6th Jul 2022 1530+hrs BST

 

I was making deviled eggs in the kitchen when the news came across the GBN 'breaking news' announcement. Multiple casualties, number and conditions unknown, conflicting shooter descriptions including where the rounds were coming from, 'more to follow'. I finished the eggs and spent the rest of the afternoon glued to the television and laptop trying to find out more. 

I live in Scotland, usually I don't 'make a thing' of Fourth of July but this year despite my visceral loathing of Biden, et al, I decided we would have a low-key celebration of the USA. I planned to grill steaks and serve the eggs, baked potatoes and sweet corn. We had eight extra long sparklers left over from Guy Fawkes Bonfire Night and NYE, planning to light the sparklers once dark finally fell (close to midnight, we are in NE Scotland after all). 

 

Instead whilst scouring for more news on the shooting in Illinois, we ate the eggs then a bit later I used the oven grill for the steaks. The baked potatoes and sweet corn became defrosted (better cooking) frozen oven chips with no corn or other veg. We ate to live, it was no celebratory live-to-eat fun afternoon on the patio, not when it was becoming obvious several people had been mown down by 'someone' and children were apparently especially targeted by the shooter.

We did light the sparklers but not in a spirit of fun - we lit them as more like something akin to lighting candles in memory of the dead and hope for the injured. 

Why Crimo, the alleged shooter, did this is something I doubt we'll ever know, my guess is he's going to say 'Because I wanted to, because I could' or similar. 

I've lived in Scotland for 12 years. I only miss my family and a few silly things like Taco Bell and Joann Fabrics. But the night of the Fourth as we lit those sparklers, I missed whipoorwills calling in the woods across the street from the house I raised Matt in. I missed day lilies and azaleas and the fireworks show at Fort Rucker. I missed America that night in a way I hadn't for 12 years. 

That America began to fade six months into Obama's first administration - 12 years on it's gone and I'm not sure it can ever come back from the divisions he and his 'team' caused and Biden is now gleefully perpetuating. Trump tried (yes I know, he's an unpleasant oaf who made more than a few mistakes like bringing his equally unpleasant sprogs with him to the White House but he also tried mightily to MAGA and would have succeeded had not the Democrats undermined him at every turn). 

I don't know why Crimo (or who ever the actual killer is) did it. I do know Obama and Biden did quite a lot to foment the conditions that led to 'someone' to climb to a store roof and take aim on Americans celebrating the little bit of hope and freedom they had left. 

Blood on your hands, Obama and Biden, blood on your wretched evil anti-USA hands.