Guns – Here Today, Here Forever

The assassination of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk allegedly by college dropout Tyler Robinson has once again triggered the hue and cry for gun control.

“People don’t kill people. Guns kill people.”

How to stop it? Experts say tighten background checks. Don’t sell to anyone under 21. Ban sales of automatic weapons. Harden schools. Seize guns from the mentally ill. Arm teachers and priests. Impose felony laws for unreported weaponry. Legislate lock-up of firearms. And on and on.

None of that is going to help. Not any of it.

Why? There are many reasons.

For starters, gun violence is nothing new. History shows that pairing weapons with political extremism is a dangerous combination and always has been. Four U.S. presidents have been assassinated – Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield. William McKinley and John F. Kennedy. Ronald Reagan was wounded while in office. Donald Trump survived two assassination attempts. A Minnesota state legislator was recently gunned down. Rep. Gabby Giffords was shot in 2011 and Rep. Steve Scalise in 2017. The list goes on and on.

Why does this happen? Sociologists blame the mentally ill or the products of broken homes or bullying in school. Others say, no it’s left-wing teachers who twist the fertile minds of youngsters. Sound politicized? You bet. Republicans want to protect Second Amendment rights while Democrats want legislative relief.

There are other problems. In Florida, open carry has just been reaffirmed by the courts. Citizens can now carry firearms in public without fear of arrest. (It’s not just Florida. Forty-four other states have some form of open carry.) After all, guns allow people to defend themselves and their families. “Stand your ground” has become a rallying cry.

And let’s not forget the criminal element. Law-abiding citizens can usually be counted on to do the right thing, but much of the shooting comes from gangbangers, many from criminal cartels in Mexico. Illegal migrants by the millions have been allowed to pour across our southern border. Many remain here, fully armed.

But regardless of the shooter, where he comes from, his nationality or his incentive to kill, the shootings continue at a record pace. Here’s a sampling from a three-month period in 2023.
• Wisconsin – Twenty-one shot on a city street.
• Arkansas – Over two dozen injured at an auto show shooting.
• California – Six killed and 12 wounded in a street gun battle.
• South Carolina – Fourteen injured during a shopping mall shooting.
• New York City – Ten gunned down in a Brooklyn subway.
• New York State – Ten killed and three wounded in a supermarket shooting.
• Texas – Twenty-one killed and 13 wounded in a school massacre.

The courts have weighed in. Several years ago the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that “Americans have a constitutional right to carry a handgun for self defense outside the home.” Nearly all states agree, bolstering the right to bear arms.

The deck is stacked against any kind of gun control.

And here’s the real kicker. There are already so many guns out there, a massive arsenal, that any kind of gun control is virtually impossible. Over 400 million guns are already in private hands along with an unlimited supply of ammunition. That’s more than one gun, on average, for every U.S. citizen.

Buy-back, draconian legislation, even outright confiscation – which is nearly impossible without civil war – won’t make a dent. The problem is baked in. We may be able to slow the shootings, but the potential for gun violence will always be there. Always.

Term limits are a great invention

We are a country of inventors, from Thomas Edison to Willis Carrier to a couple of Steves (Jobs and Wozniak). A modest Who’s Who would take volumes. U.S. inventors have split the atom, invented jazz and pioneered flight.

The shear number of inventions is staggering. They include recombinant DNA, the laser, hearing aids, global positioning (GPS) and drones. And that thing called the Internet.

We are awash in inventions.

And one of the best is term limits.

That’s right. Restricting our politicians (call them lawmakers or statesmen if you wish) to a limited amount of time in office. Restricting the damage they can do.

President Trump, love him or hate him, will be around for only a couple more years. I have dear friends on both sides of his politics. Some see him as the devil incarnate while others think he walks on water. But for better or for worse, he’ll be gone soon.

On the other end of the political spectrum is Zohran Mamdani, New York City’s socialist candidate for mayor. He evokes terror on the right. But don’t cut your wrists. If elected, he too will eventually term out and the country will probably survive.

At the state level we have Governor DeSantis. He won’t be around for much longer either. By all measures, he’s a “lame duck.” Is that good? Maybe, maybe not. His successor could be much worse. My political friends say be careful what you wish for.

Like DeSantis, governors in 38 of the 50 states have some sort of term restrictions. So do many state legislatures. In Florida, the lawmakers are limited to eight consecutive years.

Locally there’s the Board of Collier County Commissioners, rubber-stamped by the GOP. They won’t be around forever. Commissioners Burt Saunders and Bill McDaniel are in their final terms ending in 2028.

The benefits of term limits aren’t limited to government apparatchiks. Many companies in the private sector embrace them as well, thankful for the chance to get rid of dead wood and troublemakers.

Like many out there, I sat on a few low-level boards and rejoiced when colleagues who disagreed with me termed out. (To my dismay, I also heard that more than a few fellow directors were glad to see me go, although I can’t imagine why.)

It’s been said that organizations that have term-limited boards are glad they do, and those that don’t wish they did. That’s too simplistic, of course.

A recent study of board-driven management gets into the weeds. The type of organization in question, the study concludes, dictates the type of board required and, in turn, the terms that should be imposed. Highly-qualified specialists may be needed – financial gurus or decorated scientists – to oversee high-level organizations of national importance, while celebrities, even local ones, are better suited in organizations where populist policy or fund-raising is the primary concern.

Sounds obvious, doesn’t it? And not very helpful.

History shows that, while terms date back to the ancient Greeks and Romans, term limits first took hold and were broadly applied in the 1990s. Poll after poll showed unwavering public support for them – an important check on government power.

So-called experts have applied some general guidelines. In government and elsewhere, two four-year terms are said to be enough. You get stale after eight years. Most organizations need a regular infusion of new blood and fresh thinking.

For us oldsters, there’s another factor. Mortality. My wife is always reminding me to keep things in order, bills paid, funeral arrangements made. It won’t be long, she says, before we term out.

ROMEO and having a good time

All you have to be is old. And sociable. And have a little spare time.

It’s quite a phenomenon, this ROMEO thing – “Retired Old Men Eating Out.” Geezers getting together to dine and reminisce and do stuff that’s more fun doing in a group than by yourself.

It’s a local club that can be started by anybody, a club with little structure or agenda or formal standing. Its website says, “The only rule is … there are no rules.”

My friend Bob Raymond started one in Naples after trying unsuccessfully to get into an existing ROMEO group some years ago run by the redoubtable Murray Hendel. “You can’t join our group,” Murray said with a laugh. “You’re not Jewish!”

So Bob dug into his grab bag of acquaintances and came up with a mix of friends and relatives, 10 all told (limited in size to stay manageable). He got the diversity he wanted – retired business owners, corporate execs, CEOs and CFOs put out to pasture, an ex-military guy.

And off they went.

“Our wives played bridge every Wednesday,” Bob said, “so that’s when we decided to meet. We take turns picking out a different restaurant every week. There are lots of good ones in Naples.”

I asked if they had officers. “Oh, no,” Bob said. “Nothing that structured. That would defeat the whole purpose.”

But Bob’s ROMEO group goes well beyond simple get-together meals. “We go to movies our wives wouldn’t go to,” he says. “We go to local auto shows, to ballgames in Ft. Myers. Last year we did a Caribbean cruise out of Ft. Lauderdale (wives included). We’ve got another cruise lined up in December.”

Intrigued, I went online to learn more about this phenomenon and found ROMEO “chapters” everywhere – in nearly every state and in six foreign countries. The reach is remarkable. (I’m told there is a women’s counterpart called the Red Hat Society.)

Some of the groups meet for breakfast or lunch rather than dinner, and some bring in speakers. One writes that its members are “bound together by age and gender … and the delight of just being together.” Causes or divisive politics are discouraged.

The history of ROMEO is murky. Its founding was estimated to be “several decades ago” and its original purpose was to provide support for depressed, doddering old guys with not enough to do. Early chapters in Maine were said to have brought together retired lumberjacks, lobstermen, even ship builders. Free lunches were provided and speakers were brought in to give “how to” lectures.

But the notion of coddling these old guys didn’t last long and breakout groups with verve and purpose soon took over. ROMEO clearly filled an unmet need: the male-to-male relationships men had in their working lives.

Its success is undoubtedly due to enforced informality. Don’t over-organize or take things too seriously. What’s important are the three F’s: Food-Friendship-Fun. Convene collegial groups and stand back.

Florida has a slug of ROMEO chapters beyond those in Naples. Here’s a partial list: Ocala, The Villages, Lakeland, Key West, Bonita Springs, Boynton Beach, Long Boat Key, Kissimmee, Singer Island.

Cape Cod has a chapter made up of 16 retired scientists who range in age from 73 to 104.

Little Rock has a group of local sports has-beens. Whether you played in a sand lot or a university stadium doesn’t matter. No one is very picky.

Sound interesting? If you can’t find something in Southwest Florida to your liking, start up your own chapter. Go online to ROMEO Club or email [email protected] or write to ROMEO, 335 Reef Road, Fairfield, CT 06824 to get some ideas.

That Costly Java

Coffee. I can’t do without it.

I could quit drinking alcohol tomorrow, cold turkey. But not coffee.

And I’m not alone. Coffee consumption has declined very little, if at all, in the U.S. (including Florida) in spite of staggering price increases, shortages and, sadly, an overall decline in quality. The good stuff is not as good as it used to be.

Still, some 35% of Americans quaff down at least one cup of Joe a day and most of us drink more. Average consumption is two cups per person per day. The inferior stuff is better than nothing. It gets us out of bed in the morning and keeps the wheels of commerce turning.

Here’s some background.

Coffee, or what passed for it back then, dates to the 15th century when Ethiopian monks were said to have roasted some beans – how or why you can only imagine. The provenance is pretty shaky.

German chemists isolated caffeine in 1819, and scientists later pegged its effect as a stimulant to binding with the adenosine receptor, allowing feel-good dopamine to run free.

Today the most common beans – Coffea Arabica and Coffea Robusta – are cultivated in 70 mostly equatorial countries; Brazil with a third of the worldwide crop is by far the largest producer. The best place to see the growing, roasting and grinding is Hawaii, specifically Kauia Coffee on Kauia and Kona Joe’s on the big island.

Now as most aficionados know, there’s coffee and then there’s espresso. We devotees turn up our noses at regular coffee – too weak, lousy taste, not enough kick. You just can’t beat espresso. It dresses up every occasion.

What about the health effects of java, espresso or otherwise? Like most things in these ambivalent times, coffee is both good for you and bad for you. Good because the antioxidants in coffee help fend off certain kinds of cancer, or so says the American Cancer Society. Bad because, unless decaffeinated, too much can render you so jittery you are virtually unable to function. Recent evidence – I’m not sure I believe it – says it may even promote heart disease. For sure it’s addictive. I can attest to that.

There are other downsides. Growing the beans is an environmental disaster. According to the Wall Street Journal, the average Arabica tree produces one to two pounds of coffee via roasted beans. That means every two-cup-a-day coffee drinker requires continuous production from some 20 trees.

To achieve that takes relentless fertilization for trees that soak the nutrients out of the soil, resulting in land that will eventually become barren. Experts say in Brazil, the biggest producer, some 88% of the land will be lost by 2050.

Those frightening projections have spurred work on altogether different approaches. The best of these involves fermentation of genetically modified cells from coffee-bean plants. And that works, sort of. While you can roast the resulting beans, the coffee is lousy, virtually undrinkable.

So we’re left with the same-old beverage from the same-old source, slowly dwindling away, increasingly costly and not as good as it used to be. Folgers Classic Roast, already pricy, is expected to cost 20% more by mid-2026. A 12-ounce bag of Starbuck’s ground coffee already costs $10-15 at local supermarkets.

And proposed tariffs will jack the price even higher.

But you know what? I don’t care about any of that. I’ll take what I can get for as long as I can get it. I don’t care about soaring prices or environmental damage or watered-down taste. Some coffee is better than no coffee.

Like the song says, “I just can’t get enough of that wonderful stuff!”

Global Warming is Not About to Cool

I look out my window and I see the dryness, Southwest Florida changing into Arizona. No cactus here, but there are palm trees turning brown, fronds withering and dropping, wetlands drying up.

And the heat is unyielding. Most people stay indoors whenever they can, soaking up the AC, driving to their jobs, then ducking back into the AC. Many who work out-of-doors are migrants.

Part of the cause is greenhouse emissions, mostly carbon dioxide, that hold in the heat and gradually change the climate. What can be done about is subject to debate, increasingly contentious and highly political. What few deny is that burning of fossil fuels – coal, petroleum and natural gas – is a big contributor to the problem. Much of the burning takes place in power plants, home heating and transportation vehicles.

The prognosis for the future is grim. Near-term the NOAA says we can expect more above-average temperatures in 2026-27, accompanied by lousy air quality, greater storm frequency and more intense hurricanes – bad news for SWFL.

Longer-term forecasts are even more discouraging. The Climate Action Tracker says there is no way we can hold temperature increases within the 1.5-degree-Celsius limit set by the Paris Accords. Most experts say we have already exceeded that.

How are we doing right now?

• Coal mining is actually increasing. Global production grew 2% in 2024, according to the International Energy Agency, and China is building an average of two new coal plants a week. India, a major producer, says to meet energy demand it will not be coal free until 2070 at the earliest.

• Petroleum production continues to rise. OPEC sees no reduction in the foreseeable future, with growth forecast to increase by 1.38 million barrels a day in 2026. BP just made a huge deep-water oil discovery off the Brazilian coast and, along with Chevron, has jettisoned much of its work on solar and wind. Both Ford and GM have slashed spending on electric vehicles as government subsidies continue to dry up.

• Explosive growth of artificial intelligence will be another contributor. Power consultant Deloitte says requirements for AI alone could boost electricity demands by 30-fold by 2035. As early as 2026, the Energy Information Administration forecasts 4.3 trillion kilowatts will be needed. Much of it will come from burning natural gas.

• All of this is happening at a time when everybody seems to be bailing out of emission-less energy. Although nuclear power is making a comeback, most other non-emission sources are taking a hit. The Trump administration has slashed subsidies for everything green, and solar and wind installations are forecast to drop by 17% and 20% respectively over the next decade. Once-promising things like hydrogen fuel cells have been put on the back burner. Airbus, BP and Air Products say development will take much longer and cost much more than originally expected.

Meanwhile temperatures continue to rise.

And there’s no reason to expect any real change. Moderating fossil fuel use or seriously developing carbon capture or imposing some kind of carbon tax is unlikely to happen.

Instead the Trump administration is doubling down on denial. Drawing on earlier findings that CO2 is different from the “air pollutants” Congress authorized the EPA to regulate, those now in power claim the EPA has no right to block greenhouse emissions.

The deck is completely stacked against any sort of relief.

So turn up the AC and try to stay cool.

Drones, drones everywhere

They are ubiquitous. Those annoying, buzzing things that look like mosquitoes from afar and come in all sizes and invade our lives in every way imaginable.

They’re called drones and they’ve been around for a long time.

The first recoverable “unmanned aerial vehicle” was developed just after World War I by the U.S. Navy and used sporadically in World War II. Mass production began in the early 1960s.

I first tried one about 10 years ago, instructed by a son-in-law at the time who used it to snoop on neighbors and spot foxes in the adjoining woods at dusk. They are still available as toys. You can get a pretty good one from Amazon for under $500.

But drones are much more than toys now. When my wife and I sold our Naples house earlier this year, our realtor used a drone to photograph the property. Turns out that’s pro forma, part of the sales process for many single-family homes in Southwest Florida, part of the advertising shtick.

And weddings. I’m told wedding planners use them to compile the festivities for later viewing – everything from the nuptials to the dancing to the rowdy behavior at night. It’s a new cottage industry.

And how about sports? Drones buzz about providing aerial views of baseball fields and soccer pitches, even indoor hockey rinks. We take them for granted, expecting no less for our TV viewing. Follow the long pass from above or watch the soccer kick leading to a breakaway. They have become an integral part of sports journalism.

But that all pales compared to military use. A recent Wall Street Journal headline screamed, “Drones Redo Rules of War.” And they have done just that. Pentagon officials say they are the biggest battlefield innovation in a generation.

Everyone has read of the audacious attack deep inside Russia earlier this year by drones sneaked in by Ukraine to destroy Russian bombers. That was followed in short order by Israel taking out Iran’s air defenses with drone strikes.

What was less publicized was the embarrassment of American destroyers spending months swatting down cheap drones from Houthi terrorists in the Red Sea. The WSJ called it “the world’s most expensive game of whack-a-mole with the U.S. on the wrong side.”

There’s no question of their cost-effectiveness. You can throw a barrage of drones at the enemy without concern about cost. They are so cheap that both Ukraine and Russia have hundreds in the air at all times. Literally hundreds. Reuters reported that in one salvo last month, Russia unleashed over 700 of them, the largest assault of the war up to that time. Expect 1,000 at once come September.

Apparently it’s a winning strategy. According to the WSJ, drones have been three times more effective in inflicting casualties in Ukraine than all other weapons combined. They are so dominant they force everything else – infantry, armor, even trench design – to adapt to a sky full of buzzing robots.

Warfare has clearly changed. Command centers, we are told, are now made up of skinny guys with laptops directing drones the size of dinner plates to targets in the field.

Anduril Industries’ Christian Brose sees all of this as part of a revolution in military aircraft. The go-to, he says, will eventually be “vehicles half the size of fighter jets with business jet engines in back – much larger than what comes to mind when we hear the word ‘drone.’”

Although such autonomous aircraft might be recovered after battle, he says, you can afford to lose them. Unlike anything else in human conflict, they are expendable.