30 in 30?

Doing this would be quite cool, but it's so not going to happen, so I shall not pledge to it. It's not because I don't have anything to say, it's just that I inevitably think of them either as soon as I write another post and I don't want to be overzealous, or it's in bed and I have forgotten by the morning.

Anyway, somehow my brain has managed to recover the content of my thoughts in bed last night. On saturday, I watched Bowling for Columbine, upon Brian's recommendation. Three things struck me from it. 

1. It would have had more credibility has Michael Moore not been in charge (the image of him on Team America just stuck in my mind, and he became his caricature).

2. The culture of fear in the US, and to a similar extent in the UK is really quite depressing. Since I stopped watching television three and a half years ago, I have become very cynical of TV news reporting. And to think, for all my teens I wanted to be a news reader (albeit on the BBC)! It really was a sign of our times when the film showed us a long row of talkers telling the story of a shooting in gory detail to all their different networks, and how the camera crews just go nonchalantly from one tragedy to the next.

3. Guns are scary. They are quite possibly the most evil thing in the world. Killing with a gun is so easy. You're so detached, and have to go to virtually nil physical effort. A person has so much effort put into their lives: parents cradling them, watching them crawl, begin to walk, first day in school, happy days at the beach. Then suddenly, in less than 5 seconds, it all ends with a piece of metal, not even two inches long, being launched into your head at supersonic speeds. You stand no chance, it's so final. I just cannot understand what possessed people to invent such barbarism. A knife by comparison is a tame weapon - you need contact, and as such you stand more of a chance of breaking free, disabling the assailant, removing the weapon from the scene. But against a gun, you stand no chance whatsoever, and it terrifies me - I have to close my eyes and ears every time a gun is involved in a movie scene, because I just cannot cope with it. 

I don't really know what I'm trying to achieve with this post, probably nothing, but it feels a little liberating to explain my fears in writing (as well as the impressive feat of actually remembering what I wanted to write!)