Singing Songs of Joy and Peace
This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.
Leonard Bernstein
I woke up this morning to the sound of gunshots. Not the terrible gunshots haunting my nightmares lately--the actual resonant booms of hunting rifles, nearby. Firearms deer season--when we heard continuous shooting, dawn to dusk--is over. It's ruffled grouse season, and anyone with a valid MI license can hunt rabbit or squirrel. I live in northern Michigan, where hunting is a way of life--my local grocery store had, literally, more than 100 dead deer piled up near the back door, ready for processing, just two weeks ago.Which is why I was heartened by this editorial in the center-right Traverse City Record-Eagle, urging my governor to veto a bill that allows guns to be carried into schools and day-care centers, among other places. Michelle Rhee's StudentsFirst has declared their "neutrality" on the MI guns-in-schools bill--but then, they've already had their say, eagerly funding the craven legislators who voted it through.
How can you be "neutral" on any of this? This is a national crisis of confidence--and all crises are opportunities.