Well, yeah, Biden has done the most for Americans, he is the American president so that is to be expected, but he has also been a steady hand through the turmoil that is rattling the rest of the planet. We are all linked now globally so, while I don't expect to convince MAGA fans of that, it is the truth and so the US does need to step up and provide the aid it does...it matters both in the practical and in symbolic ways. 

Yeah, while Israel and Hamas started to go at it, a mass shooting (rapidly followed by several others) occurred in Maine, 18 dead, as a firearms instructor walked into a bowling alley and started mowing people down with his assault rifle. In the aftermath of this in what could only be seen as the darkest form of comedy, Lauren Boebert and George Santos (who should have never been elected in the first place) two of our most hideous Republican congresspeople, launched a bill to declare the AR-15 assault rifle the "National Gun of the United States."

Jesus, really, what can be said in response to that. If someone wrote that as fiction or as a joke people would find it too ridiculous and outrageously offensive that they would claim it was too dumb to be reality. 

Nope. That is reality here. Mick, I know you guys have loons over there too but we have elected officials now that are so stupid, just so goddamn dumb and ignorant, that after yet another mass shooting they would want to declare the weapon used, our national gun. What the fuck does that even mean? I can't explain who would vote for somebody like Boebert, or Santos, or Marge Greene, or Jim Jordan, or Comer, or Tuberville...these people are dumb enough that I don't know how they dress themselves in the morning but they got elected to public office. Donald Trump, who by all accounts is a total nitwit, was our president and leads his party to be their nominee in 2024. It's amazing.

I remember being in a bar in Bruges and it overlooked the large center of town there and you could see there was a roped off circle surrounded by flowers. I asked people in the bar what that was and they told me a young man had been stabbed and beaten to death there and it was a tragedy they did not want to forget and never wanted to allow to happen again there. I thought, "Wow, in the US people get slaughtered in mass shootings pretty much daily and we basically just move on to the next one." 

A couple of the Belgian people in the bar started crying, they did not know the guy that had been killed, and I felt bad about asking about it and so I hugged them. The guy said to me while I was hugging him "I feel so ashamed." and I thought he meant about crying and I said "No, no, I understand you have to let it out. I'm very sorry. Don't be ashamed of crying." and the guy said "No, I am ashamed this happened in our beautiful town and you have to see it while you visit." and I thought, "I'm an American, I've likely seen ten times more people killed in the last year in my country than you have seen in your lifetime in Bruges."

Obviously, I did not say that because it was so horrible, but I was so taken by how these people felt that I could not imagine how they would see the United States where we can watch school kids get mowed down over and over and do absolutely nothing and it just makes gun owners love their guns even more. To hold them even tighter and to go out and buy more and more ammo every time a shooting happens. The more dead, the more guns and ammo sold afterwards.

As an American I do a lot of stupid calculations in my head, Mick. I see 50 civilians killed in a bombing in Gaza and automatically I think "OK, so 50 in one quick shot in Gaza but there is a war there. We just killed 18 in a little town in Maine, with no war going on." and tomorrow and the day after we will kill a bunch more. 

Maine is called Vacationland, Mick. It is on their car license plates. It's a laidback, down to earth place most of the time. There is poverty (not where you would see it) and lax gun laws there, and you would like all the potatoes they grow, and you could eat them with your lobster...at least now before the lobsters continue to move north thanks to global warming. 

Listen to this math, Mick, I can do as a proud American. The year is not over but we have had 421 mass shootings in 2023, mass shootings which I think to qualify have to have something like 4 dead, and over 35,000 people killed by gun violence so far in 2023. 

Israel has bombed the living hell out of Gaza and they so far have killed like 8000 or so people. Sure, they are on a good clip because that's in less than a month, but man, they are not keeping up with the US. 

I am an American, Mick, my math is more fucked up than your ridiculous metric system. I feel shame.