Thursday, November 24, 2022

Black Monday-Friday


wild turkey (Frank Schulenburg)

Amidst the horror of the Club Q killings was the heroic account of Richard Fierro, the Iraq Afghanistan vet who rushed the gunman. It was a tale of heroism shared with another club patron, but what’s also interesting is the demographic. Fierro had come with his wife and daughter to watch a drag show. Fierro has described in interviews how his combat training kicked in. The gunman Anderson Lee Aldrich, 22, was allowed to purchase his AR-15 despite the fact that he'd recently been in a stand-off with police in which he had threatened to use a bomb. In addition, he was born Nicholas Brink and asked a Texas court to change his name when he was 15, due to his father’s criminal past. After kicking Aldrich’s rifle away, he pistol- whipped the assailant with one of his weapons; The problem was the body armor. Fierro had to find “a crease,” which he succeeded in doing. His tale exuded an extraordinary mixture of vengeance and compassion. He choked up when he described to CNN how his family underwent the kind of combat experience (he might have had during one of his 4 tours) and which they shouldn’t have been forced to experience on a night out. Five people died including Fierro’s daughter’s boyfriend, Raymond Green Vance.  Before there was time to experience any gratitude for the bravery which saved so many lives, Americans woke up on the day before Thanksgiving to read about the killing of 6 patrons in Chesapeake by the manager of a Walmart.  

read "Pedestalization" by Francis Levy, HuffPost

and listen to "Young Americans" by David Bowie


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