FROM THE EDITOR
New York, March 2019. Winter hands the baton to spring. Chelsea is in full bloom, an obstacle course of tulips, daffodils, hyacinths all over the pavement. A sign: “Chris, King of Foliage Inc Since 1969.” In Greenwich Village, graffiti on orange road barriers: “Deport Trump.” In Brooklyn, we sit in a cafe and order beef bone broth and it comes in a ceramic cup with a sprig of fennel and rosemary tied up with string. Shafts of sunshine angle through the cafe windows. Where are you from? they ask. Five days earlier, on March 15, the Christchurch mosque attacks. In the New York Times, New Zealand and Prime Minster Jacinda Ardern make the front page four days straight. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry — this is our fault,” says a waiter. “Because this is what happens here in this country and we haven’t dealt with guns and now it’s our fault. It’s what’s becoming normal. And its spreading.” Another: “Oh my God, your leader ... you are so lucky.” Another: “You know what, f*** thoughts and prayers — in New Zealand you have legislation.” Another conversation, another day, “Nothing changes.” Anger spilling out in the neighbourhood.
In 2019, in the United States, there were 434 mass shootings, 517 people were killed, many more injured. Sandy Hook Elementary School, 2012. A supermarket in Buffalo, just a fortnight ago. This year, there have been more mass shootings than days in the year, so far. This week I sent a message to a friend in Los Angeles. It’s a horror, unimaginable. He said: “I wonder if today is the day my children are going to be murdered at school.” His rage, visceral. Would you write about it for us? I asked.
Matt Ragghianti, LA screenwriter, producer, journalist, is angry. Angry at the “unimaginably corrupt, selfish, shallow, power-holders in the House of Representatives and the Senate”.
He makes a link between the health system in the US, mental health and the wealth from the richest Western nation being denied ordinary people. The struggle is real. He, like the rest of the 90 per cent of Americans who want a change in gun laws, are tired of not being heard.
There is anger in the neighbourhood and even an endless pathway, a swathe of bright bulbs, an obstacle course of colour in spring, cannot cover it up.