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Christi Diggs
on May 23 2013 - 06:00 AM
A drop of spin, a cup of deception and tsp. politics=Apathy
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Lindsay Metcalf
on May 22 2013 - 06:00 AM
When that tornado siren sounds, I'm in the basement
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mara williams
on May 21 2013 - 06:00 AM
Summer break has this mom on a house upkeep war path.
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- kim nakahodo - Profile | Pictures | Blog
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I will be honest; I didn’t watch one lick of news this weekend. As soon as I heard about Friday’s tragedy, I turned off the news feeds – all of them. No TV news, no online news, no Facebook links and I didn’t even look at Twitter. I don’t want to hear about it. Just the thought of the incident turns my stomach and sends a wave of conflicting emotions over me. Anger, disgust, rage, sorrow, shame, agony, horror….I don’t have the answers. These incidents are on the rise but why? Are they on the rise because we sensationalize these madmen? Because we as a nation have willingly let the mental health safety net become non-existent? Because it is just as easy to buy a firearm as a flat-screen TV with in-store credit? Is it that we as a society are just more violent? It is because we do not know right from wrong any more? (One of my questions in these stories is where is dad?)I don’t think we can blame any one person or cause. This problem exists because of all of those reasons and because of us. We have let this happen. We have glorified these crazies, we have chosen not to fund mental health and we have kicked the can down the road on several tough topics.Let me get one thing straight. I am not for banning guns – I have a gun for home defense. Without getting into details, I feel I can speak for both sides since I have been a victim of gun violence. Bad guys will always be able to get guns and heavily restricting home defense guns is not the answer. I do think we as a nation need to look into some form of regulation on guns. I don’t claim to know what that should look like; I will leave that up to the experts.As for mental health, yes, we as a nation have chosen not to fund the mental health safety net. Anyone who has worked for a city, specifically police, knows this. Many of the people our officers 'deal with' suffer from untreated mental health issues. We choose to incarcerate people that could really benefit from counseling and medication. For some reason, we sleep better at night and think that is a cheaper route. I am preaching to the choir for many of you who have worked with any homeless population in any city around the United States.Mental Health serivces have taken a bad wrap in our culture. Their treatments are not as quick as medical health, you can't walk into an ER an get a shot to fix things. Counceling and pharmaceuticals take time and money. Two things that no one likes to hear. Full disclosure, after the afore mentioned no-details event, I should have sought counseling. I stupidly thought it seemed weak and it would have meant that my villains ‘won.’ It’s one of the few regrets in my life.So where does that leave us. The two topics I elaborated on will take YEARS to change and a major culture shift to actually happen. So what can we implement quickly and with negligible cost?I would propose we train our kids for these types of events.You heard me, have schools practice and have escape routes like we do for tornado drills. You figure, we used to train kids how to react to bombings and fall out… what’s the difference?Is it a perfect solution, no. Will it save everyone? NO. You can’t predict crazy, and you can’t fully prepare for every disaster. But I do think we can better prepare our kids to react and help improve their odds if they ever find themselves in this situation. The City of Houston put together a video after the Colorado shootings. Even though this video has taken a beating, I think there is some valuable information in it. To see the video, click here.This video is not the perfect answer; there is no single answer to this problem. If the solution was fast, easy or cheap, we would have done it already. This problem transcends race, class, culture, geography, age and gender. We as a society are going to need to come together to work through this challenge. It’s the only way we can even hope to reverse this trend.
Schools do train students and staff with "Code Red" drills. Teachers herd their kids into the classroom (if necessary), lock the door, turn off the lites, and have the kids hide in the coat closet or a back corner or under desks (anywhere they can't be seen from the door). They also lock down the entire school so that no one enters or leaves (I was once in a school during a lock down drill). It's sad, but I've trained my kids to RUN if they hear gunshots when not at school. Don't stand there and try to figure it out, just RUN. Run for help, run home, just run. I'm deferring judgements and action plans on this issue until I hear more facts, not speculations. My kids and I are sending cards to the school, because it's the best thing we can think of for now.
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