Forum / Taking a sorrow break...

James Lloyd Davis
Dec 14, 07:44pm

Newtown, Connecticut opens up a furrow in my heart, deep-plowed and painful. I've reached a point where I think I need to put some space between myself and everything for a while.

I'll be back in a few days, but... maybe I'll be different. Maybe we'll all be different. Maybe that's what's needed, here, there, everywhere. For people to take a little break and look inside for a while.

Hasta luego.

Frankie Saxx
Dec 14, 07:51pm

Take care, James. Come back whole.

Mathew Paust
Dec 15, 02:40am

I hear ya.

Gloria Garfunkel
Dec 15, 03:39am

The trauma of children is lifelong, as is the trauma of losing a child. My heart is with those people.

Dolemite
Dec 15, 03:50am

Good God... I didn't know about this.

;-(
,
,
,
,
,

Sally Houtman
Dec 15, 04:11am

I saw this earlier and didn't understand what it was about. Just googled it.

I couldn't even read the whole article.

eamon byrne
Dec 15, 07:50am

I can't understand my own fellow citizens, any more than I can understand myself - and be damned if I can down here in Australia understand you Americans.

Why is it that gun deaths per 100,000 of your population is so incredibly higher than ours?

Why is it that your road toll fatality figures are among the world's highest?

Why is it that you, a supposedly wealthy nation, have such an aweful - dreadfully aweful - health care system?

Why is it that your minimum hourly wage is so exploitatively low?

Why is it that your unemployment rate is so high?

Why is your debt unsustainable?

Why do millions of your citizens exist in obscene poverty and degradation?

Why do your war veterans sleep rough under railway bridges?

Why are so many super-yachts and private jets sold in your country?

Why do you gaw and gape at fucking lady gaga?

Why is it that you spend so much of your gdp on weapons?

Why is it that your political system is so gridlocked?

Why is there NEVER anything on fictionaut presenting some kind of reflection on some of these things? Just fucking one of these things?

"The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind."

Or maybe it's just blowing from my arse.

Dolemite
Dec 15, 07:56am

Fuck you.

That's why.

Misti Rainwater-Lites
Dec 15, 08:20am

There is considerable reflection on these things at Fictionaut, Eamon. Perhaps you cannot see past your own arse, mate.

eamon byrne
Dec 15, 10:41am

John, extremely heartfelt response if I may. And understandable, given the circumstances. But honestly, you do me an injustice. Maybe the "you" is what hit a raw nerve. As if I meant "you" personally. But surely we must answer the substantive questions and not take it as some personally directed insult to our precious sense of national identity. After all, we are all equally humans. Many of us are flag carriers, that is true; and some of us are total bastards. That those are problems is my opinion, obviously. But what else is there? Facts? Please.

I took James' initial post as a sincere statement of despair. That I can understand. From a distance there are certain things, generic things, not personal-to-fictionaut-readers things, that I see. They're things I see here too. Do you think we haven't had massacres? But since your's is the supposedly dominant nation and culture on this possibly fucked planet, and since it seems that the problems are somewhat acute where you are, then maybe, just maybe, it's your nation, your culture, that can take a leadership role in reversing these alarming trends.

Misti, of course many writers tangentially address these issues. That is the purpose of fiction. But isn't this a suitable time to be more direct?

Linda Simoni-Wastila
Dec 15, 11:37am

We are ALL grieving.

A tragedy such as this transcends boundaries, and has little to do with Lady Gaga or traffic fatalities or why or why not writers post political invectives on fictionaut.

So shut it.

Is that direct enough?

Peace...

Mathew Paust
Dec 15, 11:41am

Eamon ~ Preaching's rarely effective unless the congregation's already there. And if they're there their preacher's only reinforcing what they already believe they believe. You wish to whip out the gun-death numbers. Might there be some relationship to them with the fact our health-care system is inaccessible to many, those, in fact, who need it most? Our priorities are skewed. We know it. We don't need to hear it from afar. Tie your wallaby down, mate.

RW Spryszak
Dec 15, 12:40pm

Eamon feels all better now though. Glad to be of service.

Joani Reese
Dec 15, 03:23pm

Gerontion

"...After such knowledge, what forgiveness? Think now
History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors
And issues, deceives with whispering ambitions,
Guides us by vanities. Think now
She gives when our attention is distracted
And what she gives, gives with such supple confusions
That the giving famishes the craving. Gives too late
What’s not believed in, or if still believed,
In memory only, reconsidered passion. Gives too soon
Into weak hands, what’s thought can be dispensed with
Till the refusal propagates a fear. Think
Neither fear nor courage saves us. Unnatural vices
Are fathered by our heroism. Virtues
Are forced upon us by our impudent crimes.
These tears are shaken from the wrath-bearing tree..."

--T.S. Eliot, 1920

Gloria Garfunkel
Dec 15, 03:50pm

Eamon. Direct? Have you read any of my Holocaust and child abuse stories that compose most of my writing? Put your money where your mouth is and write your own stories. Fiction and memoir can be more powerful than "fact," reach us at a deeper subconscious level. These things have always existed but we haven't had the instantaneous technology to find out about them all immediately. And yes, America is very fucked up in many ways, but aside from idealized Australia, every other country is worse in one way or another.

RW Spryszak
Dec 15, 06:06pm

It's like, "oh you've had a terrible, sad tragedy and my heart goes out to you... now let me tell you why you suck."

No class move. But he's forgiven.

Darryl Price
Dec 15, 06:52pm

You can't throw a blanket blame at a group of people and expect it to ever stick instead of infuriate. Pogo:"We have met the enemy, and he is us." But to overcome injustice,violence and senseless killing requires all of us, because we are all in this together. Blame isn't required, it doesn't help, it doesn't work--not in the long,long run. On an individual basis, the only thing you can do is not be one of those who would ever do such a thing. Ghandi:"Be the change you want to see in the world.", John Lennon:"There's nothing you can do that can't be done." As a parent, I'm jolted to my soul by the immense pouring grief,as a citizen, I'm determined to talk about issues that some want to still ignore, as a man, I'm saddened by how barbaric,insensitive, and numb mankind,not a particular group of men, seems to have become to its own collective brand. As a poet, I'm always trying to keep my heart open to all the possibilities for peace with strangers and a better way of life for all beings.

James Lloyd Davis
Dec 15, 07:32pm

Anger doesn't help.

Neither does silence.

Eamon's questions are all somewhat relevant and the reactions here are to be expected. I used to react to things that way myself, with anger. I don't do that anymore, can't do that anymore, but retreat into silence, divestiture of the unanswered questions that always follow in the wake of such horrific events. I take long walks and try to immerse myself in the beauty and serenity of the natural world, knowing all the time that even there, the violence exists, flesh eating flesh for sustenance.

Even the elegant, graceful blue herons that I so admire here subsist on the flesh of cold bloods in the river. Some weeks ago, I saw a hawk glide overhead in a graceful descent that ended with a sudden drop and the death of some small thing that writhed for the terror in its talons. There is a curse on the earth, if not from God upon the descendants of Adam and Eve, then from some terrible thing that exists within us all.

Silence is not the answer for me any longer, nor is anger the answer to any of those hard questions. We are writers and, hopefully, the ones who can with our words make a difference. We can, with a whisper, with the subtlety of art change minds. We could begin with ourselves and when we have found some peace within, we can stand and begin to say what must be said... not with a shout, not with agonizing doubt or accusations, but with whispered hints and a subtle glimpse of a world that does not weep and toil beneath the curse that imprisons us all.

Ann Bogle
Dec 15, 07:42pm

20-year-old man, reported by Huff Post (Crime section) as autistic or as having a personality disorder ...

I like Eamon's account of U.S. troubles. His account is fair.

I went to see Lincoln. The matinee was sold out, so I bought a ticket for the next showing. That showing was also sold-out. The theater was so crowded that friends had to sit apart in single seats. For 30 minutes, the theater played trailers. The trailers were so violent that I became physically uncomfortable to be subjected to them. Violent doesn't cover it. The trailers were so larger-than-life, so soaked in pigment, so full, so operatic in their nightmarish projections, that escape was not possible. It was mind-invasion. Producers do not make movies such as those for no one. The audience for them is large enough to guarantee profits for the makers, distributors, and theaters. The mass audience who desires and finances violent entertainment must be made of steel, must thrive on adrenalin, must not be gentle souls. Catharsis? Catharsis for what? Those members of society, the masses, have harrowing fantasies of crime. Crime not to be confused with sanctioned wars and massacres abroad.

The idea seems to be that only "the mentally ill" cross the line from ideation to violence, that only the "mentally ill" cannot distinguish fantasy from reality, that only and all of the "mentally ill" harbor homicidal fantasies. That increases rather than decreases illegal discrimination and it's bull. Research has not found that any form of illness causes homicidality. The general public is more violent than the dx'd population, and the general public is statistically less subject to crime than are the "mentally ill." No dose of a tranquilizer can prevent homicide, as suggested repeatedly on episodes of Law and Order, a fictional show intent on reducing stereotypes against traditional minorities while contributing to false stereotypes against patients.

During the Romney/Obama debates, it seemed the candidates came close to saying that Romney would not conduct medical background checks on people registering to buy guns but that Obama would consider it. Commentators stated that Romney had done more in office (as Massachusetts governor) to control weapons than Obama had done as President, despite their stated second-Amendment (NRA) allegiances. Move On dot org has supported legislation that would control identified patients ahead of guns. There is no political lobby that can effect control of weapons?

Copper Sloane Levy
Dec 15, 08:18pm

Thought some of you might be interested in this article:

http://tinyurl.com/d4s8lrs

Gloria Garfunkel
Dec 15, 08:30pm

"Being silent, I lie" Jerzy Fikowski holocaust survivor. Quiet contemplation and mourning for the dead is one thing. But then our voices must be heard or we are collaborators. Some of us do address the issues Eamon mentions in our stories, including my anti-nuclear story. There are no nukes in Australla when Obama considers it the norm here. That is amazing to me. I do think that fiction writers often do too much navel gazing and not enough writing about the world around them/us. On the other hand, writing about the world through naval gazing can be the most powerful writing of all. It comes through what Jung might call the collective unconscious. But our voices in writing is not enough. Letters, phone calls, emails to our representatives. Nobody I know makes that a priority. I write an anti-nuke letter to Obama every day. I know it goes straight to the shredder, but I do it because I'm a writer. That's what I do. And one of these days one of those crazies with a gun is going to be a crazy with a nuke and then we'll be all gone.

Gloria Garfunkel
Dec 15, 08:35pm

Oh, and Copper: That's great that Japan has become a land without guns, while the whole country and sea around it is contaminated with nuclear meltdown radiation. There need to be systematic strategies to address all these issues.

RW Spryszak
Dec 15, 09:00pm

James every one of the issues Eamon brought up are things I stand against my whole adult life and are questions I have asked and will continue to ask.

The question is why would someone go on a smug, self-serving rant and force others to suffer through his immaturity and prejudice exactly at their most vulnerable moment?

I can give you my theory about the lack of character and gutless nature that kind of thing would seem to require. And the idea that Eamon is some kind of truth-telling, courageous and important voice crying at the watchtower is overstating the point.

These 26 innocent people were not slaughtered because of our national debt or the existence of poverty in the land. So he brought up one big logical fallacy.

But as I said, I forgive him. America probably deserves a lot of hatred. But any credibility he'd built up here is gone. And nothing of value was lost.

Mathew Paust
Dec 15, 09:21pm

I remember quite awhile ago talking with a friend about her daughter's and her friends' fascination with symbols of violence, in films, video games, dress, tattoos, attitude, language, music, every aspect of her interaction with others. I observed, almost flippantly, that it seemed to be a generational thing and that maybe it was a way of responding intuitively to what they saw as an incremental progression toward a future that didn't offer happy prospects for our species, that they were in effect hardening themselves to survive in a nihilistic world where only the fittest had even a remote chance to survive, the kind of world depicted in the movie trailers Ann mentions in her third paragraph above, only without superheroes to save the day. A Cormac McCarthy nightmare world.

A world that's truly no place for romantics or old men or kindergartners. Not a world I would be happy to hang around for. Does anyone see any chance of our species avoiding such a conclusion to life on Earth? The signs are not good.

Ann Bogle
Dec 15, 09:22pm

Relieved to hear that Dr. Sanjay Gupta reported on CNN today that only 1% of autistic people display violence and that the general population is more violent. He said that anger in autistics is spontaneous (almost never violent) and that this mass crime was premeditated. Relieved--because it squares with reality rather than with discriminatory myth, and seems based on accurate information.

Copper Sloane Levy
Dec 15, 09:37pm

Japan is a land without guns. That certainly is an achievement. I don't doubt they'll address their nuclear radiation issue in time, calmly, and prepare for another act of God in that regard. They impress me time and again with their collective reaction to crises.

The whole concept of increased gun control should not be viewed exclusively as physical control, but psychological as well. That second amendment fixation and mindset are just as damaging as the guns themselves.

Mathew Paust
Dec 15, 09:48pm

I suspect broad consensus is harder to obtain in cultures of greater diversity. I would expect our population to be one of the hardest, if not the hardest, to overturn a proclivity so traditionally ingrained.

eamon byrne
Dec 16, 12:07am

This thread should be about the aweful thing that happened, not about any single person's reaction to it. Reactions will be varied. I'll concede mine might have been better timed, and that the you and our meme was a bad rhetorical call. I don't need anyone's forgiveness for making it though.

Gloria Garfunkel
Dec 16, 12:45am

After 9/11 Al Queda threatened to attack Jewish temples and schools. My children went to a Jewish school. For months afterward, police swarmed the school at checkpoints to the parking lot and into the building. It was like a police state, though I was grateful. It was also terrifying, the possibility of terrorists sneaking in. For now, it seems what it takes with all the bad guys having weapons is for all the good guys to have even more weapons. I can't count how many guns were protecting my childrens' school. I don't know how or if we will ever get the guns out of the hands of the bad guys who want them enough. Buy, shit, at least don't make it so easy. Put up some barriers. Something.

RW Spryszak
Dec 16, 01:15am

Eamon you came on here and talked about everything but. Now that you've been called out you want to go back to talking about "the one thing."

I see you right clear.

James Lloyd Davis
Dec 16, 01:31am

Then again, maybe silence is the better path.

Frankie Saxx
Dec 16, 04:34am

James, I used to talk out my anger and my confusion. I would talk and talk and I didn't get less angry. I didn't get less confused.

I talked about Columbine, I talked about Nickel Mines, I talked about Virginia Tech.

I don't have it left in me to talk about Sandy Hook.

I think maybe I'd like to be silent with you for a little while, if that's all right.

eamon byrne
Dec 16, 05:14am

RWS - I think you've misread my original post. You've been way out of line on this. I'd appreciate if you'd stop trolling.

Dolemite
Dec 16, 07:03am

Eamon--

Where was your anti-Norway tirade?

Your implication they deserved it?

Or don't they count?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Norway_attacks

RW Spryszak
Dec 16, 09:52am

EB - I think you forgot how it went here. James gives a heartfelt reaction to a terrible tragedy, you shit all over it - and I'm the troll?

What's it like living in that wonderful fantasy world of yours, Eamon?

Gloria Garfunkel
Dec 16, 10:33am

Twenty of the dead were first graders, 6 and 7 years old. My brother lost a son at 9. No matter how many other children you have, a parent never gets over the death of a child. Never. Nor a sibling. Nor will the other children ever get over what they saw. It is irreversible horror that will be lived over and over again for the survivors for the rest of their lives. That's all that matters.

Matthew Robinson
Dec 17, 08:17am

Hey now, everyone:

Something so incomprehensibly horrible as what happened at Sandy Hook can incite some very powerful emotions; it's not all that irrational for that reaction to be, "What the fuck is wrong with our society?" and then systematically list the things wrong with our society. Most of these things Eamon mentions are not totally unconnected. Was it appropriate to bring them all up in what was intended to be a thread for mourning? Not really, but is it fair to pan the guy for voicing what ultimately amounts to his emotional reaction to this savage atrocity?

My heart remains shattered for those families and the Newtown community. They have not left my mind since I first heard the news. Few things have devastated me more than waking up Friday morning to the reports of yet ANOTHER killing spree. Given that less than seven months ago a gunman executed five people in a coffee shop not six miles from my house, what happened in Newtown feels much closer than the geography suggests. I'm still not over the nearby shooting, and now this?

I am not a praying man; my instinct for silent reflection has left me. I am choosing to mourn by racking my brain for ways to get involved in movements aimed towards ceasing these PREVENTABLE tragedies. I've written my local representatives about gun control; I've been reading up on other nations' stances on gun control; I've read articles and essays about America's depraved stance on caring for mentally ill adults (apparently the best solution is to just throw them in prison). What I've learned is that there is no one central issue to focus on. I've learned that these issues run extremely deep, and are vastly complicated, and will require even more complex solutions (of which I have few).

The political processes behind healthcare and gun control are extremely disturbing. The level of lobbyist and financial sector influence over allegedly citizen-elected lawmakers is enough alone to ulcer my soul. My soul is already badly blistered with loss, personal and otherwise. Cynicism is the boil on my back I can neither reach nor muster the courage to have professionally lanced. Outrage is the sneeze to sorrow's tears: involuntary, natural, reasonable in its own right.

So let's do better to respect each others' different reactions to the incomprehensible. Let's FOCUS on helping each other through this, on remembering the 26 names of the slain, on not getting distracted by irrelevancy and the red herring rhetoric that will be spilled onto our laps like never before, now that we finally seem to have the energy and motivation to come after these influential but not unconquerable interest groups, and incite real change of the ways we regulate and obtain lethal weapons, toward the way we help/deal with sick people.

The NRA and other lobbyists can't kill us all, and, at the end of the day, all they have is money, and it ain't enough.

Or, if lighting a candle and shutting your eyes is enough, then of course, by all means, do that, too. Do whatever you need to do to come to terms with the horrors of this world. Just don't look away.

Linda Simoni-Wastila
Dec 17, 11:52am

As the mother of two children aged 10 and 13, both of whom have access to the ENDLESS barrage of coverage of this tragedy, I am far from shutting my eyes. I spent much of my weekend and, I suspect, much of the upcoming weeks, helping my kids fathom why this happened and if it could happen to them. My immediate concern is how to make them feel safe enough to sleep.

As with all things involving the written word, a most important choice made upfront is POV. I think the unfortunate choice of 2nd person is in large part responsible for the commotion here. It certainly engaged me in a rather visceral way.

Yes, everyone reacts differently. The beauty of our world, despite the violence, is its heterogeneity.

Peace...

Ann Bogle
Dec 17, 12:25pm

I read that Marisa Hargitay had taken as her public cause domestic violence, specifically lethal violence, three women killed per day in the U.S. by her (their, pl.) husband or boyfriend. The statistic I recalled was four per day. In war, three Afghani children killed per day. At 9/11, I wondered whether any women ran for it then. I followed articles for a year, every angle imaginable, not that.

Matt, violence and its tendencies not typically part of diagnosis ... victims (of rape or domestic or workplace violence) were diagnosed with mental illness in Houston where I lived. Violent dads in Minnesota granted unsupervised visits with daughters, their mothers who fought it in court, diagnosed, one not allowed to leave the state.

Matt, in your grief for the children and their families, you propose quarantining the diagnosed. Isn't crime something that has taken place and its punishment loss of liberty? Quarantine HIV?

RW Spryszak
Dec 17, 01:03pm

One would reasonably assume, on a social network site for writers, that people would have a better command of words and not fall to the ponderously poor choice of 2nd person in this instance.

Obviously, though, one would be mistaken.

Matthew Robinson
Dec 17, 05:41pm

Ann, the prison comment was meant to be ironic, as obviously such a terrible, insensitive idea, yet one that the American justice system seems to turn to again and again. I should have attributed a citation with that line, or given stronger indication that I didn't actually mean it. The tone of that particular comment was out of place from the rest of my statement, and I'm sorry it was misunderstood.

***

I think as fiction writers, we can all agree that 2nd person is a very risky choice, indeed.

Gloria Garfunkel
Dec 17, 07:35pm

Violence is often a part of mental illness but not diagnosed because those individuals don't seek, "treatment." They want to kill, just like a pedophile wants to rape a child. That makes them just as sick as anyone else, but their treatment has to be different, and often imprisonment because, like pedophilia, there is no cure for these severe personality disorders. There is no medication, no insurance they'd take it, and in most cases there is absolutely no motivation to change. They have to be separated to keep society safe from predatory personalities which are unchangable and if it's in prison, so be it. It's worth the lives saved. Institutions for the Criminially Insane tend to be a joke, full of sociopaths who got off on Insanity Defenses. What's clear is there needs to be some outreach system to handle these monsters before they explode and there is no current way of doing that.

eamon byrne
Dec 18, 08:46am

Reading back over my first post, it's clear I had the timing way off. I can understand why a few folk were pissed off. While others were still grappling with the effects, I wanted to talk about the causes. I was commenting from a location way outside yours, for what that's worth. I meant no offence, and am sorry for having made any.

Gloria Garfunkel
Dec 18, 04:25pm

Isn't it morning the next day in Australia at night here? Timing is everything.

Ann Bogle
Dec 25, 12:00am

I saw photos of the children killed at Sandyhook Elementary on the cover of People. No one's argument about it meant anything to me compared to seeing the kids' faces in pictures. I traveled 1,500 miles by car in a day and a half, and when I got to my destination, I watched news for the first time in days. I was delighted that control of guns, not of medically-defined persons, was widely under discussion on every channel. It has been like the change documented in The Swerve, my mom had said before I left, in that finally, something has shifted regarding gun control. Until this mass shooting, inaction prevailed and discussion of mental illness dominated. This time, change seems imminent, and discussion of gun control takes center stage. It is sad and telling that so many people rushed out to buy guns to beat upcoming new regulations. I stood outside a gun shop today, after a manicure next door, to await my ride ... and felt little sympathy for gun fanciers who shopped there on Christmas Eve Day, yet I paused to wonder whether for them, it's similar to the argument that drug legalization would reduce drug-related crime. It's the liberals who most promote the idea that "good" and "bad" are scientific entities based on narrative report. Eyes of the kids define it for me.
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