Monday, April 23, 2007

Forget Oldboy. Did Cho ever listen to the Doors; like, really listen?

I’d hate to drag in Morrison’s good name into this, but some parts of “The End” are really chilling in light of what happened last week (aside of course from the oedipal references). Not trying to establish any real connection — which doesn’t exist — but, for the sake of hindsight (excerpted below):

“This is the end … of our elaborate plans, the end/Of everything that stands … No safety or surprise, the end/I’ll never look into your eyes again … Desperately in need of some stranger’s hand, in a desperate land/Lost in a Roman wilderness of pain, and all the children are insane...

“There’s danger on the edge of town … The killer awoke before dawn, he put his boots on/He took a face from the ancient gallery, and he walked on down the hall … It hurts to set you free, but you’ll never follow me/The end of laughter and soft lies…”

Anyway, Jim, you can rest in peace; God knows that with such an awful tragedy you definitely don’t merit any blame.

Friday, April 20, 2007


You have got to be kidding me (above, the all-round lubricant, apparently trademarked since 1958; reminds me of the Moo-latte and this).

And take that, feminists.

Thursday, April 19, 2007

CNN reported Wednesday night that NBC News received the videotaped final rites of the murderous psychopath who rampaged Virginia Tech Monday. After (reluctantly) watching it in full, with eyes aghast and conscience shocked by this despicable basketcase, all that really can be said is this: My God, there’s no soul there; blood colder than ice went through him. What a crime against all humanity, and his deeds were simply the quintessence of evil, when the heartless are allowed to roam free and destroy their imagined demons. All there is to say, really.

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

The murderer has a name: Cho Seung-Hui. AOL News reported earlier today that a former classmate, Ian MacFarlane, pointed to two plays Cho had written. They read, in terms of the violent psychosis and immaturity within, almost exactly like the Harris-Klebold diaries released last year.

Is it me or do I smell evil around here? … I feel a satanic presence around me. Do you guys feel it?”

Excerpted from “Mr. Brownstone” (above), through an apparent alter ego, John. As far as his story goes, John and friends sneak into a casino and win the jackpot, whereupon the teacher (who is portrayed as an evil figure [four professors were murdered at Virginia Polytechnic]) named Brownstone, intervenes and calls security forces on them. After kicking them out, one of the officers says, “I am sorry about those gangsters, sir. We’ll beef up our security.”

Seems disturbingly prescient. Yet what gives rise to such unreasoning anger and lunacy?

Monday, April 16, 2007

Hannah Arendt was right. It can happen anywhere.

“‘I can imagine what they’re going through,’ Frank DeAngelis, Columbine High principal for almost three decades, said in a telephone interview. ‘You’re hoping there would be lessons learned from Columbine but that’s obviously not the case’” (Bloomberg News).

One would have thought so (Photo by Alan Kim, Roanoke Times).

Friday, April 13, 2007


Not gonna lie, Mr. Fish, but you have gone too far with this one (above). Just brutal.

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Finger-lickin’ good news.
From the London Guardian’s excerpts of Vonnegut’s final work, “A Man Without a Country” (2005):

I myself feel that our country, for whose Constitution I fought in a just war, might as well have been invaded by Martians and body snatchers. Sometimes I wish it had been. What has happened instead is that it was taken over by means of the sleaziest, low-comedy, Keystone Cops-style coup d’état imaginable. … George W Bush has gathered around him … psychopathic personalities, or PPs, the medical term for smart, personable people who have no consciences. … These were people born without consciences, and suddenly they are taking charge of everything. PPs are presentable, they know full well the suffering their actions may cause others, but they do not care. … Unlike normal people, they are never filled with doubts, for the simple reason that they don’t give a fuck what happens next. Simply can’t….”


This analysis was rolled out at the height of their dominance; they’re unraveling and imploding not a moment too soon. You will be missed.
Goodbye, Kurt Vonnegut. R.I.P.
The crucification of Don Imus has to stop. Free speech shouldn’t stop at the opening of anyone’s offense. Tasteless, yes; stupid, yes. Grounds for a barrage of punishment? No. Wasn’t he trying to riff off a Spike Lee movie? Where is Spike’s share of the blame? Imus is, or rather was, a shock jock; it is the nature of the profession to make ribald, provocative remarks that are typically directed toward, well, everybody. Don’t take him out of the context of his ignorant comments about Jews and women. It’s nothing new. The key part of racism seems to be hate; if you specialize in cracking wise, which was his attempt, that’s not necessarily racism. One would have the same basis to call Carlos Mencia, apparently a total fraud, racist — and you wouldn’t hear that from me.

This reminds me of a recent spate of papering around the residence halls here, which read, “Only 15 of the 137 faculty members identify as non-white. What are you going to do about it?” Um, nothing. If it is representative of the demographics of the surrounding community (in the case of Wooster, Ohio, quite so; the words “vanilla suburbs” from George Clinton come to mind), no issue. Why is the color of someone’s skin at all relevant? Only racists think like that, or instead crypto-racists grotesquely posing as champions of diversity. Anyway, hi, I’m back.

Sunday, April 01, 2007

The overlords at Google had me fooled. (But I am seriously taking a break from this. Until later.)