Monthly Archives: February 2018

The AR-15 is Different

Radiologist Heather Sher, writing for The Atlantic:

In a typical handgun injury that I diagnose almost daily, a bullet leaves a laceration through an organ like the liver. To a radiologist, it appears as a linear, thin, grey bullet track through the organ. There may be bleeding and some bullet fragments.

I was looking at a CT scan of one of the victims of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, who had been brought to the trauma center during my call shift. The organ looked like an overripe melon smashed by a sledgehammer, with extensive bleeding. How could a gunshot wound have caused this much damage?

The reaction in the emergency room was the same. One of the trauma surgeons opened a young victim in the operating room, and found only shreds of the organ that had been hit by a bullet from an AR-15, a semi-automatic rifle which delivers a devastatingly lethal, high-velocity bullet to the victim. There was nothing left to repair, and utterly, devastatingly, nothing that could be done to fix the problem. The injury was fatal.

Update: Asha Rangappa:

This is a must-read. It illustrates why the NRA is so reluctant to allow the CDC to research gun violence as a public health issue: The facts would be devastating.

This is craziness.

About American Violence

We, U.S. citizens, have given our approval to our gun problem because we refuse to force “our” government to do our bidding. We post our outrage on social media (hi!!) but we will not do what must be done because it requires getting off our asses and into streets and gov offices.

Ultimately, it is either a government of and by the people or it is not. Generally speaking it is not. We pretend it is a form of “democracy” but we know it’s not. It’s a farce run by the wealthy. We KNOW this. But to change it would be frightening and difficult-we are complicit.

When we are willing to shut down the country, for real, SHUT IT DOWN with tactics such as general strikes then change will happen. When we occupy DC and shut it down we will have change. But it won’t happen because not only is our gov broken, we are broken. And scared. And lazy.

The hell we’ve created is made stable by our apathy. It’s foundation is our apathy. It’s violence is our apathy. So when these things happen we should go to the nearest mirror if we want to see who it is that’s responsible.

Denny H

February 14, 2018

Revisiting iTunes with HomePod

I’ve been enjoying my old music along with the new but using iTunes on my Mac rather than streaming via Apple Music. AirPlay works great from Mac to HomePod, the old Remote app still works pretty well on iPad/iPhone (Even with the dated interface!)