Thursday, January 27, 2005
I love depressing news
The newspaper this morning announced that two commuter trains in LA crashed after some idiot parked his car on the tracks in an attempt to commit suicide, then jumped out at the last moment before the trains collided.
Here's the story.
Now, believe me when I say that I have full sympathy and compassion for people suffering from depression, drug abuse, and suicidal thoughts. My own uncle is battling all of the above at the moment (and from the what I've heard it's not going so well), as are several other people I know.
But I have absolutely ZERO sympathy for people who feel that it is okay to commit suicide by taking other innocent people with you. ZERO! Okay, sure, you can argue he wasn't thinking clearly, or that he was on drugs, or mentally-ill, or whatever you want. But as long as a psychiatrist can certify he is fit to stand trial, he should be held fully accountable for his actions. In the Untied States of Aggression, apparently the best punishment for killing 12 people whilst trying to commit suicide is...THE DEATH PENALTY! How ironic. Yet, in typical fashion, no one in America has pointed this out. Obviously the worst penalty for this man is to keep him on lifetime suicide watch, to take him to the doctor if he falls ill, and generally to ensure that he is never able to sabotage his own life or the lives of others ever again.
Common sense = not popular.
In other news, today is the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. I have Primo Levi's words in my mind today. The National Post, a not-so-illustrious Canadian newspaper (basically a poor parrot of the American media), published a poll claiming that only something like 23% of Canadians knew how many people had been killed in the Holocaust. Why do I find that really pathetic? How hard is it to go to Wikipedia and inform yourself? You don't have to spend hours in a library or be any more intelligent than a caveman to know that millions of people, mainly Jews, were killed by the Nazis. Don't you have to be living under a rock not to know this? How many of you reading are actually surprised to hear it?
It all makes me pretty sad, and makes Israel a lot more paranoid. It just ups the ante on the whole "everyone's against us" mantra. Though it doesn't help to keep hearing about anti-Semitic tracts coming out of Russia, either. But really, what do you expect from a browbeaten, AIDS-ravaged, economically-depressed country with high illiteracy rates and dreams of a sunnier, more totalitarian past?
The world sometimes makes me wish I lived on Mars.
At least molten lava doesn't discriminate.
-N
