Got my prescription in Manahawkin in the morning; also a few other items and two 2010 calendars. I use the large, flat kind that lies on my desk and it gets dog-eared after a while, so I like to change to a fresh one mid-year. Started a pot of lentil soup in the crock pot.
Went to the cemetery after lunch, then to Shop-Rite, then stocked up on veggies at Santori's (avocados, limes, lettuce, acorn and spaghetti squash, broccoli, and cauliflower). These stores are conveniently on Jimmie Leeds Road in Galloway, between the cemetery and home. Once home, I cooked up a lot of my buys, so I now have a refrigerator full of good stuff to eat.
Aside from that, did a wash and went to the library. Sister-in-law Therese called to get the address for a nephew, a new daddy. That prompted me to get a card, too, to welcome the new addition to our huge extended family. Sent it off.
Somewhat slow, but not a bad day.
Wider: Random violence seems a special kind of horror. Who among us hasn't thought of, say, walking into a convenience store for a cup of coffee and being gunned down by an insane person? Or of sending our child off to school and being notified of his murder at the hands of a fellow student? Being killed by a stranger, and casually, "accidentally," just because we happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, can't be guarded against. So Fort Hood...
The president called the killing of 12--according to The NYTimes, 10 soldiers and 2 civilians--"a horrific outburst of violence" and I guess no one could argue about that. And yet...and yet...
Why is the violence of the military never characterized as "horrific"?" If a soldier kills 12 people in battle, he is honored, decorated, and called a hero. The very purpose of his existence is to kill other humans and, so often, the killing takes place in arbitrary wars of aggression. Does it make a difference to their survivors whether their loved ones were rendered dead at the hands of a fellow soldier on an army base in Texas or in battle in some faraway land?
Yes, of course, it does, but I'm not sure why. The dead are just as dead. It may be harder, in this circumstance, to say Johnny "died for his country," although I'm sure it will be done. I never did understand what those words mean, anymore than "he fought for our freedom" or "freedom isn't free" or any of the other old, worn, diabolical slogans and cliches to which we seem to cling. They've been used for decades to entice people into supporting violence and death and to erase thought.
Those who were killed yesterday didn't "deserve to die" anymore than the civilians in the middle east do, but they died anyway. The killing spree was just a random act by a deranged man, like swatting a fly on the wall. After the shock and grief staged so expertly by the media and accepted so gratefully by the populace, the whole thing will fade away and become yesterday's news.
Meaningless murder--the epitaph of our times.