You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy.™
The Pittsburgh Synagogue Massacre.
Like glass shattering in a quiet sanctuary, the breaking news disrupts a peaceful Saturday morning.
SHOTS FIRED IN PITTSBURGH. MASS SHOOTING. MULTIPLE FATALITIES.
The images are so sad, yet so predictable.
SWAT teams. Armored Personnel Carriers. Families hugging, crying in the street.
“We are treating this as a hate crime,” The D.A. in the Western District of Pennsylvania says in a Sunday morning press conference.
The barbaric details exit the crime scene with a celerity that reinforce our worst thoughts of humanity.
A madman, inspired by murky shadows of psychotic lunacy, enters a hall of worship and extirpates anything in his path.
“All Jews Must Die,” the deranged gunslinging slime wad reportedly screams as he unleashes a volley of death.
By Saturday, we know the news is awful.
By Sunday, the full extent of the massacre is revealed in another predictable tenet.
At a breaking news press conference, another gathering of men in suits stand solemnly and address another unthinkable act.
The media gathers and asks the usual, predictable questions.
Many questions cannot and will not be addressed.
But officials answer enough questions to substantiate the abhorrent revelation that once again one madman with bad intentions can soil the fabric of human decency.
As the men in suits gather at the lectern, the newscaster reminds the audience, The suspect is facing 29 horrific, vile charges. 22 are eligible for the death penalty.
Somehow the number of charges and the severity of the penalty don’t matter.
The investigators talk about the calculated behavior of the gunman. He walked into the synagogue, armed with multiple semi automatic weapons, taking aim, pulling the trigger, firing indiscriminately, taking life after life after life.
The details are difficult to understand.
Why did he pick this location?
This is the Squirrel Hill section of Pittsburgh. Investigators will qualify this community as the most diverse in Western Pennsylvania.
“People choose to live there,” a man in a suit says solemnly.
“We have been knocked down before, but we will stand back up,” another man in a suit says.
It’s the same press conference repurposed for the latest enigmatic act of barbarism.
I watch the press conference with a combination of anger and ambivalence. I am furious at yet another act of senselessness, yet somehow anesthetized by it’s disgusting regularity.
What kind of hate can blind a man so totally that he would assassinate peaceful people in prayer, in celebration.
My mind is clear and my thoughts rational. To me, it’s an equation that simply does not compute.
But to a mind that is mired in a confusing fog, submerged in a suffocating stink of confusion, facts are distorted and reality altered.
And there in lies the problem.
Mental Illness is pervasive. The same lens you view life, is not the same lens that the madman with mal intentions views life.
To the lunatic, the stench of hatred is so pervasive, so pungent, he feels compelled to take action to cleanse his mind, to blow the putrid smell of confusion from his nostrils.
Then the medical examiner steps to the podium and the heinous reality of the barbaric execution is revealed in even more vivid detail.
This human waste of life extinguished 11 souls, ranging in age from 59 to 97.
He killed 2 brothers. He killed a husband and wife.
Many of the deceased were in their 80’s.
The oldest victim is identified as 97 year old Ruth Margulies. A CNN announcer will poignantly illustrate that this woman, by her sheer years on planet Earth, remembers the Holocaust of WWII.
“She was killed for being a Jew in America,” he will say his eyes searching his anchor desk for answers that don’t exist.
All of this carnage at a baby naming ceremony in a house of peaceful Worship.
The question of WHY doesn’t seem be enough.
I don’t know anything about the killer. I can only imagine what lurks inside his rotting DNA.
I can only imagine a dark veil of insanity pulled across the killer’s mind. It is like a thick curtain at a Broadway play. It is heavy and impenetrable. It dampens sound. It hides the plot that is about to unfold on a stage that only he can see.
Somewhere in this human piece of filth’s mind, there is a sad disconnect of right and wrong. The perpetrators moral indiscretion is a light switch that is easily turned on and off.
This trigger man is an empty vessel, his soul filled with disturbing images of intolerance.
I won’t name him. From this point on he will be a vile memory, a stain in the collective consciousness of America.
As the press conference wrapped up, the inevitable viewpoints began to boil over.
The Mayor was asked if added security would have prevented the massacre.
The mayor said that security is not the answer. The political figure said removing guns from the hands of these bad actors is the only way toward peace.
The mayor is both right and wrong.
Until you can predict the crazy thoughts of crazy people, and then remove guns from their hands, you will need to secure innocent souls like those in houses of worship.
To the victims, we can only pray for your souls.
For the monster who extinguished their lives, we can only pray that you will be tormented for eternity, and the world learn from your horrible mistakes.
Sadly, I know that somewhere, some place, the impenetrable curtain on this sinister stage is beginning to rise and the 1st act in another atrocity is about to begin.
Life’s Crazy.™