On Walls and Movies

Good fences make good neighbors. That's one of those country sayings I heard more than once, and have come to believe, when we moved to the country back in 1975. But that little saying has more to do with farmers and livestock than it does with city folk. And now we get an affirmation of that, and a little sign of independence, from Iraq's Prime Minister, Mr. Maliki, who has just told Mr. Bush to stop building a wall that would separate his people. Reminds me of the proposed wall along our border with Mexico, which is kinda like the fanciful star wars project of bygone years. Also brings to mind Mr. Reagan's request to the Soviet leader: "...Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!..." And lastly, it brings to mind the Great Wall of China which now is considered one of the wonders of the world. (Do you know how long it is? Care to guess?)

Meanwhile, the search for some kind of explanation for the Blacksburg killing spree begins. An that leads to an examination of culture which includes books and movies. And lo and behold a movie under consideration as a link, or at least an example,of the brutality that might inspire the insanity is Oldboy, the violent movie which Diane walked out of a few weeks back. The linked article does say that "...the Asian countries that produce gory and graphic movies, cartoons and comic books tend to have very low rates of actual violence...". Crazy people do crazy things because they're crazy, not because they watch certain movies or read certain books or eat chocolate chip cookies. It's bad stuff, not good stuff.

Nice at the golf course though winds whipping around and making the game a little more interesting.