the gunfire factor

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-- Eight people were killed Friday at a volleyball game in Mexico. A volleyball game. Assassination appears to have been the underlying raison d'etre. But still ... a volleyball game. People put down their guns or 'make peace' in order to do things like enjoy volleyball games. And still the gunfire potential lurks ... and sometimes expresses itself.

-- The Occupy Wall Street protest has left billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg in a strange position: He may or may not agree with the focus of the protest that began Sept. 17, 2011, and rippled outward across the country and some of the world, but he and other mayors are ... looking for a way to have their say. Said Bloomberg, "[Y]ou know, it's just not so easy. You can't just walk in and say, 'Hey, you're out of here.'" It's not an easy nut to crack, but so far the gunfire has been pretty much held in check.

-- Once known as a dazzling assassin, Carlos the Jackal (Ilich Ramirez Sanchez), 62, goes on trial in Paris on Monday. Hailed and reviled in his time, the man is now reduced to complaining that he can neither shave nor cut his fingernails in his isolated (in hopes of breaking his spirit) prison cell. A gunfire life: How exciting! How righteous! How mistaken. And yet, too, who is more frightening -- the terrorists who pull the triggers or the agencies that make hay and constrict rights by means of waving the 'T' (terrorism) flag?

-- And, give or take a little, in the fend-off-the-gunfire department, Reuters had a pretty good article about applicable strategies for approaching the enormous bills that a college education can invite.
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