JSP Visual Week In Review ~ 02.17.18
Another week, and another school shooting.
Another damn dark week in America.
There was a report out there that Parkland was the 18th school shooting since the beginning of 2018, and while that number turned out to be very inflated, the point must still be taken: This type of violence has to stop.
It just has to.
I should not have to feel the tug-of-war of emotions like I did the day after the Parkland shooting, putting my kids on the school bus: The love I feel for them pierced with the anxiety that illustrates that hey, they may not come home later.
Yes, I’m fully aware this is a selfish feeling. I want something to stop so that I don’t feel a certain way. But so what?
My buddy, Greg Fallis, who I often turn to for insightful writing says:
We’ve reached a point in this nation where we treat mass shootings as a sort of localized natural disaster or an industrial accident. A tornado in Oklahoma kills five, an explosion in a chemical warehouse in Texas kills eight, an earthquake in Alaska kills three, a mass shooting at a McDonald’s in Tennessee kills nine, a flash flood in Arizona kills six, a train derailment in Montana kills eleven, a school shooting in Florida kills seventeen.
He’s right. We’re becoming (already became?) numb to this, if we aren’t already. Something needs to be done.
But I don’t think it will.
Finally, I took some pictures with a Polaroid Propack this week.
And hugged my kids extra tight.
____
What I’m Reading This Week: Too Far To Walk
What I Watched This Week (on Netflix): National Parks Adventure
Inspiring “keep after it” read from Thomas Pluck, one of NJ’s good guys.
How newsrooms abandoned photojournalism
World Press Photos – The Backstories
“One of the most powerful aspects of the single image is to make the viewer aware that he or she is connected to others as it can help to lessen the suffering.” ~ Lynn Goldsmith
© Mark V. Krajnak | JerseyStyle Photography | All Rights Reserved 2018
JerseyStyle Photography 
Maybe these shootings will encourage the politicians to have a thoughtful discussions and work to addressing the causes of the shootings and implement effective preventative measures instead of retreating to political dogma and theater. We need to give many politicians walking papers for not doing what they were elected to do. I fear we’ll see no change until the politicians feel threatened by voters at the ballot box. If this was a political blog, I could say a lot more.
Yes, *this* blog isn’t the platform for it a further discourse, but I know we are all thinking it. I appreciate your restraint, David. 🙂