If you read only one blog full of ranting and raving about sports (local and otherwise), movies, TV shows, miscellaneous pop culture, life and other assorted flotsam and jetsam, make it this one!

Sunday, December 16, 2012

Newtown: Same Old Same Old

Many of you aren't going to like what I have to say, but it's how I feel. Right now the only thing that truly angers me about the latest massacre via gun, in Newtown, Connecticut, is that the Fox network has decided to televise the prayer service going on right now, instead of showing the new episode of "The Simpsons" that my DVR is supposed to be recording. (And the prayer service -- don't get me started. It seems like they're trying to include every possible religion, so every speaker is trying not to say something that might offend someone else. A Lutheran chaplain just said that we all call God by different names but "however we address you, you are still father and mother to us all...") Since I started writing this, I switched to the NFL game on NBC, and now they've also switched to the prayer service because President Obama has begun his remarks. So now I have no "Simpsons" and no football.

I'm not investing another ounce of emotion into these things unless something, heaven forbid, happens to someone I actually know and care about personally. Every time this happens, the same old responses happen: people say it's senseless and a tragedy and they're shocked and outraged and sad and their prayers and thoughts are going to the victims and post pictures and article links and quotes and memes on Facebook, Twitter, etc. and ask why we don't have more gun control laws/complain that gun control laws wouldn't make a difference and blah blah blah blah blah. Then a few days go by and it all fades into the background and people start obsessing over the Kardashians again.

Why does it take multiple deaths to even get this response, as short-lived and futile as it is? People of all ages are gunned down every day, over and over, all over this country. Why is one child's murder in, say, North Philadelphia less important than 20 children in Connecticut? Add up all the gun deaths that occur one at a time and they'll add up to a hell of a lot more than 26.

And why does anyone think this time is going to be any different? All this talk about making sure this never happens again has been heard after the Columbine massacre, and after the Virginia Tech massacre, and after the Dark Knight movie massacre, and on and on and on. Nothing changes because the only real way to bring about change (not just on guns but on lots of issues) is if everyone rises up and makes their voices heard by voting. But most people don't vote except in presidential election years, and even then nowhere near 100 percent of eligible voters actually bother. And those who do vote don't put enough thought into it. People say they're in favor of this or that but vote for politicians who completely disregard those wishes. Everyone says they hate Congress but they keep voting for the same clowns in their own district. The politicians who are in bed with the National Rifle Association keep getting reelected by somebody.

And what passes for TV news reporting falls into two general categories: insensitively interviewing children who may have just seen their playmates killed, or asking politicians important questions like whether they're too fat to be elected President. Here's a couple of ideas: try to interview a child during a traumatic event and you lose your job. And if a politician refuses to answer important questions about why they don't stand up to the NRA, then they don't get airtime for puff pieces like when mayors or governors make a bet on the Super Bowl or World Series.

So, sorry, but I'm just bored with this whole thing. Hurry up and get over it so we can all go back to the business of making sure that evil criminal mastermind Lindsay Lohan finally gets locked up.

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