deficits.

Even the number of psychiatric institutions is inadequate to meet demand for inpatient mental health services in Nevada, so those who need to be institutionalized end up in jail because there is no place else for them.

My wife and I found out first-hand just how inadequate Nevada’s mental health resources are. You know it’s bad when you have to look out of state for resources and services that are appropriate for your loved ones, because the state you live in does not have what your loved one needs.

In Nevada, the situation is serious.

Among our state’s youth, the problem is worse than that. It’s dire.

Compounding the problem of mental illness amidst our state’s young people is the number of children that end up in foster care in Nevada each year. Displacement from the home—and homes that, quite frankly, are placing Nevada’s children at high risk of exploitation, neglect and endangerment—is a root cause of many problems facing the thousands of youth in foster care in our state. The trauma they experienced while in the homes from which they were taken, and the trauma of displacement, lead to deeper, more chronic, and pervasive mental, emotional, and behavioral health problems.

If the number of adults suffering from mental illness hasn’t been enough for the Silver State to take action on behalf of its residents, then perhaps the number of children and youth suffering in our state will.

There are plenty of reasons for Nevada to finally step up to the plate and begin addressing its endemic mental health problems: about 2.84 million of them, to be precise.

If Nevada is going to continue propagating the vices of gambling, prostitution, and alcohol consumption, then it only stands to reason that our state should lead the way in providing adequate mental health resources to people suffering from psychiatric illnesses.

As Nevadans, proud of our independent heritage and libertarian ways, we must take responsibility for the social and recreational activities we allow to flourish here. We must hold ourselves accountable for the consequences of socio-economic policies that naturally lend themselves to psychiatric problems.

It’s time for Nevada to be a stand-up state, advocating for the mental health of its residents, old and young. Recognizing we have a problem is one thing, but actually doing something about it is quite another.

I advocate a greater portion of the gaming tax be allocated to support the treatment of mental illnesses that can and have resulted from problematic gambling.

I’m in favor of levying a tax on legalized prostitution to assist in funding mental health resources, as well as state and county foster care services.

Finally, there should be a nominal liquor tax specific to funding not only psychiatric treatment related to alcohol abuse, but also the lifelong residuals of prenatal alcohol and drug use.

I’m talking about fetal alcohol and fetal drug spectrum disorders that are the direct—and, sadly, highly preventable—result of using alcohol or other drugs while pregnant. These are mental disorders that should never be. But, unfortunately, they are. And, their prevalence is comparable to that of Autism Spectrum Disorders. Only the latter seems to get the lion’s share of media attention.

Those individuals suffering from FASD have lifelong deficiencies that require highly supportive and structured treatment. Once again, Nevada is woefully deficient in providing services, supports and resources for individuals suffering from FASD.

I’d like to think that a state which promotes liberal consumption of alcohol would step up to the plate and provide adequate resources for the casualties of this use.

I’d like to think that Nevadans aren’t ignorant or blind to the consequences of promoting social or recreational vices, and neglecting the resources needed to combat problems arising from them.

If Nevada’s mental illness problems are going to be adequately addressed, then our state needs more than John and Jane Q. Public to foot the bill. The purveyors of the vices that contribute to social problems need to be carrying a larger share of the burden if we are going to begin sufficiently helping those who need the help.

I hope this column catches the eyes of more than a few public officials, and that they take my plea, my appeal with serious zeal.

I hope many of you will join me in the fight to combat our state’s sad mental health condition. Things need to change, and it only happens when we do.

Taking an unpopular stand requires courage

Bravery is heroism, an act of valor, while courage is the decision to act bravely even when one is afraid. Courage is taking a stand for something one believes in, even in the face of ridicule or persecution.

Kim Davis, the Rowan County, Kentucky, Clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to gay couples, has taken a stand.

She has stated that her decision was made on moral rather than legal grounds. She has openly expressed that her refusal to comply with the law is based upon the laws of God, and not of men.

Regardless of how one feels about the gay marriage issue, or Davis herself, this lady’s courage in the face of criticism, ridicule and unpopularity cannot be ignored. You can call it homophobia, bigotry, ignorance, narrow-minded stubbornness, however you want to slice it. But Davis’s decision—and her determination to stick with it—is undeniable, unmistakable, and admirable.

How many of us would be willing to stake our careers, our integrity, and our character for a belief, an idea that will cost us dearly?

Undoubtedly, Davis stands to lose her job. She’ll probably end up being removed from office, and her professional reputation tarnished. But, it seems she is prepared to live with those consequences. She has decided that she cannot live with the consequences of compromising her spiritual principles.

In this day and age, sacrificing one’s professional career for principles is generally frowned upon. We are told to follow the rules no matter what. We are advised to comply with policy even if we have deep disagreements with it.

But, as King Solomon wrote in the Book of Ecclesiastes, there is a time for everything, a season for every activity under the heavens. There is a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from it. There’s a time to keep and a time to throw away. There’s a time to be silent, and a time to speak.

Kim Davis has decided that there is also a time for following policy, and a time for turning away from it, too.

Eight years ago, I faced a similar dilemma on the job. I worked for a child welfare agency, and my employer’s strict policy was not to place hands on children, no matter how violent or out of control they would become. One day I decided that I needed to act against this policy for the health, safety and welfare of two youths who proved to be dangers to one another. I restrained and removed one boy—who threw the first punch—so that the other boy had no opportunity to hit back. This action, I felt, kept a violent situation from getting out of control and resulting in injuries. But it also violated policy.

I remember being interviewed—more like interrogated—by administration over the incident. I was asked repeatedly if I thought there was something else I could have done and I shook my head. I explained my decision, and I stuck with it. I staked my job on principle. In the end, I lost my job. But I retained my integrity and my dignity. I stood up for doing what I felt was right, and I refused to give in to the pressure to comply with a policy that I believed turned out to be wrong in that particular case.

Although Ms. Davis will likely be impeached and removed from her elected post, her dignity and her character will be preserved, because she chose to stand up for what she believed in and refused to compromise on a decision she firmly believes is the right one.

Mark my words: This is only the first of many cases in which the SCOTUS decision will come into conflict with peoples’ religious and spiritual beliefs about homosexuality and gay marriage.

It is only the beginning of a string of controversies sure to develop. Can a judge or justice of the peace be jailed and ultimately removed from office because he or she refuses to officiate a civil ceremony for a gay couple? Based upon what is happening to Davis, I’d say yes. It can and it will eventually happen.

And, in fact, it has. Marion County, Oregon, Circuit Court Judge Vance Day has also decided not to perform any gay marriages on his own personal religious grounds, too. Oregon has allowed gay marriage since May 2014, and Judge Day since then has been steadfast in his refusal to preside over same-sex nuptials. His story is just now surfacing nationally, though, because of what is happening to Davis in Kentucky. Day is facing a judicial investigation which could well lead to his dismissal, disbarment and/or removal from the bench. All because he has chosen to put personal religious beliefs and values above the law of men.

If such things are happening to a county clerk and a circuit court judge nationwide, then it can and will happen to others who become directly involved in the gay marriage issue. The can of worms has been opened, and the slope is dangerously slippery.

Can a minister and his church be sued for refusing to preside over a gay wedding, or allow the use of the sanctuary? It’s not only plausible, but probable. Depending upon the church, and whether or not it embraces more socially left-wing ideas, the unfortunate cleric could find himself out of a job, cast out of the pulpit and excommunicated from the denomination.

How about a judge who refuses to sign off on the adoption of a child by a gay couple? Why couldn’t he or she be jailed, disbarred, and ultimately removed from the bench for refusing to do his or her job? Or maybe a social worker who refuses to facilitate the adoption process for gay parents? Could he or she be fired, arrested, sued, have his or her license revoked, or all of the above?

How about a surrogate mother who refuses to carry the child of a gay couple? Could she be sued for discrimination? And then there is the doctor, who may refuse to artificially inseminate a lesbian couple on religious grounds and end up facing a damages lawsuit, revocation of his or her license from the state medical board, and/or dismissal from the clinic or hospital at which he or she works.

The scenarios are broad, and seemingly endless.
 

Considering what is happening to Ms. Davis in Rowan County, Kentucky, I’d say anything goes. Any opposition at all toward gay marriage will face the might of not only one of America's most aggressive sociopolitical lobbies, but also the nation’s highest court.

The gay rights lobby finally has the legal muscle it has sought for decades to legitimize its homosexual lifestyle. It finally has the meat to enforce its will on others. Now, few things will be able to stand in its way. Intimidation of those who oppose the gay agenda will continue, and things can be expected to get worse.

Many people will allow themselves to get bullied into submission because of the SCOTUS ruling.

But, thankfully, not Ms. Davis. Hopefully, her courage will encourage others to take their stands for Biblical principles.

The gay lobby has the might of the Fourteenth Amendment behind it, the one about equal protection under the law. Ms. Davis has cited the First Amendment in support of her right to refuse the gay marriage license request on religious grounds.

Indeed, the First Amendment states that Congress shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise of religion. In taking her stand, Ms. Davis has chosen to exercise her religious beliefs freely without fear of government interference, intrusion or prohibition.

But now she finds herself in jail, placed there by a judge who has said she will remain in jail until she decides to grant the request for the marriage license.

Right then and there, her right to freely exercise her religious beliefs has been violated and impeded by a man in a black robe who is trying to force her to do something she feels goes against her religion.

And then there is the Ninth Amendment, which states that the rights enumerated by the Constitution shall not be construed to deny or disparage others (rights) retained by the people.

It seems as though that the right to equal protection under the law, per the Fourteenth Amendment, is being used to deny or disparage Ms. Davis’s right to follow her religious beliefs without fear of being compelled to go against them.

But where and when does one amendment trump another, how is that decided, and who gets to decide that? The nine black-robed justices of SCOTUS? Do they hold Ms. Davis’ fate in their hands, and that of others who will undoubtedly come to face similar dilemmas?

The incident involving Davis and the gay marriage license is but the first clash between the Fourteenth, First and Ninth Amendments. There will be more, and we must summon the courage to stand our ground on what we believe in.

Do you have the courage to stand your ground if or when you are called upon to do so? Can you do it at the risk of being unpopular? And, are you ready to accept the consequences of your decision?

Courage means standing your ground even when these questions cause you fear.

Ms. Davis has drawn her line in the sand. Are you ready to draw yours?

Moral degeneracy the root of our problems

Columbine. Blacksburg. Carson City. Sandy Hook. Aurora. Fort Hood. Nashville. Marysville. Charleston. Roseburg.

The list goes on a lot longer than this.

Whether a school, a mall or shopping center, military base, movie theater or a church, mass shootings seem to have become commonplace across America. Their occurrences are always shocking. The frequency alarming.

Instead of looking deeper into the reasons behind these killers’ actions, though, our society finds it easier to examine only skin deep and blame the weapons used to carry out their crimes.

Something drove these people to go to the descipably extreme measures they did. Something way outside of human reason motivated them to kill at random, spraying crowds of adults and children with bullets.

But we lack the courage to examine deeper what led them to the conclusion that senseless killing was the answer to their problems, and to ours. We not only refuse to examine, but we also do not want to accept the truth when it points squarely at us.

Nobody wants to believe that perhaps our collective culture has contributed to the mental instability of these severely disturbed individuals.

In most of the mass shooting events, the killers seemed to have a death wish; either taking others’ lives along with their own, or waiting for authorities to do it for them after they’ve committed their egregious crimes. What could possibly convince the shooters that life is not worth living anymore, either for themselves or for others?

Now, I don’t have the highest intelligence quotient, and I don’t claim to be smart or have all of the answers. But the Almighty has blessed me with the gift of insight. He has also blessed me with an accurate gut feeling, and the ability to know the answer based on hunches.

And my gut, a hunch, tells me something has been happening in American culture that has driven these killers to act out of utter frustration, blind desperation, white-hot anger and rage.

Modern America lacks something that was ever-present a century or more ago: Real hope.

The individuals who have committed mass killings within the past century were acting out because they did not sense that they had any hope for resolving their own conflicts. It was easier to blame others than to seek healthy, positive solutions to their problems. So, instead of being able to cling to something greater than themselves, something they could hope for, they acted out in blind rage and complete, utter hopelessness; choosing to snuff out lives that had nothing to do with their internal conflicts but nonetheless absorbed the ire.

For them, homicide and/or suicide appeared to be the only way out; the only real and final solution for dealing with their problems.

I find it more than a coincidence that the incidence and frequency of mass killings in America have increased as our regard for God, our Creator, has decreased.

Since the 1960s, popular culture has done much more than insist on teaching evolution in school to minimize God’s influence on humankind. The secular humanists, atheists and agnostics of pop culture have pushed to see God completely removed from school, from the courtroom, and from public places in general.

From the very beginning, the purpose was about much more than simply teaching another theory of human origin to school children. Scopes was a tool used to gain a foothold in the door; a Machiavellian means to an end.

And that end has been the death of God in American consciousness.

The people that have been steadily pushing God out of our daily lives have insisted that there is no God. He never existed in the first place. This has killed His presence in the hearts of millions of people, and with it the omnipresent hope that comes with Him.

Today our culture frowns on believing in things that one cannot see, hear, touch, smell or taste beyond our physical senses. If it’s not empirical, then it doesn’t exist. So, to put hope in something greater than ourselves and which transcends our senses is looked at as a fool’s errand.

To believe and trust in an invisible deity is naïve. We can only count on what is carnal; not what is supernatural.

And so, when the physical world lets us down, again and again without mercy, we become understandably hopeless. There is nothing to count on when our physical world betrays us. We are told we should not believe in anything beyond ourselves. But when we feel demoralized inside from all of the hopelessness outside, there is nothing to believe in anymore. And when we have nothing to believe in, life becomes meaningless and pointless. Life starts to take on a desensitized character. We begin to see it about as valuable as all of the rest of the betrayals in the physical world.

Human life becomes about as precious as those pixelated versions depicted in video games, movies and television programs.

Because modern American culture has denied the existence of God, we have been left to our own devices and to deal with our problems ourselves. Our Creator gave us free will, after all, and we must accept and live with the consequences of our decisions and actions.

The consequence of denying God is that we don’t receive His help as long as we deny Him.

And one thing I know for sure: We have no answers apart from God to the marked increase in mass shootings over the past half century. Arrogant man has found no solution to this endemic problem independent of God.

And that is why we are grasping at straws by blaming guns. They are empirical or carnal objects, after all, albeit inanimate. But it’s easier to blame them than look into ourselves and ask why.

We are treating the symptoms of a deeper, more pathological problem. Consequently, the problem still exists and we are doomed to see it repeated indefinitely.

Many people in America today lack the moral aptitude sufficient for understanding right from wrong; or, perhaps more poignantly, why there is right and why there is wrong. They’ve been taught by the very people who insist God and His decrees are non-existent that there are more gray areas than black and white. Right and wrong are relative terms, and differ from individual to individual, culture to culture.

The lines of right and wrong, and their very distinctive boundaries, have gotten blurred. The lines have gotten crossed, so that right is now perceived as wrong, and wrong is now perceived as right.

The result has been chaos.

We have heard these messages for decades: There is no purpose to life; our being here is entirely by accident. The complexity of life as we know it was a complete fluke. So, go and do your own thing. Do what makes you feel good, and disregard what others think.

People have taken this message to heart, and now they have absolutely no regard for others; either morally or civilly.

Our actions, collectively and individually, are self-serving. There is no better example of this than on Black Friday morning when mobs of people rush the stores to get the best deal before anyone else can.

People have gotten into brawls over material. They’ve crushed to death people in their mob-like frenzy. All in selfish endeavors.

In truth, there are times when what others think does matter. For instance, society has determined that sexual exploitation of children is a crime, so should a person go ahead and do it because it makes them feel good, disregarding what others—meaning collective society—may think?

We have determined that bullying is wrong, too, but we are perhaps intruding upon someone else’s right to feel good at the expense of others without regard for their feelings or what they may think about that.

When a person in the wilderness loses his compass, his chances of getting lost are much greater. The American people have lost their moral compass in a wilderness of chaotic relativism.

The truth is that life is not just a cauldron full of random ingredients that make up some sort of strange stone soup. It is not simply chaos occurring whenever and however it does.

There is a purpose to life, and there is a compass that can help us navigate through the chaotic events that seem to overcome our physical senses.

The truth is that this compass is not relative, either. There is a true north, just as there is with a physical compass. There is a south, an east and a west, too. Its directions are not whatever we want them to be, and whatever makes us feel good.

And the truth is that God is not dead, after all. We’ve just killed His existence in our hearts, and with Him a moral compass to direct our lives, to give us hope.

Theologians have defined Hell as being separated from God. When we deny His existence, kill Him in our hearts, then we are choosing to live separate from Him. And the life we forge for ourselves becomes our own Hell on Earth.

Perhaps this is the greatest tragedy that has come with the sense of hopelessness so many people feel today. They are literally living in a man-made Hell that doesn’t have to exist. But we’ve chosen it, and many more people don’t even realize it.

In their minds, this is the way life is and always has been: A meaningless, hopeless, purposeless pit of existence.

Historic King Solomon of Israel expressed in the Book of Ecclesiastes the futility of all of our actions apart from God. Everything is meaningless if done without God.

He was right.

Hopelessness has now become an epidemic that has infected old and young alike. It is the youth, especially, who are most vulnerable because they aren’t mature enough to cope with life’s disappointments. Without God, things get bleak and hopeless pretty darned fast. And they are the ones who have routinely taken their own lives along with others. They seek a way out of the chaos of life, out of the hopelessness, purposelessness and meaninglessness that they have perceived human life to be.

If we are going to get anywhere close to solving the problem of moral degeneracy, which has led to the increased frequency in mass killings, then we need to acknowledge the existence of God. We need to bury our human pride and reach out to Him for help. We need to honor instead of despise Him.

If we do not, and we continue on our present course, then current trends will continue, even worsen, and the events that follow will serve only to continually humiliate us.

Jesus Christ says in His Gospel that those who humble themselves will be exalted, and those who exalt themselves will be humbled.

Humans have been humbled numerous times throughout their history. And, in America, the mass shootings of the past century should have served to humble us as well. But we insist on continuing to exalt ourselves, so we are continually humiliated by our pride.

The Old Testament Book of Proverbs also says that pride comes before a fall. America has fallen so much, that you’d think it would have shaken all of the pride out of us by now. But no. We continue to proudly exalt ourselves, deny God, and insist on going this life alone and apart from Him.

How many more falls do you suppose we may be due?

I perish the thought, and so should you.

Don't give up...on life or your dreams

There is a part in the movie “Tin Cup” where Kevin Costner’s character refuses to quit.

Professional golfer Roy McAvoy is on the 18^th fairway in the final round of the U.S. Open, trying to clear the ominous water hazard separating him from the green.

His first ball falls well short of the green, splashing into the water. So does the second. The third. And the fourth shot. All the while, the entire gallery, the players and even McAvoy’s caddy are gasping at the futility of his efforts.

But not Roy.

With each failed attempt, he places a new ball on the spot and hits it with even more determination than the first.

Until finally, after several failed attempts, McAvoy’s ball clears the water and rolls into the cup.

And even though he didn’t win the Open, McAvoy had proven a point: Don’t give up. Keep trying.

Of course, there was a scene in the movie were McAvoy was ready to throw in the towel. Yet he was reminded of his dream and all that it had taken to get so close to it.

It’s easy to let long odds or repeated failures rule out our dreams. Just ask Rudy Ruettiger, the undersized and over-tenacious dreamer who ended up outlasting some of America’s most highly touted athletes to make the best college football team in the country.

Not only did he lack the physical prowess to play at Notre Dame, but Ruettiger also did not have the grades to gain entry into one of the nation’s most prestigious private universities.

As a result, many of Ruettiger’s contemporaries doubted him. His dream was just a dream and nothing more.

But Rudy was determined to prove everyone—including himself—wrong. Yes, even Rudy struggled with doubt.

He spent two years diving headlong into his studies at Holy Cross Junior College in an effort to qualify for admission to Notre Dame.

He was turned down every semester leading up to his final one of eligibility when he finally achieved acceptance.

Once there, the going got tougher for Rudy. He had to work extra hard and endure a high degree of ridicule just to win a spot on the football practice squad. He then took a tremendous physical beating from the varsity players against who he scrimmaged.

But no matter how many times Rudy got knocked down, he’d rise right back up on his feet to take yet another hit. He had collected two years’ worth of cuts and bruises just for an opportunity to suit up for one game.

Finally, Rudy had earned a spot on the team during its last home game of the 1974 season. In 1992, a movie was made in tribute to Rudy’s spirited achievement.

Everyone has a dream, no matter how far-fetched it may seem. But it’s up to each of us to decide how badly we want it.

As a kid, I had a dream to author my own comic strip to appear alongside Charles Schulz’s “Peanuts” and Jim Davis’ “Garfield.” But I let all of the little details in life get in the way of pursuing this dream. If it wasn’t college, then it was trying to land my first full-time job. If it wasn’t work, then it was graduate school. And if it wasn’t graduate school, then it was changing careers or the pursuit of a promotion.

I even used my growing family as reason enough not to pursue my dream.

Well, now I find myself in a place in life where the only doors that seem to be open to me at this time are related to my cartoon art and developing a comic strip. This occurred after a diagnosis that left me disabled and out of work. I have been unsuccessful in all other work-related pursuits outside of my artwork.

Right now, that is what is driving me. My dream is back, alive, well and thriving. I realized how much time I wasted with one excuse after another, and one reason after another for not chasing the dream that used to motivate me when I was younger.

Now the fire is back, and there is no greater satisfaction than chasing a dream with all the fervor of youth long forgotten.

After more than 20 years of letting life’s little details distract me from a goal I set before even starting puberty, I am back on track. God willing, I will stay the course this time around. I don’t want any regrets. I don’t want to look back twenty years from now and wish that I coulda, shoulda or woulda done something different.

Perhaps the best thing about resurrecting my dream at this stage in life is that I am mature enough to understand and accept that failure is going to be part of the chase. It will test my determination and my resolve. A much younger me might have gotten discouraged and given up after the first couple of rejections.

No dream has ever been realized without a substantial amount of work, sacrifice, and disappointment. It doesn’t take much to dream. However, much effort is required to make it come true.

But if I can do it at a stage in life when most people are unwilling to change careers and take these kinds of risks, then so can anyone else with the drive and determination to chase a dream again.

Don’t be afraid to dream. Furthermore, don’t be afraid to fail. For dreams only die when we stop chasing them.