Saturday: One More Day

One more day of getting up at 6:30 for work before my week (almost) completely free of all obligations.  Of course, this week is somehow shaping up to be a bit less enjoyable than I had hoped (more tech problems), but I need some time to finish Jane Eyre and From the Earth to the Moon… and then do their corresponding packets.  The good part is that this year’s vacation is (finally) planned and we’re going back to Mexico for an even longer time than we were there last year.  Somehow I always go into summer thinking it’s going to be this awesome, relaxing getaway from reality.  Then vacation becomes a relief when we get to it because summer turns out to be almost as stressful (at times) as the school year.  But hey, this is still a free week… so for the majority (after I’ve fixed my tech and read the books) will be spent doing whatever the hell I want.  And for some reason it feels really good to say that.

Now to the serious part of this post: Yesterday, you probably heard, there was a massacre in Norway by a singular lunatic on an enclosed island.  It sounds really emotionless when I put it like that, but really this affected me a lot more than things normally do.  Maybe it was because all of the victims weren’t even in their twenties, that this was such a carefully and coldly planned attack, or maybe it was almost completely political.  I’m usually in the habit of giving information, so that’s what I’ll do here.  This lunatic, whose name I can’t remember, planted a car bomb in Oslo to create a diversion.  That blast alone killed seven people, and while the police and counterterrorism units were looking for Al-Qaeda cells or other bombs, no one was watching as a nondescript Norwegian cop made his way to an island where the children of the country’s ruling party lived.  Once there he directed the scared masses into a main house, and opened fire with a machine gun.

This seems just crazy to me in its every aspect.  This plot was planned and executed in a manner almost militaristic.  And this guy was not an Al-Qaeda member, or a military veteran.  He was a white, Christian, far-right-winger from Oslo who was seemingly so overcome with conspiracy theories that he felt the need to kill scores of innocent kids.  Really there is no way to describe it at all… so I’m going to stop trying.  Formulate your own evaluations, make your own opinions.  I’m saying goodnight.