An amazing trailer re-edit.
I was shown how fragile life was on Saturday. I saw the terror on bystanders’ faces. I saw the victims of a senseless crime. I saw lives change. I was reminded that we don’t know when or where our time on Earth will end. When or where we will breathe our last breath. For one man, it was in the middle of a busy food court on a Saturday evening.
I say all the time that every moment we have to live our life is a blessing. So often I have found myself taking it for granted. Every hug from a family member. Every laugh we share with friends. Even the times of solitude are all blessings. Every second of every day is a gift. After Saturday evening, I know I truly understand how blessed I am for each second I am given.
I feel like I am overreacting about what I experienced. But I can’t help but be thankful for whatever caused me to make the choices that I made that day. My mind keeps replaying what I saw over in my head. I hope the victims make a full recovery. I wish I could shake this odd feeling from my chest. The feeling that’s reminding me how blessed I am. The same feeling that made me leave the Eaton Center. The feeling that may have potentially saved my life.
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Jessica Redfield was shot and killed last night at a midnight screening of ‘The Dark Knight Rises,’ along with 11 others when a gunman opened fire in a theater. The above is from her blog, written in June, after she narrowly escaped another senseless shooting at a mall in Toronto. (via newsweek)
Surreal. |
(via The New York Post)
Could we stop using “terrorist” to refer to anyone who kills a lot of people? There’s a difference between politically-motivated violence (Anders Breivik and Timothy McVeigh) and a crazy man going on a fucking killing spree (James Holmes, Seung-Hui Cho).
Terrorism is a specific kind of violence, and not simply a measure of scale.
If it turns out this guy has some political manifesto, then we can start throwing the word terrorist around, okay? As far as we know right now he’s just a crazy asshole.
Killed 12 people, wounded dozens of others. Victims included children. Booby-trapped his apartment. Seemed to be deliberate in the execution of his mass murder — reportedly rushing into the theater via an emergency exit, timing his attack to a part of the film when there as gunfire on the screen; deploying gas canisters before proceeding to shoot. All of this in a very public place that, absent motive, indicates he wanted the widest possible impact on the collective psyche. Sounds like terrorism to me.
I don’t care what his motives were — and such motives would be above and beyond the result, anyway, when defining exactly what happened here. Perhaps he was just unhappy with a pizza he ordered? Who gives a fuck? This was a teroristic act, and James Holmes is a fucking murdering terrorist.
We’re reblogging this because 1) it shows the face the person behind the horrific shooting that led to the deaths of 12 people in Colorado, and 2) it contains a debate that illustrates the human desire to label and categorize things in order to try to make sense of them.
Just one quick post that’s not about media, or tragedy, or the stupid things politicians are saying in the wake of a tragedy. Here’s a picture of Hunter S. Thompson and Bill Murray on a boat.
HST & Murray.
Pretty awesome.
npr:
“…five Air Force officers and one photographer stood together on a patch of ground about 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. They’d marked the spot ‘Ground Zero. Population 5’ on a hand-lettered sign hammered into the soft ground right next to them.
As we watch, directly overhead, two F-89 jets roar…
Crazy stuff.
How the Dark Knight Became Dark Again
Batman has been so successfully remade in recent years that we scarcely remember how, for a generation, the Dark Knight lived in the public imagination as a pot-bellied caped crusader with a goofy sidekick. ABC’s live-action Batman TV series, which ran from 1966 to 1968, was deliberately campy (“To the Batpole!”) and created a long-enduring association between the superhero and the cartoonish onomopeias “Pow!” “Zap!” and “Wham!”
The story of how the farcical Batman of the ’60s transformed into the solemn one of today mirrors the elevation of the comic book in general from belittled kiddie fare to the subject of academic inquiry and box-office-breaking, R-rated action movies. It’s also a story of a 73-year-old franchise returning to its roots, reflecting its times, and helping build a multibillion dollar industry that churns out branded merchandise, video games, theme park attractions and annual conventions. And it’s the story of one fan named Michael Uslan, who, as an 8th grader in the ’60s, made a vow to save Batman.
I’ve always been drawn to stories about the people who work behind the scenes.
Israel Deporting 150 Migrants to South Sudan
(Via VOA) JERUSALEM — Israel is deporting a second planeload of African migrants as it continues a crackdown on what officials have described as “infiltrators.”
Israel says the deportation of 150 people back to their home country of South Sudan is aimed at curbing a flood of African migrants.
More than 60,000 Africans have illegally entered Israel from Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula since 2005, most from Eritrea and Sudan. They claim to be refugees, but Israel says the vast majority are economic migrants seeking a higher standard of living.Read more here http://bit.ly/Qc2Goh
Photo: AP (Anat, an Israeli teacher, center, comforts Victoria, a South Sudanese migrant student, just before leaving for Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv, June 25, 2012.)
If we listened to our intellect we’d never have a love affair. We’d never have a friendship. We’d never go in business because we’d be cynical: “It’s gonna go wrong.” Or “She’s going to hurt me.” Or, “I’ve had a couple of bad love affairs, so therefore …” Well, that’s nonsense. You’re going to miss life. You’ve got to jump off the cliff all the time and build your wings on the way down.
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| — | Ray Bradbury [Bradbury on Fresh Air] (via nprfreshair) |
