Morton Rhue (Todd Strasser) wrote a novel* Give a Boy a Gun following the Columbine High School bloodbath.
The bloodbath by now overflowing, continues to fill.
Witness yesterday's St. Valentine's Day massacre at a school in Florida.
At the time of writing there are reports of 17 fatalities and 14 wounded.
Many millions of words have been spoken and written by so-called experts, lobbyists and others concerning the Great American Gun Problem.
And of course there are the platitudes.
I have nothing to add save that I think it's time for an appropriate monument, a bell tower, to America's other front line soldiers - their dead and wounded children - to be erected on the lawn of the White House in Washington D.C..
It should be positioned so that the incumbent in the oval office can see it and hear its sombre tones.
Mournful bells should sound every time a school child or a student is killed in America by America's own gunfire.
And on the bell tower should be inscribed the names of all the victims.
The list can start with Morton Rhue's list which begins in 1974:
3 killed and 9 wounded at high school in Olean, NY.
*The story . . . is a work of fiction. Nothing - and everything - about it is real.
It seems obvious to me that love is the only way forward but there is scant hope of that. In fact I expect the children will have seen and heard much hate already today as soon as they woke up, whose fault it is and who is to blame.
ReplyDeleteThe US Internet advertiser machine often,mdaily almost, sends me videos of soldiers shooting, bombs being dropped, buildings exploding, bodies flying through the air, and so on. I am asked to download the apps, which of course I don't. In these games the more people I kill and the more destruction I wreak and the more havoc I cause the more points I accumulate. The reason I get bombarded with these 30 second adverts complete with sound effects is because I'm doing a foreign language course which requires an app, and thiis app is to make money for someone in the US as well as providing me with my lessons. Education has its price and today that price is violence. Violence on young minds. That's just one symptom of a world going wrong, I'm sorry to say.
DeleteOn a different topic, I just discovered that my philosophy teacher is a translator of German, and a poet. You may find him interesting. If you Google Dr Philip Wilson, University of East Anglia, you will find him.
ReplyDeleteI take my hat off to anybody who can translate Wittgenstein or Goethe. Well done Doc!
DeleteI get a headache just thinking about it.
DeleteIn my reading of Bertrand Russell I have discovered that Wittgenstein was a PhD student of Russell. My philosophy teacher is a fine teacher and translation is his first love. Thank you for taking the time to look him up.
DeleteThanks for telling me about your teacher. There's a fascinating true story called Wittgensteins Nephew by Thomas Bernhard which I've read a couple of times in the original. I like reading much of Bernhard, but I couldn't read his novel Frost and some other difficult ones in the original.
DeleteWe were brought up to think of America as the land of the free. Every time I hear any news about the country it seems anyt hing but the perfect place. Where will it all end?
ReplyDeleteI don't know the answer. But it's a good question.
DeleteIf I was a student I'd be sorely tempted to go on strike. Enough is enough, but in this case more than enough.
Delete... and of course, nowhere in this world wide [in]sanity, have such other atrocities occurred, the murder of children. It must simply be the tools, not the poisoned minds; they BOTH need severe inspective constraint.
ReplyDelete