A Disturbing Thing about the Alexandria Shooting that We Can all Fix

By DUer Nancy Meyer

The note about this I got in Nancy's email: My 100-year-old aunt lived in Belleville, IL all her life. She left behind a pile of unmarked photos when she died last summer. Nobody wanted them, so I took them. I recently went through the photos with my mom, and she explained what was going on in the one I used in this article.

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/6/14/1671893/-A-Disturbing-Thing-about-the-Alexandria-Shooting-that-We-Can-all-Fix?_=2017-06-14T17:36:48.691-07:00

Interesting that this article generated so many comments. The more common the experience, the more people relate. Like, rec, share, tweet, etc. always helps. Thanks.

Her post:

Undated photo of people chatting over a bucket of beer in Belleville, IL. Young man on the right is my uncle who was born in 1918.

I was born in Belleville, Illinois. I lived there until age nine. My parents were born there too, and lived there until we moved away when Dad was in his early forties. Mom likes to tell about how as a child she was sent down to the local tavern to get a bucket of beer for the grownups to pass around as they sat on lawn chairs and talked in the back yard on summer evenings.

Belleville has a strong German heritage and in those days breweries were just barely outnumbered by the Catholic churches, which are still on just about every corner. Everyone in Belleville roots for the St. Louis Cardinals, whose home stadium is right across the Mississippi River in the big city where you went on special occasions.

It’s jarring when your nondescript little home town shows up on the national news. And even more so when the reason is for something bad.

But what isn’t jarring about today’s news? That there's been another mass shooting. That the politicians are using it for grandstanding. That the media, observing Trump not making political hay from a tragedy for once, is waxing poetic about how “presidential” and “measured” he is being.

FULL story at link at top.