The Salient Observer

Jake Tapper is GRILLING Sheriff Scott Israel here! All the talk about the security guard misses the main point.  If this security guard failed in his duties, he is responsible for his actions.  If the training procedures were insufficient, they need to be examined.  End of security guard story. @14:35 Tapper is moving in the exact same direction Dana Loesch moved during the Town Hall meeting.  He mentions the medical personal that wanted to enter the building and Sheriff Israel rightly answers.  If the shooter is still active, medical personal needs to wait before entering the building.  After the Sheriff answers, Tapper brings up the issue again quoting the medical personal.  This is where Tapper is catering to emotions.  He should have said, "Fair enough, it seems the medical personal determined it was safe to enter, that will need to be examined" then move to his next point. Sheriff Israel is making a clear point--despite ALL the e...

After a school shooting, the next big issue is TRAUMA! Trauma:    a deeply distressing or disturbing experience We think Columbine was the first cultural benchmark of mass shootings.  It was not.  We have suffered as a culture too many times since Columbine, but read for yourselves how long this history goes back.  Impact of Mass Shootings on Survivors, Families and Communities . The more we look at history, the more we realize how information and wisdom rarely connect.  Wisdom in this sense is an accumulated body of information that is associated to a plan of action and growth.  What's the point of having a cultural awareness that takes us back to the McDonald’s Massacre. In July 1984, a man walked into a McDonald’s restaurant in San Ysidro, California, and began shooting employees and customers, killing 21 and injuring 15 others.   It ain't 1984 anymore! This is where we have a great illusion in our country.  We think becau...

Sheriff Scott Israel got sacked hard by NRA representative Dana Loesch after his plea for more of the very thing his office failed to do, apply the Baker Act on this shooter.  The evidence is overwhelming and yet it is here we witness how biased people are in evaluating facts. It is stunning how biased papers like the NY Daily News is and many others with this story.  Many misrepresent the very facts right before us.  If reporting is done so poorly when we can actually watch the very event being reported, then who ever reports on an event accurately?  This is an issue of integrity! I have read over 100 hundred comments over several news articles on this topic, and most of them are negative towards Ms. Loesch.  What happened before our eyes does not matter.  This is the issue at hand!  Despite overwhelming evidence, it doesn't matter what was said or is true.  This is America's disease, far worse than guns, it is an inability to think honest...

It will never work!  There, argument and discussion over. Teachers are mostly liberal in public schools.  They hate guns much less want to wear one in the classroom.  Yet the President spoke of this solution with such pride and a sense of brilliance.  His ego overcompensation was in full view on this lecture to his hand selected round table enablers.  Sorry, not a point of pride on my part, but sadly, and typically, in this setting we do not have men of courage to think critically in the face of the "president or CEO." If this talking point becomes part of the newscycle--a panel of teachers debating and military personnel discussing how teachers can wear guns we will have hit a pathetic low! Let me say this, it does on surface make some sense that if we had an armed person on the campus when  a shooter emerges and starts his rampage of spraying bullets, there is a crucial time period here.  The numbers discussed were 3-7 minutes of firing and...

It seems this is the theme of the Parkland shooting, young people, high school students who not only carry themselves better, but can think and act much better than the adults!  It seems there is a natural resource we have taken for granted and ignored for much too long-our young people! The Moment Watching a young Samuel Zeif on CNN with Wolf Blitzer caused the light to come on bright for me.  While speaking to this high school senior, Wolf cut to President Trump speaking (reasoning) with his round table of politicians and senior executives in the White House about resolving school shootings.  Some “salient” observations. The President rambled on about how a shooter doesn’t want to get caught and therefore if we had armed people in the schools this would deter a shooter.  Then Wolf asked Samuel about raising the age of purchasing a long-gun from age 18 to 21.  His response was classic, “That is like thinking kids in high school never drink or have pa...

Why School Shootings Change Nothing  and a Solution to Create Immediate Change The facts are clear and overwhelming!  America has lost control and our life is unmanageable.   The crisis of violence in America is faced by leaders in the same way a child faces their parent who drinks 18 beers a day.  In the face of drunkenness and chaos, verbal and physical abuse, the parent says, “I have no problem!”   America has the solutions to deal with its problems.  Ask any competent addiction counselor, someone who has heard hundreds of people sharing their stories of addiction, someone who has battled addiction in their own life and is sober for years and you will get the truths we need to provide solutions. The first step in the Anonymous groups is; “We admitted we were powerless over our addiction – that our lives had become unmanageable.” American life has become unmanageable!    How can Senator McConnell after an...

“How do you ethically steer the thoughts and actions of two billion people’s minds every day?” Tristan Harris asks this question because he was part of the design!  Called the “closest thing Silicon Valley has to a conscience,” by The Atlantic magazine, Tristan Harris spent three years as a Google Design Ethicist developing a framework for how technology should “ethically” steer the thoughts and actions of billions of people from screens. Highly recommend people listen to Mr. Harris !  He gives hope that someone will not sell their soul for profit when so many do.  Check out what he has to say, it will shock most of us to realize our devices are specifically designed to addict us!  Addiction that is as powerful as heroine!  Hope that gets your attention! Click here for enlightenment.

There might be no other recognized discipline in life that is more inconsistent and confusing than mental health.  Those professionally involved do a great and immense disservice by not recognizing this very fact.  Let me change my mind right here, the mental health confusion takes second place to that of religion.  Religion is the most confusing and complex.  I would agree that religion makes the same arrogant claim. Is there anything more controversial than faith?  Yet, if you walk into a specific church, they act like there is no confusion at all.  Outside of their doors is chaos, inside certainty.  How can this be? The only clear reason I can come up with is certain people have an ability to grab hold of something and never let go.  It might be the truth (by truth in the religious sense I refer to THE truth).  In the mental health profession there is more flexibility, but with the same “religious” certainty to their particular phi...