Tag archive: Osiris

(Another) Texas Church Shooting

“Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition” took on a whole new meaning on December 29, 2019 at the West Freeway Church of Christ in White Settlement, Texas, when a gunman’s six-second rampage ended with a single shot from one of the parishioners, tasked with church security. Two had already been killed and a third wounded when Jack Wilson, a local firearms instructor, shot and killed Keith Kinnunen, 43, who was not a member of the congregation, but was familiar with the church, having been given food several times in the past.

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What I Learned When My Cat Almost Died

Frequent readers of this site will doubtless be familiar with my cat Ashes; my sweet-cranky Tortie has been with me 12 years, since I took her and her two kittens in from the street on Halloween 2007. Her children predeceased her, Hallows in 2012 and Samhain just last year, but despite some ongoing health issues and an unfortunate addiction to string, Ashes has held her own. As a stray, I’m not sure how old she is exactly, but at least 14, which puts her at about 73 in human terms, an age when mortality begins to assert itself, and even a simple health crisis can prove deadly.

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Ditch Mitch

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is perhaps one of the most disliked, and most effective, politicians in the country. First elected in 1984 in a squeaker election which he won by less than one percent, McConnell has won reelection five times, and faces another race in 2020. He was tapped to replace outgoing Senate Minority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) in 2006, and became Majority Leader when Republicans took over the Senate in 2015.

 

The self-styled “Grim Reaper” of the Senate, Mitch McConnell is where legislation goes to die. Through a combination of stonewalling, pigheadedness, and obscure parliamentary tactics, McConnell has done his level best to frustrate Democratic administrations and agendas for decades.

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Joe Biden’s Family Tragedy

Former Vice President and current Democratic presidential nominee frontrunner Joe Biden is often credited with having an authentic, “folksy” style, especially when interacting with individuals who have suffered great personal tragedy or loss. There’s a reason for this: when it comes to suffering and loss, Biden has a lifetime of experience.

 

Just after winning his first Senate race in 1972, Biden lost his first wife and their infant daughter in a devastating car crash, which also severely injured their two sons. Biden was in fact sworn in for his Senate seat at his sons’ bedside in the hospital. Forty-three years later, the Grim Reaper picked up where he left off, and claimed one of those boys, Biden’s eldest son Beau, who lost a two-year battle with brain cancer.

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The Epstein Suicide

Early on the morning of Saturday, August 10th, 2019, billionaire investor Jeffrey Epstein was found unresponsive in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan, New York, in an apparent suicide attempt. Paramedics were called and lifesaving measures were begun, but Epstein was pronounced dead about an hour later at a local hospital.

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Summer of ’69, Part IV: The Manson Family Murders

On the night of August 8-9, 1969, four members of the notorious Manson Family invaded a rented home in Los Angeles and brutally murdered five people. Not much by today’s standards, is it? But at the time, the crime created a sensation.

 

Part of the impact was generated by the celebrity of one of the victims, actress Sharon Tate, who had rented the home with her husband, director Roman Polanski, out of the country on a movie shoot at the time. Tate was eight and a half months pregnant with their child, who also lost its life. Cult leader Charles Manson had earlier instructed Tex Watson to go to the house and “totally destroy everyone in [it], as gruesome as you can”.

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