Prayers for Fort Hood

The loss of life is the tragedy here. I could really care less why this man did what he did, and could care even less about designating it as Terrorism or Just Plain Crazy. I mean, it's all just talk at this point, and painfully late talk at that. To get to my point, it doesn't make it any worse if is was an Al-Qaeda plot or any better if it was a lone gunman. It all hurts, and measuring one kind of death to another doesn't strike me as honest.

The cynical side of me says that all the reporting to be done in the coming days and years is just a way to sell ad space and books or flame one another in comments.

As far as the war is concerned (this originally being written as a response to an Yglesias post), it brings into focus just how diffuse the thing is: The Discursive War. The connections between the war and this act are broad, to be sure, but I do believe that we obsess too much over terrorism and training camps when all anyone ever needs is a handgun and a grudge. That goes for terrorists, crazies, or the assholes who shoot up bars or break up house parties every damn weekend. Take a look at your local newspaper on Monday. There's bound to be a few early deaths. Killings. Accidents. Not all stories are the same, but all end with loss, and that loss is painful every damn time.

Our F-35s, our enhanced interrogations, our poppy-eradication programs, our Predator drones and our thousands of troops about to be deployed are useless to stop this kind of act. I know that they are not supposed to do so, but too often we and especially our political and military leaders pretend that that is in fact what all that stuff is doing. It ain't.

Appropriate formats for email attachment

Don't be sending me attachments in .docx format. Send a .doc, a .pdf, an .rtf, or even an image file like .jpg or .gif. I'm running Appleworks on a five-year-old machine, after all.

Wow.

Spartacus, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, and For a Few Dollars More just posted on Hulu. I think that pretty much fulfills my viewing needs for the week.

Quick thought on Kubrick: Obviously, a master director. But I've never been able to nail down what his films are actually about. The cynical part of me thinks that they are just really, really well made and...that's it. I do think Kubrick, as a filmmaker, is infatuated with men and cares very little for women. His films are very male, to varying degrees of masculinity. That's pretty much all I think about what his films are about. In thinking about Kubrick, my mind gets pretty clouded with film school mythology: He filmed Barry Lyndon purely with candlelight! He ruined Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman's marriage! Those kinda things really get on my nerves.

Open thread at 11:20.

Don't hurt yourself.

Arrgh!

Pretty much addicted to pirate-themed video games right now.

The truth is

I have been so depressed (into classic Sega Genesis video games) that I cannot bear to write (make time to write nor come up with anything interesting to say).

The word "irony" comes to mind.

Too funny, too sad: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/world/africa/20cairo.html.