Things Always on my Mind

I have been fairly quiet on the topic of recent news for several excellent reasons – most of which are centered around the fact that there is enough free-flowing hostility (on both sides of the issue of gun control) and opinion pieces out there already. However, in the spirit of many of my posts, running errands in the truck inspired this post…

One of the reasons I hate using statistics is that they often need time to coalesce into credible numbers. Still… sometimes it can’t be helped. In this particular case, I feel it offers a bit of clarity in regard to my hierarchy of daily concerns and thoughts:

Five days of the week, my round-trip commute is about 57 miles…

Distracted driving deaths: 3,477 (2015)…

Wait… my return trip is later in the evening…

Alcohol-impaired driving crashes: 10,265 (2015)…

My back makes me quarrelsome and often requires prescriptions…

Drug overdose deaths: 52,404 (2015)…

When the prescriptions don’t work, and I decide to explore surgery…

Medical malpractice: 251,000 estimated (2015)…

As a bad habit picked up (and never fully kicked) from my time in Iraq, there are other self-induced health issues…

Cancer: 242,501 (2015)…

…Which is always on my mind in more specific ways…

Malignant blastomas: 58,919 (2018)…

…And because of my irrational fear of random electricity:

Lightning: 18 (2015)…

Finally, though I was not working as a Range Safety Officer at the time, I still spent a considerable time on the range…

Firearms deaths 36,132 (2015)… or… 13,515… OR…9,616 (depending on the source)…

You get the idea.

The despicable, yet predictable, rhetoric spills forth in every facet of media, from accusations of not enough done by our politicians and legal systems, to misplaced blame, to poorly-researched facts and opinions. It is a cycle we are as familiar with as we are frustrated by.

At the same time, I find it fascinating to come across the occasional islands of sanity in the sea of outrage. In 2015, the Shelbyville, Indiana school system completed work with a security company to increase the safety and security of the students. With costs ranging from $400,000 to $600,000, the active an passive approach to deterring threats to the students is noteworthy; however, an interesting contrast could be maintained when noting that CNN’s rate for a 30-second spot during the 2015 Republican debate was as high as $200,000.

You tell me what I should be worried about.