I Watch 'Em So You Don't Have To

Life vs. The Movies


I had to write something today, something a little different. I have gone on about how life is pain, life is horror, and movies are just a distraction. Today someone, and I refuse to use his  name, decided to destroy the distinction between the two forever for dozens of people.


You've all hear probably by now a couple of hours worth of news of the shooting in Colorado at a movie theater. You know how many died, were wounded. You know what movie. And now, thanks to the media that spins the stuff they think we want to hear, we know who he is, how old, what he was into, and I'm sure a mass of other information that will be stuffed down our throats for months.


What we do not hear, at least everywhere I've looked I cannot find, is any information about the people killed and injured, we have numbers that change from report to report but they are just numbers. And they do not mention at all the people terrorized by what they had witnessed.


You know why? Because this - person has now made himself the most famous man in America. That is sicker than any movie plot, any fictional novel you could possibly read. People will know more about him and his life and the whys and the wheres more than anyone in history because he has so quickly destroyed more lives in a domestic incident more than anyone in history. Which is what he wanted.


Even if he is sentenced to death he is guaranteed months of media coverage, in-depth interviews (if they can get them) and since our legal processes are so prolonged, he also gets basically a lifetime of free care, on us.


What do the victims get? Do their bills get paid? Do their families get special honors for their lost loved ones because they were taken so cruelly? How will the rest of their lives be? No media circus is going to focus on them, I can guarantee that if history is any indication. Do we know about the families of any mass murderer's victims? Do we even know about the families destroyed by 9/11? No, and we won't because it isn't NEWS.


They've already given the incident a name I'm not going to give here. They know the whos and the whats, just not yet the whys, but since he didn't do a murder-suicide I'm sure there will be plenty of reports about that. That's sick. He's going to be the ultimate anti-hero and get just what he wants - the attention of a nation. While the dead, dying and forever scarred will sit in obscurity trying to put their lives back together.


Life is pain. Life sucks. Movies are a distraction. This time, they crashed together.


May all the families and relatives involved along with those unfortunate to be there be able to find some sort of peace and have a quality of life. May the one who did this - die in obscurity, not fame. Now's your time to show what you're made of media. Don't turn this guy into someone we have to look at every ten minutes for the next ??? Report the facts and then let him just... suffer for what he's done.