When real is too real Part II

One of the entries on the Google search page led to another description of the video and this one did have a link. Again, I followed it.

Why?

That’s a tough question. For one thing, I was 99 percent sure it was a hoax for the reasons I cite above. On the off chance that it was real, well, I guess I’m just as curious about death as the next person. What is it? What does it look like? Does it hurt? Is it scary? It’s a morbid curiosity, but one I’m willing to bet hits a very large percent of the American population.

The link sent me to an underground extreme pornography/gore site. I know these kinds of things are out there and had stumbled across them in my Web travels. From what little I have seen it looks like they contain a lot of military video of casualties, pictures of gruesome deaths that have found their way out of news agencies and police stations, bloody injuries and extreme sexual content. What I’ve seen in the real world and in the news is enough for me, so this voyeuristic second hand take holds little interest.

Still, I was on the site where the typical start movie graphic was playing, a kind of evil YouTube page as it were. I hit the play button and angled my cursor to be ready to close the screen if need be. At most, I saw 5 seconds of the video before getting the hell out of there. I’m 99 percent sure the video is real.

I didn’t see much and what I did see wasn’t particularly brutal or nasty but it was convincing. Its non-film feel and its simplicity tell me that it’s indeed what people are saying it is.

This thing hit me like a truck. It has nothing to do with what I did or didn’t see. Instead, it’s just knowing that this thing is out there that has floored me. My feelings mirror what I experienced after a few other events. It’s an emotional confusion…a crushing sorrow…a raging anger…a struggle to grasp at reality and lots of fear. Fear for the world, my friends, my family, myself.

When real is too real Part I

I was feeling sick to my stomach Sunday morning but I didn’t have the flu or some kind of intestinal bug. Either of those would have been preferable to the emotional turbulence that gripped me.

Saturday night after spending a leisurely day reading the paper, having a few beers and enjoying Sactown’s Santa Parade I found myself at my computer trying to track down a live broadcast of Sactown’s own Grant High School playing Long Beach Poly for the state’s football title. Grant won, congrats to them, and as it was 11 PM I decided to stay in and do a bit of Web surfing before turning in. I went to my usual virtual hangouts: Google News, Anomalist.com. Fark.com, LA Times and so on and read a little bit of this and a little bit of that.

I also checked in at BoingBoing.com, an off-the-wall technology blog that is informative and often good for a laugh. Featured was a story about a viral video that was making its rounds on the Internet. The cell phone video was supposedly taken by a group of Ukrainian youths as they were in the act of murdering a man. The story goes that these 3 rich kids had killed 21 people and documented their acts with numerous photographs and a few cell phone videos. One or possibly more of these videos had, of course, made its way on to the internet.
As I had never heard anything about this on any news site and there has never, ever been a documented snuff film (a video where someone is killed just for the sake of recording it) discovered, I was highly skeptical. No, that’s not the right word…I was sure it was a hoax and was instead a viral video for a gruesome new movie or some college kids testing out their special effects knowhow.

I read the entry and although the poster hadn’t actually watched the video he warned that he was led to believe that it was highly disturbing, vile and cruel. He highly suggested that the video be avoided but he did include a link, not to the video, but to a Google search of what the supposed killers called themselves. He did this to show that very little information on the video, killings and killers was available on English language Internet sites. I followed it.

homeless

It’s been busy at work and at home with the holidays and all, but overall it’s been a good time. At work we’re moving to another office on another floor and there have been lots of holiday photographs to shoot and things to write.

Thanksgiving was awesome. The Scotland crew came into town and my brother visited with his wife and new daughter. We had almost a week to spend together and I honestly enjoyed every moment of it. Thanks all.

Broadening the focus a bit, the Sacramento Bee ran an article last Wednesday about the area’s homeless and the ridiculous dance they do with local police. It seems that every few weeks the police rouse the homeless from illegal Homeless Camp A. The unwashed masses pack their things and move a few miles away to Homeless Camp B. Fast forward a few weeks: local police rouse the homeless from illegal Homeless Camp B. The unwashed masses pack their things and move a few miles back to Homeless Camp A…and repeat ad nauseam.

The Bee estimates that about 2,500 homeless call Sacramento their home, with 700 hundred of these having been on the streets for a year or more. There’s no estimate on how much money or time city services, to include police and health, spend on them or the cost of the blight that trails them.

I understand that many of the homeless are there by choice and that the vast majority have drug and alcohol problems and are afflicted by any number of mental illnesses. In the Bee article they focused on one homeless lady, an admitted bipolar meth-head, who said she would like to get clean and live in an apartment. However, she also expressed an appreciation for the freedom being homeless offered. Another homeless person interviewed was downright hostile to the idea of living a “normal” life.

I can’t say that living the homeless lifestyle is right or wrong, but I really lean to it being wrong and here is why, it has a negative effect on other people. I’m not talking just about how uncomfortable homeless people make others feel, but the crime, blight, pollution and resources they destroy.

In Sacramento, the homeless have taken over large swaths of land that run along one of our nearby rivers. The human waste and pollution have devastated the area, stripped it of its recreational properties and left it in shambles. The area of the town near our homeless shelter is nothing but warehouses, recycling yards and a porn shop. It really can’t be improved or made habitable.

The Obama administration has expressed interest in pumping money into rebuilding our country’s failing infrastructure. Keeping in mind that some of these homeless want to get clean, straight and live a more “regular” life, I’d like to suggest that part of this budget stimulus being considered focus on building a humanitarian infrastructure. Let’s get many more drug counselors, mental health and social service specialists out to schools, police stations and homeless shelters. Let’s offer scholarships to students studying in these areas or pay for their educations outright for which they’ll be required to serve the public good for four or five years. This will help pump money into the economy by creating more consumers, in this case former homeless and students who now have degrees/certificates and greater income. Hopefully, with more of these specialists in schools and the community in general we can lower future crime rates, move many of the homeless of the streets and create, in general, a better world for all people.

Click: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/herocomplex/2008/12/twilight.html

The trailer for X-Men Origins: Wolverine!!!