Yoga is the dance between the light and the dark within you. The light is what brings you back to the mat and the darkness is what you uncover there. Don’t be afraid of this darkness; these are only shadows and though you’ll have to walk down some pretty dark alleys, remember you are grounded in the light and that light will set you free. // Amy Jirsa (Quiet Earth Yoga)
it’s senseless that her life and Adam’s life were taken by a crazy person with a gun. And if I have to be the John Walsh of gun control — look, I’m for the Second Amendment. But there has to be a way to force politicians that are cowards and in the pockets of the NRA to come to grips and have sensible laws so that crazy people can’t get guns.
“It can’t be that hard, and yet politicians, from the local level to the state level to the national level, they sidestep the issue. They kick the can down the road. This can’t happen anymore. Because Alison was one of you guys. This has got to hit home for journalists. And if journalists — you know, if journalists are targets — and we’re not talking about someone going to Syria and being in the cross hairs of ISIL. We’re talking about two kids that were two young people that were doing a benign story about a marina opening or celebration, and someone — a crazy person with a gun — shoots them.
“And I know the NRA, their position is going to be — I can hear it now, they’re going to say, ‘Oh, well, gee, if they were carrying, this never would have happened.’
“I have news for you: If Alison or Adam had been carrying an AK-47 strapped around their waist, it wouldn’t have made any difference. They couldn’t have seen this thing coming. So, you know, I don’t want to hear that argument from the NRA and you know that’s going to happen and I’m going to take it on.
“I got a call from (Virginia) Gov. (Terry) McAuliffe yesterday and I told him exactly what my plan was: ‘If I have to be a crusader on this, I’m not going to rest until I see something happen.’ And he said, ‘Andy, you go for it. I’m right there with you.’
“We’ve got to have our legislators and our congressmen step up to the plate and stop being cowards about this.
“I’m not saying let’s take away guns. I’m just saying let’s make it harder for people with mental issues or people like this guy that killed Alison and Adam, to make it difficult for them to purchase guns.
There’s got to be a mechanism that gets put in place for that, and I don’t think that’s unreasonable to do. How many Newtowns are we going to have, how many Sandy Hooks? How many Alisons is this going to happen to before we stop it?
“I’m challenging you, the media, because, again, this is one of your own, and I know how the business works. It’s a great story for a couple days, and then it goes to the back burner and nothing happens. But I can promise you and I can promise the American people I’m not going to rest until I see something get done here.
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Andy Parker, the father of slain journalist Alison Parker, spoke out on CNN about the need for stricter gun laws and urging the media – of whom his daughter was a part – to focus more coverage on the issue of gun control.
"Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through."
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