The Arizona Massacre / Grammar Conspiracy

Accused gunman Jared Loughner

Like many of you, I have been following the coverage of the tragedy in Arizona where Jared Lee Loughner allegedly opened fire on attendees of a political meeting hosted by Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Once the attack was over, 6 people (including a 9 year-old girl and a Federal judge) were dead and 14 others (including Giffords) had been wounded. According to witnesses at the scene, Loughner remained silent throughout the slaughter which has only served to fuel speculation concerning his possible motives.

So far, two theories have gained significant traction in the press and I felt compelled to address them here:

Theory A – Sarah Palin’s Political Action Committee aired an ad in Gabrielle Giffords’ region during the last election endorsing her opponent. The ads featured a set of crosshairs superimposed over the disputed district and was enhanced by a speech Palin made encouraging those Tea Party supports in the area to “reload” and continue to fight. Loughner took this ad literally, thus the bloodshed.

I will be the first to admit that I am no Sarah Palin fan and find the possibility of her ever having access to “the button” terrifying. However, is this really the best theory that we can come up with? That Jared was just a well-adjusted emotionally-stable kid until he saw the Sarah Palin ad and suddenly decided to purchase a handgun and indiscriminately open fire on 25 complete strangers. If our collective sanity is that unstable then I may be just a couple of Progressive Insurance commercials away from firebombing an infant Baptism.

Theory B – Fierce Political Partisanship has divided the country causing extremism to manifest itself in increasingly violent ways. The idea here is that certain politicians have been painted so harshly by their opponents (that they are “destroying America” and their agendas “must be stopped.”) that the general populace feels obligated to take (sometimes drastic and violent) action. This has inspired both Republicans and Democrats to call for more subdued language in an attempt to prevent this sort of tragedy in the future.

This is every bit as ridiculous as the Sarah Palin angle. If “stopping an agenda” can be that easily translated to “inflict head trauma” you want see me out much come 2012. While I am sure our elected officials meant well, I have no doubt that the “subdued language” vow is a symbolic gesture on par with passing a resolution condemning cancer or sadness.

I would now like to offer my own theory on the cause of the Arizona massacre:

Theory C – Jared Loughner is a crazy person.

A review of his online postings and personal history reveals the following:

• He seemed to take it personally that America’s paper currency was no longer backed by gold despite the fact that the transition was invoked by a now-deceased president 17 years before he was even born. (I cannot imagine the hardship America’s current monetary system placed on an unemployed 22 year old living with his parents.)

• He was convinced that "the government is implying mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar.”

• He once attended a Giffords rally where he asked, “What is government if words have no meaning?” and took it personally that Giffords did not answer to his satisfaction.

• He had to be physically removed from a college algebra course because his behavior frightened both the teacher and other students.

I have heard a lot of conspiracy theories in my time, but I will give Jared credit for being the first person brave enough to suggest that the American people are being systematically oppressed by Federally-controlled punctuation. And of all the things to take personally, he chooses the 1971 dissolution of the gold standard and college algebra?

Even if these ideas served as the attack’s motivation, I cannot find any evidence that Congresswoman Giffords was associated with any legislation concerning the gold standard, college algebra, or grammar-based brainwashing. This leaves the most likely source of young Jared’s angst to be Giffords’ response to his question, “What is government if words have no meaning?”

How exactly is one supposed to answer that question? And if words have no meaning, how is the government oppressing us using the grammar that outlines their proper use? I don’t how the question was answered that day, but I know how I would answer it:

“What is government if words have no meaning?”

“As useless and irrelevant as the words used to form the question you just asked. Next!”

Anytime such a tragedy occurs we want the source of it to be neatly identified, categorized, and neutralized so that we can continue our lives confident that such senseless violence will never reoccur. Unfortunately, the underlying causes of Jared’s behavior are not simple and it is disingenuous of us to place all of the blame at the feet of Sarah Palin, partisan politics, or even gun control laws. 

Even if he was to stand up in court and completely explain his motives, they would likely sound irrational to the rest of us and we would continue searching for a logical motive for an illogical act. I fear that such a search is destined to be fruitless, plus if the press continues to refer to him as Jared Lee Loughner he will undoubtedly be convicted since everyone knows that anyone referred to by three names is guilty of assassination by default.

Pedophile Barbie

About 6 months ago Mattel released the “Barbie Video Girl,” a doll that was equipped with a video camera in front and compact monitor in the back. The doll could record up to thirty minutes of video before it had to be connected to a computer in order to upload the footage. The idea was that a young child could utilize the inexpensive toy ($50) to make their own movies without having access to more expensive electronic devices.

Since its release, Barbie Video Girl has been a hot selling item and was even nominated for Toy of the Year (yes, that’s a real award) before the FBI rained on Mattel’s parade. It seems that the law enforcement agency is concerned that such a device could be utilized by a sexual predator to clandestinely film nude children. Said predator would then use the images for his own nefarious purposes or, worse yet, distribute them online. 

I would like to offer the following rebuttal:

If a total stranger can easily present your child with a doll and return frequently enough to amass a significant porn collection out of 30 minute clips without your knowledge, you may not be providing the level of supervision that your offspring needs. You may also want to have a conversation with your child about what type of films they are making with their dolls.

I applaud the philosophy of child safety, but doesn’t the FBI have more immediate threats than an extraordinarily patient pedophile that has access to a copy of Final Cut Pro? If anything, reports like this probably give sexual deviants ideas that would not have occurred to them otherwise. Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this is that the memo was never meant to be seen by the public at all; it was to be circulated only to law enforcement agencies but was sent to media outlet by mistake.

How many of these warnings does the FBI produce? Is there a special “theoretical toy threat” division running sting operations at Toys R Us? Again, there is a difference between being proactive and unnecessarily creative when it comes to threat assessment and I believe we have arrived at the later.

However, if Mattel releases a Pedophile Playhouse companion set next Christmas then perhaps I have been too harsh on the F.B.I.

Ringing In The New Year

Like many of you, I celebrated New Year’s Eve with friends, food, and the depressing remains of Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve or as I like to call it, “Why am I unable to power on a television and not see Ryan Seacrest?” The show featured in-depth reporting from Jenny McCarthy, wearing a headset left over from the Apollo 13 mission control center, and Fergie, wearing a bedazzled piece of air-conditioning duct-work, not to mention a stellar lineup of some of the most talented voices in modern music.

Unfortunately, the talented voices of modern music had better offers in Las Vegas so ABC presented us with a Backstreet Boys / New Kids on the Block reunion show instead. For the better part of an hour we were treated to a dozen grown men singing and dancing their way along the precipice of obscurity while gaggles of teenage girls looked on and wondered why their mothers were so excited.

Lucky for us, ABC wisely chose to balance this middle-age career triage with the fresh sounds of Ke$ha who performed her party anthem “Tik Tok” as gaggles of mothers looked on and wondered why their teenage girls were so excited. During her moving rendition of her chart-topping hit, Ke$ha also managed to desecrate not one, but two Judeo-Christian holidays by grinding on what appeared to be a biker-gang enforcer dressed as Santa Claus and then savagely beating a piñata of the Easter bunny.

As if this wasn’t enough, she peppered the underwhelmed crowd with inspirational nuggets such as encouraging them to “make 2011 our bitch” and publicly resolving not to “become a douchebag” in the coming months.

Ke$ha

At the conclusion of the aforementioned music performances, I could not help but wonder which held the greater cache of talent; the artists performing on the stage, or the roadies who helped assemble it. I felt disappointed by the entertainment and the only effort exerted on my part was turning on the television.

Having seen enough, we decided to flip over to CNN and follow their coverage of the groundbreaking “guitar drop” in Nashville, TN. I couldn’t help but be filled with pride as I took in the throngs of people gathered in my state’s capitol to witness our historic New Year’s Eve debut. The pride quickly passed as I watched CNN’s Nashville correspondent, painfully overplayed as a cow-girl, trade banter with Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin.   

Then, as midnight approached, we became witnesses to a televised train wreck. Since there was no clear official countdown, the guitar arbitrarily began its descent almost a full minute early only to stall halfway and slightly re-ascend before stopping again. I am still unsure as to whether this was a deliberate attempt to correct the premature drop or a mechanical failure. At any rate, the powers that be decided to distract from this embarrassing monstrosity by setting off the fireworks early leading to a chain reaction of confusion and, even more heinous, unnecessary cutaways to Kathy Griffin.

It got bad enough that at one point I envied the celebration staged by Biloxi, Mississippi for both its understated simplicity and chronological accuracy. To Nashville’s credit, I have heard no reports of fatalities or gang violence at the celebration which means it is still ahead of Memphis, where the only things that normally drop at midnight are the shooting victims.

Guns & Roses

Arthur "Firearm Safety" Sedille

Just before Christmas 2010, the emergency operations center in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma got an unusual call from one of its citizens. Twenty-three year old Arthur Sedille called 911 to report that his wife had been shot in the head and needed medical attention. When authorities arrived they found Rebecca Sedille, 50, deceased in the couple’s bedroom.

As the night progressed, Arthur admitted that he and his wife often engaged in “fantasy love play” involving firearms. On the night in question, Arthur was lovingly holding his pistol to the side of his wife’s head when it discharged. He claims to have been unaware that the weapon was loaded and insists that the incident was a tragic accident. Pending further investigation, he has been arrested on suspicion of first degree murder but as of this writing he hasn’t been formally charged with a crime.

At the risk of sounding prudish, exactly how does a person discover that they enjoy having a handgun pressed to the side of the melon while engaging in carnal activities? Did Arthur just shoehorn that little nugget into dinner conversation one night?

“You know honey, I couldn’t find the newspaper again this morning. Maybe we should call again.”

“I will take care of that tomorrow…..By the way, what are your feelings concerning homicidal fantasy role-play?”

Perhaps it was just how I was raised, but the gentlemanly thing would involve starting out slowly with a knife or a vial of weaponized anthrax before moving on to the big leagues. I realize that it can be difficult to keep the romance alive (especially when one half of the couple had the ability to rent a car before the other was even born) but I cannot help but wonder if they had actually exhausted their other options before purchasing the N.R.A. Valentines Day kit.  

If, as Arthur claims, Mrs. Sedille enjoyed having a Desert Eagle .50 join them in the bedroom, common courtesy would dictate that you check the chamber before playing the dirty version of “Who wants to see grandma again?” Forgetting the scented massage oil is easily remedied, forgetting to check the safety and un-chamber the hollow points is a slightly more complicated “oops.”

Of course, the other possibility is that Arthur has created a near-perfect cover story for a premeditated act of murder. After all, how is a prosecutor to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Mrs. Sedille didn’t enjoy sexual gun-play? There is no proof one way or the other and I doubt that she listed it under Hobbies and Interests on her Facebook profile. This means that he could have shot his wife, fabricated a story about violent fetishes, and then used her modesty to explain why such a story cannot be verified.    

I would be interested to know whether or not the late Mrs. Sedille happened to be covered by an unusually large life insurance policy or was the recipient of a robust trust fund. I realize such a view is cynical, but I will not be shocked when the Lifetime movie premiers next fall. I have even taken the liberty of penning a few prospective film titles for them to use:

• Semi-Automatic Lover (The Rebecca Sedille Story)
• Shotgun Wedding (The Rebecca Sedille Story)
• Weapons of Mass Seduction (The Rebecca Sedille Story)
• Colts & Deadbolts: The Secret World of The Sedilles
• What’s The Worst That Could Happen? (The Rebecca Sedille Story)

I fear that if such a fetish were to become widespread, an onslaught of bad country songs would not be far behind:

• My Smith & Wesson’s Got Her Undressin’
• She’s Got a Round In The Chamber And A Bun In The Oven
• Budweiser, Buck-shot, and Becky-Lynn (The Manslaughter Song)
• Hair-trigger Hoedown
• You, Me, & and a Remington Makes Three
• 5 Hours, 6-Shooters, and 7 Years Upstate