I think at that tipping point, at the point of critical mass, we need to learn how to take a breath and just reflect; perhaps try to learn from whatever mistakes we, or society at large has made to get us to where we are.Tumblr user Mike Hedrick • Discussing the Newtown shooting and his notable contribution to the situation. His article on the piece, “I am Schizophrenic. Understanding Mental Illness in the Wake of the Newtown, CT Tragedy,” drew significant attention, which he described as something exciting, but with a major downside. “In the worst way I found myself trying to capitalize on a story about tragedy,” he says, with a touch of regret and remorse. When stories like this break, they get covered in so many ways that side-stories of side-stories become stories. At which point do the side issues — mental illness among them — become the larger ones worth focusing on in earnest?
Stunning.
Some of the 648 Journalists murdered since 1992
Beats Covered by Victims *
5% Business
29% Corruption
20% Crime
9% Culture
15% Human Rights
45% Politics
2% Sports
23% War
(* May add up to more than 100 percent because more than one category applies in some cases.)
For more, on these heroic women and men, see Committee to Protect Journalists’ website.
People who worked hard for important goals, lost while reaching those goals.
And as someone who writes about movies, and who cares about the big, flawed thing we call fandom, I’m saddened by someone turning that shared enthusiasm into a weapon. And even if this tragedy hadn’t happened at the premiere of one of a dwindling number of genuinely mass cultural events, I hate the idea of using an audience’s suspension of disbelief, their openness to and absorption in the spectacle unfolding before them, as cover—the gunman reportedly started shooting during a sequence involving gunfire, meaning the audience was slower to react. We are vulnerable when we go to the movies, open to fear, and love, and disgust, and rapture, surrendering our brains and hearts to someone else’s vision of the world. We don’t expect to surrender our bodies, too.How the Colorado theater shooting exploited one of our last mass, in-person cultural events. (via think-progress)
It was the first time in my career, my life, I realized someone could go out — and I probably shouldn’t say this with the press here, but — no, but it’s more important. You’re more important. For the first time in my life I understood how someone could consciously decide to commit suicide. Not because they were deranged, not because they were nuts; because they’d been to the top of the mountain and they just knew in their heart they’d never get there again, that it was never going to be that way ever again. That’s how an awful lot of you feel.Vice President Joe Biden • Addressing a group associated with the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, which supports friends and families of service members who are killed in action. Biden’s wife and daughter were killed in a car accident in 1972, and he realizes how important this story could be to others. He notes that Jill, his current wife, really helped him through his tough times. “This woman literally saved my life,” Biden said. Things are looking more positive for Biden and his family these days: Just yesterday, their 30-year-old daughter, Ashley, was married. source (via • follow)
The Occupy movement’s first casualty? While authorities aren’t entirely sure whether or not the death — a 42-year-old man who jumped eight stories off a parking structure near the protest site — was directly related to the protests, the death nonetheless cast a bit of a pall on the still-young protest, which has drawn a crowd of hundreds in San Diego. The man had flyers in his pockets (officials haven’t released details on what was said on the flyers), but it was unclear whether they were directly related to the Occupy protest happening nearby, or whether his death was a suicide. Nonetheless, organizers said there would be a moment of silence on Monday in honor of the man. source
The carnage in context: Obviously, it’s tough to quantify the costs in property damage, land damage, and the hideous trauma that has been thrust upon so many, and in the case of the trauma it’ll probably never be. That said, in terms of the most irreversible damage done, lives lost, we at least know this much — this was a big one by America’s standards. With the death-toll grimly ticking upwards as hours roll by, this will be at least the 7th largest loss of life by storm in American history, and that could easily change in the following days. Our thoughts are with them. (photo by Dusty Compton, from the Tuscaloosa News’ photo gallery) source
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