{"id":5126,"date":"2011-01-08T13:20:45","date_gmt":"2011-01-08T20:20:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=5126"},"modified":"2011-01-11T16:52:07","modified_gmt":"2011-01-11T23:52:07","slug":"gabrielle-giffords","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=5126","title":{"rendered":"Gabrielle Giffords (Updated)"},"content":{"rendered":"

While I was out riding my bicycle this morning, someone shot our congresswoman<\/a>, Representative Gabrielle Giffords, at an open meeting in northwest Tucson.\u00a0 As I post this, news reports differ on whether she was killed or is still alive at a local hospital.\u00a0 She is, I suspect, dead; reports are that the gunman shot her in the head at close range.\u00a0 Apparently the gunman killed and wounded several others.<\/p>\n

My first thought was for our friend Pam, who works for the congresswoman.\u00a0 Other friends tell me Pam was out of town and is okay, and of course that’s a huge relief.<\/p>\n

My second, third, and fourth thoughts were black ones, and involved hate radio, Fox News, Arizona’s ridiculously-permissive gun laws, a failed senate candidate from a neighboring state who ran on a platform that included “Second Amendment remedies,” and the mainstream media that refuses to call right wing terrorism by its name.<\/p>\n

I have two things to say about Gabby (and I sincerely hope my use of the present tense is justified):<\/p>\n

One, she answers mail from her constituents.\u00a0 She supported me early last year, after I wrote to the USAF chief of staff to ask that Rush Limbaugh be taken off Armed Forces Radio overseas.\u00a0 No one responded to my request, so I turned to Gabby, and she sent a letter on my behalf to General Schwartz.\u00a0 I will note here that I also turned to my two senators, McCain and Kyl, and that neither one of them responded, not even so much as acknowledging my letters.<\/p>\n

Two, she is accessible to her constituents — not just in terms of responding to letters, but in terms of holding open meetings like the one today, or dropping into local coffee shops like a normal person, and being willing to talk with anyone who approaches her.<\/p>\n

God damn it.<\/p>\n

Update (later, same day):<\/strong><\/em><\/span> Not that I think anyone comes here for news updates, but I’m relieved to say the early reports were wrong.\u00a0 Rep. Giffords was airlifted to a local hospital and operated on.\u00a0 The surgeon, at a press conference, said she was responding to commands prior to surgery.\u00a0 Right now she’s holding on.\u00a0 No one yet knows what the short- or long-term damage might be, but she’s alive.<\/p>\n

Should Gabby recover and resume her duties in Congress, I expect she’ll change her policy on being physically accessible to constituents.\u00a0 So will most other politicians.\u00a0 That is a sad and sorry thing.<\/p>\n

I don’t know about you, but I’m through being lectured on democracy and the Constitution by small-brainers who only support democracy and the Constitution when things are going their way.<\/p>\n

Another update (later, same day):<\/strong><\/em><\/span> I’m posting these two images here because the people who originally put them up are frantically deleting them:<\/p>\n

\"\"
This event was sponsored by the Republican Party<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Happy now, bitch?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While I was out riding my bicycle this morning, someone shot our congresswoman, Representative Gabrielle Giffords, at an open meeting in northwest Tucson.\u00a0 As I post this, news reports differ on whether she was killed or is still alive at a local hospital.\u00a0 She is, I suspect, dead; reports are that the gunman shot her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[75],"class_list":["post-5126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","tag-gabrille-giffords"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5126"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5131,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5126\/revisions\/5131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}