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Since our elected leaders are clearly not going to do anything about the epidemic of mass slaughter in our country, maybe we could at least use this phenomenon as a way to raise revenue.
Sometimes charities have a ‘cow flop contest’, where they lay out a grid on a field, kind of like a Superbowl pool, with numbers along one axis, and letters along the other. People place bets on which square the cow will bless with her first poop, and the person who guesses correctly wins the pot (less whatever goes to the worthy cause).
We could do something like this, except, instead of a grid, have the country broken down into precincts or something – and try to guess where the next mass murder will be. To keep it interesting, there would have to be a minimum … onesy-twosey murder suicides would not count. Maybe say it has to be at least ten innocent people. This way, the contest wouldn’t be over the day it started, but it shouldn’t last more than a month or so, then you can start over.
For a grand prize, along with the cash, maybe the NRA could offer a high-powered semi-automatic weapon!
Today’s Vocabulary Lesson:
Among the most confused word pairs in our language are ‘systemic’, and ‘systematic’. But these words have very different meanings. ‘Systemic’ refers to a problem or phenomenon that affects an entire system, rather than one specific part. ‘Systematic’ refers to an action plan executed methodically.
For example, the prevalence of guns in our society, their fetishization, and their easy access by anybody who wants one pose a SYSTEMIC threat to our safety. When this threat is manifest—whether in a mass killing, or in the tens of thousands of individual deaths by firearms that occur each year—it triggers a SYSTEMATIC response by the gun industry, acting through its NRA arm, and the lawmakers they sponsor; preventing any change.
I hope that helps you understand the distinction between these similar words.
