Background Checks and Knowing Your Neighbor

Two major things happened last week. Two brothers, twenty-six and nineteen years old, bombed the Finish Line of the Boston Marathon, and the United States Senate failed to pass expanded background checks for people wanting to buy guns.
In the case of the two bombers, who also had assault weapons and fired them at pursuing police, their neighbors and family members all said that they were good kids and had shown no signs of violent tendencies. Doesn't this sound just a little bit familiar? So many times we hear of someone committing a violent crime and find that neighbors and people who knew him or her casually thought the individual to be a pleasant quiet person. For all you know, there might be such a pleasant quiet person in your neighborhood right now. Would you want that person to be able to purchase an arsenal of firearms without a background check? The Senate would...The problem is that Senators think that it will never happen to them, and they think that the votes and contributions from the NRA are more important than the votes of the rest of us.
Last week the violence from presumably innocent people hit my home town, Boston. A campus policeman was shot to death at MIT where I went to school. The FBI had already interviewed the older brother a few years ago. They may or may not have caught his desire to purchase assault weapons if the expanded background check system had been in place. With that system, they would have at least had the chance to spot his moves. Those two brothers were not the only ones among us, perhaps in your neighborhood, who have hidden violent tendencies and reactions to circumstances. Look at all the instances of someone being fired from a job and then returning with weapons to kill former supervisors and coworkers.

Expanded background checks won't catch every potential monster, but they would definitely keep some undesirable people from purchasing weapons. Even the NRA says we need better mental health treatment and need to detect people with mental problems. If someone who has been fired is angry at his or her former supervisors and coworkers, but doesn't own a weapon, they will be delayed in acting upon their anger and will have time to cool down. That's why background checks are usually accompanied by a cooling off period. Expanded background checks won't solve all of our violence problems, but the people they save are just as valuable in the sight of God as you or I. We have laws that identify sexual predators in our neighborhoods. Why shouldn't we keep felons, potential terrorists, and people with mental problems from stockpiling weapons in our neighborhoods too?

Enough! I Need a Change!

I haven't been posting regularly on this blog because I allowed myself to get involved in too many things at the same time. No matter how capable you think you are, you have to face up to not being a comic book superhero. We all have our limitations, and the key to success is to either avoid over-committing in the first place or to recognize the problem and develop a step-by-step plan for reducing your load to a manageable level. This also involves determining which of your commitments are to be eliminated or minimized.
Eliminate a commitment that is:

• Not satisfying to you, even if you accomplish it.
• Too demanding, because you could do several alternate things for less effort and/or time commitment and with a higher total reward.
• Not rewarding, in terms of either immediate compensation (may or may not be monetary) or in terms of long-term payoff through the opening-up of new opportunities.
• Goal-less. Some tasks are done, in juggling terms, for the sake of keeping the balls in the air. You don't want to keep running on the treadmill in order to stay in the same place.

What are the consequences of saying "No!" to a new or ongoing task? Sometimes you can stop doing something, and nobody will even notice. In other cases, you have to find and train somebody else to replace you, because the task must be done by someone. Occasionally, you can simply walk away, forcing someone who otherwise would never have volunteered, to step up, because the lack of a reliable person doing that job threatens the organization. You may be perceived as weak or unreliable for quitting your task, but if you can take that criticism, you may consider yourself a hero for forcing someone else to take responsibility and for giving yourself new found freedom to consider other directions and opportunities. The future starts right now. Re-assess your obligations and, if you feel overburdened, continue only those you deem worthwhile.

Walking Tightropes

In the Middle East, the fictional country of Ibrimia is on the edge of a revolution. Thirty-seven friends have managed to get the populace of the second largest city upset at the ruling regime. They have convinced the people that they could achieve many of their dreams if their country was a democracy. In this action they are copying the pattern of successful government changes elsewhere. The existing regime considers itself to be generous to a fault in providing free college education and healthcare, and in distributing significant oil revenues to all citizens.
If the activists force out the regime, the stability of oil income might end. While the majority of the population is in favor of democracy and new leadership, there is no agreement as to what alternate group should rule and with what agenda.
While the existing regime does not want to use military might against its own population, it feels that it offers the safest and most secure future for everyone.
What is the best course for each side to take in walking the conflict tightrope toward an improved future?

• Should the regime announce increased benefits and salary structures?
• Should the activists hold meetings to elect a "government-in-waiting" that will formulate and announce the people's goals following the ouster of the current regime?
• Should the regime offer big increases in employment on government-funded public works projects?
• Should the activists meet openly with government representatives to discuss possible power sharing and reforms of constitutional provisions?
• Should the regime offer term limits for itself and future governments?
• Should the activists attempt to split the country and gain international recognition for the part they control?
• Should the regime risk international condemnation by cutting off financial support and utilities to the part of the country it no longer controls?
• Should the activists invite outsiders to support their cause?
• Should the regime cancel the citizenship of the activists and offer citizenship to loyal immigrant workers instead?
• Should the activists seek an alliance of their part of the country with the neighboring large and stable country?
• Should the regime threaten the neighboring country with attack if it interferes in Ibrimia's internal affairs?
• Should representatives of both sides meet secretly to negotiate a mutually acceptable outcome?
• Should the regime ignore the uprising but ship its wealth overseas just in case the outcome isn't favorable?

If you were leading one side or the other, what would you do or recommend?

What's the Value of Conflict?

Most of the effort we put into interpersonal relations, and most of the effort our governments put into international relations are aimed at reducing or eliminating conflict. The tensions in our lives are caused by the many conflicts we perceive and encounter. Obviously, conflict must be a bad thing because we always try to eliminate it. This statement is not necessarily true in life, because we gain most of our benefits from negotiations due to the conflicts that ensue during the bargaining process. When you write fiction, as I do*, you learn that nobody will want to read your book if it doesn't contain enough conflict. People find books that are all happiness and void of conflict to be boring and uninteresting. Thus, we have a paradox between life and fiction. In life, we try our best to avoid conflict, while in the selection of fiction to read, we go out of our way to search for it. To resolve this conundrum, we have to look at the impact of conflict. If conflict impacts or affects us during the course of our lives, we seek to avoid it because conflict costs us in many ways: money, sleep, friendships, etc. When conflict occurs in a novel, it impacts fictional characters, and we can find that interesting without working up a sweat over it. It is the same principle that lets us enjoy a football game between two teams that aren't our favorites without caring who wins. We have no stake in the outcome. When one of the teams comes from our home town or college, we go through a psychological roller coaster process when our team looks as though it is on the way to winning or losing. The next time you find yourself in a personal conflict with someone, tell yourself that the outcome really doesn't matter that much, and you will find yourself able to think your way through it more objectively. If you don't let conflict emotionally suck you in, you will be more likely to be able to work your way out of it.

*To enjoy some conflict, read my "Lord's Prayer Mystery Series", books out to date: Lead Us Not into Temptation, Volume I, and Give Us this Day Our Daily Bread, Volume II. (written as Richard Davidson)

Sounding Off!

That last Blog Post in which I lambasted Google for their lack of service sure felt good! There are times when you get so frustrated with a situation that it is positively therapeutic to sound off and vent your hostilities. It may or may not do anything to solve the problem. I have no hope for better dealings with Google, but it actually made me feel better to let it out. There was a time when I was working as an engineer for Bell & Howell Company, when I had such a showdown with the Purchasing Department. They were very upset that Engineering was treading on their turf by placing direct Purchase Orders. Without getting into the details, I read them the riot act about maintaining schedules and having sufficient technical knowledge to purchase the proper components in a timely manner. I don't ordinarily sound off, and my confrontation so surprised them that they went out of their way to be courteous and apologetic from then on. It almost approached friendship. For best results, however, you should save your sounding off for a very special situation, like Google.