The slow, measured pace of a sloth
Early last weekend when I was beginning to think about writing this column, I was focusing on the shooting at the Trump rally in western Pennsylvania, and specifically speculating about the mindset of the 20-year-old shooter and the lack of transparency in general.
Luckily for me, it was a wonderful private event last weekend that was a welcome interruption to my quest for the motivation of shooters and those who seem to mask transparency. Leave it to a nearly eight-year-old to save his grandpa from himself — and unknowingly and ironically gift his grandpa with a useful metaphor for this column.
He shared with me the animal he had chosen to talk about in class. He had seen one of these wild animals when his family had recently traveled to San Francisco and visited the zoo. As he described in his phone call with me on Monday, the sloth he saw was cute, and an animal he wanted to hug. He also liked the fact that a sloth doesn’t move fast and sleeps, in our grandson’s words, “22 hours a day.” He wasn’t bothered by its sharp claws and didn’t know about its sharp teeth. We sent him a stuffed sloth for his birthday — it’s huggable.
As we all know, another event beginning last Sunday was really a series of national political ones. As I have written in previous columns, President Biden needed to withdraw from the race, and he should be commended for doing so. After he withdrew, his endorsement of Vice President Harris was not unexpected. While I don’t hold much hope now for an open convention with an open floor vote with numerous qualified candidates, by doing so all of us might really see who would be the best candidate to replace Biden. A coronation of Harris would be a disservice, and would hardly dispel widespread doubts as to her competency. I realize it would take an extreme act of courage for anyone within the party to seriously challenge her, but such courage could encourage millions of voters such as myself to look at the Democratic party with a new set of eyes; thus be aware once again of its solid roots in what Americans need, and perhaps be free of the recent encumbering binds that have hampered its being a long standing champion of free speech.
Continuing with my grandson’s sloth-metaphor, however you felt about the events of last week in substance, they clearly violated a sloth’s slow, measured and careful pace.
If he perchance picked a sloth for its political metaphors, perhaps our grandson had wisdom well beyond his years. Despite his impression, I wouldn’t want to hug a sloth; as I would be wary of hugging most politicians. Sloths sleep a lot, like politicians pretend they are doing when they try to campaign out of the public eye, or when they avoid responsibility by dodging questions.
Fortunately, last Monday brought a brief respite from our widespread lack of accountability, if not transparency. Apparently, everyone beside the now-former Secret Service Director, realized that the roof in question from which the shooter shot Trump, and killed a spectator, is easily walked on and is hardly sloped. I am glad she resigned—if for no other reason other than perhaps now under different leadership we might see both transparency and accountability.
Other battles over transparency, and a search for motive, after a high-profile shooting, continue. Perhaps the most noteworthy case of the lack of transparency involves the March 2023 school shooting in Nashville, Tennessee. The countervailing interests in that case involve the privacy of the shooter’s writings, as apparently a trans person, versus public news outlets. The remaining issues appear to not deal with any actions or inactions of the police, but rather the attempt of the parents of the shooter to keep the shooter’s “manifesto,” private. Modern sociological tangles are fascinating.
However, another very recent shooting does involve the actions of the police, the interaction between races in a tense situation, and apparent mental health issues. In an incident in Springfield, Illinois on July 6th, two white police officers responded to a 911 call from a black woman, and after spending time in her home, appear to have shot her in the head after she apparently said to the officers, as reported in an NPR article on July 22, “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus,” while holding a pot of boiling water the officers had asked her to remove from the stove. Our black neighbors face way too much violence, especially in the inner cities. Police must be safety officers — not murderers.
Whether it’s the shooter on the roof in Pennsylvania, the one at the church in Nashville, or the police officers in Illinois, transparency and accountability must be sought.
Contact Larry Little at larrylittle46@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: Seeking transparency in assassination attempt and more
