APRIL IS THE CRUELEST MONTH

People are desperately trying to make sense out of the horrific events of Viriginia Tech on April 16.  The media, as they are wont to do, turned the massacre into a sideshow.

NBC was the worst; pimping the homemade video of the murderer on air under the guise of journalistic imperative. At best, it was tabloid journalism at its worst. What can we expect from infotainment disguised as news?

While the infantilistic Bush, mourner in chief, reduced the tragedy to "being in  the wrong place at the wrong time."  What a pig!   But not before reaffirming his belief in the right of citizens to buy as many semi-automatic weapons as they can afford. Capitalism at its best (worst)!

So 32 innocent peoples' lives have been reduced to the inevitable price of living in a democracy. I'm not sure how many weeping mothers are comforted by the fact that their children took their Second Amendment rights to the grave.

It will be impossible to make sense of April 16 as long as the nation fails to have a mature conversation about guns. Americans, unfortunately, are incapable of self-analysis or self-criticism.

Whenever thoughtful people attempt to have genuine dialogue, the conversation is hijacked by jingoistic politicians and self-promoters, who turn it into a tent revival and/or pep rally.

It's amazing how easily Americans can be whipped into a patriotic frenzy over anything: "Isn't it great to live in the country with the highest rate of gun violence in  the world!" 

I'll leave you with the first canto of T.S. Eliot's modernist poem The Waste Land. It was written in the aftermath of World War I. Eliot was trying to make sense out of the "modern world," whose "modernity" seemed irrational and meaningless.

The first two lines are a reference to Walt Whitman's elegy When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom’d, written on the death of President Lincoln (who was assassinated in April).   

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965).  The Waste Land.  1922.

The Waste Land

I. THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering	5
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,	10
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the archduke's,
My cousin's, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,	15
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.
What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,	20
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,	25
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.	30
Frisch weht der Wind
Der Heimat zu.
Mein Irisch Kind,
Wo weilest du?
'You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;	35
'They called me the hyacinth girl.'
—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,	40
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
Od' und leer das Meer.
Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
Had a bad cold, nevertheless
Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,	45
With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,
Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
The lady of situations.	50
Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,
And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,
Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,
Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.	55
I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.
Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,
Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
One must be so careful these days.
Unreal City,	60
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.	65
Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,
To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.
There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying 'Stetson!
'You who were with me in the ships at Mylae!	70
'That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
'Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
'Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
'Oh keep the Dog far hence, that's friend to men,
'Or with his nails he'll dig it up again!	75
'You! hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frère!'