I'm Right Again Dot Com Americans are being conditioned to expect insane killing sprees
At 5:05 last Sunday morning, I had my laptop turned on, checking for weather predictions, when a friend in California told me about the shooting rampage in Orlando. It took a couple of key strokes for my browser to connect with the Xfinity (Comcast.net) homepage. At that hour, the media was guesstimating that the death toll in the Orlando night club was 20. By the time of this writing that number has climbed to 49.
Here is what is even more horrifying: my attitude. I wasn't overwhelmingly shocked at the moment of hearing the initial report of record number of killings. I would not say "care-less," but If I have to rate it on a scale of 1 to 10, I would give it maybe a six, and that could be stretching it a bit.
It took me almost 24 hours to sort out exactly what my response was at the moment of hearing the initial report. I suppose I should admit that it was not unexpected. That alone is sad enough.
Is that where we are: prepared, or worse, inured to a continual succession of mass murders?
Now that we have blamed everyone including the Diety for this latest massacre, we can each declare, "I am not in the least bit responsible."
How convenient.
Late last night, I heard a former co-worker of the killer blame himself for staying silent, even though he was sure that the mass murderer was mentally ill. "Yes," he said to a reporter on CNN, before God and me, "I will blame myself forever, for not doing something about it." (I presume about the shooter's disturbing remarks, some time in the recent past).
Thank God! That lets me off the hook, I told myself. I turned off my television, showered, reset the thermostat on the AC and went to bed...where I tossed and turned for 10 or 15 seconds before I went to sleep. For a while.
-Phil Richardson, Observer of the human condition and storyteller. "He goes doddering on into his old age, making a public nuisance of himself." - Joseph L. Menchen
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