The importance and impotence of language, #28 in the series
Malcolm Gladwell, Thresholds of Violence
Thresholds are — in Latin — limina. Here a shooter threshold, a limen — a red line which, having been crossed, now shifts towards the susceptible:
The kid .. requires a finely elaborated script in order to carry out his attack .. : the effect of Harris and Klebold’s example was to make it possible for people with far higher thresholds — boys who would ordinarily never think of firing a weapon at their classmates — to join in the riot.
The caption to the illustration heading Gladwell‘s piece reads:
In the years since Columbine, school shootings changed; they became ritualized
That’s what my piece on Tarrant as a follower of Breivik was about.
Here too, from Gladwell, is a serpent that turns to bite its tail when SWAT arrives:
I would detonate when people were fleeing, just like the Boston bombings, and blow them up too. Then my plans were to enter and throw Molotov cocktails and pipe bombs and destroy everyone and then when the swat comes I would destroy myself.
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And serpentine sinuosity in the Mississippi at English Bend, the great river’s tail not quite bitten? Another border blurred, line receding…
The plane took off to the north, over Lake Pontchartrain, and looped back toward New Orleans. We picked up the Mississippi at English Turn, the sharp bend that brings the river almost full circle. Then we continued to follow the water as it wound its way into Plaquemines Parish.
Eh?
The control of nature? Good luck with that.
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Back to business — a rush of chyrons, with a couple of texts:
Booker to Ari:
I have had you on background in many of the rooms I’ve been in
There must be a lot of thoughts about who the umpire should be ..
the letter came from somebody who was already suspect and should have recused himself ..
Booker:
We’re seeing a lot of dots that seem to be directing us toward a real problem, a potential collusion that continues to seem tom be smoldering and that might result in a real fire..
Let’s look at the fact pattern ..
— that last is an interesting phrase —
Just a couple more from Sen Cory Booker to Ari Melber, then we’ll take a break.
Sen Booker:
This is a sacred constitutional moment for us ..
That’s an excellent quote***** for USian civil religion ..
A call to creaate what King calls “a more beloved community”
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