Unfortunately, Norway, welcome to our/the rest of the world.

The latter part of which was one sentiment levied at the U.S. after 9-11, implying that until then we hadn't experienced a strike on our homeland from abroad by a non-state actor, meeting one of the major requisites for most definitions of "terrorism," despite the oft paired allusion to our "last" major attack on Pearl Harbor from an imperial Japan. But state-side terror was here long before the war on terror, of course. Islamic-terrorists had already attacked the WTC itself in the '90s, though to much less spectacular effect, so perhaps its oversight can be forgiven.

But also, I think, we're known much more for our home-grown terrorists and/or psychos-fucks who either go for mass casualties or political assassinations, or both--and not for nothing. In the '90s, again, we had McVeigh's bomb and student-stalking in Columbine. More recently we generated our very own Islamo-flavored terrorist, the Ft. Hood shooter. Not to mention four dead presidents and a couple that came close (a few attempts, and one assassinated almost president--RFK), and the almost slaying of a Congresswoman that left half a dozen others dead. A demographically-difficult anomaly in American political-violence is the FALN, a Puerto Rican independence movement that raged against U.S. imperialism from within the empire, but based outside the national boundary--locavore vengeance or import reprisal?

“We all read and watch the news about the shootings in the United States,” Mr. Groven said. “But it doesn’t happen here.”

(Will this old chestnut, the second sentence, ever not be said by community members and reported by journalists?)

So now Norway, who has been a fairly-committed ally of the war on terror, but hasn't either bent over backwards for multiculturalism compared to others in Europe or had as much as a far-right backlash, has their own homegrown terrorist--though not of the political-persuasion du jour. He's a anti-immigrant, anti-government, cultural-degenerationist, from the Christian right: two parts McVeigh, vehicular explosion and gov-hate; one part the Columbine boy's patient hunting; add a dash of Loughner's Delusion, I'll call it, the conspiratorial mindset and the belief that a lone act is necessary to change the world; shake or stir; chug. Welcome to the club; membership doesn't necessarily come with advantages.

Or does it...

[I had a quote from the same NY Times article that I lost, along with a few others and half of my writing on this blog, due to overheated computer and the apparent lack of autosave function of blogger, that the Times decide to delete from the article--as well as adding other parts--overnight. It said that this hideous event was actually a good thing, because it will bring attention to the radical right fomenting across Europe, and specifically in Norway. My reaction:]

Whoa.

But still:

Mr. Romarheim said in some ways the homegrown nature of the attack made it harder for Norwegians to accept. “With 9/11 in America, people could ask, ‘Who are they?’ and could pour their rage out on someone else,” he said. “But we can’t disavow this person, he’s one of us.”

When looking at the face of "evil," it amazes me that they usually do look like monsters, or at least there seems to be something off-putting that differentiates them from the rest of us. But perhaps that's just magical thinking: the desire to be able to protect oneself by recognizing horror. Or it's just the way our brains work; once we know someone has done something horrible, we can't help but interpolate meaning into the knowing smirks of Loughner (see mug shot) and, say, Casey Anthony, and wonder, how can anyone not see the madness lying in wait?

Rearranging lawn chairs for the apocalypse

(The only pic of a lawn/deck/porch chair.)

Or something like that. Listening to Brian Lehrer's fill-in today, and was struck by just how ridiculous budgetary/austerity/taxes (no, I mean, revenue)/default discussion has become. Actually, they were talking about the potential effects of the recent EPA-empowerment by the Supreme Court. (Yes, that SCOTUS, the conservative one; still, Kennedy, the swing vote, seems to "go both ways" almost equally, and here's an example of his liberal-lean.)

(Detroit)

Offering up the conservative viewpoint, as WNYC/NPR hosts are wont to do in the name of balance, but also to be batted down by the usual left-leaning guest, Andrea Bernstein conflated two common refrains from the right (talk about taxes/regulation "hurting job creators" and "killing jobs") into one delicious, if not menacing, concern: government intervention is "killing job creators."

(That's what happened at Coney Island, right? Nah...)

Now, I'm pretty sure she didn't actually mean to say conservatives think the government will start executing small business owners (funny how the right usually only mentions them...) or CEO behemoths (no, that's only Obamacare and senior citizens... but they're not "producers," so who cares?). But she can be forgiven given the ferocity of conservative objections to any austerity decisions based on reasonable economics (spending cuts AND tax--uh, I mean, revenue--increases) that make it seem like anything but cutting the size and scope of the government will destroy the economy--or at least the part of it who are still doing extremely well.

(Chernobyl apparently didn't have enough regulation...)

Perhaps this was too cynical (and/or petty) a thing to bring me out of my blogging-hibernation, but these days, on the brink of--again, already?--Armageddon or at least the end of America as we know it, we could all use a good laugh.

(Creepy abandoned island)