Today is Tuesday, February 14, 2023, Valentine’s Day for all of you lovebirds. Just five years to the day, the nation hears about another mass shooting – the country’s 67th since the beginning of the year! – this time at Michigan State University where a lone gunman took the lives of three students, Alexandra Verner, Arielle Anderson, and Brian Fraser. These three innocents were killed on campus on Monday night, university police said Tuesday. Five other students remain in the hospital in critical condition.

What has changed and what has not since the Parkland, Florida, shooting five years ago on Valentine’s Day is enumerated in an online CNN article by Holly Yan entitled “5 years after the Parkland school massacre claimed 17 lives, here’s what has changed (and what hasn’t).” Initially, the shocking massacre in Florida ignited a wave of student-led protests and bipartisan legislation to combat the plague of school shootings devastating the country.

The gunman, Nikolas Cruz, has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. A school resource officer faces charges after allegedly failing to confront the gunman at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School.

Also, a Republican governor, Ron “DeSant-ASS,” signed legislation that raised the age to buy firearms in Florida; effectively took guns away from thousands of people deemed to be a threat; and increased mental health resources for students.

Even with some of these small measures having been adopted since the Florida shooting five years ago, the scourge of U.S. mass shootings continues unabated, especially with Monday’s Michigan State University’s killings. Can you believe that the country has experienced at least 67 mass shootings since the beginning of this year – attacks in which four or more people are shot, not including the assailant, according to the Gun Violence Archive. What has not happened egregiously since the Parkland school shooting is the banning of assault rifles altogether, which is not favored by the fascistic party in charge of the House. So how this can ever happen, given the political atmosphere of the times, is anyone’s guess. It appears that this will not occur anytime soon, given how divided the parties are at the moment.

As for the motivation behind the 43-year-old lone gunman’s raining carnage on the heads of university students Monday night, police could only refer to a note found in his pocket that indicated a threat to two Ewing public schools, in New Jersey, after he was found dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.

During the gunman’s deadly rampage through the university, students were forced to jump out of windows and run for their lives. One of those students who felt the assailant’s inexplicable rage is Claire Papoulias who was in history class when “all of a sudden I heard gunshots directly behind me,” the sophomore told CNN on Tuesday.

Papoulias recounted, “The shooter opened the back classroom door and started firing at my classmates in the back, wounding them. I smelled and saw the gunpowder. I thought I was going to die.”

We learn that when the gunman stepped out of the classroom, some students bravely smashed a window and helped others jump out of the first-floor classroom, Papoulias said. The sophomore who survived the massacre said, “There was a boy on the other side of the window catching people who were jumping out the window. He stood there and risked his life to catch people.”

When she exited the building, Papoulias noted, “My feet hit the ground running. I forgot everything I owned because that didn’t matter. I was focused on making it out alive. I jumped out the window and I ran as fast as I could.”

I truly hope that Michigan will now take meaningful steps to deal with this horrible situation. There is no other country that has this much gun violence, I keep on repeating over and over. And still nothing is done on the federal level.

The world must look on at our terrible record of mass murder with total contempt. One must wonder why our nation outpaces every other country in terms of mass shootings and the numbers of dead people arising from such outbursts of violence. When is enough truly enough here?

Another piece of breaking news is the announcement that former South Carolina Republican Governor Nikki Haley announced her candidacy for president in 2024. I regard her announcement with as much interest as a dog swatting off fleas. Her ad concerning how she doesn’t put up with bullies is risible since she will forever be associated with making nice with the biggest bully of all, former president Donald J. Dumpf. She has been tainted forever with Dumpf’s name and for those sane voters out there, this will immediately disqualify her as a serious contender for the highest position in the land.

Haley’s flipflop association with the top insurrectionist is covered in detail in a Second Nexus online article by Alan Herrera entitled “Brutal Reminder After Claiming ‘I Don’t Put Up With Bullies’ In Presidential Announcement Video.”

The former governor of South Carolina has a typical hate/love relationship with the former president in which she supported and campaigned for Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio during the 2016 presidential campaign and was once highly critical of Dumpf, even bearing the brunt of one of his attacks after she called for him to release his tax records.

At one point, Haley condemned Dumpf’s failing to denounce Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, saying Dumpf “is not who we want as president.” However, she later endorsed him after Rubio dropped out of the 2016 presidential race despite warning his often inflammatory and racist rhetoric could lead to violence. And, boy, did that come to pass!

After resigning as U.N. ambassador in 2018, Haley described Dumpf as a “friend” and declared she would not “apologize” for working with him. She later attracted criticism for backing Dumpf’s “Big Lie” that the 2020 general election was stolen from him and fiercely opposed his second impeachment for inciting an insurrection in the form of the Capitol riot.

Because of her cozy relationship with the former dictator-to-be, Haley was soundly ridiculed on social media for her stupid “bully” comments and was trounced for her tolerance of the biggest intimidator of them all. I don’t think this person’s determination to run for president will place her as a serious contender for the job since most voters recognize the duplicitous nature inherent in her.

Anyway, that’s it for me here. I must say that on this Valentine’s Day, I baked a simple vanilla cake to bring to my friend “Jake” tomorrow. I also cut a nice slice of the cake for our friend “Mark” today whom we took out for his birthday at Il Toscano this afternoon at 5.

I will not be here tomorrow since I generally come home late from being with Jake all day in Central Islip.

I hope to see you then on Thursday.

Stay safe and be well.