yesterday in highland falls, ny, a father was charged with the murder of his 7 year old daughter, found stabbed to death in the restroom of her school
wednesday morning, just a few miles from where i live, a suicidal man left his car on train tracks, causing two trains to crash, 11 to be killed, 200 injured, then slashed at his wrists with scissors as he watched the aftermath. he was arrested after being rushed to the hospital and, because of "special circumstances" might face the death penalty
a sudanese bombing of a village in darfur wednesday killed or wounded 100
even as expatriot voting began, at least 10 iraqis and 2 us soldiers were killed (in relation to the war, that is) friday in iraq. since wednesday, at least 54 iraqis and 9 americans have been killed in "insurgent" attacks, and a helicopter crash killed 30 us marines
early this morning in new york city, a 28 year old actress/playwright was shot and killed confronting an armed robber
yesterday in peoria, il, a man confessed to killing eight women
in china, dozens of people were detained or beaten (one man beaten so badly his left eye looked to be coming out of its socket) for trying to mark the death of former communist leader zhao ziyang
this week a white farmer and two of his black employees went on trial in south africa for beating, tying up and throwing to lions (which ate him) another black employee
and, yesterday was the 60th anniversary of the liberation of auschwitz where 1.5 million were killed during the second world war
this is our world in a nutshell...
well, no, i neglected to mention environmental issues (like, for example, the bush administration approving drilling on desert grasslands on the otero mesa in new mexico, despite pleas to protect the area from energy exploration), ongoing genocide (like in the abovementioned darfur), and the statistics on just how many people are raped, beaten or murdered all around the world each day (more than 50,000 violent deaths a year in america alone)... aren't any numbers at all too many?
we live in a world in which abuse and death is commonplace. our troops humiliate and torture prisoners, and we barely care... hell, we're more likely to complain to the fcc that the photos made it on the air than to complain to the government or the military that the acts occurred in the first place. we're afraid to watch real violence or related imagery, lest we have to face it, really face it and acknowledge it. we like our violence to be pretty and well choreographed, for our movie star heros to be the clearcut good guys and the villains to get what's coming to them, with explosions and balletic kicks and punches a nifty bonus
somewhere along the line, in america anyway, we mistook the right to bear arms for the need to bear arms. like we mistook the right to cut down trees to make paper or lumber for building, or the right to kill animals and eat them to survive for the notion that we need to cut down all the trees and set up assembly lines to slaughter all the animals. we're okay with violence and death and environmental ruin as long as it's nicely packaged and we don't have to see any of it in gruesome detail
of course, rice was sworn in as secretary of state and gonzales will be attorney general soon. who doesn't want to kill someone?