Things That Piss Me Off Tuesday - the yes really, there was another shooting edition

Howdy, folks.

I haven't been around here much lately.

Well, that's not exactly true. I've been writing, just not in this form. There is a lot of stuff going on inside my head, but not much of it is suitable for viewing.

Get your head out of the gutter. Wink, wink.

Honestly, though, I'm generally easily distracted anyway, but the last week has been remarkably bad because there is so much else going on.

Seriously, don't wave anything shiny within a mile radius of me right now.

I should get to the ranting because we all know that is why you are here.

Can We Have a Moment of Silence?
A very close friend was in a horrible car accident over the weekend. He's not so much a friend as he is my pseudo-brother. He's my brother's best friend. He's the guy who stuck around through everything. He's the guy who is always there for you whenever you need him.

He also puts up with my incessant teasing of him, and throws it right back at me.

Anyhow, he wrapped his car around a tree. His actual brother was the first one on scene, and I just want to hug them both for everything they have seen, everything that has happened, the kind of stuff that you can't just erase from your memories. Bad stuff.

This friend, he's still here by some miracle, but he'll have a long road ahead to recover. A very long road.

That car that he wrecked?

A cherry condition classic muscle car.

One that he just bought a few months ago.

Oh man, seeing the pictures of that beauty before he totaled it hurt.

Can we just have a moment of silence for that fine ass automobile?

You know I'm going to give him crap about that once he's better. I mean, I'll let him heal and stuff first...but it's on.

In all seriousness, though...please drive carefully. Please.

School shootings, the media and everything else
It happened.

Again.

Yesterday, a 12 year old boy took a handgun from his parents and brought it to school. Before turning it on himself, he killed a teacher and shot two other students. 

This all happened close, too close, for a friend of mine. A friend of hers was fired at during the incident and it all went down just miles from her home. You can read her post at World's Worst Moms here, and I urge you to.

What happened inside that building was bad enough, but what happened afterwards in the first hours especially, indicate that our society has many problems in addition to the fact that 12 year olds can access weapons and kill people.

The media swarmed over the story like a moth to a flame almost instantly. Speculation long ago replaced reporting, and the rush to be first has the effect of diminishing accuracy to the point that it almost doesn't exist anymore.

The speculation that always happens immediately after these kind of events seems to ignore the fact that there are actual human beings involved. People who have been shot or killed, children who have witnessed things that will haunt them for the rest of their lives, family members waiting at home unable to reach those that they knew were in the building.

As fast as the speculation begins, the posturing does. Those who use these tragedies as soapboxes for or against gun control, who spin it within mere seconds to fit whatever their position is. Who can't seem to wrap their heads around the fact that people are dead and their families haven't even been notified yet.

We need to stop allowing these events to be made into circuses. We need to stop the urge to seek information that no one has immediately. We need to turn off the goddamn television and give the investigators time to gather evidence, give the families time to be notified and grieve before a microphone is shoved in their face because "the people" demand answers.

If the good people of the nation could unglue themselves from the screen, could shut it off, it would communicate to these so-called news outlets that their rushed, rude, often wrong reporting isn't what we want or need and they would stop.

We want news. Not spin or guesses or posturing. We don't care who is first if they are wrong.

Give people a hot second to cope with what is happening before the circus comes to town.

Finally, this.


I'm not wasting my time.