Wading In

Friday, December 28, 2012 Another Wade Christmas is in the books By Kelvin Wade From page A7 | December 27, 2012 | 2 Comments Another Wade-style Christmas is in the books. Brace yourselves. I admit I have a screw or two loose. There’s something about Christmas that brings out the prankster in my brothers and me. To a kid, Christmas is a time of wonderment and presents they’ve been wanting for a long time. My friend Nedra Polk posted a picture of her son Omari on Facebook that perfectly captures the wonder of a child on Christmas morn. There he is, holding his Christmas presents with his eyes sparkling and a smile so big it’s bursting off his face. In my family, opening a gift is sometimes met with a feeling of dread. In Christmases past, we’ve seen half-eaten hamburgers, Monkey breath, various Barbies, chocolate cakes, love letters from pets and cat poo given as gifts. We’ve also seen a fair amount of regifting. I once achieved the regifting record by surreptitiously opening a gift m...

Here’s how to stop mass murder By Kelvin Wade From page A11 | December 20, 2012 | 13 Comments A national conversation on gun violence has exploded in the aftermath of the ghastly Sandy Hook slaughter. But while we talk about stopping gun violence in general, our immediate focus should be on how to prevent mass shootings. In the two most-recent major shootings, Portland, Ore., and Newtown, Conn., the perpetrators stole legally purchased weapons. No matter how stringent gun-purchasing procedures get and no matter what kind of mental exam may be required to purchase firearms in the future, neither improvement would’ve prevented these tragedies. In 1989, a drifter named Patrick Purdy gunned down five children at Cleveland Elementary in Stockton with an AK-47. The public was so outraged the California Legislature passed the assault weapons ban. The problem was Purdy purchased his weapon in Oregon. If the ban had been in place prior to his shooting, it still would not have prevented ...

Sandy Hook wasn't God's Right Hook by Kelvin Wade             The nauseating Westboro Baptist Church plans to picket Sandy Hook Elementary school and the funerals of the victims of last Friday's massacre. The "church" pickets funerals as a twisted way of showing that God is judging America for the sin of homosexuality. The Ku Klux Klan then announced it would counterprotest the Westboro Baptist Church leading many Americans in the peculiar position of being on the same side as the KKK for the first time in their lives.             Truth is stranger than fiction.             The thought of a church trying to gain cheap media attention by picketing the funerals of innocent children who were murdered is both sickening and infuriating. But, then again, millions of Americans agree with the Rev. Fred Phelps and his...

Mass Shootings: What To Do? by Kelvin Wade     I wrote a column following the Oregon mall shooting for iPinion and then the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting occurred. I wanted to expand upon my earlier column. I'm sick of feeling sick about the latest shooting in Connecticut. What is going to be done? Are we just going to express our sorrow and outrage and go back to business as usual until the next shooting? Then we'll wring our hands some more.     I'm sick of reading things like this shooting happened because God isn't allowed in the schools. That's asinine on so many levels. First, if you believe in God, do you really think there's a place in this world that God cannot go? Secondly, it's offensive to posit that if the Ten Commandments were hanging on the wall in a schoolhouse that it would act as some kind of anti-shooting talisman. Third, the same people who are so eager to violate the First Amendment by having state endorse religion are usu...

State workers blow other people’s money By Kelvin Wade From page A11 | December 13, 2012 | 3 Comments After my parents divorced, my dad would still come by every so often and organize a Wade family breakfast on a Saturday. With seven Wades around that table, these would be grand affairs with tons of grub (that I usually cooked). The breakfasts would begin with my dad taking me, Scott or Tony to Safeway or Lucky to acquire the mass quantities of grub. The beauty was if you helped him shop, you could slip all kinds of things into the cart and he’d be none the wiser. At the checkout, he’d suddenly see paperback books, magazines or toys riding the conveyor belt along with the eggs. I’m telling this story because the way we treated our dad’s wallet is similar to the way some California state employees have been treating your tax dollars. In a new state auditor’s report on whistle-blowing investigations covering the past two years, California workers misused $613,000. In one case, an emplo...

Thursday, December 6, 2012 Gun debate obscures real issue By Kelvin Wade From page A11 | December 06, 2012 | 1 Comment In a halftime rant on NBC-TV’s Sunday Night Football, Bob Costas set off a firestorm of controversy when he commented on Kansas City Chiefs’ linebacker Javon Belcher’s murder-suicide by blaming guns. Costas quoted sportswriter Jason Whitlock’s column that blasted guns as the main culprit in Belcher’s horrific act. Both Whitlock and Costas amplified their remarks, with Whitlock comparing the National Rifle Association with the Ku Klux Klan. Some commentators wrote about the deaths through the prism of a violent football culture. Still others mused whether concussions, a brain condition like chronic traumatic encephalopathy or drugs and alcohol played a role in the violent events. This isn’t a story about lax gun laws, NFL culture, brain injuries or substance abuse. What’s been lost is this is a story about domestic violence. It’s been reported that the Chiefs knew the r...