It is about bout strangeness, oddness, and incongruity. Well,
it’s more an exercise than a potential avenue to publication or fame as an
author. I am reading a coaching book for writers where the challenge is to
write a book 350 words at a time. Supposedly in a year there will be a book
there that is raring to go into the process of publication. A much longer
amount of time than I wish to spend. I needed some assistance reinvigorating
the creative process and this is one I came across. It, for the most part, is a
simple exercise and it gets me away from of the daily journal that I have used
in the past which has not allowed me much in the way of inspiration or value.
I began a daily piece a couple of days ago, and finished it
before realizing that I had something other to say on the topic.
It was about terrorism.
I wrote this before the events in Paris, and since I have
felt compelled to address the topic from a different point of view. I do not
follow the news when it reports about terrorist atrocities. Not out of apathy,
but out of a deep commitment to disallow the terrorist from realizing one of
their major goals. To capture the news cycle and consequently spread more
terror in the aftermath of the act of violence.
Remember the expansive enterprise of any act of terrorism is
to quite simply terrorize. Looking at the aftermath of 911, there was
widespread panic on the possibility of a financial collapse. Key the target:
The World Trade Center. As evidenced by the economic atrocity the 2000’s turned
out to be…mission accomplished.
The symbolic advantages of radicalism and extremism is the
proliferation of fear and the easiest route to that is an attack that will
mesmerize the news media and reach the largest amount of the population. An additional
objective is to promote the efforts of counter terrorism in the hopes that
through things like suicide bombers where martyrs are created that motivate the
idealists in their cause. It becomes a noble feat to be a sufferer for a cause.
Sacrificial victims become heroes, and the governments suppressing them are
turned into scapegoats who prey on these honorable victims. It is punditry of
the vilest variety.
I felt the same way when Osama bin Laden was killed. I
wanted the news media to shut up about that monster. I am against killing of
any sort, but I was relieved that they shot that bastard and dumped his body
overboard into the sea to be eaten by fish. Not an enlightened stance for
someone of my ideals, but it was how I felt after living with the aftermath of
911. Sadly for my principles, I wish the same for these criminals. Shoot them
and throw them to the fishes to be made into feces.
There is a more personal reason that I write today. While not
wishing to aid in the proliferation of propaganda aimed to harm, I have to say
something. I have a close friend living in Paris whose demise would be
completely devastating to me. I have known this gentleman since I was a
teenager and he was in grammar school. He has, and always shall be a vitally important
person to me. He is the most culturally adept person I know; he is the true
definition of a Renaissance man. He has maintained our friendship over the
years through his own effort and in spite of my divergence into the world of
active addiction to alcohol and drugs. He, and his brother are a as siblings to
me, and even the thought of losing of him makes me weep.
For me, it is a grace from God that he and his lovely bride
are unharmed. It is an intense hurt to think of the dead and injured, but I am
confident in the fact that Paris’s recovery from this mindless violence will be
that much easier due to his presence in that most beautiful of cities.
Peace
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