What Biden Should Have Said

 

If he wanted to be truly effective, the “Great Uniter” he promised to be, if he wanted to actually do something productive last night:

 

The first paragraph was perfect. He was sympathetic and empathetic, and adequately expressed his sorrow at the tragedy of the Texas school shooting. He mentioned prayer in a non-sarcastic, Democrat way, and did not explicitly mention his deceased son as he is wont to do, though he implied that he knew the pain of loss of one’s child, which is perfectly acceptable. The worst critique I could give of the introductory part of his speech was that it was very mumbly and difficult to understand at times, but that’s Biden being Biden.

 

Then, instead of casting aside the mumbles and veering directly into a political attack on his opponents and half the country who support them, he should have said

 

“I am immediately convening a non-partisan panel of twelve individuals, elected and non-elected officials, lawmakers and scientific experts on this terrible subject, to study this plague of school shootings. In six months it will deliver its report and its recommendations to me, which I will then present in a live broadcast and submit to Congress to act upon.”

And the money quote:

 

“Yes, it will investigate the impact of firearms in school shootings. But as we’ve seen in Waukesha, other weapons can be used in mass terrorist attacks. If the evil person who perpetrated today’s crime drove his truck onto a playground, we would not be declaring war on Ford and GM.”

 

And even better, if the old man had any spine to rise above attempted scoring cheap points:

 

“This panel will address the elephant in the room when it comes to school shootings: Mental health. All these perpetrators are mentally ill to some degree. Indeed, parents and grandparents of many have come to law enforcement begging them to do something to prevent their troubled son or grandson from doing something evil. How to identify and prevent these shooters before they commit their terrible atrocities will be the core mission of the panel.”

 

And best:

 

“We have just sent $40 billion in aid to Ukraine. Over the past two years we have sent countless billions to schools across the country to aid in the fight against Covid. Based on the panel’s recommendations I would call for a multi-billion dollar bill to increase security at every one of our schools, from preschool to college, to protect our most innocent.”

Had he said that, his popularity would spike through the roof. But, alas, he couldn’t, and didn’t. Nothing will change.

 

I am a parent of a recent high school grad and a middle school grad. My daughters have been practicing active shooter drills for the past decade. I can remember a few false alarms over the years. I have an active dog in this fight, as do millions of voting parents.

 

So … can someone please whisper this into the President’s ear?

 

Had to ...

 

War and Peace Finale

 

Ah! Two days ago, Wednesday the Eleventh of May, Two Thousand and Twenty-Two, Hopper joined an elite club. An exclusive club. Yes, a somewhat snobby club, but only because entry into that club involves a singular devotion and willpower not found in the common man.

 

Yes, two days ago I finished War and Peace, the Mount Everest of novels.

 

1,392 pages. Fifteen “Books” containing 337 chapters, followed by a First and Second Epilogue and the 28 chapters they hold. A cast of 559 characters, both fictitious and historical. A time span of seven years (fifteen if you count the Epilogues). Five grand Napoleonic battles. Napoleon himself.

 

Took me 86 days as the crow flies. In reality, though, since I paused three times to put away smaller books, I only read Tolstoy for 66 days. That comes to 21 pages a day, but in reality I averaged about 13 pages a day for weeks on end. I think I read 100, 120 pages the last two days. A marathon of verbiage. Read so much I had severe eye strain Wednesday night. The dangers of literature …

 

So I am now a member of Those Who Have Read War and Peace.

 

Which made me think, just how many people alive today have read this masterpiece of literature, originally published serially but in complete form in 1869, 153 year ago?

 

I had no idea, but I wanted to know the exact size of this exclusive club I had just joined.

 

Googling it I did discover that a poll was done, tricksy-like, to determine the books people most commonly brag about reading but don’t necessarily read. Surprisingly, the number one book was 1984 by George Orwell. Don’t we all have to read it in high school, and write essays ad nauseum on it? The third was also a surprise, for me, since I love the book and have read it full through twice: Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. By now you’ve guessed the second most popularly lied-about-having-read novel. Voyna I Mir.  (That’s War and Peace phonetically in Russian. I think.)

 

Interesting, but it doesn’t tell me how many did read the book. So I had to use some intelligent guesswork (“guess” being the prominent part of that sentence).

 

I started off with assuming 1,000 people in each state alive have read it. The majority of which being college professors, students, and literary aficionados. Some states more, some less, but that’s the average. 50,000 people in the United States.

 

Sound good? Yes? No?

 

I doubled it for Europe, thinking Europeans would have a greater connection to the historical sweep and drama of Tolstoy’s work, and more interest would be there. 100,000 people in Europe.

 

And for Russia herself, I doubled the European figure, for I assume the interest there is even more likely, the novel actually being about that Motherland. I’m guessing right now there are 200,000 people in Russia who have read War and Peace.

 

Which brings us to 350,000 people. I add another 150,000 for all those collegians and aficionados of literature in South America, Africa, Australia, and the rest of Asia.

 

All told, 500,000 people are in the Club. Half a million. Agree? Disagree? The figure feels right to me.

 

But just how exclusive is the club?

 

Hmm.

 

I see that there are about 7.9 billion people alive now on Planet Earth. Let’s say 6 billion are old enough and not too old to read the novel. 500,000 divided by 6,000,000,000 is

 

0.00008

 

Eight-tenths of one percent of one percent of the reading population of earth.

 

Well, that doesn’t tell me much, at least in an easily comprehended picture or analogy.

 

How about this –

 

Out of every group of 12,000 people, there is one dude (or chick) who’s read War and Peace.

 

That’s a little more satisfying.

 

My current corporate employer has an employee base of 27,500. Which means that me and one other lone individual in the company has read it. And another cubicle denizen (or truck driver, who knows!) is a third of the way through.

 

There were 19,000 fans at the Calgary Flames / Dallas Stars NHL playoff game on Wednesday. One hockey fan there had read it, and another was two-thirds done, and might have a lot of free time in the near future to finish it if the Stars keep playing like they played that night.

 

All right, enough of this. I’m trying to convince the Mrs. to watch the 2016 BBC miniseries with me. She’s into all those English soaps on Netflix and whatnot, so it might happen. Otherwise, I’m putting Tolstoy to bed.

 

Except –

 

The Second Epilogue has nothing to do with the plot of the novel, but instead is a 12 chapter, 42 page dissertation on Tolstoy’s Philosophy of History. A subject of which I haven’t really read since my sado-masochistic reading of Hegel 14 years ago. As opposed to the Napoleonic-era philosopher Hegel, I think I understood about half of what Tolstoy was trying to get at (or got at, not sure). It deserves a re-reading, especially since … it plays a huge role – or could, possibly – in that great project I’ve been hinting at here and working on since October 2020. So a re-reading it is, at some unforeseen time in the future.

 

For now, though, some little fare is in my foreseen future time. Easier on my brain, easier on my eyes.