Nice column as always, Rex. Thanks. But I'd put one other matter in line right at the top alongside climate change. Gun control. It's an indicator of the insanity of our current situation that there's an uncontroversial federal law prohibiting the sale of cherry bombs, because they might blow the fingers off of kids, but there's no federal law prohibiting the sale of military assault weapons, even though they can, and tragically often do, blow the heads off of kids. The evidence is overwhelming that the Second Amendment came about because slaveholding Southern States were terrified about violent slave uprisings, such as the one that created Haiti, and they feared that, without the Second Amendment, abolitionist Northern States would prohibit State militias in the South, leaving enslavers vulnerable. It had nothing to do with a situation that ends up having a disturbed fourteen-year-old boy in Georgia receiving an AR-15 from his irresponsible father and then using it to shoot up his school.
Weird, I've yet to see someone with similar views on the wearing of hats backward. Just seeing that was enough for me to enjoy the post. I've yet to grasp why the trend is so popular. I thought it was just a Texas 'thang'.
But the real value was your discussion of heuristics as mental shortcuts shaped by media coverage and personal experiences. I literally just finished reading this week an excellent read on this entire area of 'odd' thinking. Amanda Montell's The Age of Magical Overthinking. Recommended.
Nice column as always, Rex. Thanks. But I'd put one other matter in line right at the top alongside climate change. Gun control. It's an indicator of the insanity of our current situation that there's an uncontroversial federal law prohibiting the sale of cherry bombs, because they might blow the fingers off of kids, but there's no federal law prohibiting the sale of military assault weapons, even though they can, and tragically often do, blow the heads off of kids. The evidence is overwhelming that the Second Amendment came about because slaveholding Southern States were terrified about violent slave uprisings, such as the one that created Haiti, and they feared that, without the Second Amendment, abolitionist Northern States would prohibit State militias in the South, leaving enslavers vulnerable. It had nothing to do with a situation that ends up having a disturbed fourteen-year-old boy in Georgia receiving an AR-15 from his irresponsible father and then using it to shoot up his school.
Weird, I've yet to see someone with similar views on the wearing of hats backward. Just seeing that was enough for me to enjoy the post. I've yet to grasp why the trend is so popular. I thought it was just a Texas 'thang'.
But the real value was your discussion of heuristics as mental shortcuts shaped by media coverage and personal experiences. I literally just finished reading this week an excellent read on this entire area of 'odd' thinking. Amanda Montell's The Age of Magical Overthinking. Recommended.