The Politicization of a Tragedy
There’s no proper adjective that can really describe the tragedy that took place at Virginia Tech. Words like terrible, awful, and horrible all seem to fall short. It’s shocking and troublesome
There is one aspect of this that I don’t have any trouble finding a word for: disgusting. That’s the near instant political reaction to this. Before the blood had even dried, the gun control debate had reignited, with both sides trying to score points off the still warm bodies of the victims.
Lives were tragically and suddenly cut short. Families destroyed. Communities scarred. People hurt in ways unfathomable to me. It’s a time for grieving, support, and reflection. Using this to advance a political agenda just strikes me as the height of vileness.
I do believe that we must analyze what happened, learn from this, and take appropriate steps to prevent similar events from happening in the future. But as I write this, they haven’t even identified all the victims - is it really too much to ask that we know their names before politicizing their deaths?
The Watergate Tapes
Did I say Watergate Tapes? I meant gwb43.com emails.
Countless e-mails to and from many key White House staffers have been deleted — lost to history and placed out of reach of congressional subpoenas — due to a brazen violation of internal White House policy that was allowed to continue for more than six years, the White House acknowledged yesterday.
So there’s a smoking gun in those emails. Likely a big one, given everything about the way the Administration has been behaving.
Of course, given that the underlying issue here (the firing of the US attorneys) was not a criminal act; the million dollar question is what are they trying to hide?
(I never have all that much to say about Bush stories - they tend to speak for themselves. But this is such bald faced bullshit that I felt I had to post and say something.)
Free At Last
(Kinda sorta… the price is high and the cheaper/lower quality version still comes with DRM, which doesn’t make much sense)
I’d just like to point out that it took almost 8 years for the music industry (well, one label anyway) to finally offer their product in a way that competes with the original Napster. Better late than never, I guess.
Though maybe I’m being unfairly cynical - this is a threshold moment for the music industry and digital media in general. Maybe the 21st century can finally start now, who knows?
