Monday, February 18, 2008

Ebb

Took the weekend off from the blog to catch up on other projects. In the meantime FranIAm put together another Tour du Blog, in which once again she put in a link to these incoherences. (How she manages to write review articles when she has less time to blog escapes me. Maybe we can get Arlen Specter on it, it might involve technology.) I must confess that I am becoming concerned for Fran’s mental health, as she’s got me mixed in with some very heartfelt and forthright reflections on Lenten reflections and the week’s pastoral themes... Her link brought in some very interesting comments on my last post (to which I will reply soon) – thank you, Fran!

One topic discussed in a couple of the posts FranIAm linked was, very topically, the latest campus shooting, the Northern Illinois University edition. I am sure the memorial patch industry is out in full force by now, and I believe I already saw Ozzie Guillen wearing an NIU hat. Kind of a shame the lamentations and indignation doesn’t get at the root cause of these events, though. I recall a conversation after Columbine, when the prevailing meme was something like, “How could this happen here, in Littleton, cream of Denver suburbia, in such comfortable upper-middle-class surroundings? Why, our malls have all the best stores – we have Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware!” I told a good friend that I thought they were asking entirely the wrong question. Instead of “How could this happen?”, I think the right question is, “Why doesn’t this happen more often?” Couldn’t have anything to do with the alienation of youth in this culture, locked away from society in institutions with others their own age, told it’s the best time of their lives, and instructed what to buy and how they can’t possibly aspire to be by a fully armed and operational American advertising Empire? Nah, that’s not it, it was Marilyn Manson and Doom.

In counterpoint, here’s an entertaining video on how to build Stonehenge without machines.

-- Satan

Ask Satan will be back tomorrow, to be continued irregularly per questions received. Have a question for Satan? Email it to Satan or post it in the comments.

5 comments:

Ubermilf said...

But Satan, if we look at the actual root causes of society's problems, we might have to actually DO something about them.

It's much easier to hold a candlelight vigil, so we feel like we did something, then go back to shopping in our catalogs and watching HGTV and worrying about how our butts look in our jeans.

CTK said...

There's no sense doing anything until we decide the most appropriate course of action. And that, of course, requires Blue Ribbon Commissions. I haven't seen any of those lately, have you? What sad times we live in.

Distributorcap said...

can we just blame everything on bush.....

the media has treated this as some kind of ratings bonanza..... it is indeed sad.....

and the interviews with every person at NIU....

Fran said...

Satan- the antithetical should be right up your alley... so my less time and more tour de blogs should make perfect sense.

To see the words Lenten Reflections on your blog does my little heart good.

Satan said...

Well, you have to remember that Lent has personal signficance for me as well. It commemorates the 40 days Jesus spent in the desert with me, after all. I even get my name in the book there, unlike in Genesis.

I enjoyed that time very much. Jesus was someone well worth talking to. The real historical person, I mean, not the version that has "Christ" appended to his name and was sucked into that masterpiece of theological rationalization, the "Trinity."

-- Satan