The recipe
April 19, 2007
the recipe
“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” --Krishnamurti
T he morning after 33 dead in Virginia
I try very hard to read the sports – to ignore the carnage
You see, on the sports pages hardly anybody ever dies – instead
it’s only about wins or loses, games played, injuries –
the odd concussion. Eventually though, I get sucked
into knowing about this Korean-American kid
with automatic weapons and too many grudges to count.
Recipe for…this
1) Take a country of over 300 million people.
2) Add over 250 million guns.
3) Add requisite ammunition.
4) Assure easy access to guns; guarantee it under a 250-year-old
piece of legislation.
5) Mix together.
6) Bake in an oven pre-heated by fear, mistrust, greed, racial tension,
religious fundamentalism, a massive gun fetish, and predominant violence.
7) Wait.
8) Don’t be shocked if the odd crazy person unloads
an automatic weapon on the innocent every now and then.
9) This kind of slaughter is exactly what you’ve cooked.
Do not expect me to grieve with you. Not again.
I will not. I’ve had enough. I will not grieve with you
as you lift your stunned voices in confusion and ask:
“Why? How? Why?”
You look to God for answers.
You cooked this recipe.
It’s your stew and you must like it –
you never try to change it.
You have my sympathy, and my compassion
but I will not grieve with you.
You are a dangerous, gun-happy people.
You are frightened children playing catch
in the middle of a busy freeway, with a live grenade –
with unmoving smiles – and with an unwavering faith
in a well-armed American dream.
8 Comments
1. Rosemary had this to say: Apr 19, 2007 ~ 13:40 ~ #
Do you remember when the police wouldn’t give out details of serial killings. Why can’t our media adopt this attitude instead of fuelling sick whacko’s fantasies of doing this sort of thing and putting them on the FRONT PAGE OF THE EDMONTON SUN???
They need to give their heads a shake!
Grrrrrrr
2. Thomas had this to say: Apr 19, 2007 ~ 13:50 ~ #
I don’t think the media is the problem. I think gun deaths should be on the front page every day. Picture after picture until Americans are so sick of it that they do something. Canada, to our credit, brought in a gun registry….the jury is still out on its effectiveness. There is a profound resistance to change in the USA. Especially when it comes to guns. But until they do change, (I don’t think arming everyone is very progressive so I’m suggesting a ban on automatic weapons of every ilk) these massacres are going to keep happening. They’re resistant to a ban on “automatic “weapons. Do you for one second think the body count (students, sons, daughters, teachers, dads, moms….) would have been 30, if the guy had to stop and re-load. “Can you hold on just a second while I re-load and then kill you?” Not gonna happen….
Would not have happened.
3. ink slinger had this to say: Apr 19, 2007 ~ 19:42 ~ #
I agree, the media has little to do with it. As someone who once had aspirations to work in the news media, I believe that it is almost an obligation to publish this sort of information. I mean, obviously, you have to be careful what you publish. For example, no one would broadcast the entirety of this kid’s bizarre video rant, but to not show it? To me, that’s far worse than informing people of what has happened.
Besides, I truly do not believe that publishing news about killers inspires other killers. And, if it does, I think the risk of hiding the truth is far greater than potentially inspiring the odd nutjob.
Also, people tend to think that the media used to be “softer.” They think that publishing dead bodies on the front page is a new phenomenon. It isn’t. It used to be common. During WWII, it was not uncommon to have images of dead soldiers on the front page of newspapers. The trend of not showing death in the newspaper and on TV is actually a very recent one.
4. Thomas had this to say: Apr 20, 2007 ~ 10:39 ~ #
Ya, the CBC choice to not air any of the video footage from the Virginia killer is interesting. I respect their decision to NOT pander to this killer’s desire to be immortalized—to have infamy. But they are also hiding behind the courageous decision of so many other media outlets to air some of the footage. If the viewer wants to see, the footage is out there, elsewhere, just not on CBC.
I had an interesting conversation with Alice Major about the “news.” More than 33 people are killed every day in Baghdad. Front page news? Nope. They don’t look like “us” and they’re far away, so the news doesn’t care.
5. Mike had this to say: Apr 20, 2007 ~ 11:07 ~ #
The same day as the Virginia killings, 183 people died in car bombings in Iraq. The bombings made the papers – not front page. No candlelight vigils, no condolences from heads of state, no moment of silence observed anywhere as far as I could tell.
6. Paulette had this to say: Apr 21, 2007 ~ 09:41 ~ #
In the movie “Bowling for Colombine”, Chris Rock said that we should charge $5,000.00/bullet…maybe then there would be no innocent bystanders…
In the school were I teach, we practice “lock down” simulations – if someone ever walks into the school with a gun, we are to lock our doors. The kids asked, “What happens if I am outside the door? Going to the bathroom?” I said, “You know what? I would open the door for you.” No one is left behind.
7. Me had this to say: Apr 22, 2007 ~ 17:43 ~ #
This raises the issue of not only gun-control, but what-do-we-control.
For instance, I know this one guy; American, ex-army, anti-immigrant, blantant anti-homosexual, anti-anything-other-than-white-democratic. And that’s American democratic. This guy also has 30+ guns. But he’s not the kind of guy who would ever shoot anybody else, unless he were being paid to do it by the military.
And there’s a boy that I used to be in a band with, and he bought brass knuckles and made contacts to buy a handgun at school. And my school is pretty good about not having weapons. Yeah, we have a drug problem, but nowadays who doesn’t?
And then there’s me. As soon as it is legal, I am getting my gun liscence. But I am in no mental state to kill people. There’s just a barrier in my head that does not allow for the killing of anything with a spine (and lots of things without).
So what does gun registration do, if it blocks the people who will only use guns legally from buying them and doesn’t stop the people who won’t? I’m not complaining about myself, I really don’t care if I get this liscence now or in 20 years. But my dad is kind of put out that he may not be able to get a decent night-vision scope because of a new law.
But if my dad were the sort of person that didn’t care how he got it, rather, just that he did, he could easily get that scope by non-legal means. We’ve created a world that if you’re desperate enough, you can get anything.
So it’s all really just a by-product of the much larger issue that is our society. That’s really the recipe for failure here.
8. Thomas had this to say: Apr 22, 2007 ~ 20:50 ~ #
There is no doubt in my mind that this is a societal problem. Emphatically. Completely.
And, I only applaud the courage of the Canadian government for making an effort — for doing “something” after our own Montreal massacre. Not suggesting for a second that the gun registry works…it probably does penalize the innocent (though, as a police officer going into a domestic dispute, it must be nice to be able to check and see if there are any weapons registered to a particular address…)
But, ya, it’s wrapped up inside the problems of an entire culture.
Good comment.