Virginia: At least it's not Iraq

So I thought I was done writing about this, but it turns out I'm not. I should preface this by saying that it's sure to piss you all off, so if you're sitting the fence about liking me, I implore you, read no further.

I just had a thought, and the thought was this. 31 people died in Virginia yesterday...So what? I don't know anyone in Virginia, yet my first and enduring thought echoed the headlines: What a tragedy. But you know what, it isn't a tragedy. Thirty-some-odd people die in Iraq every other day and I don't care. I'm not trying to be callous or heartless here, just honest. People dying in Iraq mean as much to me as people dying on Lost. The only difference is, I have to wait a week for someone on Lost to die. And it's the same for you, dear readers, don't deny it.
A suicide bomber walks into a market, pulls his plug and takes 20 people with him. This is The Middle East every day. You know what? America, welcome to the rest of the world. Virginia is just a taste. Why, then, are the media and the president and the person sitting next to me and myself deeming what happened in Virginia a tragedy when, truth be told, we consider the people that die in the Middle East and elsewhere collateral damage? Fuck you, and fuck me, too. Those are people over there, real human beings who are dying just as senselessly as those poor souls in Virginia. Why aren't we, the people asking how we can avoid the killings in Iraq? Why aren't we, the people questioning the security practices of our government over there? And hey, how about a giant FUCK YOU to President Bush for having the balls to get teary-eyed about Virginia. You want to know why people in the Middle East and elsewhere hate Americans so much? I'll tell you, it's because when 30 people die on American soil it's front page news but when 30 people die in Iraq it's buried on page 6. They hate us because we hold our lives in much higher esteem than theirs. When I was outside, smoking a cigarette and this thought hit me, I hated us, too. But don't worry, Letterman's on soon so I'll crawl into my comfy bed and drift off to sleep, knowing that, in my country, it'll at least be a couple of weeks before 30 more people die needlessly.

Happy Hour again!

So yeah, I went out for happy hour with a friend earlier and now I'm compelled to write. You may look at the date of my last blog, look at my above sentence and figure out that I haven't been drinking a lot lately. 30's catching up on the quick and I've been falling over myself to keep up. So it goes.
I guess I have to start out with what happened in Virginia yesterday. I'm not going to try and dissect the reason he did it because there's nothing to write about. I've read the killer's "plays", heard about the note he left and am myself left with one solid and irrefutable idea: homeboy was nuts. There it is, plain and simple. He was crazy. Sure there was a why and a what involved, but it doesn't matter. He did what he did. Reading the newspaper and CNN's website today (I was again stuck answering phones all day) and the inevitable question that's first and foremost on everyone's minds is How could we have prevented it? Your answer: You couldn't. There is no preventing it. This guy snapped and walked into a couple of buildings and shot 31 people, himself included. There was no way to prevent it. Parents are blaming the school, The O'Reilly's (I've begun lumping all right-wing douchebags into this convenient category) are blaming video games, liberals are blaming each other but the honest and simple (and scary) truth is: this is the world we live in. Get used to it. This isn't the first time it's happened and sure as mud after a rainstorm it ain't the last. Hell, we've had several similar events happen in just the past month, one of which happened at UW. Life is, in my uninformed estimation, 75% luck. Whether you know it or not, we're all around somebody who could go off should the correct succession of events occur. I just plan on being super nice to everyone from here on out. Either that or I start using my sick days in a random fashion, hoping to avoid the shitstorm that's undoubtedly coming my way.

Coincidentally, one of the most prolific pessimists to ever put pen to paper passed away a few days ago. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. died as a result from a fall he took a couple of weeks ago. Interesting, I read an interview of his conducted late last year. Seems the main theme he kept coming back to was this: The world is doomed, have fun. The "have fun" part wasn't intended as sarcasm, I don't think. He quite literally meant that there's no saving the planet or the human species so give up the ghost and have fun while it lasts. Kurt Vonnegut was a smarter man than even he gave himself credit for. That coupled with Steven Hawking's warning that man needs to begin colonizing space now or we're screwed leads me to believe that Vonnegut may be on to something. Tell you what, I read that Vonnegut interview and promptly threw my soda can in the garbage. Not the recycling bin, mind you, the waste paper basket. I was a couple of feet away and I mimicked a basketball fade away while I did it and, you know what, it was fun. Ah, so it goes. In memorandum of the man, I've decided to post my favorite excerpt from his last novel, Timequake:

...It was about a fugitive who sought shelter from
the police in the home of a woman he knew."Her
living room had a cathedral ceiling, which is to
say it went all the way up to the roof peak, with
rustic rafters spanning the air space below." Trout
paused. ...He went on..."She was a widow, and he
stripped himself naked while she went to fetch
some of her husband's clothes. But before he could
put them on, the police were hammering on the
front door with their billy clubs. So the fugitive hid
on top of a rafter. When the woman let in the
police, though, his oversize testicles hung down in
full view."Trout paused again."The police asked
the woman where the guy was. The woman said
she didn't know what guy they were talking about,"
said Trout. "One of the cops saw the testicles
hanging down from a rafter and asked what they
were. She said they were Chinese temple bells. He
believed her. He said he'd always wanted to hear
Chinese temple bells."He gave them a whack with
his billy club, but there was no sound. So he hit
them again, a lot harder, a whole lot harder. Do
you know what the guy on the rafter shrieked?"
Trout asked me. I said I didn't."He shrieked,
'TING-A-LING, YOU SON OF A BITCH!' "

Here's a funny thing. So, as I said above, I'm stuck answering phones today. This woman calls in and asks who's in charge of the doctors. I tell her the name. She asks what that person's title is and I tell her the office administrator and she asks to speak to that person. It was obviously a complaint. What is also obvious, or at least is to anyone who works with doctors is that the only thing larger than their egos is their contempt for one another. Sufficed to say, a complaint is something I ought to keep quiet. Instead, I ring my boss up and tell her that this woman is on the phone, she's a patient of so-and-so's and she's calling in with a complaint. I get all of this out before I realize that I can hear myself talking not just through my own mouth but from every phone speaker in the general vacinity. Yeah, you see, in my haste to relay the situation to my boss I seem to have pressed the "page" button rather than the button connected to my boss' extention, which is no where near the "page" button, thereby alerting everyone, other doctors included, in the office that Dr. so-and-so is receiving a complaint from one of his patients. It's kind of funny but also kind of the thing that gets a guy like me fired. Said doctor actually works in a different building than me so the news of my little faux-pas should be reaching his ears sometime tomorrow. Incidentally, if anyone in the Seattle area is looking for a dumb, but well meaning, employee, feel free to ring me up, I've got a few recommendations.