Friday, November 6, 2009

The Friday beaver



A sad day for police beavers. A Seattle poilce officer was gunned down here last weekend. The memorial service was held today. As the service was ending police were surrounding the suspects apartment. He ran and was shot. That's about the fifth or sixth incident in the last week around the nation involving the military or police. And then the guy in Orlando who shot up his former place of work. As things implode it will get worse before it gets better. I just wonder when people will realize that you can only do so much and what's happening now is not their fault. Suck it up, hunker down and things will eventually turn around. Look at our friendly beaver up there. He's got nothing other than what he can get by on in nature and he does okay.

NEW FRIDAY ITEM - BANK FAILURES - Five more banks in various states failed today. I'll expand on this as I get motivated.

10 comments:

S.W. Anderson said...

I don't believe in censorship, but I do believe in some level of people reining in what they say and do out of a sense of public responsibility. Our many forms of entertainment overdo violence. The effect on well-balanced people isn't good. The effect on the weakest links and sickest puppies in our society is poisonous and dangerous.

The answer, which as it turns out is no answer at all, is for most people to reject most of the gratuitous violence in books, magazines, movies, TV shows, music and so on. It's also to discourage their children from taking in most of the violence-based junk the media pump out. Those are the only measures that could bring about a climate change, because they would hit those making lots of money off of violent fare in their wallets.

A climate change of that kind wouldn't eliminate all acts of violence, obviously. And we'd probably never know how much difference it would make. But the longer I live, the more convinced I am it would make a difference.

Demeur said...

So SW do you think we've hit the point of the Roman empire yet where violence has become something like the Colluseum?

The Blog Fodder said...

That is a good point Demeur. Bread and circuses. Cheap food and cheap gas/gratutitous violence. Keeps the lower class happy while the moneyed class continues on unchecked by mere voters.

Randal Graves said...

I blame beavers.

As for violence, a huge part of the problem is that, as a society, we haven't developed any kind of emotional and psychological mechanism to deal with it. I can watch that crap til the cows come home, then kill the cows. My oldest can. I have no worries about either of us.

The technology and thus access has advanced faster than we can handle. Violence has ALWAYS been around. Come on down to our special collections and I'll show you some fucked up headlines from years gone by. Now, parents either pay little or no attention to what their kids are doing, or they've fallen prey to our love of raw violence without any kind of reflection.

Holte Ender said...

For all the death and mayhem in the 20th century the population still managed to increase. This might be hard to believe but less people are dying violently and prematurely than at any time in history. I have the link somewhere from a TED talk when I find it I will post it.

Holte Ender said...

The Decline of Violence was a talk from TED I saw in the last year or so, HERE if anyone is interested.

Tom Harper said...

If that "carefree" beaver had looked behind him, he would've seen the cougar that snuck up and ate him right after that picture was taken.

S.W. Anderson said...

I don't think it's like the Romans' use of blood sport for entertainment. I do think the more violence people are exposed to, in entertainment and the news, the more they become hardened to it.

Until very recently, London bobbies didn't routinely carry guns. Detective had to get a supervisor's approval to carry a gun for a specific task or work on a particular case. Most British criminals didn't use guns either. The death rate in the U.K. from guns used in the commission of crimes was extremely low.

Rather than learning from them and scaling down violence here, it seems they've taken cues from us, scaling up violence. It's all relative and can be changed in either direction, IMO.

BBC said...

He's got nothing other than what he can get by on in nature and he does okay.

I have more than he has but we're not beavers so we need more to get by than they do.

Still, I keep things as basic and country and with nature the best as I can and I think I'm going pretty darn good at it and can get along with little income.

Anyway, BILLY MAKES BRANDY NOW

BBC said...

I see that I'm not the only one that relates to the Romans. It's the same shit, it just looks different now.