Daniel Greene

Category: Lifestyle

My views on politics, religion, health, intimacy, and more

  • What makes you …

    What makes you think it’s my first time?

    My favorite line from the Bond movie Skyfall!

  • Taking a moment away from thesis writing to watch the inauguration

    President Obama on TV

  • Police make us safer; vigilantes, not so much.

    Perhaps you’ve seen this story about the woman who shot the man who ran into a movie theatre with a gun? According to this public Facebook post by Realtalk:

    On Sunday December 17, 2012, 2 days after the CT shooting, a man went to a restaurant in San Antonio to kill his X-girlfriend. After he shot her, most of the people in the restaurant fled next door to a theater. The gunman followed them and entered the theater so he could shoot more people. He started shooting and people in the theater started running and screaming. It’s like the Aurora, CO theater story plus a restaurant!
    Now aren’t you wondering why this isn’t a lead story in the national media along with the school shooting?
    There was an off duty county deputy at the theater. SHE pulled out her gun and shot the man 4 times before he had a chance to kill anyone. So since this story makes the point that the best thing to stop a bad person with a gun is a good person with a gun, the media is treating it like it never happened.
    Only the local media covered it. The city is giving her a medal next week.

    There are a few inaccuracies in that story, according to this Snopes analysis. First, it was Sunday, December 16; there was no Sunday, December 17. Second, he didn’t shoot his ex-girlfriend. Third, it is offensive to say this is anything like the Aurora shooting because it was not premeditated and he did not go in with military grade weapons and ammunition to wipe out a whole theatre full of people. Fourth, there didn’t just happen to be an off duty county deputy at the theatre; on the contrary, the deputy sheriff was on duty as an armed guard employed by the theatre. She was doing her job, and she was thankful for the years of training she had received in using a firearm to disarm a perpetrator. This was not just a moviegoer with a gun.

    The most important takeaway from this story, for me, is that the woman who shot the perpetrator was literally “on guard” and had years of training firing a gun. It seems the pro-gun people would like you to believe we would all be safer if everyone had a gun. It’s not that simple. See this video if you think all you need to do to protect yourself and others is to buy a gun and go to a shooting range once in a while:

  • We’re proud to be an American

    Andy & I had mixed feelings about our visit to WTC & 9/11 memorial
    Andy & me at the World Trade Center & 9/11 memorial

    Or at least we know we’re free– to walk around this site, that is. As much as it saddened and frightened me on 9/11, and as much as I respect the people who died, the people who died trying to save them–and the people who survived–I was glad to be over the hour-and-a-half ordeal it took us to get into this mall/quad/park so we could actually experience it. I can’t imagine it’s going to be this hard to get in once all the construction is complete, is it? I mean, it’s a public space in public streets surrounded by public buildings. It shouldn’t take that much security just to walk around there. Just my opinion, no offense intended.

  • 2012: It could have been worse

    I sit here this early morning not as happy as I have felt in new year’s past. I ended 2012 more in debt than I have been in a decade, having taken on student loans in pursuit of my master’s degree. My mother died on October 26th. My husband is still disabled and still unemployed, and I ended the year with a cold/flu/who-knows-what that lasted two weeks. I made less money than in the previous nine years. Yet… my husband and I are still together, and our love is one year longer, deeper, and stronger. I completed all the courses for my master’s degree. I taught at Phoenix College again for the first time since 2005. I presented at the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf Region V conference for the second time and I presented at the Conference of Interpreter Trainers for the first time. I traveled to Minneapolis to teach workshops. I took another cruise and visited New York again. Although my mom is dead, I still have my dad, and my husband Andy & I still have our two dogs and a new member of our family, my mom’s cat Callie. We re-elected Barak Obama. Still… we’ve fallen off the fiscal cliff. More lunatics are arming themselves with military grade weapons and killing innocent people, including children. Senseless wars still rage around the world. Global warming is causing more natural disasters. Okay, stop me now. Point is, 2012 was not my favorite year, but it could have been worse.