Drunken 7th Inning Streaker
Denounces
Steinbrener In Statement
To BBC
CHAPEL HILL, NC--
Another young
man has heard the call of God and instead of dedicating the remaining six
or seven decades of his life to the daily hard work and sacrifice of making
the world a better place in God’s name, he chose to spend 30 seconds doing
something outlandishly stupid in order to get God’s name in the newspaper.
I’m sure God appreciates it.
On the afternoon of March 3, a recent graduate of the University of North Carolina drove a rented SUV through a popular campus gathering spot with the intent of running down and killing Americans to avenge the treatment of Muslims around the world. Nine students were struck by the vehicle, none were seriously injured.
Now as the driver smirks his way through court appearances, there is debate as to whether he is a terrorist or just a dumb, lonely, desperate, misguided kid. As if there were a difference. Isn’t clear by now that terrorists have the same mentality as the uncool suburban high school kids who have nothing better to do on a Friday night than to drive around listening to gansta rap, smashing mailboxes and lobbing eggs onto the cars parked outside the cool kids' party because it’s easier than getting the guts to go inside, because it makes their inferiority feel like a choice that makes them, in the end, superior?
Perhaps I’ve said too much about how I spent last weekend. But think about it-- both groups have limited to no access to women, they’re not allowed to drink, and they go around needlessly damaging stuff in vehicles that don’t belong to them. “Say Pop, could I borrow the keys to the 767—the guys and I are want to, uhh… study engineering at a Western university. What’s that? You just topped it off with 24,000 gallons of jet fuel? Oh, perfect. You’re the best, Pop.”
Is he or is he not a terrorist? To ask such a question is to give terrorists way too much credit. As you will recall, they had a similarly dumbassed debate after the failed London train bombings. “Oh, are they Al Qaeda? Are they not Al Qaeda? Are they a free cell? Are they a floating cell? Were they classically trained as terrorists? Where did they get their financing?”
Financing? Training? These guys built pipe bombs, pipe bombs that didn’t work, and left them lying around in backpacks. Doesn’t every high school in America have at least one kid who wears the same concert T-shirt every day and is known to build pipe bombs in his parents’ garage? Nope, apparently you need a Swiss bank account and extensive tutelage at some obscure Yemeni outpost in order to be able to conceive such a cunning act of villainy. Financing and training. When I was in school the guys building pipe bombs were selling NoDoz in the bathroom and failing wood shop.
To call these losers terrorists or Al Qaeda makes them part of something bigger than themselves, which, of course, is exactly what they want. Even less accurate is to call them Islamic extremists. The people committing acts of violence are no more connected to Islam than the suburban white kids blasting gansta rap and winging eggs out the window of Mom’s Caravan are connected to Ice T’s Rhyme Sydicate.
Attention is what they want and attention is what they get. The killer gets attention, the journalist who broadcasts the killer’s every sentiment around the globe gets attention, the policy-makers condemning the killers get attention. It is a delicately-balanced attention ecosystem.
The attention comes full circle when the President of the United States addresses the world about terrorists this and Al Qaeda that. Never mind that each time he breathes the words “terrorists” or “Al Qaeda” in public, he does more to legitimize and strengthen their cause than terrorists or Al Qaeda ever could.
If we treated ballpark streakers the way we treat misguided killers, no sporting event could ever be played for all the fans running out onto the playing surface. Would the answer be to enclose each playing field in a giant plexiglass bubble like one of those arcade hockey games? No, Sports long ago figured out the answer, and the answer is to stop showing streakers on TV, to stop giving them celebrity, stop giving them a voice that they don’t deserve.
People who kill for attention should not be given attention. Simple as that.
It’s not about
censorship, it’s about discretion. ESPN figured it out, hopefully,
sooner than later, CNN will too.
