Arvada Musings

Yesterday I called an old (since before kindergarten!) friend of mine who lives in Arvada, Colorado. I called not only because of the shootings in Arvada this week-end, but also because her husband was teaching at Columbine on their horrible day. I thought all the baggage of these horrors might be weighing a little heavily on Jules, so I just wanted to let her know I was thinking about her.

She seemed okay with it all even though the incident was six blocks from her home, her husband was gone hunting so she was home alone and the police called her to tell her to turn off all her lights, draw her drapes and stay inside.

Of course, we had to get into a dialogue on why it is that our society is riddled with crazies who choose to shoot a few others before they blow themselves away or get the cops to do it for them.

Is it the isolation everybody feels because they’ve spent their lives in front of a TV instead of interacting with human beings? Is it growing up in a culture that constantly sends the message that violence solves problems? Is it being so far removed from reality that the killer doesn’t see his victims as real human beings? Is it ingrown anger rising from neglect – benign or otherwise? Is it a result of the some sad loner feeling like his life is of no value but that notoriety can give it value just like it has for other lost souls who got their 15 minutes of fame on a newscast with a gun in their hand? Is it living in a culture that on a daily basis makes it clear that no other culture (ergo no other being) has value and so can be rubbed out with alacrity? Is it an evolutionary development triggered by thousands of years of existence in the knowledge that at every moment there is some enemy or another out there who has no higher desire than our destruction?

Is it innate in humanity and so to be expected? Is there no way out of it and so we should just accept it and move on?

Or could it be that if we decided to do a cultural about face and quit trying to solve international problems with bombs; begin interacting with one another so that each face had a name and each name a value; and recognize that even those whose skin or eyes don’t look like mine or who choose a different religion from mine or who speak a different language from mine are, even so, human beings of value . . . Could it be that we might begin to evolve into a more sane species? Might it be that these aberrations would reduce in number to the level they used to be when a Columbine or Arvada incident was unthinkable?

Might be, but we’ll never know. As George W. Bush said, we’ll all be in our graves before that happens.


Be the change you wish to see in the world. -- M. K. Gandhi

Individually we have little voice. Collectively we cannot be ignored.
But in silence we surrender our power. Yours in Peace -- BR

The reason for going was to keep the crude flowing and raise a false flag abroad. – from a poem by Jack Evans titled 3500 Souls - http://www.myspace.com/paralegal_eagle