What November 2021 means to me

I will remember November as the month when there were several high profile court cases and when Barbados removed the British Queen as head of state to became a Republic. It was also the time when we became aware of the Omicron variant of Covid19. 

There was several high profile court cases this month, the two that stood out were Ghislaine Maxwell sex trafficking charge and Kyle Rittenhouse gun murder trial. He was acquitted based on a self defence plea that was proven true according to the jury. I was in two minds about the verdict, I thought those two men didn't need to die, they didn't even have guns, however the video footage clearly shows him being attacked and then firing his gun. He made me feel old, while I was shocked by the 9 11 attacks and worried about the millennium bug, Kyle Rittenhouse was just and egg sitting in this mum's torso waiting to exist. Young people think they know everything and they don't, he probably thinks the police force are infallible and weapons can solve problems in the right hands and things like that, a one sided mind of a young man. 

The island nation of Barbados declared themselves a republic after they removed the British Queen as head of state, I understand they are still part of the commonwealth and we will be friends with the nation. I wish them all happy peaceful lives and good times. 

A new variant of Covid19 was detected and alarmed everyone because the spike protein on the virus mutated so it was more difficult for antibody proteins to latch onto it, so the current vaccines may not be very effective, we don't know just yet. They gave it the name Omicron, Covid19 - Omicron. 

December looked grim for family leisure this year so we tried to go on many day trips while we had time off from work. My thoughts were normal, trying to think of ways to make my family's life a bit better and simplify life. 

I keep my chin up for December and 2022. 

High profile Court

I'm not a young man and I am not old, you could call me a mature adult, somewhere between youth and middle age. I'm old enough and wise enough to know it is wrong to have an instant reaction to the outcome of a high profile court case. The most recent one is the Kyle Rittenhouse case. 

When I was young I saw people mocking the elderly lady for suing McDonald's for a million dollars because she burnt herself with coffee. Later in life I learned that she didn't Sue McDonald's for a million dollars, she sued for the cost of her skin graft surgery because the drink was over 90°c and it caused third degree burns . Regulations were in place to protect people from third degree burns and the thermostat on the coffee machine was broken so it was belching out hot coffee at close to boiling point. Anyway the judge wanted to teach McDonald's a lesson so he increased the compensation charge. You see how the outcome sounds different when you know all the facts. The same is true of the OJ Simpson case, we later found out that someone already was trying to kill his wife and the gloves used when the gun was fired was too small for OJ Simpson's hands and there was countless other facts that the jury saw that wasn't public at the time. 

Winter Thoughts

It is the end of Autumn and the start of Winter. Some significant events that stand out are HS2 and the Kyle Rittenhouse court case. 

Kyle Rittenhouse was found not guilty in court; Many people were criticizing the Judge and the court. The truth is the Verdict is decided by the jury not the judge. The Jury had access to all the facts so they had a better position to make a verdict than us. I saw a young man that was being condemned by the world and then spared by reasoning from the jury of a court, his breathing was that of the wind in a tree, restless and at peace, finally given relief, that huge axe of condemnation was shifted away. As more and more evidence emerged, ordinary people like myself saw that he was defending himself and trying to stop rioters from destroying his town  where he worked. He supported the protests but was concerned about rioters burning everything up. The prosecution found no evidence that he or his close family and friends were white supremacists, even when they took his phone and looked through his social media history. 

I am skeptical of the HS2 railway project in Britain. I think the £96 billion could be spent on the existing railways we already have and the trains they are building are already old technology. I would spend that money building a box around the train tracks that collects sunlight and wind energy. I would build the boxes on the railways with diesel powered trains first so they could be converted to electric trains at the same time. If they did it that way, they would be fixing three problems with the same project, we still have diesel powered trains, we need to be net zero CO2 emmiters by 2050 and our railways are too expensive to run so the commuters are paying too much. In my view, building another railway is not the answer. 

Kyle Rittenhouse acquitted

This week a young teenaged man called Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted of homicide, he shot dead two men during a riot in his town. His defence was that he acted in self defence. The court room process was shown on television. I have questions myself, if it was self defence then why was he carrying a gun already? Why didn't he fire a warning shot first before he shot the two men?  The Rittenhouse debate will last a long time, perhaps as long as the OJ Simpson murder debate did. The world is grim but there is a lot to talk about at the dinner table. 

The other big topic to debate would be if Americans should ban guns. I'm in two minds about the issue; In Myanmar last spring there was a military coup, the military arrested the elected leader and took control of the country, if the same thing happened in the USA, the community would overpower the military because millions of armed Americans would attack the tyrant with their weapons. No tyrant would be able to stay in power in America because so many ordinary Americans have weapons. On the other hand, you have people shooting other people because they have a gun and they want to be the first to shoot and some people can't control their temper so they will shoot someone because of a spurt of anger. Guns make it too easy to kill I say. It is hard to tell what is right, I rarely have a strong opinion about anything. 

I think that most gun deaths in America are from suicide, if they didn't have guns they would kill themselves another way, perhaps from falling or something like that. I think humans are more likely to kill themselves than another person. There are more suicides in the world than homicides, I'm not sure it will stay that way though.