The clear day waning, temperature in the lower sixties, a slight breeze in the air--a perfect night for baseball. But first, a moment of piety--let's observe thirty-two seconds of silence for the dead in Virginia.
Jesus.
Aside from the fact that it is wildly inappropriate to bring this sort of thing up before a ball game played by little kids, and aside from the fact that this is the sort of bullshit gesture that serves no purpose beyond making us feel better about ourselves, the big question raised by this is: Why thirty-two seconds? Thirty-three people died.
Of course, we've already demonized Cho Seung-Hui, so the loss of his life doesn't matter.
The pointless analysis continues, all across the political spectrum, and it has an ugly tint. How could we have prevented this, people ask, how can we identify people who are mentally ill, and deny them access to handguns, and keep them out of our classrooms, and away from our children?
Hey, I have an idea. Let's just round up anyone who's ever taken a mood stabilizer or anti-depressant, who has ever been angry at a sibling or pissed off at their boss, who has ever given another driver the finger, who has ever had a fight with their spouse, who has ever harbored a negative thought, let's take all these people and pin yellow stars on their chests and march them off into the death camps.
To be human is to be fucked up. Some people deal, some people don't, and most of the ones who can't handle it jump from windows or slit their wrists or swallow a shitload of pills while listening to The Downward Spiral, but sometimes it's not enough to off themselves, sometimes they need to go out in a blaze of glory, the only way they can comprehend to give their wasted little lives meaning.
Which means innocent people will die, and I feel bad about that, I look at the faces of the dead and i want to cry, but you know what? People die--that's another fact about human existence, and the limbless orphans in Iraq most likely couldn't give a rat's ass about our national day of mourning, since to them hell is everyday life.
And if you really want to live in that perfect world where nobody ever acts on their negative feelings, here. Take this pods and put it under your bed. When you wake up, you'll never feel pain again.
