It is now official. Each and every person in the country, except for you and I, has gone dangerously insane and quite frankly, I'm starting to worry about you.
On Saturday night in Crocker Park, Ohio it is reported that Mr. Scott A. Smith bought a ticket to the 10pm showing of "The Dark Knight Rises." As he made his way toward the auditorium an off duty police officer working security and the theater manager noticed he was carrying a beige satchel. These days being what they are the officer entered the theater and saw that Mr. Smith had taken a center seat in the back row. This is known as an advantageous tactical position. At that moment he was the only one there. To make a long story short, the bag contained a loaded 9 mm hand gun, two full spare magazines and three knives. A fourth knife was found on Smith as he was patted down. Smith's record is completely clean except for a few traffic violations, which certainly sounds familiar. He is currently in the cooler while prosecutors try to decide what to charge him with.
In the big apple Mike Tyson's one man Broadway show (who knew?) has been the subject of anonymous tweets. Among the postings is this gem, "This shit ain't no joke yo--I'm serious people are gonna die like Aurora." On July 29th the first tweet was posted which said, "I might just shoot up this theater in New York. I know they leave their exit doors unlocked. Ha now I gotta plan it step by step."
The NYPD are currently in the process of obtaining a subpoena because the civil libertarians at Twitter are claiming some sort of mutant Doctor/patient privilege. In a statement they told police that, "it did not appear the tweet in question fell within the parameters for invoking emergency disclosure procedures." Police have added extra security at the theater.
Finally, up in Oak Creek, Wisconsin officials are still trying to figure out why Wade Michael Page, a skin head musician, walked into a Sikh temple Sunday and opened fire. Six were killed and another four, including a responding police officer, were wounded. A spokesperson for the Anti-Defamation League has described Page as a member of "The Hammerskins", one of the oldest and largest skin head/neo Nazi tribes.
Page, who sometimes went by the stage name, Jack Boot (get it, a Nazi named Jack Boot) was busted out of the army after a six year career. The dishonorable discharge apparently had to do with a drinking problem.
The Sikh population, which is guessed at around 500,000 in the U.S, is routinely mistaken for Muslims because of their turbans and beards. It is unclear as to whether Page made that mistake, or if the deadly geek just picked out the temple because the people there simply didn't look like him.
Page's weapon of choice? Why a 9mm semi automatic of course. He legally purchased it about ten days before the shooting, proving once again that current gun laws make the nation a safe place to live and worship.
So in the past few days another mass murderer has laid waste to a peaceful gathering. A second man, armed to the teeth and with dubious intentions, was nabbed before anything evil happened. In New York, Twitter is safe guarding an American's right to privacy no matter how crazy he or she is. And, we landed a one ton scientific wonder on Mars.
What is wrong with this picture? Can you say schizophrenia? How can we be so brilliant one moment and so savagely brutal the rest of the time? America is starting to scare me. There is the terrible beast within us that simply cannot be quelled. All the greatness is being diminished, no, destroyed by our blood lust.
We've gone nuts and we're able to buy guns. Nothing we do, or find on Mars will smooth over that terrible reality. Any honest history of this nation written a century from now will not be kind.
The summer has been long, hot, and violent. Unfortunately there is more to come. It is the one thing we can count on.
Sic vita est.
8-7-12,
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