Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone,
As five or six year-old children we made Valentines cards using construction paper, glue and scissors. Sixty five years ago children made things with their hands. It was how we learned rudimentary manual skills so necessary in the lives of our parents and grandparents. Education is much more forward looking today than in the fifties.
This simple card is muscle memory transformed from paper into something digital. It is an attempt to be somewhat relevant in the present day. My natural demographic is out of step with the future. Today making things with your hands is unnecessary and even frowned upon as a waste of time.
A dubious advantage of age is the ability to interpret the present based upon life experience. I’m cursed by mechanical ability which is the result of the blessings of a visual mind. I can see the most intricate details of the physical world. This mind trick it is always mine to use.
Just to make things clear, I was born in the Intermountain West and raised in a military family. Most of the people I knew growing up owned and used guns. Even so, I’m convinced they are appalled by what the gun lobby does to make our children less safe.
When did it become acceptable for people, mostly men it must be said, to strut around in public with assault rifles, weapons of war? Despite what the NRA says it seems obvious that many consider military style arms to be nothing more than expensive if deadly toys. Carrying a flag and a gun is about all it takes to style yourself a hero these days.
Meanwhile children are paying with their lives for our lack of gun regulations. They are in the terrible position of having to learn to hide from gunmen at school and sometimes dying. Even though Americans have always owned guns this is the first generation to be subjected to the real possibility of violent mass death at school.
Guns are a problem. They need to be regulated in a serious responsible way. However the bigger problem is the lack of respect and care with which we treat the lives of our children. 
