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by Cecil Tatom Sabine County Reporter Hello, faithful readers! Me and my co-conspirator are back to give our hot takes on the important questions of the day. I had to reach out for assistance this week and the two queries came from friends of mine, one from the Great White North of Toronto, Canada and the other from my vivaciously spunky and drop dead gorgeous lady friend Johnai in Lake Charles, LA(Thank you, boo, I literally couldn’t have done this without you this week! Now the three people in this county who don’t know about you from me will read about you!)The questions are: 1. Do you think that Iran is attempting to provoke a response from the United States with their attack on Israel this past week? And 2. Has road rage spiked since the introduction of Covid-19? 1. We here in the US are truly in quite the pickle here. Whereas Israel is our staunch Middle East ally, thanks to the current “administration” and their Green New Deal policies we are currently dependent upon the likes of Iran for our oil. Biden unfreezing $6,000,000,000 of Iranian money has essentially made this all possible. We are also supplying Israel with military aid as well, so it would seem that we’re playing both sides, with Israeli citizens caught smack in the middle. This may aggravate some of my Democrat leaning friends but I reiterate: in my opinion had Donald Trump been president none of this would have happened. Period, end of discussion. 2. I did a little research on this particular topic and what I found didn’t surprise in the least. Road rage incidents have exponentially spiked since the introduction of Covid-19 in 2020, and I believe the reason for that is we were forced to stay home, away from all other human contact, and we have gone stir crazy. Human beings are social creatures that crave interaction with other humans, and when that is taken away from us(completely unnecessarily, as it turned out) it has damaging effects on our already fragile psyches. Look at how these masks have affected our kids. At their ages they are thoroughly dependent on seeing adult faces so they can cognitively develop properly, which the aforementioned masks hampered severely. So, as a result, what once was merely annoying driving habits of others get amped up to the n’th degree, leading some to bust windshields or rip off windshield wipers at the next stop light. Chris Reynolds Response: Q1: Is Iran attempting to start WW3 by attacking Israel & What should the U.S. response be. I believe that Iran is attempting to escalate an already ongoing & volatile conflict into a larger conflict for their own interests in that region. But this is nothing new to those of us old enough to remember the last 50 years. The 80's brought us the Iran-Iraq conflict, Iran's attempts to disrupt shipping in the Persian Gulf & the strait of Hormuz, terrorist hijackings of aircraft and a cruise ship, as well as numerous cases of support for terrorist organizations. Lately, the Iranian navy has again begun interfering with shipping in the above mentioned areas, in some cases, I believe even opening fire on some vessels. Once, I think, they even held some Marines in custody for a short while before releasing them. So I believe that Iran has been looking for a reason to escalate any situation in the Middle East and Israel gave it to them. As a Veteran, how i think the U.S. should respond is easy. We shouldn't make the situation worse by involving U.S. forces unless necessary. I would ask the countries on the Arabian peninsula to form a multi-national naval force to escort merchant vessels thru the area while not violating Iran's territorial waters with the CLEAR warning to Iran that ANY attempts to disrupt shipping in international maritime waters will be met with military force. I would intern any iranian ships in american ports & their crews be returned to iran or home countries immediately, as well as asking other countries to do the same. I would freeze or seize any Iranian assets until the attacks are stopped & place sanctions on any country supplying them. In the meantime, i would continue trying to de-escalate the situation in a peaceful manner. Q2: increasing road rage incidents in the wake of Covid pandemic. Covid affected us in so many ways. Daily life changed, the economy was affected, and lives changed. During the epidemic, people couldn't work, couldn't travel, couldn't visit loved ones, and couldn't conduct some personal business. We had to change how we did things like masks in public, using santizer, dealing with limited access to the things we take for granted like grocery shopping and bankng. We became terribly frustrated with how things were and one of the ways people vented was on the roads. Once restrictions were lifted, and people could get out more, the pent up anger and frustrations exploded. Researchers also have said that increased use of technology has led to a decrease in interpersonal interactions, young people acting out what they see on violent video games or vehicle-speed inspired action movies, and society's acceptance of non accountability for your actions. Like the case of the young man recently punished for doing doughnuts in a public parking area. Many people said ' Oh he was just being a kid'. They were condoning his actions. how about i come do the same thing on their property, then with a straight face say ' but i was just re-living my youth. It's okay'. likewise, some people have said that road rage incidents are just cases of people acting out, venting their frustrations. it should be okay. Well it's not 7 i think that if we stiffened laws concerning road rage penalties, maybe we'll see a decrease in incidents. ive even experienced these frustrations at times myself, but i didn't act on it.
