God Is a Bullet

What is perhaps most tragic about the latest gun rampage is not the number of victims or the scale of the shooter's inhumanity, but how accustomed we've all become to stories like this. You can pretty much figure out the details even before they're revealed--slowly, delicately, like folding back the skin on an autopsy--on the cable news channels, which confront the tragedy with all the delicacy of a slavering dog: emotionally disturbed man (whether from a failed relationship or an abusive past or school bullying) loads up on guns and ammunition, works out the details of his plans days or weeks in advance on notebook paper, records or writes his defense in advance of the trial he never intends to see, and heads out to the focal point of all his rage and perceived neglect. The destinations have become irrelevant--Amish schoolhouse, high school cafeteria, interstate highway, or college dormitory--and the victims only faces in a continual parade of people-in-the-wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time. We might mourn them, if only to reassure ourselves that we could not be them.

Be we could and, in light of the frequency and increased body count of these kinds of events, we will. Eight years ago, I was in Denver attending a Star Wars convention, and took an afternoon to visit the still-smoldering grounds of Columbine with a few friends. The atmosphere of sorrow, anger, and humility was oppressive. That upper-class high school had become the country's largest mortuary. I felt like my presence was an intrusion into a very private area of mourning that I could never comprehend.

That was back in the days when school shootings were still relatively novel occasions. Now they are as comfortable and familiar to us as the latest car bombing in Iraq or the next revelation about the Bush administration's violations of civil rights--blips on a vomitory green radar of violence and apathy, raisins in our breakfast of streaming news headlines.

My students wanted to discuss nothing else today. For most of the last semester, we have been discussing acts of terror and the way events like 9/11 shake us out of our cultural complacency, helping us to realize the consequences of our government's policies. It is challenging to them to think of the collapse of the World Trade Center towers as anything but horrific, and they are right. But in another sense, I think they can see how 9/11 was a choice offered to us.

So, on a lesser scale, are these shooting rampages. But unlike 9/11, we are presented with this choice on a regular basis. And we choose to do nothing. We stand at attention before the news pundits for a few days, before our attention is distracted by another car bombing, or the death of a celebrity. And we move on, pretending to be surprised when the next shooting drops into our laps. A few months ago, it happened at a shopping center I was familiar with, a place where I had gone on dates and seen movies. How much closer could it get? I thought to myself at the time. Today, I found myself telling my students to be aware of their surroundings, and to scope out their classrooms for escape routes. That is something I never thought I would feel the need to do.

Within the next few days or hours, I'm sure we will hear the cries of offended NRA members, who will reassure us that gun ownership is a God-granted right of our country, that armor-piercing bullets and high-powered rifles are what make us great, and that any attempts to restrict their sale or register their ownership is akin to treason. Meanwhile, with nary a peep of rebuttal, the Bush administration will continue its deliberate and well-organized campaign of removing our true freedoms, all in the name of security and patriotism.

The blustering of the gun-nuts will be followed, I am sure, by calls for increased screening of immigrants and non-American students in our colleges and universities. Then will come the TV dramatizations; another powerful episode of Law and Order, perhaps. And by then, the cycle may have begun again.

It is a disease. Our love of violence and death has metastasized into a life-threatening cancer. Is love too strong a word? Perhaps willful apathy is more appropriate. However we justify our lack of direct response, the results are the same. The shootings become familiar, routine, expected. The bar might be raised, as it was this time in Virginia, but it will prompt no new action, no reconsideration of our lifestyles, our willingness to bow before the political capital of the NRA, the neocons, the Toby Keiths. Our culture, our nation, is not only sick. It is terminal. We await the arrival of the next gunman with a kind of resignation, and relief.

ADDENDUM: From the Washington Post: "VA Killings Widely Seen as Reflecting a Violent Society."

Kurt Is Up in Heaven Now

"The most important thing I learned on Tralfamadore was that when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist. The Tralfamadorians can look at all the different moments just that way we can look at a stretch of the Rocky Mountains, for instance. They can see how permanent all the moments are, and they can look at any moment that interests them. It is just an illusion we have here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone it is gone forever."

--Slaughterhouse-Five

By coincidence, today on campus the English Department is hosting a convocation from Charles J. Shields, whose biography of Harper Lee, Mockingbird, is just out in paperback. Shields revealed during his talk that he is writing the biography of Kurt Vonnegut, who died Wednesday night. Shields has been interviewing Vonnegut for the last year or so, and told me that he had come to the point where he and Vonnegut could talk as casual friends, rather than interviewer and subject. Shields said Vonnegut reminded him of his old man, and he was clearly affected by Vonnegut's death. He mentioned to me that he had been fielding requests from the media to comment on Vonnegut, but has declined them in order to allow the family time to deal with their loss.

The contrast between writing a bio of Harper Lee, who does not grant interviews, and Vonnegut, a voluble, opinionated raconteur, is a stark one. Additionally, one might assume that most people who read a biography of Harper Lee are familiar with her only novel, whereas the biographer of someone like Vonnegut must decide how to represent a somewhat larger oeuvre. Shields admitted that he had not decided how to do this yet, but intends his biography of Vonnegut to be appealing to the "Barnes & Noble" reader as opposed to the literary scholar.

Based on his obvious compassion for Vonnegut, and his persistance in writing about an author who did not wish to be written about, it seems that Shields biography will be a worthy one. Of course, this does not diminish the impact of losing a writer as honest, as human, as Kurt Vonnegut.

"I am, incidentally, Honorary President of the American Humanist Association, having succeeded the late, great science fiction writer Isaac Asimov in that totally functionless capacity. We had a memorial service for Isaac a few years back, and I spoke and said at one point, 'Isaac is up in heaven now.' It was the funniest thing I could have said to an audience of humanists. I rolled them in the aisles. It was several minutes before order could be restored. And if I should ever die, God forbid, I hope you will say, 'Kurt is up in heaven now.' That's my favorite joke."

--A Man Without a Country

Kurt Vonnegut, 1922-2007

Real Time

Caught MLS Opening Day in Salt Lake this Saturday, where the Real made a strong showing. Well, at least until the final 30 seconds of injury time, when they gave up a clumsy shot by FC Dallas' Carlos Ruiz. Still, the game ended in a tie, and the team displayed some much welcome confidence and skill on the field, both on offense and D. The addition of Freddy Adu also seems to have added a spark to the team, and Adu's control of the ball was fun to watch, especially in light of the injury he sustained early in the match. Jeff Cunningham, perhaps the most underestimated forward in MLS, sunk two into the nets. I'm thinking the Cunningham-Adu combo has potential to be the most devastating scoring machine in MLS this year, but it may take a few more games for their communication skills to click.

The SL crowd, enthusiastic and knowledgable throughout the match, fell dead silent after the final goal. Not many hung around to cheer the team to the lockers. It was an unfortunate end to a promising season opener for SL Real. My own enthusiasm for the team was renewed, however, and I hold hope that they make a better showing this season than last year's dismal 10-13-9 standings.

The Beckham-enhanced (?) LA Galaxy won't make a SL appearance until September, but I'm already thinking I'll need to make a few more trips north this summer to catch some live action. The Real were shooting out sparks on Saturday; I'm hoping that mo'fo will ignite.

This is officially the manliest entry I have ever made on this blog. Booya!

Woe to Them That Are at Ease in Zion

Last Saturday's Salt Lake Tribune included a jaw-dropping portrait of the laughably enthusiastic group B'nai Shalom, "an organization that is described . . . as including Mormons who 'share a common Jewish heritage or have an interest and love for the Jewish people and their culture'. " Reporter Jessica Ravitz points out that the group was "created 40 years ago in part to encourage Jewish genealogical research to further temple work." Ah.

Of the 350 people who attended the gathering featured in the story, "no more than two dozen . . . were born into Jewish homes. . . . The bulk of people in attendance seem to be Mormons . . . whose curiosity brought [them] through the door."

The funniest, and oddest, aspects of the story involve the earnestness of the attendees to associate themselves with Judaism. One participant notes, "Jewish culture is fascinating. It's fun to see the Jews here, too."

Look kids! Hebrews!

One is reminded of New Age gatherings in which the crystal pyramids are put aside momentarily while the white people discuss their Native American ancestry and their quest for a spirit guide. Another participant at the gathering "says of her family, 'We had Rosenbaums . . . a long time ago'." Legitimacy at last!

It's hard not to choke when reading of "the two young men who stroll in dressed as Orthodox Jews, straight out of central casting. . . . The giveaway that this is not their regular attire comes when Jason, who refuses to give his last name, reaches out to shake a woman's hand." Ravitz notes that a real Orthodox Jewish man would never do this.

The adoption of Orthodox gear in an attempt to lend some kind of authenticity to these proceedings seems akin to Al Jolson busting out another chorus of "Mammy." It's like blackface for Mormons.

Perhaps even more pathetic than these clowns playing dress-up are the so-called "Jewish Mormons" who are prone to declarations like "the future of Judaism is Christ" and "the Book of Mormon is more Jewish than the Talmud." Oh, really? Too bad the Book of Mormon has only been around for 177 years; I bet those Hebrews back in Moses' day could have really used its insights. Makes you wonder if all those Jews in the concentration camps died for the right reasons. If only they had known!

The whole article leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I'm neither Mormon nor Jewish, but I felt sorry for both of them. And appalled. I'm not the only one, it seems. Check out the comments at the bottom of the page, after the plug for the General Conference. Just in case you forgot who's running this show.