Red Alert

***UPDATE 8/14*** The man who shot Bill Gwatney was Timothy Dale Johnson.
How strange that a man of 50 would scrawl ‘Target is run by dumb jocks and sorority bitches’ in addition to other graffiti including ‘This hallway is too god damned narrow’. It is being reported that he was a quiet loner with lots of guns and some antidepressants. Police are going through his computer. There was a post it note with Gwatney’s name and a phone number on it in his home along with Johnsons’ will. Still no word on a motive yet, but it would be interesting to see what websites he frequented.   

Bill Gwatney, the Chairman of the Arkansas Democratic Party has been shot by an as yet unnamed gunman in Democratic Party Headquarters in Little Rock. According to the AP reports in the Chicago Tribune, Sara Lee, a clerk in a flower shop across from the capitol building said that Gwatney’s secretary came into the shop around noon to call 911. The secretary said that a white man in his 40’s came into the office demanding to see Gwatney. When she refused him entry, he barged into the office and shot Gwatney multiple times (some reports are saying three shots were fired at Gwatney). The shooter then fled in a pickup truck. He has apparently been shot and captured by authorities but his identity remains unreported at this time. ***UPDATE*** The suspect is dead. He crashed the truck, fled it, and shot at the pursuing officers who returned fire. ***UPDATE*** It has been reported that the suspect was 51 years old, which indicates that authorities have identified him but are not yet releasing his name. Apparently after shooting Gwatney, the suspect then went to the Arkansas State Baptist Convention and threatend workers there and said something about having just lost his job. Gwatney has been hospitalized and is in critical condition. ***UPDATE*** Bill Gwatney has died of his injuries.

I’m going to jump to conclusions. While acknowledging that there is a slim possibility that Gwatney was sleeping with the shooters wife or had swindled him out of money, I fear it is much more likely that this is an act of terrorism. Less than a month ago Jim Adkisson assaulted a Unitarian Church armed with a shotgun, killing two and wounding six because “he could not get to the leaders of the liberal movement that he would then target those that had voted them in to office.” I would not be surprised if either of these men had links to the Phineas Priesthood or other American version of Al Qaeda. In any case, Adkinsson was an avid reader of right wing writers like Michael ‘Weiner’ Savage, Sean Hannity, and others who write ridiculous hyperbolic screeds accusing moderates and left wingers of everything including treason. There’s plenty of ‘joking’ and ‘satire’ filled with threats of violence directed at the left wing this season.

Perhaps I’m jumping to too many conclusions. Perhaps I’m being unfair to right wing radicals. After all, the information at hand is very sparse and circumstantial if one ignores the statements Adkinsson made which were essentially a confession to terrorism against American citizens for their perceived political beliefs. Also, over the past several weeks I’ve been reading all sorts of violent rhetoric from American right wingers directed at their fellow Americans. Wading through the sewage of teh internets has filled my nose with its stink.

I’m sitting upstairs with Miss Mayweather and we’re watching the first episode of ‘Mad Men’ on DVD. We just finished the scene where Peggy goes to a gynecologist to get a prescription for the pill. The scene is shocking, from the doctor lighting a cigarette to the humiliating and demeaning way he treats her. Miss Mayweather said, ‘That was, like, yesterday! And it could easily be tomorrow! That’s why I’m a feminist!’ I don’t know if she’s exactly right. Yesterday is done. Tomorrow will never be an exact repeat of yesterday. Still, there are a lot of people who want tomorrow to be just like yesterday and they’re willing to do crazy things to make it happen.