Smart bombs: Trafficking in grief

Some events – like the massacre at Virginia Tech – just aren’t fodder for deep, intellectual commentary. Though pundits have taken different tacks, they’ve all arrived at the same conclusion: It was awful. The perpetrator was awful. Victims didn’t deserve their fates.

It’s natural to want to say something, even if it is obvious. That’s fine. Compassion is a good thing. However, history is littered with tragedies, and today’s commentators haven’t found new insights into them. No matter how smart people are or how magical they are with the language, they won’t be able to make sense of what happened or make those close to the victims feel any better.

Author Kurt Vonnegut, who died recently, wrestled with this in writing “Slaughterhouse-Five,” which was inspired by his witnessing the senseless firebombing of Dresden, Germany, during World War II. He noted that he ultimately failed in trying to find some deeper meaning to the incident “because there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre.” And in a moment of dark comedy, he once said that he was the only person who benefited.As the days drag by and the media continue to drench us in coverage, beware of those who may benefit.

Take the quiz. Or put it off until tomorrow. Which of the following do you think will happen first?

A) Ethics Committee formed. It’s been about 450 days since the city of Spokane adopted the ethics code, which called for the formation of an enforcement group.

B) Outside investigation into the Spokane Police Department’s handling of the Otto Zehm case completed. It’s been about 400 days since Zehm’s in-custody death.

C) Ombudsman or some form of citizen oversight for the Police Department adopted. It’s been nearly 300 days since The Spokesman-Review reported that the current oversight board hadn’t heard a case in 10 years.

Yes, this is a joke. A shaken President Bush addressed the nation after announcing he would resign, saying: “It was inevitable that Congress would impeach me in the aftermath of public comments by Washington state lawmakers in Olympia. Once Congress discovered that the war wasn’t going well, that it was unpopular and that my administration had made a series of irretrievable mistakes, I knew it would be curtains for me.”

Bush was scheduled to use his weekly Saturday address to the nation to thank Washington state lawmakers for making points about the war that had not been heard before. Earlier in the week, legislators selflessly took time out of their busy schedules to push aside state business and debate a nonbinding resolution that summed up their disdain for the war and the president.

Reportedly, Bush will show his gratitude by offering his solutions – nonbinding, of course – on what’s to be done with the WASL, the Sonics, the Alaskan Way Viaduct, the budget and the state amphibian.

“I believe in reciprocity, even if I can’t always pronounce it,” Bush said in a draft of the speech that was leaked to Huckleberries Online.