Guns

Maybe if the entertainment industry rowed back a bit on the idea that guns are cool.

You know, fewer spectacular shootouts, fewer scenes where the hero cop or whoever edges down a corridor with gun held out as if it were a natural extension of the human body.

Maybe the odd scenario in which the person with the gun is made to look a bit of a prat.

It needs to start somewhere.

And it's not just an American problem. A few weeks back the Russians unveiled a statue of the guy who designed and gave his name to the Kalashnikov...  

Peter Brook

Peter Brook has a new book out. He's 92 and still active in the theatre. He directed his first professional production in 1943- which adds up to a career of 74 years and counting....

When I was in theological college his classic text- The Empty Space- was on our reading list. It was hoped we'd learn from it how to liven up  church services . It may not have saved the Church of England  but it's a tremendous book- not only a brilliant exposition of theatre and what the point of it is but also, by extrapolation, a manual for living the good life. 

I think of him as one of the wisest people on the planet.

Guns Again

How do you argue with someone who thinks the way to solve an epidemic of mass shooting is flood the nation with more guns. It's not a reasonable position. More like a faith position.  Reason won't touch it. Only a Damascus Road experience will do. 

The gun is a tool- like the vacuum cleaner or the feather duster. The difference is you don't get Hoover owners vowing to cling to their machines with their cold, dead hands. It's only the dangerous tools that get fetishized- the sword, the fast sports car, the gun.

I know there are women who wave guns around but it seems to be mainly the male ego that needs to be bolstered by weaponry. Has there ever been a mass shooting perpetrated by a woman? I'm sure there has but I can't think of any.

I don't own a gun. If I did I'd like to think I'd be taking it out of its cabinet today, carrying it into the yard, sticking it on a tree stump and hammering it back into sheet metal.