In yet another episode of mass shootings in America, one person was killed and more than 20 were injured during what was supposed to be a joyous Super Bowl parade on Wednesday in Kansas City, Mo. Watching what is happening in Russia is a stark reminder that the world is not a work of fiction. What happens in Russia could very well happen in the US and we have powerful leaders who call for punishment and imprisonment of those who speak out. Our failsafes are only as strong as the people who enforce them. If the enforcement mechanism is corrupted and corrupts the interpretation mechanism as well as the writers of our failsafes, then there is not failsafe, there is only failure. Some social trends are new and some are old but with new names. For the most part, everything is cyclical but the youngest generation always thinks they’ve discovered fire for the first time. Nope. Been here a while. After the 1970s, American dynamism declined. Americans moved less from place to place. They stopped showing up at their churches and temples. America’s penchant for starting and joining associations appeared to be in free fall. Book clubs and bowling leagues were going bust.