Listening:"rooster," Alice in Chains (MTV Unplugged)
Mentally Replaying: "To the Teeth," Ani di Franco


I've been debating whether or not to post this, wondering who's going to misread it and decide to flame me. But I've come to the conclusion that I don't care.


I finally got around to watching Bowling for Columbine last night. I've owned my copy for over seven months but haven't tried making the time to watch it until now. I was was kind of set up to dislike it, in general because Micheal Moore is a blowhard and because what I'd read of the cinemagraphic style didn't make it seem like something I'd like.

That was pretty accurate. Though I have to stay there are far too few blowhards in the world. While a lot about Moore's style leaves something to be desired, I have to say this nation most definately needs more people who are willing to poke us where it hurts to get us to wake up.

But I still didn't like the movie. It seems to me that there should be another term for propaganda films that are (mostly) based in fact. "Documentary" just doesn't cut it for me, both because of the intentional bias and because of the blatant misinformation it used in the fictional sketches.


I love and wholeheartedly adore agitprop and that is what Moore does - though I personally don't think he does it well. I'm good with making "the bad people" squirm on camera, but when you are doing it to inform people, for god's sake inform them.

Quoting numbers like annual murders in first world countries is alright but a) point out the countries are in fact first world nations (Moore didn't) and b) for god's sake don't try and pass off Australia and the UK's murder by firearm rates as low when guns are illegal in those nations! If I live in a nation where only highly trained paramilitary police are allowed on the streets with weapons there better not be *any* fucking gun deaths or there will be hell to pay!


One thing that Moore fixates on is our culture of fear, of each other, of our government and of the potential for victimization. I think that's true but what was running in my head while he was pounding away on the fear schtick is this:

I was raised to be horribly, deathly afraid of guns. My dad really doesn't like them and has personally seen good neighborhoods go downhill when the kids engage in an arms race. But more importantly my dad is a fatalist and a consummate storyteller. Those two can go together in a kind of scary way for a kid and I was very nearly convinced that spending any amount of time in a room with a loaded weapon was in effect a death wish.

I clearly remember once when we were visiting one of my mom's cousins and her husband had just bought a pistol and was eager to show it off to my dad. My dad very much did not want to see it but had no polite way to get out of it. I remember what the gun looked like very clearly. I was probably 12 and I think it was likely the first I had ever noticed my dad be very afraid.

(Side note: I have no idea what my dad's hang up is. All I can say is I'm still very nervous around weapons and prefer not to be around them. My dad served in the Navy during WW2 was trained with some of the rifles and when he went ashore had to carry a weapon at all times. What's happened since then and now, I honestly couldn't say.)

So I guess you could call it a culture of fear. But it's been fear that has kept me far away from guns and there was a time when I was highly suspicious of the Second Amendment.


I think I have a better grasp of the Second in history and how it can have a use today. At the very least I strongly doubt the use in completely negating it. In anycase I would theorize that it is our demand for personal space and self-determination that has caused many of us embrace a hair-trigger temperment as a way to protect it.

I basically figure the way the Canadians believe it is their right to free and always-available healthcare is how we've bought into our rights to privacy and the sanctity of our homes and property.

What I walked away *feeling* from the movie was a convoluted mix of emotions twisting on themselves. I'm sickened by the crimes showcased in it, frustrated by the knowledge that the violence will continue for a long time and ultimately (and perhaps bizarrely) I'm pissed off.

I'm furious. I'm sick with rage at the gun-toting Rambo wannabes who are armed, yes to the teeth, who waste no time decrying their government for not protecting, laying out their beliefs that no one can keep them safe, that it is their own duty to protect their families and homes.

Oh yeah? Then where were they? Where were they when Columbine was shot up? Where were they when six-year old Kayla Rolland died when her classmate shot her? Where were they on 9/11? Where were they when John Allen Muhammed went on a shooting spree? and on, and on....

These are rhetorical questions, to be sure. And they only reflect an aspect of my emotional reaction.

They love their country enough to be personally insulted when one founding law comes under scrutiny, but that which happens outside of their homes, outside of their conclaves, that which happens to other people and other people's kids...well that's someone else's problem (though yet another reason to remain armed).


and school kids keep trying to teach us
what guns are all about
confused liberty with weaponry
and watch your kids act it out
and every year now like christmas
some boy gets the milk fed suburban blues
reaches for the available arsenal
and saunters off to make the news
--"To the Teeth"
--Ani di Franco