WHY?

“You have vandalized my heart, raped my soul, and torched my conscience.”

I have been caught up in the media blitz of the Virginia Tech Massacre for the last five days. I have seen the videos and pictures of this young man that people describe as a loner with empty eyes. I have read about his family. I have read about his victims. I have read about the gun.

My brain is racing to find an answer to of course the unanswerable question: Why?

I am a vegetarian. I did not even have the heart to kill a wasp that was living in my bathroom for several days.

Why?

I am the girl who, when her mother read her the story of the Little Red Hen, I said it was mean for her to not share her food with the other barnyard animals, even though they hadn’t helped her thresh the wheat and all of that.

Why? How could he do this?

I’ve spent a lot of time as a loner. In darker times, I’ve been violent to myself.

How? Why?

My first reaction is to blame the guns.







Guns seem to be a leading killer of folks in that 17-24 age bracket. They just make things too easy.

On farther thought, my reaction is to blame social isolation. We all sit staring at our computer monitors. We don’t go to the bank; we go to the ATM. We can easily go all day without ever having to speak to another person face to face. We live in gated communities. We close our doors. We lock them. We don’t talk to strangers.

A quote from one of my favorite articles written on the issue:

“Forty year old Joyce Vincent had been lying dead in her London apartment for two straight years before the badly decomposed body was discovered by her landlord in April 2006. The story, quietly tucked away in British newspapers, profoundly upset readers around the world who saw her isolation as a failing of modern communities. As one outraged blogger put it, “Two years. She lay there. Alone, dead, unnoticed, and unmissed. How is it possible that in a city of about seven million, not one person noticed that a neighbor, sister, cousin or friend was missing?””
Full article is here:

http://adbusters.org/the_magazine/69/Loneliness_and_Technology.html

But still, this doesn’t answer it. There is no real answer. The situation still brings me to me knees. It makes me sick to my stomach. It makes my brain hurt.

All I know is that social isolation and guns are two things I will forever be fighting against.

The death of Kurt Vonnegut

So I couldn't come up with anything profound to say about Kurt Vonnegut dieing, so I made him this picture.



I'll also leave you with a favorite Vonnegut quote. This is from Mother Night.

"Where's evil? It's that large part of ever man that wants to hate without limit, that wants to hate with God on its side. It's that part of ever man that finds all kinds of ugliness so attractive. It's that part of an imbecile...that punishes and viligies and makes war gladly."

Sentence that may not belong in the Tampa Tribune today.

I'll preface this by saying this article was about the head priest retiring at St. Lawrence Catholic church. I spend third and fourth grade at St. Lawrence. We wore plaid jumpers down to our knees and black mary janes. All the 4th grade girls were listening to New Kids on the Block. I was rocking out to the Beach Boys and Peter, Paul, and Mary. A lot of the girls were trying to kiss boys and stuff by that point, but I just wanted to write things and read books.

Now back to the title sentence.

I came across this today, and I just found it a little odd.

"Everyone wants a piece of Monsignor Higgins."

They do? Oh, my!

NEW STUDY REVEALS READING THE NEWSPAPER IS GOOD FOR YOU! LIKE ALMOST AS GOOD AS DRINKING LOTS OF WATER GOOD!

Being informed about the world, can lead to improved sense of self esteem, and hey, it’s good to know if a meteor is heading towards the earth, a new president is elected, or we are at war or something like that.

Only 4 in 10 Americans report reading a newspaper the day before. Americans report that they were too busy buying clothes, eating, watching Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader, working long hours, and checking their myspace to have time to read anything other than their kids’ report cards.

In the population that WAS reading the newspaper, 80% reported having something to say at the dinner table, 77.2% reported a better since of self worth, and 100% reported not living in a self absorbed bubble.

*Photo above=Picture of a box of sour cream and onion bunnies reading The New York Times.

__________________________________________________________________


Wow. I’m so glad I came across this article. I personally love getting my mits on the Sunday paper and reading as much of it as I can. Forget this online stuff. There is nothing that replaces those big foldy newsprint pages, the gray dust on my hands, the great and not so great real world stuff going on.

Whoever came up with that study is a genius and should be thanked with lots of beers and a big piece of cake.

Oh, Sweet Jesus!

"One of the worst assaults on Christian sensibilities ever."

Chocolate Jesus is not an insult to Christianity. If you ask me, chocolate Easter bunnies are an insult to Christianity. Christmas trees are an insult to Christianity.

Why turn religious rejoicing into an uber-consumer fest? Why do you have to go out and buy something to prove how much faith you have?

Everyone who knows me knows I am not a religious person; however, if I was, I’d prefer religion without the bells and whistles.

I was raised Catholic, and man, we loved those bells and whistles. Tradition. We are all about it.

This is a theory, mind you, just a theory. Don't spend a lot of time crinkling your nose about it. The bells and whistles exist to “hook” kids on religion. Pretty ornaments. Colored unedible eggs. Decorative lights. Big happy Christmas bows bound for landfills.

Back when we were getting hooked on phonics, we were also getting hooked on Jesus.

In fact, things like Santa Claus and the Easter bunny could be likened to Jesus spokespeople. Think of them as like, the Ronald McDonald or the Joe Camel of God.

On Christmas, it’s like you get a really really special Happy Meal.

Religious holidays are the best advertising campaigns ever invented!

It all must be pretty convincing because I probably just offended 76% of the population.

From a religious tolerance website:

"During 2001-FEB to APR, the Graduate Center of the City University of New York conducted an American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS). It was a massive poll, questioning 50,281 American adults about their religious affiliations during 2001-FEB to APR. 2 They obtained some results that are noticeably different from the Pluralism Project's data. The differences are mainly because they asked their poll subjects what religion they considered themselves to be, rather than what religion they were actually affiliated with. Results included:

76.5% of American adults are Christian (52% Protestant; 24.5% Catholic).

14.1% do not follow any organized religion; they are Agnostics, Atheists, Humanists, Secularists, or have no religious affiliation.

1.3% are Jewish.

0.5% are Muslim, followers of Islam.

0.5% are Buddhist.

0.4% are Hindu.

0.3% are Unitarian Universalist.

0.1% are Neopagan (Druids, Pagans, Wiccans, etc)"

Even the most successful advertising campaign of all time like the Marlboro man, and the "Think Small." Volkswagen Beetle campaign didn't make three-fourths of the population buy their product.

However, the same website also says:

"The most rapidly growing religious/spiritual/ethics grouping in the US is not an organized religion; it consists of non-believers (Atheists, Agnostics, etc.)."

And the chocolate Jesus? I mean, this guy makes rooms out of cheese apparently. I don't think it's necessary to be making threats on his life.

In the beginning there was...

A blog.

I apologize for the mundane title; I had to pick something to encompass all subject matter.

This blog will not focus on any particular topic (art, culture, media, God, etc.), and, in fact, will remain somewhat self absorbed (Stuff about me!). I'm about to run off to graduate school to become a physician assistant, so I'm sure that will entertain someone.

This is basically about my life and how I see the world. Every once in a while I might post a short work of fiction or some mediocre poetry.

I just want to throw stones into the vast information well that is the internet(s)* and see if I hear a sound.

*Deliberate george bush cutdown.