So, we are largely a nation of test-takers rather than critical thinkers. This can tell you a lot about the obsession so many have with the American flag and the national anthem.

We have a two-pronged litmus test on something called patriotism. Do we revere the American flag and stand at proper attention for the singing of the national anthem?

There is so much more to life than being beholden to the term patriotism. If you want some intelligent conversation about it, listen to CNN’s Alisyn Camerota and John Berman’s discussion this morning on New Day with Bob Costas about patriotism, Trump, the NFL, and much more.

I presume that patriotism has something to do with loving your country and serving it as well. But when you think about it, if serving your country does an injustice to our global society or it simply does not make sense, are we supposed to blindly follow?

Think a little more. A flag is a piece of woven cloth. How it looks is …. how it looks. In the case of the United States, the symbolism of thirteen stripes of the original thirteen colonies and the fifty stars for the current fifty states is a good piece of near-trivia to know. But if you drill down on this, you recognize that nearly half of the original thirteen colonies were denizens of slavery. And among the fifty current states, our original sin of slavery has influenced enough people in our national government to gridlock measures to improve quality of life. So, if we’re talking about the substance of the U.S. flag, there may be more imperfections than we want to acknowledge, particularly if you’re African-American.

Yet it is so hard in this country to move away from revering a flag and toward having an honest conversation that includes critical thinking. So, we don’t, and we distill honoring the flag to supporting the military. And yes, it’s good to honor the soldiers, because many are brave and honorable, and most have been sent on fool’s errands because we don’t think through the consequences of our policies.

We as individuals, we as a country, we as citizens of Earth, are ever-changing works in progress. As stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

That’s a tall task and one that will challenge each of us our entire lives. We don’t have time to waste on bragging about ourselves and dwelling on symbolism while ignoring quality of life issues.

Oh, and by the way, it’s a game that conservatives love to play. It’s called the politics of distraction. Think about the flag and the anthem, and then don’t do squat about addressing poverty, human rights, a clean environment, and international peace.

If you graduated from high school, you spent 10,000 hours in classes. Is the best you can do to have a fixation about a piece of cloth while ignoring quality of life? It’s time to move on. We can do better, and it’s good that we have some in our society who are currently reminding us of that.

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Many supporters of guns say that our problem is not too many guns, but rather a culture of guns that emanates from mass media and video games. It’s just incidental that the U.S. has almost one gun per citizen.

The problem with this argument is that, in countries like Japan and South Korea, there is as much, if not more, presence of “gun-tertainment” as there is in the United States. Yet their incidence of actual gun violence is but a small fraction of that of the United States. Japan’s firearm death rate is 6percent  of that of the U.S., and South Korea’s is 12 percent. What’s the difference between the U.S. and these countries? It’s clear; it’s that the guns per capita in the U.S. is much greater than in Japan or Korea. For every one person in Japan who has a gun, 147 Americans have a gun. For every person in South Korea with a gun, there are eighty people in the U.S. with a gun.

It has become more acceptable for those Americans who have concerns about the high rate of crimes committed by firearms to challenge our gun culture. Pro-gun control advocates can find some degree of common ground with anti-gun control advocates on the issues of media and entertainment. But it’s difficult to take action because of real issues with the First Amendment, not the Second Amendment. Possible infringement of free speech is as much of a real issue in limiting guns and violence in our movies, television shows, and video games as it is with limiting the flow of money in politics into candidates’ hands.

And in spite of the NRA’s opposition to background checks, many pro-gun people join the anti-gun people in wanting to keep guns away from those with criminal records or a histories of mental illness. But that’s about as far as the bond of common ground can stretch.

As Occasional Planet journalist, Bill Kesler,  recently pointed out in his post “Mental health gun-control misses the bigger point,” that the exclusion of those individuals with criminal and/or mental health issues represents just a small portion of gun owners in the U.S. If we were to ensure that no one with a criminal record or history of mental health issues had a gun, we would still have far more guns per capita than the second most “gunned-up” country in the world, Yemen. Thus, the gun culture would still be pervasive; the worship of guns would continue to be prominent in many sectors of our society.

Some of the best insights into our society occur when individuals go “out of their bailiwick.” Such was the case in December, 2012, when sports commentator Bob Costas related the fetish with guns in the National Football League to our societal gun problem. He clearly illustrated how a gun culture will not necessarily relate to high incidents of homicide and suicide if guns are not readily available. He made an impassioned, if not thoroughly direct, plea for us to reduce the number of firearms in our society.

The post You can’t have a gun culture without guns appeared first on Occasional Planet.

There has been a mini-firestorm over sportscaster Bob Costas’ remarks during halftime of a recent Sunday Night Football game.  Costas said that our country needs to be more serious about addressing the issue of handguns in our society.  His comments were in the wake of Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher having used a gun to kill his girlfriend and shortly thereafter committing suicide in front of his coach and others at the Chief’s training facility.

There are some who think that his comments were out of line; others who think that they were words that need to be spoken.  You can hear his remarks work for word by watching the one minute forty-one seconds YouTube video below.

Several days after the game, I was listening to the local ESPN radio outlet in St. Louis, MO.  On the program called Fast Lane, there were three commentators (Randy Karraker, DeMarco Farr, and Chris Duncan), who at times agreed on what Costas had said and at other times were selectively disagreed with his words.  Among their comments were:

• I support the 2^nd Amendment, but I think that Costas had every right to say what he did.
• We take time to support our veterans at sports events, why not what Costas said?  Of course, everyone agrees about supporting our veterans.
• During news programming, they cover President Obama filling out his bracket for the NCAA college basketball tournament.  Why not address the issue of control during a sports presentation?
• People watch sports events as an escape from the issues in the news.  That’s why talking about things such as gun control or abortion should not be discussed in sports programming.

Alvin Reid, another commentator at ESPN 101 wrote:

Costas is one of few national sports broadcasters that dares to delve into real news. Unfortunately, most American sports fans don’t want their broadcasters having anything relevant to say when it comes to our society.

As a result, most sports media people avoid controversial subjects that don’t pertain to a game, player, fans, owner or stadium. In fact, here in St. Louis, most sports media people are avoiding discussion of the Edward Jones Dome lease and other stadium issues like a snarling pit bull.

Most of us want no part of real news. I am not putting myself on the level with a Costas or Washington Post columnist George Will. But I am one of the sports nuts who began his career as a news nut. I still am involved in both.

We are fewer and farther between than in any time since the 1960s.

One last note: I wrote after the late Junior Seau took his own life that the NFL has a problem with suicide. The column got dismissed in many circles.

My guess is that more people – hopefully in NFL offices – are coming around to my way of thinking.

There are many people who in Reid’s words are both “sports nuts” and “news nuts.”  In considerable ways, they share common characteristics:  Winning and losing; playing by the rules; playing under pressure; strategizing in the shadows of secrecy but playing before the public; succeeding by appealing to a great number of people; developing a “fan base.”

In the aftermath of his remarks, Costas, who by many is considered the best sportscaster of his generation, took himself to task.  While he stood by his comments, he said, “My big mistake was in trying to tackle a complex issue in just one minute 20 seconds.  I violated my first rule; that a broadcaster should never discuss on the air an issue that he or she does not have sufficient time to fully explain.”

Given more time, Costas crystalized his main point in the Los Angeles Times:

“Give me one example of an athlete — I know it’s happened in society — but give me one example of a professional athlete who by virtue of his having a gun, took a dangerous situation and turned it around for the better,” Costas said. “I can’t think of a single one. But sadly, I can think of dozens where by virtue of having a gun, a professional athlete wound up in a tragic situation.”

Too many times our leaders fail to address the role that guns play in our societal violence.  Whether it’s the horrendous massacre at a school in Newtown, CT; the senseless shooting of a congresswoman in Tucson, AZ, a slaughter at a movie theater in Aurora, CO; a shooting rampage at Virginia Tech University, many deplore the perpetrator but fail to express concern about the availability of the weapons that they used.  Three cheers to Bob Costas for filling the void created by most of our leaders, including many of our finest, who cower from addressing the issue of gun control because they fear public retaliation.  First we must talk; then act.  Thanks, Bob, for rekindling the dialogue.

The post Reflecting on Bob Costas’ comments on gun control appeared first on Occasional Planet.

It’s pretty unusual for this writer to post anything from Sports Illustrated [SI], but this one merits attention. On Sunday, December 9, 2012, Sports Illustrated’s Peter King reported on NBC’s “Football Night in America” hat, following the murder-suicide committed by  Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher  who shot his girlfriend dead, then turned the gun on himself, “at least seven NFL players have turned in their personal weapons.”  According to the report, the players handed their guns over to their respective teams’ security personnel. One turned in multiple weapons, and another said that he turned in his guns because “he doesn’t trust himself around them.” Need I say how scary that statement is?

It reminds me of something I saw about 10 years ago at a Kansas City hotel. Walking past one of the hotel’s banquet rooms, I noticed a reception table that indicated that the event was for the same team in the news last week:  the Kansas City Chiefs. There was a sign at the banquet-room entrance that said, “Please leave weapons at the door.”  The fact that there needed to be such a sign–acknowledging, in the first place, that some of the  team members in attendance would be carrying guns, and in the second place, needing to admonish them about not bringing their guns into an event where alcohol would be served–was astonishing.

The problem, quite obviously, has not gone away. The only thing that does seem to have gone away in the interim has been a rational debate about guns.

So, I was glad to see that, after this most recent tragedy, sportscaster Bob Costas stepped up and took on the topic. Costas, noted  that if the linebacker hadn’t possessed a gun, “…he and Kasandra Perkins would both be alive today.”  Costas’ comments angered a lot of people in the sports and broadcasting worlds, further reinforcing the notion that speaking out against gun violence is somehow unacceptable behavior, even when it’s occurring right in front of you.

Just to review: According to Think Progress:

Studies show that having a gun in the home increases the chances of homicide two to three times, and gun death rates are seven times higher in states with high household gun ownership rates. The presence of a firearm in the home also increases the risk of homicide for women by five times and two-thirds of women killed with guns each year die in domestic disputes.

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