To Be Shot

Suicide is something seldom ever covered in the press. It's a foul aspect of society, and most papers don't cover it for fear of inciting copy-cat incidents. Youth, and as a former member of Canada's youthful population myself, gets some funny ideas. Some seek suicide as a claim to fame. It's silly, really. As the dead have no need for fame. The dead aren't missed. The living just go on doing just that.

However, I stumbled across this article while cruising the lanes in Google News. It's one of the rare instances where suicide will hit the papers, as it's a case that defies typical logic. It breaks the pattern.
Quoting from the article:

"Everyone wished that the outcome had been better. No one wanted this outcome. Not us, not the police, not anyone wanted this outcome," said Shirley Klim, his grandmother.

The lad was shot by police when he brandished a knife. He was suicidal. In the end, he got his wish. Of all the people touched by this tragedy, perhaps he was the only one who got what he wanted in the end. It's such an awful waste of a life, and one has to wonder if the police did the right thing. A tazer was used, but it wasn't enough, I suppose.

It's easy to be wise about this kind of thing, but in the end, we really have to ask if the best means of meeting the absolute end is to just throw ourselves on the barrels of our enforcement agencies? Officers have the authority to protect themselves, but at the same time, it's their job to protect us as well - even when we're not in our right mind and brandishing a knife.

Unless I've missed something, and everyone who isn't in their right mind is somehow less than every other miserable individual on this planet.

The Genocide continues

Well, after a whole lot of procrastinating, sitting on my ass, and doing a whole lot of nothing, I figure it's time to get this bird rolling again. Or stone flying. Or however these things are supposed to work.

Anyway, so things to note that will now differ from my tone on prior entries. I'm no longer going to try and be "unbiased." While it's true that I'm what most would call "painfully moderate," I will admit I do have some left-leaning ideologies. Now, if for a minute you think I'm hateful, you're probably right. I'm a misanthrope produced in the furnaces of all the worst society has to offer, so don't be surprised if I not only don't take sides, but slag both sides for being what they are.

Also, you needn't bring up my past in the press as an argument point. Also, anyone who equates journalism with unbiased reporting will be pummeled to death with sharp and very deadly carrots. Such a beast never existed as long as mankind has wrote its own history, and to imply that a person (man or woman, left or right) can write any kind of news without some hint of bias is a fairytale in the first right. Believe me, I've tried. Every article has to begin with a sentence, preferably short. And it's impossible to present both sides of every issue in their entire depth in just a single sentence.

Lest you end up with a long, seemingly never ending ramble that places both sides at perfect equilibrium with each other which I guess isn't a bad thing considering that everyone wants "unbiased" news, but isn't willing to take a stand and be unbiased in their own right.

Why? Because it's impossible. It's also impossible to have a conversation with somebody who hates you on principle. Not that you needed me to tell you that. So anyway, if you're coming here looking for some meat to poach, kindly take your Gulo gulo's elsewhere. This place is only for semi-serious discussion and only slightly unnecessary alarmist ramblings.

Editorial Genocide

This blog has been notoriously quiet of late, and I've got a couple of very good reasons. The first, and not the least of which is, I work for a newspaper, so many of my ideas end up becoming printed columns for the community to chew over and digest.

The other, and also equally valid reason that I haven't updated in a while is this: who reads this stuff and actually does anything with it? I don't know how many years people have been writing about the misadventures of the White House, etc. but if you go back and look, it's taken... what. Six years before people are even dimly aware that something wrong is going on?

And even now, there's a veritable machine of press, blogs, and personelle who are working overtime trying to portray this whole thing as one giant smear campaign for an administration that can do no wrong.

Well, frankly, they can keep doing what they're doing, because they've already won. All people have to do to allow injustices to keep happening is nothing. And by and large, that's all they want to do. Work eight hours, go home, turn on the boob tube, and watch the latest drama - real or imagined - unfold for the next couple hours before retiring to bed. Blissfully unaware that while they were watching a pair of tits bouncing across the screen, several hundred people on the other side of the planet just had their lives ended either directly, or indirectly through the ambitions of the government that they elected.

So, if nobody's going to stand up and do anything when the mule-heads take control, they can eat shit. And I mean that in the sense that if they're ignorant enough to elect these people to power in the first place, shit is all that's going to be on the menu.

And so, really, why am I going to write about people lining up to eat shit? It's boring, cliché, and not to mention the fact that it's highly offensive too. People hate somebody that sounds like their conscience. People hate it even more when it makes them feel guilty that they quietly murdered that conscience while it was sleeping, back when they were teenagers.

People also hate it when others point out the obvious, a la, the Emperor's New Robes. Only in this case, the Emperor is robed in nukes, and we're the ones marvelling at our own bare asses.

It's any wonder why I don't write about bare asses. Now that would be something that would grab headlines.

Dear Mr. Bush

You forgot Canada.

Demoscratos

Democracy: Greek for "ineffectual."

I'm watching our federal government roll out their "green" plan. It's kind of amusing in a way, because everyone and their dog knows that nothing will actually be done. Sure, emissions will be cut by some arbitrary percentage by a date in the future, but how does reducing the emissions save the environment, when what we've already put out is already creating a cascade of reactions all over the planet?

Much too little. Way too late. Not to mention the fact that everything we want to do has to go through the cogwork wheels of the meatgrinder in parliament. I like what democracy represents, even if it's a clipped bird in a flying contest. I don't like politics and powergames though.

I almost can't wait to read the article that the Party members inevitably put out. It's their little trumpet they have to blow everytime their government does anything, since we as the media are bored to tears by just about anything they have to say. Hell, even when either Party fucks up, their members are touting the fact that it was made public. They like to throw words like "accountability," out a lot.

Meanwhile, in the States, I'm watching as "accountability" is one of the words being thrown wholesale from the White House windows. My thoughts go to the soldiers who are now having to put boots to soil in Baghdad. I'm hoping the nasty business on both sides of the ocean can be wrapped up soon, for your sake and for the sake of the people of the world.

But I know, like the mission to save the environment, the mission in Iraq is never truly over.
Are either worth winning? Truly?
The world will likely outlast us, as human beings, and our regression to pre-millennial mindsets regarding the future of our race have likely doomed us to annihalation, if not by the hot death of a nuclear bomb, than by the flabby apathy and ineffective actions we claim.

I chose not to enter politics for two simple reasons.
1) There's no room for honest men and women in the company of crooks and powermongers.
2) My efforts to help would always be stymied, if not by my own party, than by the efforts of the opposition.

Priorities, or a lack thereof

The world is still dealing with the trappings of genocide, strife, and civil wars are threatening to run rampant in some corners of the world.

And yet, some people can still find the time to try and ban gay marriages.

There are many causes to champion in the world. I suppose trying to save souls is good for some, but let's try saving some lives first. Unless, of course, being altruistic is "unnatural," and should be considered a sin against God. In which case, by all means, let your fellow man rot while you debate the finer points of skeleton keys to get into heaven.

On Pinochet

These are the days when the dictators die.

Milosevich was the first to go. Then it was heard that Hussein would be hanged. Now Pinochet, dead after complications following a heart-attack.

I'm at a loss for words to describe the feeling. To many, I'm sure these days are either particularly bright, or under a pall most dark. To me, it's almost anticlimactic. These tyrants had their heyday while I was still toddling around in pampers, and now that they're gone, I'm left to wonder just what kind of twisted legacy they've left behind.

Of course, I'm still left with having to face the tyrants of today. Moderated. Marginalized, but still there. I don't know their names (or I do, I just can't name them), but I do know that the pains of yesterday lead to the headaches of tomorrow, and the allure of power is too tempting for some.

The past doesn't teach us "thou shalt not." The past teaches us "thou must do better than those that preceded thou."

The tyrants and terrors of today are avid history fans. They've seen how their predecessors failed, and they're coming up with all new ways to foil foes and followers alike. Whether left-wing or right-wing, everyone needs to pay attention to who's in charge. We all have to be somewhat critical of those in power. Believe me when I say you're helping them more by questioning them than by just taking whatever they give.

I wonder what the history books will say of our era? A thought worth musing another time perhaps.