| An Exciting Reminder, Then an Exciting
Regular Post!
Before I get into this, I remind you that
my second-ever original
comic art sale is continuing till next tuesday. Buy, monkeys, buy!
With that outta the way -- on with the post:
I'd been meaning, since earlier in the week,
to write something about the VA Tech shootings, because it goes without saying
that the reading public, when confronted with such real-world horror, will
naturally turn to obscure niche cartoonists for wisdom and guidance. All's
I can say is, you lucked out, this time, because here I am.
I can tell you one thing -- I'd never have
expected it in Virginia, that's for dang sure. Kansas, Florida, Texas,
California, Washington -- those all seem likely targets, full of
manically-passionate or otherwise severely-repressed youngsters, one step
from total madness. Virginia, on the other hand -- that's a pretty easy-going
state, its historical sites notwithstanding. Native Virginians tend to devote
their time to nothing more nefarious than thickening their accents and opening
Cracker Barrel old-timey restaurants.
But, of course, this sort of thing is a horrible
shock wherever it happens -- and if it isn't where you live, you might want
to consider transferring.
It goes without saying that I have very little
to contribute to the prevention-of-school-shootings discussion. Being able
to detect crazy teenagers is easy -- they're all crazy. Being able to sort
out the dangerous ones is anything but. Watching the shooter's video statement
which aired on NBC news, the only thing I really noticed peculiar about him
as opposed to other crazy teenagers was his voice, which sounded an awful
lot like the voice you'd make if you were trying to do a funny impersonation
of a stereotypical dumb football player -- albeit a dumb football player
talking about cleansing the world with rivers of blood, which, I'll admit,
took a lot of the humor out of it.
I still feel very bad about this, but one of
the first things that went through my mind, following first news of the massacre,
was a sincere hope that they wouldn't find a game console in the shooter's
dorm room. I realize I'm preaching to the choir, here, but -- who under the
age of forty DOESN'T own a game console, these days? They still turn up in
news reports like they're something significant to the investigation, along
with at least one violent videogame that the killer owned.
The reports, of course, do not mention if the
killer also owned games like "Harvest Moon" or "Hello Kitty Island Adventure."
"Real-World Farming Linked to Non-Violent Game Use." That's a headline I'd
like to see.
I'm still not one-hundred-percent convinced
that she wasn't just pullin' my leg, but my friend Caroline said she saw
anti-game activist and all-around weasel Jack Thompson interviewed on Fox
News Channel following the breaking of the shooting story, credited in his
byline as "School Shooting Expert." I would like to clarify, for the Fox
journalists, that just because you PROFIT from something doesn't make you
an expert in it. I hope that by the time they interview him following the
next big school tragedy, they will have credited him correctly: "Weasel."
But, anyway, it doesn't look as though this
investigation's going to have much of a game angle to it. Though it's a fair
bet the shooter did have a console, the fact that he was a South Korean national
will probably weigh more heavily in the minds of the public. Thanks, xenophobia!
Anyways,
art sale continues!
Go buy stuff, you wonderful readers, you!
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