A Statistical Analysis of Fear Based America

Every time something like what happened in Connecticut Friday happens, there is always a spate of, "Oh it's not like the good ol' days any more.  People are way crazier now."

I like to take every opportunity I can to remind people that they are wrong:

NYC - Violent Crime has been decreasing since 1990. - Remember crack?  Yeah, that was part of the good ol' days.  Lotta fucking crack heads doing a lot of crazy shit for like $15.

USA - Violent crime has decreased every year (with the exception of last year, which was an increase over a record low) since 1993.

"But the public may not share that view. A recent poll showed most Americans feel crime is still getting worse." - Stop being stupid, people.

(I know it's tough to see, but that's what "Ctrl" + "+" is for.  Had to make it fit.)  

Crime rates lowest since the '70's motherfuckers.  Listen, Connecticut was a tragedy, but you can't let that make you stop thinking.  As much as everyone says the world is getting smaller, it is obviously still too big for people to process properly. People fly off the handle as though our personal safety is more in jeopardy now than it was yesterday, that is empirically and absolutely not true.  Your children still have the same chance of a lunatic walking into their school that they've always had.  It's never been a non-zero probability and it never will be.

On the plus side there are 53 or 54 MILLION (as of 2010) school age kids in this country, so while every life is precious ('cept them foreigners amirite?!, any of you even hear about this?), the odds of your child encountering in-school violence like that in CT is incredibly unlikely (in fact it's lower than when I was going to school).

And in case you were wondering, here is a summary of violent crime in schools which was also trending down through 2009 (see below).

That's right, your kids are statistically safer than you were, so please stop saying you're going to pull your kids out of school.  There have always been crazy people.  As long as they can get their hands on sufficiently deadly weapons, they will always do depraved things to others that are "horrifying" and "unimaginable."  Speaking of which, I have one more bone to pick. 

Please for the love of god stop telling me in the same sentence that someone has just done something unimaginable and they should be publicly tortured for it.  Yes, I understand the desire for revenge, but letting your emotions control you to the point where all empathy has been lost was what allowed the original asshole to do what he or she did in the first place.  No one should be tortured, especially not on live TV, this is first level Roman Colosseum shit.

Anyway, that's my rant of the week.

Words

Words...words, words words, words and words and words.  They are a menace, they don't obey, they don't ever.fucking.listen.  Just once, Words, I want to shoot you out of my fingers and into this magical box and I want to think, "Yes.  That is what I thought you'd say.  That is what you should say. And furthermore, you will stay that way, because I AM THE ONE WHO CONTROLS YOU."  But I'm lying to myself.  Even now, I am thinking how this post doesn't seem as deep as it was supposed to be.  This isn't a glimpse inside my creative process.  It's a little boy complaining about how his toys won't work right.  It's a madman with a gun and he can't seem to aim the muzzle away from himself no matter how hard he tries.

The first few weeks of getting back to writing like it's my freakin job have yielded some fruit.  That includes getting this blog going again.  I've got a lot to do though and just because I'm writing all the time, doesn't mean I'm writing the things that I want to be writing or at least not writing them well.  And it doesn't mean I'm doing a good job editing either, dammit.  Yes, I do have a bunch of stories which will be released as Out of Place, Out of Time 2 at some point.  No, I don't know when.  Editing is really taking me out of it this time and I can't for the life of me figure out why.  It is coming along slowly, I will say that.  But it is very slow and every time I get started I get pulled away by an idea or you know... booze or something.  It's not a perfect system, but it keeps me drunk.

So yes, I am writing.  I am not promising anything though.  I'm not sure if I'm getting better or worse.  I don't think that's something I'm qualified to comment on.  But I am folding words up with other words in a word goulash and wording word word word.  Hyrule, help me.  Here we go again, back into the fray.

A Personal Aside

I suppose that if I'm going to reinvigorate my blog, I may as well have at least one post a week dedicated to something about myself.  That's for Mondays though, the unwanted child of days that end in "y".

Insofar as I actually have anything interesting to talk about, I suppose that I can rant here.  Or rave.  Depending on my mood.  I can also talk about any new opportunities I have coming up or post a new recipe I discovered, or, you know, whatever.  I guess this is my wildcard day, is what I'm saying.  We'll see how long it lasts.  Hopefully forever, but I've made that promise to myself before, so don't get your hopes up.  In the meantime, enjoy my meandering worthlessness for all that it's...well, worth, I s'pose.

RANDOM PARAGRAPH WARNING:
You know what really grinds my gears?  Insincerity.  It's way too prevalent in the world, and seemingly only becomes moreso as I get older.  Why can't people just say what they want?  Why can't I?  Pathological lying seems like it's built into our DNA.  I think I need to write a story about the super unreliable narrator.  A sociopathic sonovabitch who never tells the truth.  That's the most reliable bastard of all, yeah?

Yeah, so expect more of that, coming up.  I'm just going to come up with some topic and talk about it.  Actually, I do have a couple of ideas for recipes to post.  Maybe pictures of delicious things that YOU CAN'T HAVE will go here too!  And, you know, once the world discovers my genius, I'll start putting up stuff about all the genius too.

Here's to a fresh beginning, here's to a bloody end.