So who got married in a group ceremony yesterday? Forty-three couples did it at the Pinellas Clerk of Court's shindig at the Florida Botanical Gardens; thirty did it at the Polk County History Center; two dozen did it at Pasco County's historic courthouse in Dade City. What a unique way to express how special, how remarkable, how utterly singular and powerful the love between two individuals can be.
The Florida State House approved a bill that if passed would put the state in a perpetual, uh, state of Daylight Savings Time, meaning that when everybody else in the country "falls back" and adjusts their clocks, Florida wouldn't. This shouldn't be confusing at all for a populace famous for barely remembering to put its pants on before it goes outside.
Remember that woman who gave birth at the Florida State Fair last Friday? Fair officials have given her family free passes to the annual event for life, which is probably a little bittersweet, because obviously she can't go back — I mean, how do you top the last visit?
A 22-year-old Sarasota idiot was arrested after he hallucinated people running through his house and yard and called the cops, and the responding officers noticed a shitload of cocaine, Xanax and pot bagged up for sale in plain sight. And they say that stuff makes you paranoid...
And finally, yesterday, a 19-year-old man murdered 17 people and wounded 14 others with a semi-automatic rifle at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. This was the seventh school shooting, and the 30th mass shooting overall, in a year that's less than two months old. Last year, there were reportedly 346. If that number seems insanely, impossibly high, that's because they happened so often that we fucking got used to them, and didn't count. It isn't time to talk about our country's woeful, criminal shortcomings when it comes to gun control, or mental health support, or parental resources, or education, or simply just caring for other human beings. No, this isn't the time. That time was nearly 20 fucking years ago, and we as a nation are culpable for each and every death since. People are dying, children are dying, and we have done nothing. Why? Because we don't want to offend morons people who like to shoot at bales of hay in their backyards? Because the NRA is powerful? Because there's no money in contentment? Because therapy is expensive? Because an economy that forces parents to work so much they don't notice their kids are building pipe bombs is an economy that works, that's profitable for somebody? We shake our heads and shed our tears and offer our thoughts and prayers, and go on not making it our problem. We. Are. All. Responsible.
