You must not have gotten the memo.

Professor Blather on April 25, 2007 at 7:51 AM

Duly noted. Thanks for setting me straight.
Although, I was bracing for someone to start calling for an end to military displays at air shows as dangerous.

On the broader subject of Hitchens, he is all for clinical and steely analysis unless one of his personal hobbyhorses is touched — read his attacks on Kissinger, Reagan, Mother Theresa, and you’ll see a descent into blind emotionalism that rivals, in an opposite way, any teddy-bear memorial that anyone chooses to build.

That said, it has been a bit excessive, hasn’t it?

You’re not serious? Compare this to the nauseating display over Anna Nicole or the circus around Jon Benet or the grotesque parody that was Princess Di’s final act. Or Natalie the Aruba girl or Scott Peterson’s wife and unborn baby.

This is comparitively speaking the height of dignity. Hitchins is a fabulous writer but this “oh let’s say something really shocking” schtick is getting old. Yeah we know, Mother Teresa was a bitch.

Every year I have to grit my teeth and sit through endless breast-beating over the Murrah bombing. It is very obvious that it is a political and commercial enterprise. The Waco Massacre that triggered McVeigh’s resolve isn’t mentioned even in passing. An ugly German memorial was built to emphasize the annual emotional masturbation fest.

Hiraghm on April 24, 2007 at 9:31 PM

Well that was officially the most disturbing post I’ve ever read, on any non-liberal blog, ever.

McVeigh’s “resolve,” huh?

Waco should be mentioned because it “triggered his resolve?” His “resolve” to murder a couple hundred people? To blow up a freaking day care center full of preschool kids?

Nice.

Kind of like U.S. policy “triggered” Osama’s “resolve” to murder 3,000 Americans. Kind of like the rejection of a few girls “triggered” Cho’s “resolve” to shoot up his campus?

Right.

Dude. Get some help. Or stop and really think how the post you wrote is exactly, as in word for word, like so many of the posts I could find on liberal blogs. The vilest ones.

If you really think McVeigh had “resolve” and that somebody else’s “trigger” had anything to do with it – you’re as bad as any liberal idolozing Cho today. Or telling us we should “understand” bin Laden.

Moderators, unless you want to see that particular comment posted on a thousand liberal blogs to prove how screwed up conservatives are – you might consider zilching that comment.

“Triggered his resolve …”

Sick. Disturbing.

Where’s the sobfest for him??

CurtZHP on April 24, 2007 at 7:21 PM

He was in the military.

Probably voted Republican.

I’d wager he was white and I know he was male.

There is no political angle to his death that can be used to advance leftist agendas. Since he didn’t die in combat, they can’t even pounce on the opportunity to bash Bush and denounce the war.

So with all that in mind – why do you think there’d be a media “sobfest?”

You must not have gotten the memo.

We all feel sick and are outraged at the VTech tragedy, but 99.9999999999999% of us are unaffected by it.

Take off 2 decimal points and the same goes for 9/11. Doesn’t really hold up, now, does it?

The sappification of the nation is nauseating.

Don’t remember this inclusion of the killers into memorials for the victims until recently.

And it should be mocked and reviled until it stops.

(How about all of the poor Japanese soldiers who got blisters from having to behead so many stumbling American soldiers during the Bataan Death March, huh? Have they gotten compensation yet?)

Illegal Aliens Kill More Americans Than Iraq War

When piffle like this gets respectful treatment from the media, we can guess that it’s not because of the profundity of the emotion but rather because of its extreme shallowness. Those birds were singing just as loudly and just as sweetly when the bullets were finding their targets.

The hysteria that followed a traffic accident in Paris involving a disco princess—surely the most hyped non-event of all time—seemed to suggest an even wider surrender to the overwhelming need to emote: The less at stake, the greater the grieving.

If we did this every time, the flag would spend its entire time drooping. One should express a decent sympathy for the families and friends of the murdered, a decent sympathy that ought to be accompanied by a decent reticence. Because Virginia Tech—alas for poor humanity—was a calamity with no implications beyond itself. In the meantime, and in expectation of rather stiffer challenges to our composure, we might practice nailing the colors to the mast rather than engaging in a permanent dress rehearsal for masochism and the lachrymose.

Anyone who can write like this, is a treasure. I adore Mr. Hitchens, for and in spite of his curmudgeonry. The application of the word “lachrymose” in relation to the nation which still leads the free world was fabulous.

What he forgot to mention was how much fodder this massacre, and the prolonged coverage of it (Greta has just begun…) has given the rest of the world to bash the U.S.A. even more.

I agree fully with his assessment of the correspondents’ dinner. Whatever Mr. Bush would have done would have been the ‘wrong’ approach. The event has lost its meaning and, if cancelled, no one will miss it.

I’m so happy Mr. Hitchens is on the right side of the WoT. I wonder what he would name it…

I feel like I’m intruding in their grief. It’s none of my business, really.

“Those who died were not soldiers in any cause. They were not murdered by our enemies. They were not martyrs.” Exactly. It’s terribly, terribly sad that they were murdered, but it’s not a national tragedy. Was it a national tragedy when that guy murdered 87 people in a nightclub by throwing burning gasoline in there? No, it was just a hideous crime.

Flags at federal facilities were flown at half-mast this past week. Why so for this mass murder, but not for the nightclub arson massacre?

Plus all this attention really does encourage copycats.

Allah, You underestimate yourself.

I think we’ve become a society of victims. While the pain of those affected will last a lifetime, it does us no good to attempt to vicariously live the pain. This goes beyond the reporting the news, past sentimentality and comes closer to a morbid curiosity to even self-flagellation. We simply don’t need to know every second of Cho’s life the moment it comes out. This isn’t a friggin’ suspense novel, folks.

America used to be full of the “get back on that horse” types. Now it seems to be full of something else. YMMV.

Every year I have to grit my teeth and sit through endless breast-beating over the Murrah bombing. It is very obvious that it is a political and commercial enterprise. The Waco Massacre that triggered McVeigh’s resolve isn’t mentioned even in passing. An ugly German memorial was built to emphasize the annual emotional masturbation fest. An annual marathon was started, having nothing to do with the bombing. 12 years later and it’s a big deal. Not because of the lives lost, but because of the attention and money it can generate in perpetuity.

( to help out Bradky and other Dim Bulbs, flint is both hard and sharp )

And I absolutey agree with Hitchens on this and with Steyn on his “A Culture of Passivity” article he has up on his website.

Here we go again…

Think of all the opportunities they give him to hug people!

I much rather see him catch a chair in the face.

And let’s see how the Chinese react

I’m amazed at their softly-softly approach thus far..

Exit question: Deep down, in the darkest corner of his heart of hearts, where terrible truths are whispered, Geraldo kind of enjoys stories like these, doesn’t he? Think of all the opportunities they give him to hug people!

Nothing wrong with enjoying your work. Many people seek professions where they will be involved in unpleasant situations. Consider the police, soldiers, (ahem) ER docs…

Ms. Verbrugge recounted breaking through the previous week’s numbness as she stopped on a morning walk and found herself yelling at the mountains and at God. Though her shouts were initially met with silence, she said, she soon was reassured by the simplest of things, the chirping of birds.

This “Ms. Verbrugge” seems easily distracted. I disagree with Hitch’s comment that it was a “non-event”. I think it was pretty big.