Oh, no -

[kyburg]

The injured were lying down on a red tarp as they awaited treatment in a light rain at a triage center where ambulances, firetrucks and other emergency vehicles had descended. Helicopters taking off from the intersection of Wilshire Boulevard and Arizona were transporting the injured to area hospitals. According to television accounts, a burgundy-colored automobile traveling westbound on Arizona Avenue at a high rate of speed "just mowed people down," one person told NBC-TV.

Santa Monica is a dense place, population-wise. So far, 8 known dead and over 40 injured - and they're saying now 14 of those are critical.

It's been a total scorcher all day, so more people are at the beach than usual - and now...now, it's raining on them.

And you thought your day was bad. Holy cow.

Comments

[riverheart.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you're OK!!! This is dreadful.

I was born and raised in California, and I still don't understand what causes people to act like this.

[neintales.livejournal.com]

Well, not like people just act like that in CA.. we had a guy kill a few cops in a standoff against the government up here, and people were driving out there from hours away to watch it through binoculars :p

Americans *are* desensitized and messed up majorly- myself, I partially blame things like 'reality tv' and such. I like violence in fiction- will even laugh at it, because I know it's fiction, no one got hurt. But for decades now, more and more people are watching as entertainment shows where even while I suspect a lot is plotted and forced, they're told it's real- and TOLD it's entertaining.

It's 'normal and cool' to be entertained by it. And most people want to be normal and cool- after all, if you're NOT normal and cool, if you're one of the OTHER people, you're a loser, and will be the butt of the next jokes.

"America's Funniest Home Videos" was one of the early trend-setters, showing us it was funny to see grampa get kicked in the balls. THen there's the "Worst disasters" and "When Animals Attack" type things, few of which actually point out thr tragedy so much... making light of folks getting gored by bulls or accidentally set on fire because no one realized silly string shouldn't be fired over birthday candles.

People bitch that gamers like myself get lost in fantasy realms, but MOST of us seem to have a far better grasp of the seperating line than the average tv-watcher these days.

And it likely also has to do with competitiveness... people are raised to strive to outdo everyone around them- NOT to stop a moment and consider how another will feel if they're hurt, or to try and sort out if going to a certain level of ruthlessness or cruelty isn't really necessary.

You don't even need to mix any religion into things to teach your kid early to stop and think about how much damage they're doing, and the consequences. "How would you feel if it was YOUR best friend who was one of the victims?"

But people don't do that.. they may say as much as IS expected of them to say to look like they're good Christians or whatever, but they don't really try hard- they keep expecting other people will teach their kids the same thing.

Meh...
People just suck. I probably shouldn't try ranting so early in the morning... I'm pretty sure I never really got to any point. Heh.