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Diagnosis: Mass murder fatigue

Too many thoughts are racing back and forth. I am not “depressed” though I do suffer from depression. One Veterans Affairs nurse practitioner — not a psychologist — wrote into my record a diagnosis of “narcissistic personality disorder.” No, I don’t have any of that today. That is, as far as I can tell.

No I think many in our land suffer from what is wrong with me. Perhaps it hasn’t been officially declared by the “Diagnostic And Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.” That is the “bible” of psychiatry. If the disorder hasn’t been categorized and named here is a suggestion: “Mass Murder Fatigue.”

I am aware that might sound narcissistic. Perhaps it is even flippant-sounding. But I am more or less serious.

The theater shooting last night in Lafayette, La., about 125 miles east straight down Interstate 10 from where I sit, is troubling in many ways. Thankfully, the Lafayette — I was there on business last week — shooting is less complicated and not likely wrapped up into Jihadism as was the mass killing in Chattanooga, Tenn. It was only a week ago that four Marines and a Navy petty officer died from that mass shooting. This time the venue was a recruiting office and a Navy and Marines reserve center. Muhammad Abdulazeez was the shooter in that assault. Abdulazeez died after one of the slain Marines and the center’s commanding officer returned fire, according to today’s Navy Times.

It seems this shooting last night was apparently a typical instance of severe mental illness, whether psychotic or overly narcissistic or just a crackpot. Whatever you call it. Sadly, I don’t really seem to care.

Not even the glasses and wigs found in the Motel 8 room in which the mass shooter stayed interested me. Motels have such a bad rap by the way. I could write a book.

It isn’t that I don’t care though about those two young women, known as bright and lovely, who lost their lives while watching a movie. Nor am I callous toward those who were injured in the carnage. But I am not very intrigued by the Lafayette shooter, a man who supposedly graduated from law school but was a perpetual crank, according to lawmen.

I would sound like a very bad person to say I don’t care about these mass shootings. Those killings seem to click like dominoes one after another. So no, it isn’t I don’t care. Me, who was almost blown away with a shotgun as a toddler, not caring? No, I think I care too much.

I care that our society has become so murderous. I care that the only cure our politicians, fed by the NRA-Koch money machine, can come up with is meeting these mass killings with more guns.

“Oh my neighbor’s tree is hanging over our fence.”

“Buy a gun.”

“My toe hurts.’

“Get a gun”

“Ain’t this heat something?”

“Get a gun?”

No, it’s that I care too much that I am left adrift in a world where people with intense personal problems think they can cure their ills by shooting as many people as possible. Then, they either kill themselves or force police to shoot them. Some would say, why not skip the killing and shoot yourself first? That is ridiculous. It is ridiculous as all the killings week after week. We have mentally ill people who need more help than having some shrink handing out the anti-depressive du jour.

Fatigue, that’s what I got. I need to go out in the woods and listen to the wind through the pines to clear my head. I like shooting targets. I don’t think that would be very therapeutic.

This crap of murder and mayhem is wearing me down. I have fatigue. Our society needs to get a grip. And that grip is not at the butt of a gun.

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SCOTUS dreams

“The Week That Changed The World.” That was a headline I saw a couple of times today. That might be a bit of exaggeration when you think globally. Although if you are considering change perhaps semi-globally then maybe you are on the right track.

SCOTUS, the acronym used for the U.S. Supreme Court, made the bulk of that news. The Court yesterday upheld key provisions to the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a.,”Obamacare,” though Justice Antonin Scalia writing the minority dissent stated: “We should start calling this law SCOTUScare.” The majority for the 6-3 opinion was written Chief Justice John Roberts, who was appointed by President George W. Bush.

This morning perhaps an equally if not more surprising decision came down from on high which ruled that same-sex marriage is legal in all 50 states.

Meanwhile, President Obama became the nation’s old-time “Holy Rolling preacher in chief.” He even tenuously led mourners for victims in the Charleston, S.C., shootings last week, in the our national spiritual-emeritus “Amazing Grace.” It was a coming together in U.S. civil rights with the specter of perhaps more than 150 years of disunity disappearing with discussions of ridding states of the former Confederate States of America battle flags flying outside statehouses.

And one more story on the news during the past three weeks partially wrapping with escaped New York state prisoner Richard Matt being shot and killed in an intense manhunt. NY state troopers and other police remain “in hot pursuit” of convicted cop-killer-escapee David Sweat.

So here we are a few hours later, the cops say they “are on top of him.” Whatever the f*** that means.

But, hey, it is very seldom the cops don’t get their man (or woman.) Perhaps that is because the police spend so much chasing people. Oh well, let’s hope the coppers get their man.

As for all the action that has been making these interesting news days this week maybe when I awake in the morning:

  • Pot will be legal across the U.S.
  • China will declare peace and non aggression and free Chinese food.
  • Democracy will be the law of Russia. Vladimir Putin has decided to tour with WWE.

I will then wake up and say: “Whoo, what a dream!”

 

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Six Shooter Junction rides again

Maybe it’s the location that has led to all the bloodshed.The latest count: 9 killed and almost 20 wounded. That was what came from a clash of more than three different biker gangs that went from fighting in a restaurant bathroom to shooting outside. Nearly 175 are in jail for the bloody melee in Waco.

The best quote of the day: “They’re not here to drink beer and eat barbecue,” said Waco police spokesman, Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton.

"They're not here to drink beer and eat barbecue"--Sgt. Patrick Swanton, Waco police spokesman

“They’re not here to drink beer and eat barbecue”–Sgt. Patrick Swanton, Waco police spokesman

Way back in the 1870s when cattle were being driven to the market in the Midwest, a spur of the Chisholm Trail as well as passing railroads made Waco, Texas, a busy place. Waco laid out crazily upon the Brazos River made the streets running north and south going east and west and vice versa. Cowboys who didn’t get lost on the streets may have been even more disoriented coming from a night of whiskey guzzling in the many saloons with a stop in the red light district.

Waco had a tough Texas nickname. It was called “Six Shooter Junction” back then.

Despite the carnage coming from barroom shootouts and occasional street duels — a steady dose of dissing the mighty Baptist school Baylor University by the town’s nationally-known journalist William C. Brann got him fatally wounded one day after a shootout — It would be in the 20th and 21st centuries when the real bloodshed flowed.

In the 1990s, a controversial raid by the federal Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agency on a religious cult that ended that day with four ATF agents and six members of the Branch Davidians. This led to a 51-day siege that ended into a fire killing 76 Davidians who had stayed behind at their compound about 10 miles east of Waco. Included in those who died was the leader of cult, Vernon Howell, who was later known as David Koresh.

Though not always peaceful — I covered more than 20 murders in Waco and McLennan County at the turn of the century during the two years I worked as a police beat reporter — the next large loss of life came in 2013 from an industrial explosion about 15 miles north of Waco in the city of West. A fertilizer plant blew up killing 15 and injuring 160. Most of what was settled in the 1880s by Czech emigrants was destroyed. An investigation found the ammonium nitrate — the volatile fertilizer component — was improperly stored.

The needless deaths and injuries — reports say four bikers may have been shot by police — is like something you see on TV. It’s worthy of a “Sons of Anarchy” episode.

It is also something that, much like the Branch Davidian saga, didn’t have to happen, at least according to police.

Information about possible biker throwdowns led Waco police and state troopers to the Twin Peaks restaurant for the past month. Though I’ve not frequented one, Twin Peaks is supposedly “manned” by women dressed in skimpy outfits as is the case at Hooters. Twin Peaks, go figure.

The restaurant is located in a shopping center near the southern outskirts, just off Interstate 35, between Dallas/Fort Worth and Austin. The center is what you see in almost every city above 100,000 people. I have driven I-35 more than I ever wanted to do so. You can’t go from Dallas to San Antonio without seeing the same big box stores and restaurants that pop up from one stop to the other. Perhaps the almost equal distance between the cities may be part of the reason Waco was such a good place for a “meet and greet.”

Maybe it is ironic to some while sickening to others, but our governor issued a statement today about the Waco incident:

“Texas will not stand for the type of lawlessness we witnessed in Waco yesterday, said Gov. Greg Abbott, R, Texas.”

Hmm, I wonder if he will think about that when he signs a bill allowing Texans to openly carry handguns. One can only wonder what might have happened if people were carrying their “shootin’ irons” when something like Twin Peaks broke out. Some might say, that armed civilians carrying their guns would scare them “thugs” off. Maybe. But maybe not. You get a bunch of drunked up, tweaked up guys armed to the teeth, you think Casper Milquetoast sitting there wearing his 9-mm will make his quick draw before Bill the Killer wraps a bike chain and snaps off his neck? Maybe the confusion will be worse.

I wonder if The Abbott thinks about those things?

 

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Thoughts on the “t-word”

UPDATE: Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake backtracks on her earlier comments using the word “thug.” Will President Obama do the same? Apparently not!

 

The riots in Baltimore may have solidified yet another word for which we must be careful with its use.

Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake was widely criticized by activists and pundits in using the word “thug” during a press update in wake of the unrest. Activists decry “thug” to address black men who commit crimes.

The association between black criminals and the now-t-word is nothing new. Liberal pundits have for some time now — back to the Bush White House at least — noted that the right-wing was using certain “buzzwords” when it came to the identity of criminal black people. The word thug has certainly been such a buzzword. However, the main definition for the word thug is “a violent person, especially a criminal.” Nothing about that person being black. However, most detrimental terms for blacks, or African-Americans, do not mention that certain words are a slur. For instance, the word “coon” is defined as short for a racoon.

Some black friends of mine whom I haven’t seen in awhile but I mostly keep up with online seemed to find funny the mid-20th century descriptive “Negro.” Some laughed but others chafed at the term “colored” for black. As black friends asked to people who mentioned something involving a black person as colored: “Oh, what color was he/she?” I even knew some black people who, like me, simmered upon a white (or even black) using the offensive word “Nigger.” I also felt bad, and perhaps many blacks may have felt sadness, when little old white ladies of Southern upbringing using what they believed as a “genteel” word: “Nigra.”

Of course, there were other blacks and some whites who might just open up a king-sized can of whoop ass on some who used anything related to the N-word.

During the short time I covered secondary and higher education was when I first discovered the language of the disabled.

Activists who spoke for the disabled came to me with a whole big list of politically correct terms that they wanted me and the newspaper to use in coverage. I can’t remember most of them as this was 20 years ago. But these were the language from which “special needs” and “learning challenged” emerged.

But the fact is one cannot change all words for every group, every person in a group. I do not want to seem cynical here, but perhaps the only way to develop less hurtful words for usage is to develop their own language.

Think of this. If we change every single word that is offensive to one group, then what if these words have a special meaning to another group? Then what? What then? What does it all mean?

What questions for our times with answers to these questions way beyond my pay grade. And I’m not kidding.

 

 

 

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Visit Baltimore, where you can’t see baseball

Yesterday my podiatrist told me take the week off and to come back next Monday. Sure! Why not?? He has to ask me each time I visit what kind of work is it I do. He has no idea whether I am single or do I have someone to help me. He kind of snapped yesterday when he asked when I stopped taking the antibiotics he had prescribed. “You know why you stopped” — I stopped because the medicine was severely f**king with my stomach — “taking them, why can’t you remember stopping?” he asked.

I told him I take so damned many medicines, I didn’t know what all I take. Then he said “never mind I gave you an antibiotic during surgery.”

Well, some people, even doctors, I wouldn’t cut any slack. But I think this doctor is a nice guy. He is obviously overworked. He was literally simultaneously seeing three patients at once. The other doctor at this clinic was off yesterday. I cut Doc some slack.

Lonely baseball

The rioting in Baltimore, as I told my Tokyo friend Poe Lou Chan this morning, both saddens me and sickens me. I watched what was happening there on Monday. I’m not really surprised the town went up in flames in light of the Freddie Gray death in the hands of Baltimore po-lice. But this was, the rioting, was done in a great portion at the hand of teens. Some looted. Others burned buildings. Having worked as a firefighter, I especially loath those who set fires intentionally.

These fires will be investigated by ATF, or ATFE, for Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The agency’s url is still ATF. One can only hope they do a better job than they did out in Elk, Texas, some years ago. Elk was the closest community to the bungled ATF raid in 1993 and subsequent siege and fire, now simply known as “Waco.”

Baltimore city officials worry that “Charm City” will be forever linked with the rioting that happened last evening. But Baltimore is surely not the first American city to experience civil unrest. And so far it’s not the worst. Newark, Watts, the riots after Martin Luther King’s death back in the 60s, all pretty bad. The “Rodney King” riots in 1992 Los Angeles killed 53. No one in Baltimore except Freddie Gray has died, so far, and while that in itself is tragic, hopefully it will stay this way. From what I am watching this afternoon, it seems that the young people may all come away from the protests with only laryngitis.

And while the media all remark the uniqueness of the crowdless Major League Baseball game tomorrow at Camden Yards in Baltimore a sporting game without fans is not something that has never happened. MLB is banning spectators for the Baltimore Orioles game with the Chicago White Sox due to fears of rioting.

During my stint in newspapers at a small weekly in East Texas, a high school basketball was once played in my time with no crowd. The best I can remember, some boys from a rival town shot and perhaps even killed another young man. The tension was so high the schools felt that closing the game to the public was the best course of action. I don’t remember who won, but I remember the media-besieged superintendent of the local schools told me: “That old saying is right: Don’t ever do anything on a slow news day.”

The media have a short attention span, or at least that is how they appear sometimes. Trust me, I was once a media man. I’m imaging a lot of people wish the media will move on along. Then off they will be.