Once again, a person with access to high-powered weapons has killed a large number of people, this time in Las Vegas. What struck me was that this person fired from the 32nd floor of a hotel at a crowd on a plaza below who were attending a country music festival. The fact that there seemed to be only one shooter and yet over fifty people died and scores more were injured despite the shooter being about 400 feet away from them suggests a highly dense crowd and powerful, rapid-fire weaponry.
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The protests during the playing of the national anthem before professional sports events has caused some controversy with Donald Trump, as usual, inflaming the situation. In an earlier post, I asked why this practice even existed since it seemed to me to be so silly. Many people have criticized the protesting players for injecting politics into sports but as Justin Levin, the author of a “history thesis on sports as instruments of domestic mobilization during the Vietnam War”, writes, it was the introduction of the national anthem into these events that was an overtly political act to serve an overtly political purpose, to stifle dissent that was erupting during the Vietnam war.
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As the humanitarian situation in Puerto Rico continues to worse, Donald Trump has as usual tried to have it multiple ways, blaming the lack of quick response on Puerto Rico being an island, then saying that his administration has done a wonderful job in relief efforts, and when it is pointed out that it has not done so, blaming lazy Hispanic people and their shiftless leaders, because he knows that attacking people of color plays well with his supporters.
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