Tomorrow is the first anniversary of the murders at Parkland High School.

In the twelve months since 2/14/18, there have been 1200 young people gunned down in this country.

1200.

In a project titled Since Parkland, student reporters have refused to let these needless deaths go unmarked. This project chooses to mark each and every death, putting names and faces and human stories to each and every loss.

“Working with The Trace, The Miami Herald, and McClatchy, student reporters set out to measure the void left in homes and classrooms that have lost young people to the pull of a trigger.”

Here in 2019, when the president chooses to foment fears and rail about a useless wall while ignoring this carnage, these stories underscore the callous inhumanity of the man. Ditto our Congress with its perpetual and cowardly refusal to take meaningful action. They offer thoughts and prayers while accepting handouts from NRA lobbyists and cow-towing to 2nd amendment bullshit.

And the project also calls out the media for its reporting and its focus on ‘mass shootings’ rather than on the true scope and horrifying, everyday impact of gun violence. These are student reporters, taking things into their own hands and refusing to let the deaths of their peers sink into oblivion for the American public.

Their stories tell us to turn our heads back and look, then look again, and again.

1200 times.

The need for action on this front is so clear. And the reasons for inaction are so deplorable. My hope is that people will stop looking away and the American electorate will demand a saner path of those in a position to forge it. Making these stories visible is a step on that path.

…and the real POTUS just whines

Meanwhile, in the real Oval Office, the performance artist known as Ann Coulter has weighed in on the wall. Communicating in the only format he understands, she is likely scaring the orange blob of protoplasm in the White House away from any kind of sane action. Instead, she prods him with her long index finger, moving the sensitive snowflake toward another Government shutdown.

And aside from the wall, Annie has other outrages to report in her Twitter feed. Apparently, something happened to her “Likes” yesterday and it sent her into a tailspin. Paranoia took over, as is its wont with conspiracy theorists.

She and her followers descended into tantrum country, where they intersected with the orange blob and they all commiserated. Having found a common enemy, Twitter libtards, they fell peacefully asleep in one another’s arms.

Postscript

I apologize for digressing and getting entangled with Annie again. The bad news is that I did go hunting for her on Twitter, knowing I’d be satisfactorily annoyed. The good news is I only stayed long enough to find the above. And the even better news is, I didn’t post a comment.