2020 has certainly been an *odd* year. Never did I believe, just twelve months ago, that I’d be cringing with so much disgust about so many things. I didn’t write yesterday because I was feeling really cranky. I decided to put up all the Christmas decorations instead, and that took a couple of hours. After that, I just didn’t feel like writing. However, I did post a few comments on news stories. I often regret commenting on stories, but sometimes I can’t help myself.

I ended up blocking one guy with “correctile dysfunction”, who kept trying to mansplain the morality of being pro-life while also being pro-death penalty. Another post, about a wonderful, warm hearted Italian baker who was putting out free bread to feed the hungry in Milan, left me in tears. The baker got COVID-19 and the virus killed him. A third story, about people who got COVID-19 while on an 18 hour flight from Dubai to New Zealand left me feeling disgusted.

A woman who clearly hadn’t read the article, wrote a scolding comment about “manning up” and wearing a mask. The people on the flight were wearing masks and gloves. Several of them got sick, anyway, which is bound to happen, whether or not people are wearing masks.

Sorry, but face masks are not a panacea against the coronavirus. Wearing them slows down the rate of infections. It doesn’t stop them cold. Many people do not wear the masks properly or change them as often as they should. Wearing a mask for eighteen hours on a plane is sheer lunacy, anyway. I don’t think long haul flights like that should be allowed until there’s a vaccine. And frankly, I’m tired of people judging and scolding others about COVID-19. People need to tend to their own business, and they should read before they comment on news articles. I mentioned I was feeling cranky, right? This COVID-19 stuff along with my hormones are really doing a number on my disposition and patience.

But then, just as I was about to turn off the news and enjoy the rest of my Saturday with Bill, I read about how actor Ricky Schroder contributed $150,000 to help bail teenaged killer Kyle Rittenhouse out of jail. Yep… in a world where people have lost their jobs due to the hellacious happenings of 2020– in a world where an Italian baker was putting out free bread for the hungry because people really needed it– Ricky Schroder thinks donating $150,000 to a bail fund for a known killer is a worthwhile thing to do.

Well, it’s his money… And I know that despite how many of my friends and classmates thought Ricky was adorable in the 1980s, he’s grown up to be quite the conservative freakazoid. Earlier today, I reposted an article I wrote in 2017 about Ricky and his family– ex Mormons who have evidently turned into poster children for the word “vapid” and made their own reality show about “Growing Up Supermodel”. In 2019, I wrote about Ricky’s older daughter, Cambrie, who is gorgeous but has issues with her dad. I seemed to have come away with a more favorable opinion of Cambrie in 2019.

Before yesterday, I knew Ricky Schroder voted Republican and has conservative values. I know Kyle Rittenhouse’s case is a bit complicated, too. Here he is, a seventeen year old guy, just on the brink of legal adulthood, living in Antioch, Illinois. All year, there’s been chaos. We’ve had rioting, protesting, political unrest, and a pandemic. I’m not in America right now, so it’s hard for me to judge the overall mood of life there. I can say that as an American abroad, I assume that people of all stripes are feeling restless and uneasy in America. Some people probably feel scared and helpless. Guns make them feel better and “safer” somehow.

Kyle Rittenhouse is a young man in the heart of America. He felt the need to carry a weapon to a protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, even though he’s a minor. He says he was there to help protect businesses from looters after protests erupted when Kenosha police shot Jacob Blake in the back, paralyzing him. Rittenhouse was supposedly there to act as a medic, and help clean up.

Perhaps Rittenhouse really did think it was his civic duty to cross state lines on August 25th of this year, and get involved in a protest that led to him killing two people and injuring another. But the fact is, he should not have been involved. It wasn’t his business.

Rittenhouse was too young to buy a rifle. He had an adult friend do it for him, using money he got from the government’s stimulus program. He had “plans” to apply for a firearm owner’s ID card so he could keep the gun legally, but evidently, he hadn’t done that at the time of the crime. Rittenhouse also needed a ride to the protest, which was provided by his mom. Kyle reportedly wanted to be a police officer. He carried a medical kit with him wherever he went. He was allegedly trying to “help” when he went to the protest in Kenosha. Instead, he wound up on camera, shooting people. He claims it was “self-defense”. My question is, what the hell was he doing there in the first place?

So Kyle’s dream was to be a police officer. Why didn’t he stay in Illinois and work toward making that dream come true, rather than taking it upon himself to get involved with a protest in another state? Where did he get the idea that he needed to bring a weapon to the protest? Even if he meant to be “helpful”, it wasn’t legal for him to purchase the gun. And he probably wasn’t trained in dealing with protests. It was a foolish idea that may cost him his freedom.

Of course, right now he’s out of jail, thanks to Ricky Schroder and the CEO of My Pillow, Mike Lindell, who helped raise the $2 million to get him out of the pokey. While I’m not sure I believe Kyle Rittenhouse is a hardened criminal who needs to be locked up forever, I do think that he stuck his nose where it clearly didn’t belong. He made a terrible mistake that cost people their lives. And I find the below tweet very interesting and telling…

“God bless ALL who donated to help #FightBack raise required $2M cash bail. Special thanks to Actor Ricky Schroder @rickyshroder1 & Mike Lindell @realMikeLindell for putting us over the top. Kyle is SAFE. Thanks to ALL who helped this boy,”

Notice that in the tweet, Rittenhouse is referred to as a “boy”. If he’s a boy, then he had no business attending a protest in another state, especially armed. He needed more adult supervision, particularly since it’s obvious that he has an obsession with weapons and Donald Trump. One would hope that by age 17, most young people would have more wisdom and insight than Kyle did. But his actions only prove that he still has a whole lot of growing up to do. Unfortunately, he may be doing it in prison. At the very least, it’s likely that his dream of being a cop will never come to fruition. But at least he has a friend in Ricky Schroder. I know back in the 1980s, some people would have thought that would be really cool.