Going Global: Around the World with Berkeley Reporter
by Steed Dropout
July 30, 2012
EXCUSE ME WHILE I GRAB MY UZZI
Like the Texas Tower killer, the “Dark Knight Rising Killer” was, reportedly, being treated by a university shrink.
If I tell my shrink, “excuse me while I grab my Uzzi,” should he report it?
There have been so many panic-inducing killings since the 1965 Texas Tower Massacre, Americans are inured to the shock, and some of those Americans are shrinks.
The likelihood that you will be gunned down in your movie-house while watching a re-run of Scarface is slim to none, but Americans winced at the image of 70 gunned down in Aurora, Colorado.
With congress about to take its summer break, and a nascent presidential election campaign, in which both candidates must have their fair shares of National Rifle Association votes, you can be sure the latest gun-massacre of innocents will be sucked-up — into the vast maw of the american psyche. Psycho assaults our psyche.
VIEW FROM BERKELEY
Here in Berkeley, Ca. we haven’t had a massacre in twenty-two years, when a deranged student took hostages at a hotel bar near campus, and there were only three fatalities including the gunman.
Why aren’t there more deranged killers gunning us down, in a town with — if not more mentally ill residents than most towns — more visibly disturbed Berkeleyans?
The experts tell us that mental illness alone is not the cause of sensational gun-slayings, and berkeley’s experience with psycho-killers seems to support their judgement.
The senseless (and unsolved) hail-of-bullets murder in January of a South side barber seems to have been a domestic dispute.
ROMNEY’S BRITISH OLYMPICS GAFF, THEN ON TO ISRAEL, MORE GAFFS
With Romney and Obama neck and neck in the poles, at 46% approval ratings each, Romney beat a hasty retreat from allegedly offending a British parliament member when he seemed to question the Brits’ handling of the Olympics — then heading for the open arms of his longtime personal friend, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Netanyahu and Romney met more than a decade ago at a conference, became close, and frequently visit each other. This relationship may hold the key to America’s Jewish vote, which could tip all-important Florida to Romney.
While cuddled among Israel’s wealthy, Romney proceeded to insult the Palestinians, while casting aspersions on Obama’s support for Israel.
Obama, taking no chances with his sixty some approval ratings from American Jews, who must continue their support if he is to be re-elected — signed a strong Israel-U.S. security agreement last week, as representatives of America’s pro-Israel lobby looked on, and Israel’s president thanked him.
What Romney was suggesting to the Brits was watch your backs in a London, which is “under constant and nervous watch for trouble. Londoners recall the day after the city was awarded the Olympics, 2005, when there were terrorist attacks on the Underground and a double-decker bus that killed 52.”
Also, “there’s the $14.6 billion tab for the London Olympics that may cause a monumental financial hangover for a nation in full austerity mode.”
With much of the world counting their golds and tuning in to see if China out-golds the U.S., Romney and Obama are poised at the turning point of their own Olympics.
The Romney gaff story could take a Romney turn if anything goes awry in London, and he can say he told them so.
And for his swipe at the Palestinians (that Israel’s “hand of providence” had fueled Israel’s economic superiority over them), that could also work for Romney, unless that is, no one notices that Israel, like the U.S. is one of those country’s where 1% hold the country’s wealth.
Berkeley Reporter’s Steed Dropout now loose in the world. World watch out!
