JUMP!

Why is it so often the gun that makes the headline? Should I now be afraid that my own might some day turn against me? And then there’s the matter of blowing everything so out of proportion in these high-profile cases. Oh, I’m not arguing that it is or isn’t wall-to-wall. It clearly is. But is it justified? Frankly, I felt awkward listening to the show last night.

Some poor shmuck is found in a dumpster in Delaware and there’s hardly a mention. Only, as we would find, he wasn’t just some poor shmuck; he was a man of considerable position and influence. Still, hardly worth a mention - only the titillating speculation that he might have crawled into the dumpster to keep warm on a cold night - Republicans do this sort of thing, you know.

Then, it’s been reported, that our casualty rate in Afghanistan has reached proportions not seen since the thick if the Iraq war. But then, they’re only soldiers. They seem to be quite expendable. No longer is there a (public) count kept of the dead (as there was for Bush). No investigations over why things are going badly. Could it be we’ve placed too many restrictions on our soldiers? Hmm… I wonder.

And what about our citizens getting murdered along both sides our border with Mexico? What exactly is being done about that? I guess they too don’t count for much - like all the birds and fish found dead this past week (and don’t tell me that nobody knows what’s going on with that. God! I thought this was going to be the smartest, most transparent administration ever; one, that even promised to ‘return science to its proper place‘!) But apparently only those elected (or swindled) into the cult of political royalty count. For them we’re only too happy to pull out all the stops; make broad-brush statements, and draw grandiose, metaphysical conclusions.

Look, where was anybody watching as Jared Loughner went off the rails!? His views weren’t unknown. He was said to have been in a band; he broadcast on u-tube. Where was the school; the teachers he handed his written assignments to, and some he must have looked up to? Where were his parents? Most likely, he was encouraged - prodded on - like the man on a ledge. The crowd looks up and screams, “Go man, jump! Jump!” …and then we’re surprised when he does.

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