{"id":309,"date":"2007-04-28T11:46:43","date_gmt":"2007-04-28T16:46:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/index.php\/2007\/04\/28\/blacksburg-gunky\/"},"modified":"2007-04-28T19:02:48","modified_gmt":"2007-04-29T00:02:48","slug":"blacksburg-gunky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2007\/04\/blacksburg-gunky\/","title":{"rendered":"Blacksburg Gunky"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Gunky being the term for the particular mental illness in the family of the dead husband of the protagonist in Stephen King’s Lisey’s Story<\/em>. I picked its CD version for the commute thinking it was King’s fully formed portrait of a resourceful woman who survives a challenging life, and it is, but her challenges include ghosts, homicidal dementia — the “bad gunky” — and an alternate universe, not to mention mere family crises and a marriage.)<\/small><\/p>\n

I’m envious of the guts to publish a strongly worded piece<\/a> on the media making the Virginia Tech mass murder this month’s tragedy of metaphoric proportions. If Christopher Hitchens can take on Princess Diana and Mother Theresa he certainly can rob full-of-life innocent college students of their symbolism.<\/p>\n

In October 2004, some workers and organizers of a cross-country event were moving a large tent at Fayetteville’s Agri Park when a metal tent pole touched an electric line. Three people were electrocuted and three others injured. I know one of the latter, a local businessman, runner and community volunteer. He happened to have been wearing rubber boots, and that saved him. Random tragedy? Yes. Preventable? Mostly.<\/p>\n

Next time, they’ll lower the metal poles as they approach overhead wires.<\/p>\n

At Virginia Tech, a student on April 16 off’d 32 other students and a few professors before shooting himself. It was senseless. Random tragedy? Yes. Preventable? Mostly.<\/p>\n

Next time, colleges, schools and businesses will make different — shouldn’t hope too much for “better” — guesses on which sullen wackos will act on their impulses.<\/p>\n

We won’t be further restricting non-hunting weapons. U.S. leaders don’t even seem to be trying for that any more.<\/p>\n

More than 33 people died violently in Iraq that day, largely in a deliberate fashion. Random tragedy? No. Preventable? Depends on who you ask. Next time, in the next war, or later in this one, we’ll do, what again?<\/p>\n

All these demonstrate evidence of social evolution, as opposed to social darwinism. We always do better next time. I know I’m glad it’s 2007. A thousand years ago I could shut a car door on my thumb and die of blood poisoning. Now, that’s gunky. -30-<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Gunky being the term for the particular mental illness in the family of the dead husband of the protagonist in Stephen King’s Lisey’s Story. I picked its CD version for the commute thinking it was King’s fully formed portrait of a resourceful woman who survives a challenging life, and it is, but her challenges include […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-spin"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":305,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2007\/04\/blasted-commercial\/","url_meta":{"origin":309,"position":0},"title":"Blasted Commercial","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"April 17, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"The first-day coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings was, compared to most similar events, surprisingly restrained. CNN was unbearably repetitive. I couldn't see more than five minutes at a time, due to impatience, but wasn't it wonderful that the cable news station of excess kept guesswork and pseudo-psycho-pap about the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "American Culture"","block_context":{"text":"American Culture","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/american-culture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":556,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2008\/08\/duma-me\/","url_meta":{"origin":309,"position":1},"title":"Duma Me","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"August 4, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Book report: Duma Key by Stephen King I can be a snob sometimes: I enjoyed most movies based on Stephen King novels but read nothing of his until seeing a short story or two early this decade in The New Yorker. The plan's not to catch up on everything he\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mr. Boo Klist"","block_context":{"text":"Mr. Boo Klist","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/mr-boo-klist\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":131,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2005\/07\/how-you-get-there\/","url_meta":{"origin":309,"position":2},"title":"How you get there","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"July 15, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Friday, July 15, 2005. It would take some nerve to call myself an avid bicyclist. I pedal more than most, and a lot less than others. I biked for fun and for commuting as a teenager, even though I could borrow Mom's Beetle almost whenever\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Body, Home, Street"","block_context":{"text":"Body, Home, Street","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/body-home-street\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1741,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2010\/01\/positive-positions-perhaps\/","url_meta":{"origin":309,"position":3},"title":"Positive Positions Perhaps","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"January 6, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Think, men, think.\u201d \u2014 Prof. Harold Hill, The Music Man New Year's Resolution No. 1 for 2010 is modest: Keep a book list. Then in a year there'll be a better best books Brick. One could say that if the books I read were memorable then I'd remember 'em. It's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mr. Boo Klist"","block_context":{"text":"Mr. Boo Klist","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/mr-boo-klist\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":289,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2007\/03\/a-driving-walking-ramble\/","url_meta":{"origin":309,"position":4},"title":"A Driving, Walking Ramble","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"March 4, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Not every book works well as an audio. If it's adequate, it may not be a successful work-commute diversion. For most of eight years, I've had a long-enough drive (20 minutes one way) where audio books are more satisfying than, public radio. Spoken word holds the attention better than even\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Technical Difficulties"","block_context":{"text":"Technical Difficulties","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/briefs\/technical-difficulties\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":316,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2007\/05\/who-are-these-people\/","url_meta":{"origin":309,"position":5},"title":"Who Are These People?","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"May 15, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2007 Ben S. Pollock Memoir. As much as can be mocked of the genre -- (1) Was the life of \"X,\" no matter his or her accomplishments, so fascinating that we'd want the least of details? Often no, and (2) Memory even corrected by research distorts both the facts\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Life Lessons"","block_context":{"text":"Life Lessons","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/life-lessons\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}