Tuesday, June 3, 2008

a plea for more reasonable delinquents

Happy Tuesday everyone! What's everyone doing? Me? Well, I'm just TRYING NOT TO GET SHOT.

Yep. Living in DC sucks. Not only is it hellishly humid this time of year, but, um, DC is the kind of place where SEVENTY-TWO people have been murdered in the first FIVE months of 2008, including SEVEN on Saturday night through early Sunday morning. That sh*t is neither tight nor normal.

"This can only be described as an unbelievably high level of violent crime to take place in a short time," Mayor Adrian Fentry told reporters, according to the Washington Post. "We've had some crime sprees, but this has got to be one of the most violent days in recent memory, if not ever."

Included in the macabre tally? One man is dead after a drive-by shooting (two others were wounded); three men are dead after an argument on the street turned to semi-automatics being whipped out and fired 35 times; one man shot after a dice game gone wrong; one man shot by police when he wouldn't drop his weapon (a knife); and, perhaps most gruesome of all, one 66-year-old man found dead in his car with his throat slit.

This sh*t is no joke. It's disgusting, sad and, really, kind of pathetic. I don't get why people find no other way of solving their problems than by whipping out some sort of weapon they're clearly not responsible enough to wield in the first place and then proceding to commit murder. Perhaps it's a wild idea, but what about, say, I don't know, TALKING? And if conversing with another human being is too hard, I suppose, and your stupidity forces you to choose violence, at least be a man (or woman, as the case may be) about it and knock some sense into your victim the good old-fashioned way with your fists. The "rumble" method seemed to work for the Greasers and the Socs in The Outsiders, well, that is, until Bob the Soc asshole tried to drown Ponyboy and Johnny was forced to defend his friend by shanking the aggressor. See, that's the problem with violence. It always escalates.

So, what about eliminating the needless (read: non-self-defense) violence altogether? In my ideal world, all disputes would be settled through various combinations of jazz hands, grapevines and fan kicks like the Jets and the Sharks in West Side Story. And I don't even like musicals! But honestly, anything is better than f*cking killing someone over something as silly as a random argument on the street or a dispute over a dice game. Come on. Can't we all just get along act like grown-ups? For reals.

On another note, Ralph Macchio sure did have a sweet ass back in the day.

2 comments:

Peter said...

This is one of the things that I actually find charming about DC: it's a city filled with huge nerdy white douchebags in nametags that have never even been in a barfight living cheek by jowl with some of the nation's most violent and crime-obsessed citizens. Little urban cafe-filled cul-de-sacs become ghettos without warning, and your chai latte neeeds can be fulfilled right down the street from where you get your heroin and/or paid sex services.
It's like Wal Mart.

Anonymous said...

Bullets are the new black. <3