Wheeling, dealing and death

Yesterday, our elected leaders got together to talk about healthcare reform. They did it with the cameras running, in “a building across the street from the White House” – Blair House, I believe it’s called. The main point of contention, prior to the meeting, or the summit, as they called it, was the shape of the conference table.

Yesterday, closer to home, a woman in a hospital was removed from life support and died shortly thereafter. A couple of weeks ago this woman was shot by a man with a gun, who also shot and killed his wife, another one of her friends and, finally, himself. The guy was a cop of some sort, or a former cop, in the county that sits alongside the one where I live. The woman who died yesterday was the fourth and final victim of the incident (I count the guy who killed the three woman and himself as a victim).

And yesterday, also closer to home (but not as close as Clackamas County), our state representatives in Salem, our state capitol, passed some piece of legislation regarding the particulars of the amount of time convicted felons are required to wait to renew – or reapply for – their gun permit. I don’t know all the details – and I’m not going to spend my time rereading the article from the Oregonian, because it’s confusing, not to mention maddening – but the gist of it is that our legislators believe, or have been paid to believe, that felons’ gun permits is a topic worthy of their time and attention.