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There is no calculus to empathy for victims of homicide. Who knows why persons X and Y react the way they do? Who has the temerity to judge or rate those reactions? When 9/11 occurred I was taken by surprise both by my own tears (in the Metro, of all places) and by the reportage from my friend Chick that his wife Ellen had spent DAYS in tears, basically non-functional. That said, this time around I empathize with the terror of the situation in VTech but not exactly the carnage, the loss. For whatever reason, I am not upset or depressed. Some crazy fuck shot a whole bunch of people. Sorry, folks. Next!
I guess that makes me an asshole. (More and more things do, it seems. I wonder whether or to what extent my misanthropy is being shaped by my environment, as opposed to my consciously massaging it into shape, because it is the easy and sensible way to be.) But it doesn't mean I don't find what happened there just horrendously bad and wish that we as a society had some clue as to how to make such incidents stop. Unfortunately, one of the less pleasant things about the aftermath of the VA Tech carnage is the implication, in the press and in the blogs, that if you're not grieving, you're not a complete human being.
Whatever the reason (my heart or my shoes), the first quote from the White House dealing with this shooting made me livid: "'The president believes that there is a right for people to bear arms, but that all laws must be followed,' spokeswoman Dana Perino said."
It's not because Mr. Bush's first Hestonian reaction is a rush to defend the Second Amendment against the inevitable hordes of screaming liberal anti-gun nutcases. (Indeed, I do not believe the incident in Blacksburg sheds any new, relevant light whatever on the issue of gun ownership rights v. gun control. Whatever arguments (sensible or non-) can be made regarding the ease with which Mr. Cho legally acquired his firearms are the same arguments that proponents of gun control have been making for decades—let's have some more restrictions/waiting periods/etc.—and that gun aficionados have just as long been decrying as the harbinger of the end of civilization as we know it. I personally would prefer a system under which a nervous referral by an instructor to a school psychologist suggesting a troubled and/or unstable young man would have somehow have preempted his acquisition of firearms; but I admit I have no great suggestions for implementing such a system that would also satisfy my requirements for upholding both the right to bear arms and privacy rights. Whadayagonnado?)
No, what makes me apoplectic about that quote from the White House is that, more so than any other word or action in recent memory from this President's administration, this sorry statement points up in no uncertain terms that this President hasn't the slightest fucking clue in the world who the people of the United States are, and would give a flying fuck about them if... well, if somebody shot them. It shows that not only the President but every handler or buffer between him and the press found it a reasonable response to respond to a relatively big and nasty mass murder with a fucking policy statement.
Today, of course, he spoke repeatedly—including remarks at a memorial service in Blacksburg—about healing and courage and prayer (oh, my!), reestablishing for the 418,000th time of his regime that religious faith is a requisite quality of every true Amurrkin, and maybe getting a good word or two in for the prompt resumption of untenable retail shopping.
Next up, just wait: Reliable sources indicate Mr. Cho was financed and given orders by Iran.
I guess that makes me an asshole. (More and more things do, it seems. I wonder whether or to what extent my misanthropy is being shaped by my environment, as opposed to my consciously massaging it into shape, because it is the easy and sensible way to be.) But it doesn't mean I don't find what happened there just horrendously bad and wish that we as a society had some clue as to how to make such incidents stop. Unfortunately, one of the less pleasant things about the aftermath of the VA Tech carnage is the implication, in the press and in the blogs, that if you're not grieving, you're not a complete human being.
Whatever the reason (my heart or my shoes), the first quote from the White House dealing with this shooting made me livid: "'The president believes that there is a right for people to bear arms, but that all laws must be followed,' spokeswoman Dana Perino said."
It's not because Mr. Bush's first Hestonian reaction is a rush to defend the Second Amendment against the inevitable hordes of screaming liberal anti-gun nutcases. (Indeed, I do not believe the incident in Blacksburg sheds any new, relevant light whatever on the issue of gun ownership rights v. gun control. Whatever arguments (sensible or non-) can be made regarding the ease with which Mr. Cho legally acquired his firearms are the same arguments that proponents of gun control have been making for decades—let's have some more restrictions/waiting periods/etc.—and that gun aficionados have just as long been decrying as the harbinger of the end of civilization as we know it. I personally would prefer a system under which a nervous referral by an instructor to a school psychologist suggesting a troubled and/or unstable young man would have somehow have preempted his acquisition of firearms; but I admit I have no great suggestions for implementing such a system that would also satisfy my requirements for upholding both the right to bear arms and privacy rights. Whadayagonnado?)
No, what makes me apoplectic about that quote from the White House is that, more so than any other word or action in recent memory from this President's administration, this sorry statement points up in no uncertain terms that this President hasn't the slightest fucking clue in the world who the people of the United States are, and would give a flying fuck about them if... well, if somebody shot them. It shows that not only the President but every handler or buffer between him and the press found it a reasonable response to respond to a relatively big and nasty mass murder with a fucking policy statement.
Today, of course, he spoke repeatedly—including remarks at a memorial service in Blacksburg—about healing and courage and prayer (oh, my!), reestablishing for the 418,000th time of his regime that religious faith is a requisite quality of every true Amurrkin, and maybe getting a good word or two in for the prompt resumption of untenable retail shopping.
Next up, just wait: Reliable sources indicate Mr. Cho was financed and given orders by Iran.
