'Safe'
Off-topic discussion. Wanna talk about corsets, duct tape, butt kicking, or physics? This is the place. Detailed discussion of any current-season TV must be whitefonted.
There's an active shooter at a synagogue in Pittsburgh.
Right next to where I lived in 1980. Squirrel Hill. I lived in a neighborhood called Point Breeze just adjacent. We used to go to Squirrel Hill for the good bagels! My thoughts of Pittsburgh are always of the wonderful people. Worried about them.
Damn, people really suck. The dead and injured were there for a bris ceremony. This is so sad.
It'll be okay. The Oval Office is already on top of things -- even tweeting about it.
(Get me out of this AU.)
Howard Fineman on MSNBC kept repeating over and over again what a peaceful lovely area Squirrel Hill is. Apparently he grew up there. So true, this is the last area I would expect to find an act of such violence.
eta: but surely not all Nazis are bad people... weeping for us all
I lived in Squirrel Hill very briefly in my mis-spent early-Internet youth, in '91 and '92.
Somebody find and smash the amulet, please?
Okay, I seriously have to back away from the news coverage and swim for an hour or so. That orange POS in the White House actually said things might have been different if people inside the synagogue had been armed. I just can't.
Hiya, I don't usually come to Natter, but thought I'd check in given what's going on. I live in the neighborhood - the synagogue is about 8-9 blocks away from my place. University of Pittsburgh sent out an emergency alarm as soon as there was news about the shooting so I've been staying put, chewing on my nails.
It really is a beautiful neighborhood, and the synagogue is in the heart of a very old, vibrant Jewish community in the city. I am heartsick. But the even more terrible thing is that... I am not even that surprised that yet another bigot shot up a place of worship, even if it's in my backyard. This country is so fucking broken.
The news is so heartbreaking.
The current president tweeted something stupid about how if the synagogue had had appropriate defenses this wouldn't have happened, but I am willing to bet money that the synagogue had security, probably off-duty cops, because every synagogue I know well always has security for services for exactly this fucking reason.
oh Vonnie. hard to be so close. be safe.