Did you know there's such at thing as Rushtok? No, not Neil Pert and his 33 piece drum set. This is rush as in "if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice," and that is the choice we all should choose.

Anyway, Anne Helen Petersen is a gem.

Minivet writes: Gavin Newsom has proposed, and the CA Legislature is moving through quickly, a resolution for a constitutional convention to reform the Second Amendment.

Common Cause California has put out an action alert warning that this would likely be hijacked by conservatives. We know they love the idea of "fixing" the various aspects of about democracy that keep them from winning.

What gets my goat is how narrow his proposed amendment is. It would be the most ephemeral, of-the-moment, poll-tested amendment in history. From his office's press release, it would "enshrine four broadly supported gun safety principles into the Constitution": minimum purchase age, universal background checks, waiting period, and assault weapon ban. And finally, "will affirm Congress, states, and local governments can enact additional common-sense gun safety regulations that save lives."

Now, if that were meant to morph into language giving Congress rational-basis authority to regulate, I'd be okay with it. But it speaks to a poverty of the imagination, a focus on nothing but the next election.

I know it's meant to be aspirational, to raise Newsom's profile; so why not swing big? Put a marker down that we should be able to legislate for gun safety, period, and how we work it out is through the political process. It might poll closer to 50/50 at the moment, but it will gain ground over time.

When he was Lieutenant Governor, Newsom put some real political capital into getting marijuana legalization into a palatable, passable package. I thought he'd similarly build a brand of achieving real results (for ambition's sake) as Governor. Sadly, no.

Heebie's take: I'm sort of confused about what's going on here. Proposing an amendment to the constitution does not require a convention, (right?), so what's the advantage of an actual convention?

I felt a teeny bit better after the thread played out on environmental gloom a week or two ago. I don't know if there's any way to feel hopeful about the severity of gun violence in this country, though. You should take that as a challenge, though.

So the admin at this elementary school in Florida held a special assembly for just their African-American students, and the kids were given a powerpoint presentation with slides like this one:

*

The admin in question have been placed on leave, but JFC. I truly cannot imagine the conversations that took place leading to the kind of planning and implementation and everyone thinking this was a good idea.

There are constantly awful examples of racism, but this is so bizarre and novel. (And cruel and dehumanizing, obviously.)

*This is a screenshot from FB, but I couldn't easily find it elsewhere.

How closely are you all following Trump's trials? Which is your favorite?

Mossy Character writes:

Lahaina: 115/~12,700 (+~400 missing?)
Paradise: 85/~40,000 (?)
My vague sense was that Lahaina was getting less coverage than warranted. So I probed, and was not enlightened.

Paradise v Lahaina (Google web search) - Far more attention to Paradise.*

Paradise v Lahaina (Google news search) - Far more attention to Lahaina.*

Wikipedia - Very slightly more attention to Lahaina.

*"Paradise, California" wipes out the 2018 spike, interestingly.

Heebie: I don't want to brag, but I'm part of that spike under both the web search and the news search.

I was reading about the Great Peshtigo Fire with Rascal the other day, and had never heard of this, which is kind of wild, although it's not the most deadly fire.

I also contemplated how earthquakes and floods are much more deadly than fires. But we don't really need to rank how scary the different forms of destruction are. Especially not when there are word count analyses to be had!