After the Out Breath, by and © monkeytime.

I posted this before learning that today a Christian, right-wing terrorist murdered Dr. George Tiller inside a Christian church in Wichita, Kansas. Dr. Tiller was truly a hero, having risked his life for years (and nearly lost it in a previous terrorist shooting) to provide abortions to women in an area of the country that has been under enormous pressure from people who want to control women’s bodies and restrict women’s access to reproductive medicine.

I’m leaving this photo up because I like it and there’s not necessarily a direct connection between guns/gun culture and the sort of terrorism practiced by the forced-pregnancy crowd. Indeed, society’s protectors must use most of the same weapons used by its enemies. But Dr. Tiller’s murder can’t go unremarked, nor can the link between significant parts of American gun culture and other elements of right wing culture that are violently reactionary and seriously, dangerously unhinged.

Ave atque vale, Dr. Tiller – Hail and farewell.