The Fate of Dylann Roof's Roommate

By the day after Charleston's Emanuel AME church shooting I was seeing quotes from "Dylann Roof's Roommate." The poor fellow seems to have jumped right into his 15 minutes of fame - and, I think, the police. He admitted being aware of Roof's plan for 6 months. Should he have called police? Will he be contrasted to the woman who identified Roof in North Carolina and called police?
Is the Pope a socialist? (sorry) I believe the answer to all 3 is - yes.
The man should have called police at least after Roof actually had a gun in hand. But he won't get to be an "un-indicted co-conspirator." They'll paint him with guilt beyond what the man can comprehend. I'm not in that debate.
My thoughts are running, beyond the irony of his confession, to this - will the roommate be considered part of the hate crime or even terrorism? Does a terrorism charge both enhance punishment and lower standards of proof beyond a reasonable doubt? (If this blog gets hits I'll research that myself. Better- how about you leave a comment?) And let's be more clear in our culture about the laissez faire hate language of so much of the media. Father Coughlin ain't in it. If the roommate should have reported prior to Roof's possession of a gun, then there are over a hundred more haters out there broadcasting hate to untold numbers of Dylann Roof-types. They will not be indicted.
Nor will the politicians who ignore common-sense modern solutions to gun control such as mandatory insurance tied to each gun and gun locks that only respond to the owner. They will not be indicted.
The roommate will pay a price and he earned something, but just what? Will it have an impact on friends of violent people with guns to call police? Ha. I can just see the rash of folks crushed by local right-wing, freedom-loving cops.
Every mass shooting must continue to lead to rational people speaking out about solutions. Thanks to President Obama for pointing out that other leading countries in the world don't have so many of these massacres.
"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State..."
Let's insure each gun and require all new guns to be manufactured with personalized locks specific to the buyer. (The hand print technology is there.) Let's mandate police reports from whistleblower friends who hear of actual plans- and follow-up with suspects.
There will always be a million reasons why we can't do these things until - someday - we will do them and wonder what was wrong with us all along.

Were exchanges established by the states or by the State?

We The Poor of the United States await the ruling of our masters, the Supreme Court on the issue of federal subsidies for Obamacare. The line in the law that allowed the rabid nine to jump in talks about exchanges "established by the state." Thirty-four states did not establish the exchanges. Will the entire law be in jeopardy because of the lack of capitalization? To me, "the state" means individual states whereas "established by the State" could conceivably refer to the State meaning 'the government' in which case the Federal Government would meet the requirement. I think the entire mess can be laid at the feet of the Democratic Party. How could they have been so careless?! There is no room in law for careless mistakes. They will lose this decision and the culpable party will be lost in the translation. People will howl about the court and how it should not have accepted the case, but it's like giving a seven-foot-tall East European basketball player a set-up for a slam dunk. They just hang under the basket for this. They live for this. They'll cram the decision down our throats and all the yelling about subsidies for roads and disaster relief and big oil will be moot. The point is the Democrats blew it. Why? That will be the subject of many a book. How? That only takes this short blog by a long hair leaping unknown. Maybe it's the lower-case "s." Maybe it's just the use of the word "state" instead of "federal government."
I suspect that some lobbyist created this mess and the Democrats fell for it.

Four Burl Dunn songs with son Forest Arturo Dunn

My son Forest (1972-2008) and I did a lot of home recording together for a couple of years in the early century. Yeah, it was a special time for us. Forest played piano, keyboards, percussion (on whatever was at hand), and that excellent bass. Oh, he also sang his ass off in the background.
I've taken the digital recorder we used into studios to clean up the sound. Some of our work is on "Texas Socialist Infiltration Dance Songs" and now I've a digital release called "Four With Forest." I went to the fine Elephonic Studios in Albuquerque and worked with Jesse Korman on these four songs. Hear the full songs here at CD Baby or here:
The EP opens with "Williwas," a song inspired by the famous Southeastern Alaska winds and crab fishing. Hey check it out below. I'd like the song to appear on The Deadliest Catch; that'd be nice. If it does I'll owe a lot to Forest's keyboard riffs. "Gale winds 40 knots, still pullin' crab pots. Captain calls all the shots; he's dry, we're not. Willie was."

The second song is "That's Why I'm So Shook" with Forest at his honky-tonk finest. "I don't need your thoughtlessness; I've grown cold to your hard caress."

I wrote "I Didn't See You" right after my first trip to Alaska on a state ferry, the Wickersham. Dig Forest's bass line and Hammond organ. "Maybe you were in a bar in New York City or loving Louisiana living with a Bourbon Street high. Maybe you were on that same boat with me, and I passed with a far-away look in my eye."
"In the End" resonates today in ways I wish it did not, but in the end, we lost Forest and all that good music he never got to play.
It's up on Spotify, CD Baby and all the usual suspects.