Random Thoughts on the School Massacre
A compilation of my posts and comments on posts on a common social media outlet:
"In
Ramah was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great
mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and she would not be
comforted, because they were not." Jeremiah 31:15, quoted in Matthew 2:18-20.
The slaughter of innocents goes on.... We're no better than our predecessors, just more efficient. Lord have mercy.
We
can't let random insanity drive our lives or public policy... if we do,
the crazy people win and we are crazier than they are.
I
listened to talk radio on the way home from work about the "massacre"
and I wondered how Middle Eastern country talk radio deals with suicide
bombers and triple or quadruple the dead and weekly or monthly
occurrences instead of once or twice a decade. Our news coverage of
this kind of event on our soil goes on for weeks but 80 people dead and
dozens more injured in a suicide bombing overseas gets a 10 second blurb
at the top of the hour for less than a day even though we all know both
perpetrators were nut-cases in one way or another.
#newsdrivenbyratingsandadvertisingrates
The
unfortunate reality is, even if mental health care and guns were
equally accessible to crazy people, there will always be a crazy person
who will choose the guns. There's always more that could have been done
and can be done, but evil and nutcases will always wreak havoc. Death
was introduced into the world in a perfect environment and the first
murder happened just east of Eden.
Strange
how our individual lives go on even in the face of inconceivable evil
and sorrow. I still had to unstop my kitchen sink after work today. A
very small thing comparatively, but still consequential in my reality. I
never know how to feel about that.
L
Posts
10 comments:
Morgan Freeman's brilliant take on what happened yesterday.
"You want to know why. This may sound cynical, but here's why.
It's because of the way the media reports it. Flip on the news and watch how we treat the Batman theater shooter and the Oregon mall shooter like celebrities. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris are household names, but do you know the name of a single *victim* of Columbine? Disturbed people who would otherwise just off themselves in their basements see the news and want to top it by doing something worse, and going out in a memorable way. Why a grade school? Why children? Because he'll be remembered as a horrible monster, instead of a sad nobody.
CNN's article says that if the body count "holds up", this will rank as the second deadliest shooting behind Virginia Tech, as if statistics somehow make one shooting worse than another. Then they post a video interview of third-graders for all the details of what they saw and heard while the shootings were happening. Fox News has plastered the killer's face on all their reports for hours. Any articles or news stories yet that focus on the victims and ignore the killer's identity? None that I've seen yet. Because they don't sell. So congratulations, sensationalist media, you've just lit the fire for someone to top this and knock off a day care center or a maternity ward next.
You can help by forgetting you ever read this man's name, and remembering the name of at least one victim. You can help by donating to mental health research instead of pointing to gun control as the problem. You can help by turning off the news."
How many times does "an act of rare random insanity" have to course before we decide that the actions aren't so random after all?
I don't buy this argument that we can't legislate against something just because it has happened in the past and will happen again in he future. Heck, if that's the case, why do we have any criminal laws at all?--they all get broken.
No, even in a broken world filled with broken individuals we have a duty to try to prevent, in whatever way possible, these unspeakable acts of evil.
We cannot resign ourselves to accept evil: we must strive against it.
"Occur," not "course."
There's some mental illness in my family - bipolar, OCD, and the soon-to-be-abandoned Asperger Syndrome. Read Anarchist Soccer Mom's "Thinking the Unthinkable" and it may change your persepctive.
http://anarchistsoccermom.blogspot.com/2012/12/thinking-unthinkable.html
http://glory2godforallthings.com/2008/08/04/solzhenitsyn-and-where-the-battle-begins/
Lord have mercy! Thank you for these comments: I'm "there" with you, Let's get this world "done" and that requires me to live a responsible, prayerful life, but Good Lord I'm tired of this violence and the violence daily out of the middle east, Come soon Lord Jesus and help me repent of my sins before you get here!
Thanks, S-P. You said what I've been thinking and did it with far fewer expletives.
Here is an excellent blog commentary from Molly Sabourin:
http://mollysabourin.com/?p=3016
"Strange how our individual lives go on even in the face of inconceivable evil and sorrow. I still had to unstop my kitchen sink after work today. A very small thing comparatively, but still consequential in my reality. I never know how to feel about that."
I so much agree with you. It's a weird thing...insane almost, without solution.. to be sitting round the dinner table filling our bellies and making plans for the holidays while people just north of me are struggling to breathe, to just breathe without tears...
honestly, it's in that kind of moment that I can better understand asceticism, fasting. I feel more equipped to pray for the world from a position of struggle.
10gp5autnitiGreat blog, Steve. but what happended to Moo the Turtle? I miss him and his various comings and goings!
Jim of Olym
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