Gun Violence

What Matters Most……………..……Commentary by Jim High

Why write about Gun Violence during the Christmas Holidays?  Why not?  Families are all together during the holidays and what better time to think about and discuss this important issue.  If your child attends a school, or you go to the mall, or a movie theatre, or a church, you might be glad to have had that conversation as gun violence has occurred at these places on many occasions.  December 14, 2013, was the first anniversary of the school shooting at Newtown, CN.  And this week I saw a cartoon on Facebook with this little boy sitting on Santa’s lap saying, “Here’s my wish list for Christmas this year, and it’s the same as last year.”  The list had just one item on it – Sensible Gun Laws.  So I think this is the perfect time to talk about gun violence in this country. 

 

Let’s start at the beginning with the 2^nd Amendment to the United States Constitution.  It is one of the shortest and most direct of the amendments and it reads…..”A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”  And while we are thinking of this one, we need to take a look at number three also.  It reads…..”No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.”

It is very apparent from reading these two amendments that the United States of American back in the late 1700’s had no standing army, no military bases, and no arsenals where Arms were kept.  The 2^nd Amendment starts by talking about the need for “A well regulated Militia” since no standing army was available to defend the country.  When soldiers were needed they would be called into service and the government wanted them to have their own Arms.  The amendment makes it clear that they were allowed to have Arms between times of need, and based on life in those times to use their gun for hunting to provide food for their families.  I doubt much hunting for sport was done in colonial days.  I listed the 3^rd Amendment as evidence that these amendments were designed to make provisions for a Militia of the citizens to defend the country if and when necessary. 

Finally we must also realize that Arms in the period from 1776 up to almost the Civil War meant a single shot musket that required loading the powder and ball down the barrel of the gun.  And there are no court cases from those time that tested the right of citizens to own a cannon under the definition of the word Arms.

Fast forward into today’s world where it is estimated that 350,000,000 guns of all types are owned by individuals.  Right here in Tupelo we have a monthly Gun Show & Sale.  Our country’s gun laws are a mess to say the least.  I won’t list the mass shooting in the year since the Sandy Hook massacre in Newtown, nor the total number of deaths in our country every year from gun violence.  You can Google all that info for yourself, but we all know that it is huge and it is awful, and more important it is wrong. 

I personally own two guns.  I think it would be impossible to outlaw gun ownership in this country and I don’t think it is necessary.  But like that little boy on Santa’s lap in the cartoon, I think we need sensible gun laws.  The vast majority of the country thinks so too.  No private citizen needs an AK-47 or a clip that can fire 100 bullets in a few seconds.  Most of us know these things.  And most of us know that gun violence in our country is out of control.

What Matters Most…….Do we want to live in a country that has a gun death rate that is 20 times higher than any other developed country in the world?  Did you know that between 1955 and 1975, the Vietnam War killed over 58,000 American soldiers – less than the number of civilians killed with guns in the U.S. in an average two-year period?  We must grant that little boy’s wish, and soon, so he can grow up in a country with sensible gun laws.

© 2013 #26  Jim High can be reached at P. O. Box 467, Tupelo, MS 38802-0467

"I Have A Dream"

What Matters Most………..Commentary by Jim High

You cannot hear the phrase “I Have a Dream” without thinking of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963, fifty years ago.  I was twenty three years old and remember those times well.  Growing up in the segregated south of the 40’s and 50’s I didn’t think much about America’s huge race problem.  Things just seemed normal as they had always been segregated.  Then the sixties began to break a lot of thing open all across the country.  Rock and Roll music, the hippy culture, the sexual revolution, the Civil Rights Movement, and much more changed America forever.  

The sixties were also the time of political assassinations.  President John F. Kennedy was the first on November 22, 1963, in Dallas; Martin Luther King was killed on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, and then Robert F. Kennedy as he was running for President just two months later on June 5, 1968, in California.

But things were beginning to change even in Mississippi, where in 1962, a year before King’s “I Have a Dream” speech riots had broken out at The University of Mississippi upon the admission of the first black student, James Meredith.  That change was evident the day Robert F. Kennedy spoke at the Tad Smith Coliseum on the Ole miss campus in 1966.  He had been the country’s Attorney General who ordered the Federal Troops to protect Meredith and here he was being invited to come on campus to speak.  I went over to hear him with a group of my friends from Tupelo.

There was real tension in the air as over 6,000 of us waited for him to appear and wondered what he would say.  And then there he was down on the floor in the middle of the coliseum.  He got off to a good start by saying he felt just like the chicken inside a huge fox coop.  The crowd roared and the tension was broken.  He went on to give us all his vision for America and I dare say he won over most of the crowd that day.  He sure won me over.  I believe had he not been assassinated that he would have been elected President in 1968 over Richard Nixon and our country would have been better off today.  

It was also during the 1960’s that I played a small role in the vast changes sweeping across the segregated south.  I graduated from Mississippi State University in 1962 having never attended an integrated school.  But the Civil Rights Act had become law in 1964 mainly as the result of the March on Washington the year before and real change had begun across the nation, and more especially here in the south.

As a stockholder in the Peoples Bank and Trust Company, at that time Tupelo’s largest bank, I attended my first stockholders meeting in 1965.  Those meetings were held in the bank’s board room on the second floor of the bank building on Main Street, now the GumTree Museum of Art.   At the close of the meeting the president thanked us for being there and asked if we wanted to say anything.  I stood and ask the president and board very directly why after segregation had been ended in our nation and the Civil Rights Act was the law of the land, our bank still had a “White Only” sign on the water fountain in the lobby.  Well there was a great rustling of papers and a quick motion to adjourn the meeting. 

No one spoke to me or answered my question, but before the week was out the sign was taken down.  It wasn’t a total victory, as they installed a spigot on the fountain requiring the use of those cone shaped cups from the dispenser that was also installed.  Heaven forbid that whites and blacks should bend over and drink from the same fountain.  Those were dark days for Mississippi, and we are not over them yet.

What Matters Most……Fifty years ago a great American lead a March on Washington for justice, fairness, and economic opportunity for all Americans.  We’ve have made some progress, yesterday President Barack Obama gave a speech on those same steps as evidence of how far we have come.  But we must keep marching until the reality of Dr. King’s dream is true for every American citizen.

© 2013 #18  Jim High can be reached at P. O. Box 467, Tupelo, MS 38802-0467

People Connections

What Matters Most…...Commentary by Jim High

The second column I wrote over four years ago was about “Connections,” but that one was about my connection to actual places on planet Earth.  This one is about some very interesting connections to people. 

Everyone has heard of Geronimo, the Chiricahua Apache Chief whose name is synonymous with brilliant military strategy and guerrilla warfare tactics.  He was born in 1829 and died in 1909.  But in 1904 near the end of his life, and long after he gave up fighting, he appeared at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, and in 1905 he rode in President Theodore Roosevelt’s inaugural parade in Washington, DC.

My Great Grandfather Private John Allen had served in the US House of Representatives for 16 years from 1885 until 1901.  And after leaving Congress he was appointed a Commissioner for the upcoming big exposition to be held in St. Louis.  All my life we had two huge three foot wide clam shells in our backyard that were given to him I think by the Philippine government, one of 63 countries who had  pavilions at this exposition.  Of course, I never knew my great grandfather as he died in 1917, but it is interesting to know that he and Geronimo must have met sometime during this event.

My dad, James Allen High, told us the story of returning home on the troop ship from the South Pacific after World War II in 1945.  He went up on deck late one afternoon and was leaning on the rail smoking a cigarette and just looking at the ocean when another soldier came up beside him, asked for a light and began to smoke his cigarette.  They stood there in silence for some time when dad said he felt he should introduce himself.  Sticking out his hand he said, “My name is James Allen High.”  The other fellow looked totally shocked and said, “My name is James Allen High.”  Now how many times is that going to happen?  He was from Virginia, I think,  which would make sense as all the High’s started out there way back in 1660.

Then in about 2005 the same thing happened to me.  One day I got a call and this man asked if my name was James High and I said it was and he said his name was James High and that he lived in California and was in Pontotoc doing genealogy research.  Well I invited him right over and the minute he walked into the office I knew he was a High.  He was not aware of the Confederate Monument on the Lee County Court House lawn that has the names of five High brothers who fought in that war.  Henry Earl High was my Great Grandfather and this man’s Great Grandfather was one of the other brothers.

Jim High from California introduced me to the book of 12,000+ High’s that had been the life’s work of one of our relatives who lives in Dothan, AL.  And I looked at his copy and found out how to order one from Grace Lawrence, so for only $79.95 I bought a copy and was able to trace the High’s from me back through twelve generations all the way to Thomas High who arrived in the Jamestown, VA, area from England at age 14 in 1660. 

And just the other day after connecting with Martha High, another relative on Facebook, I was looking up her genealogy and started reading about Thomas High.  He was involved way back then in a trial where the defendant was listed as a George Proctor.  Thomas High was a witness at the trial as he had been at Proctor’s house the night of the alleged incident and was a friend of George Proctor.  That name rang a bell for me as one of my best friends for a long time is Tracy Proctor, who nearly everyone in Tupelo knows as the best wedding designer anywhere.

I called Tracy to tell him of this name, and you guessed it.  Tracy is a direct descendant of George Proctor.  Thomas High and George Proctor were friends and about 335 years later Tracy and I are friends.

What Matters Most…….I’m sure that every person has people connections like these, but very few actually know about those connections.  These are mine and they remind me that in ways we mostly don’t realize all humans are connected.   Now if we can just start acting like it the world will be a better place.

© 2013 #16  Jim High can be reached at P. O. Box 467, Tupelo, MS 38802-0467

 

 

Our Evolutionary Past

What Matters Most….......Commentary by Jim High

When we think about our evolutionary past we must remember three things. First, the past in this instance is millions and billions of years.  The universe is 13.8 billion years old.  At least scientist figure that is its age based on observations of the motion of the galaxies and the age of individual stars within those galaxies.  But, none of that really matters to us here on planet Earth since our solar system didn’t form until about 4 billion years ago.  Very shortly after that our planet had single cell life in its oceans.  So life has been around in some form almost from the start after our planet cooled a bit, and that early life started out in the oceans.  I think that is why sitting quietly on the beach and looking at the ocean feels just like going home.

Of course, those early oceans were not as they are today, in fact even the continents were not where they are today, as they are constantly in motion on the surface of Earth, and they still are.  The Himalaya Mountains and Mount Everest, the tallest in the world, were formed as the Indian sub-continent continues to push into Asia.  And in the limestone bluffs right here in Lee County we find fossils of ocean life because this area was once the bottom of the sea.

The second thing we must remember is that evolution is a process that is still going on. It goes on all the time and has from the very beginning.  For example, evolution shows us that humans are not just kin to the great apes of Africa, but also to the cabbages in your garden.  All life on planet Earth is connected in the long string of evolutionary development.  The process is not visible to us because it takes so much time to happen.  The human animal is some 4 to 6 million years old and we continue to evolve.   We are certainly nothing like humans were a million years ago.  I do wonder what humans will evolve into in another million years.  We are sure to be a better more advanced form of us.  So over time our bodies will learn to not have cancer.  Again the phrase over time is maybe tens of thousands of years.

But it is the third thing about our evolutionary past that is most important.  For while we must always understand that we in one short lifetime can never see evolution happen, we can see cultural evolution happen, and that is what affects us most as individuals after all. And it is this cultural evolution that we do have some control over. 

I asked a discussion group one time what humans would look like in 1,000 years.  They didn’t even know what I was asking until I added, what would be the color of our skin, the shape of our eyes; would we have more or less hair, to say nothing of our body size.  Maybe being obese will be the normal thing in 1,000 years, maybe in only 100 years the way things are going.  Then I reminded them that our current president was half black and half white.  Then they understood what I was asking.  It is this cultural evolution over which we have some control and that we can see happening.  When I was a child I couldn’t go to the movies or play card games on Sunday.  And I remember the big fight in Tupelo over the Sunday Blue Laws that kept businesses closed on Sundays.  Cultural evolution changed all that and a lot of other things.  Right now we see a change happening very fast in the definition of marriage, just as cultural evolution changed inter-racial marriage, and even marriage between different religions.

So What Matters Most……..What is the purpose of our individual lives, as opposed to life in general?  We are meant to enjoy life.  Every minute, every day, all of life is meant to be enjoyed. We forget that sometimes, but it is the most important thing about our individual lives.  Because of our evolutionary past we are all members of the one great body of life.  And this means that within us all is mutual love for each other, which is the best enjoyment of all.

© 2013 #7  Jim High can be reached at P. O. Box 467, Tupelo, MS 38802-0467

 

 

Guns

What Matters Most…………Commentary by Jim High

The 2^nd amendment has been around for a long time, so what’s different today? As a kid I went to movies full of killing and violence. What’s different today that makes folks go out and shoot people in mass killings, to say nothing of the 10,000+ handgun killings each year.

Well for one thing when I went to the double feature every Saturday afternoon and saw cowboys riding around killing cattle rustlers, I came out of the theatre back into 1940’s and 50’s Tupelo where no one rode horses or wore a six shooter on their hip. Today when you go to the movies and see terrible violence, you come out back into real life that looks just like the movie.

Another huge difference is television. We see murder and killing and craziness every night on TV no matter where it might occur in the whole country. Seriously watch the local TV news every night; it’s like the nightly crime report. I get so tired of watching people walking between court and jail. Do we really need to know about every idiot who got into a shoot out with some drug dealer? Why is that news? Maybe I should ask why are other people interested, because I’m certainly not.

We having a huge gun debate in this country right now based on the mass shootings of the past year. Most of the debate centers around the 2^ndamendment adopted on December 15, 1791. So what does it actually say? “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” That’s it. Seems simple, but we have made it something very complicated. For example what does “well regulated”mean? What is the intended use of the word “militia”? And what is the definition of “arms”?

1791 was a long time ago. Today we don’t have a need for a public militia, and the definition of arms is not the single shot pistols and muskets of those long ago days. Today we have a National Guard in every state and a federal standing army, plus a navy, air force, marines and the coast guard. But regardless of the obvious extreme difference in 1791 and 2013, the 2^ndamendment has come to mean that as a citizen each of us has a right to own a gun, or guns. But what kind and how many?

Certain types of arms are outlawed already and for good reason. I just used a word that no one seems to want to talk about – Reason. Is it reasonable for a private citizen to own a gun developed for the military that can shoot 30, 50, 100 bullets before reloading? Is it reasonable for a private citizen to own 10, 20, 50 guns of all types? I wonder if people in 1791 thought the 2^nd amendment gave them the right to own a cannon.

Another huge problem seems to be the fear of gun registration. Who fears automobile registration? Or is scared and thinks it wrong for the government to require registration of their boat? Then there is the issue of background checks. But the sale of guns at gun shows and over the Internet and between private individuals requires nothing now but the cash. Who thinks this is reasonable? If you are sane, law abiding and not planning to kill anyone, you should not worry about any background checks or even anyone, including the government, knowing that you own a gun and what kind it is. I own two hand guns myself. I keep one in my apartment and one at my home at Pickwick Lake.

What Matters Most………..is that we have a serious gun problem in this country. Admitting that must be a first step in getting to a solution. And we must get to a solution. How many more mass shootings will it take to wake us up to reasonable changes? The next mass shooting could be anywhere, even here in Lee County. Do you want that? I don’t, not for here, not for anywhere. And I must add that the NRA’s solution to our nation’s gun problem being just more guns is total lunacy.

© 2013 #8 Jim High can be reached at P. O. Box 467, Tupelo, MS 38802-0467

 

Truth, Facts and Faith

What Matters Most………Commentary by Jim High

My topic came to me as I read the thousands of posts on Facebook these days.  I find the time I spend on Facebook interesting, if not instructional.  But if you approach Facebook for what it is, the world’s largest conversation, then you can’t help but join in with your opinion on what is being said.  But here’s the rub, whose opinions are valid, whose are true, what is the truth and what are the actual facts of the matter being commented on.

You see in our present time we seem to have lost the ability to tell the difference between opinion, truth, facts, belief and faith.  In the old days long before television and 24-hour news channels and ownership of media outlets by big corporations, we got all our news mostly from the local newspaper.  I remember my Grandfather listening to the news on the radio in the evenings.   But it was mainly in the newspapers where people got their news.  We got three of them delivered to our house back then, Tupelo’s Daily Journal, the Memphis Commercial Appeal, and Memphis’s afternoon newspaper the Press-Scimitar.  If you wanted to “see” the news, the movie theater had the Movietone Newsreels along with cartoons before the movie.  Today some of our TV News appears like a cartoon, so confused have truth and facts become.

I’ve heard people say, “Well it’s true for me” or “My truth.”  There is no such thing as your truth.  If something is true it is true for everyone and in every case.  Truth is defined as the true or actual state of the matter or of existence, that which conforms with fact or reality, and a verified or indisputable fact, proposition, or principal.  A fact is defined as something that actually exists, something known to exist or to have happened, a truth known by actual experience or observation.  So while there is great overlap between the words truth and facts, neither word is subject to your private interpretation.  Both truth and facts are the same for everyone, even those on the opposite sides of a disagreement.  Opinions are not truth and neither are opinions factual, no matter how loud or often you say them.

How did we come to think otherwise?  Well when big corporations own a lot of newspapers all over the country the news becomes the same everywhere and very quickly it can become what the big corporation wants it to be.  It is even worse for television news.  We now have whole channels for conservative news and liberal news.  And they are not “Fair and Balance” no matter how many times they say it.

Then we have the situation where news today seems to always be presented as an argument between two opinions, not the facts or truth of the matter being reported.  Add in the Internet and Facebook, organizations pushing their agendas with advertising, and it can get difficult to know what the truth of the matter is and what the facts actually are.  Most people these days seem willing to just give up and go with the report that fits their opinion, but please remember that no one’s opinion is truth or a fact, unless it is supported by verifiable truth and actual facts.

Two quotes I saw recently are worth commenting on at this point.  In all the coverage about the new Pope, I heard a church official in Rome talking about the “truth of faith.”  What on earth did he mean?  There is no truth of faith.  Faith means you believe something without any truth or facts.

And the other quote was, “Doing the right thing is easy – knowing the right thing to do is difficult.”  But, if you always seek the truth and get the facts, you will know the right thing to do.

What Matters Most…….This quote from theoretical physicist Lawrence M. Karuss says it best.  “If we wish to draw philosophical conclusions about our own existence, our significance, and the significance of the universe itself, our conclusions should be based on empirical knowledge.  A truly open mind means forcing our imaginations to conform to the evidence of reality, and not visa versa, whether or not we like the implications.”  

© 2013 #6  Jim High can be reached at P. O. Box 467, Tupelo, MS 38802-0467