Patterico's Pontifications

10/2/2017

Loss In Las Vegas

Filed under: General — Dana @ 5:44 pm



[guest post by Dana]

I received word early this morning from very dear friends that their daughter had called them in the middle of the night while she fled the massive spray of bullets coming from a hotel window in Las Vegas. She screamed to her dad she loved him and that she was afraid she would not make it out alive. He could hear the gunfire behind her cries. She had attended the concert with her husband, brother-in-law and sister. When the shooting started, her brother-in-law was hit and died at the scene. Text messages said that he had a “peaceful look” on his face when he passed.

We went to be with our friends as soon as we heard. Made breakfast, washed dishes, cleaned, helped with grandbabies they had been taking care of while their parents attended the concert and just sat with them trying to be some sort of cushion for the blow. In an instant, the everyday tasks had become things too enormous to contemplate. Our friends are in shock and fluctuating through various levels of disbelief. It will, of course, take time to be able to process this. A whole lot of time. We sat there watching news updates as oodles of texts messages from the surviving family members came in, updates given, and plans to go to bring loved ones home were made.

Here’s what I learned: All of us who have reached mid-life have likely experienced at least one tragedy. We know how deep the wound is when parents pass, the devastation of a collapsing marriage and subsequent pain of a family newly split apart, the shock and fear and hope we move in and out of when a diagnosis of cancer is made, and so on. Some know even more: those who have outlived their children and yet have found a way to get out of bed the next day and the next day after. We unfortunately learn to navigate the unwelcome pull of life’s currents. We must. And with that, we also learn how to utter the hard prayers between tears of sorrow and mountains of grief. These are the cruel corners of life that most of us will find ourselves in at some point or another, in one way or another. But this, this “deadliest mass shooting in America’s history,” is an entirely different animal. This being killed by deranged lunatic at an innocuous event is unfathomable. For me, there is nothing to relate it to, it is an anomaly, it is random, and it is hard to find a place where it belongs in the compartment of tragedies and sorrows we all keep locked up somewhere in the recesses of our hearts. And I’m not even a blood relation, nor was it me who lost a son, a son-in-law, a brother, a father. I am jut a person who is very close to those who did. I am a mere bystander cooking food for dear people being forced to walk through the confusing maze of loss. They are people of faith, so I pray that Hope meets them on the way. I pray that they know in a deeper, richer way that most of us will never know, that God is in this dark tunnel with them. May they be overwhelmed by His comfort. And I pray that my dear friends, and all of the people directly impacted by this destruction, can and will find some measure of comfort through their faith, their families, their friends and their community.

What I learned, too, while sitting with my friends in their stunned shock, is that politicizing this only makes it hurt more. When there is a White House press conference and one reporter after another insists on bringing up gun control – in spite of it having been repeatedly made clear that today is not the day for that – it only makes the hurt worse. My friends’ loved one is now gone from this earth, and he was worth more than a debate about gun control. He will never again kiss his kids and hold his wife. And now she is a widow. Their lives have not been lived to be a political ball to volley over the net of agendas and causes. When politicians tweeted first thing out the gate this morning that we must do more (referring to gun control), my friends believed it a cruel dismissal of the very real lives lost and the very real lives of those left behind struggling to understand. Real people are still trying to wrap their minds around that which must be unreal. “It must be a mistake,” they say over and over. Politicians remain selfishly driven by self-interest, crass journalists remain driven by a salacious greed for a story, and both behave with cruelty as they immediately exploit the pain of others for their own political purposes. Well, just stop it. This is very brutal day. It’s not some moment to use to your advantage and obnoxiously push your way to the front of the line so people will see your ugly mug and hear your sleazy pandering and manipulations. Who do you think you are? Someone noble and relevant? Someone we should listen to? You are low, you are to be loathed, and you are not relevant as you blow noxious gas out from your deceitful lips. You are pitiable in your shame. A shame which you are too blind to see.

This summed up for me the fallen disgrace of mankind in a single nutshell because this is where we’re at, and this ugly, raw pustule on the ass of society is what some have aspired to become. Congratulations. You’ve arrived:

CBS has parted ways with one of the company’s top lawyers after she said she is “not even sympathetic” to victims of the Las Vegas shooting because “country music fans often are Republican,” when discussing the tragic mass shooting that occurred in Las Vegas late Sunday night.

Untitled

Prayers for all those whose lives have been forever tipped over by the events in Las Vegas.

(Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.)

–Dana

101 Responses to “Loss In Las Vegas”

  1. The thing with loss is, you have no say in the matter, and no choice, really, to find a way to press on.

    Dana (023079)

  2. I’m so sorry for your friends, Dana, as well as the reflected impact on you (since you are a caring friend).

    I’m ashamed of my fellow humans who can’t help but be selfish and thoughtless.

    My late father asked me once if there were more people than souls nowadays.

    It would explain some of what I have seen today.

    Best wishes to you and yours. Deepest condolences to your friends.

    Simon Jester (9b49d1)

  3. This is a thoughtful and well-written post, Dana, but I’m sorry it has such a tragic and personal subject matter.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  4. I cannot say it any better than Beldar just did.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  5. i’m not really a facebook person but if i’m reading it right hayley got 2 “likes” for her comment?

    and Erin Silber please to explain what in god’s green the “country-music population” is

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  6. and bosh and pickles if you saw any of those lines for blood donations today and if you refreshed and refreshed as the #gofundme for these guys sailed past $2 million in less than a day you would know this is not a day to be ashamed of humanity in any measure

    at least not the american contingent

    and i hope a certain mayor was paying attention

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  7. Marie Antoinette seems compassionate by comparison.

    ropelight (051652)

  8. My condolences to your friends, Dana.

    nk (dbc370)

  9. Dana: thoughtful piece.

    A close and dear friend of mine lost a cousin in the mass shooting in Colorado at the Aurora theater in 2012. Shock and disbelief for family and intimates will soon yield to sorrow– then anger, creating more victims to face getting on with life. Do all you can for your friends in the months and years to come. The grief and pain they will endure wears heavy; manifesting itself in many ways, both internally and externally. Some may never recover fully; others may be spurred to action.

    But to borrow a missile man’s line: ‘This is a bad day.’

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  10. We unfortunately learn to navigate the unwelcome pull of life’s currents. We must.

    this i’m a remember, especially the “unwelcome pull of life’s currents” part

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  11. A close and dear friend of mine lost a cousin in the mass shooting in Colorado at the Aurora theater in 2012.

    Yes, I remember. How is she? I have not talked to her in forever. Send me an email.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  12. Dana my heart and prayers go out to your friend and the family. Such a wasteful loss. God bless you for being there when they truly need you.

    Rev.Hoagie® (6bbda7)

  13. That is so rough, Dana… so sorry for your friends and their family’s loss. As we get older and experience so many of the things you’ve recounted, there are constant reminders that so much of life is coming to grips with the losses we all suffer and, speaking for myself, coming to a better understanding each and every day of just how precious life and our loved ones are. Savor the special moments and let people know just how much they mean to you.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  14. As a pilot, the murderer could have easily chosen an even more powerful instrument to perpetrate his evil. The gun talk is chaff and the idiot attorney too heavily and too easily discounts the possibility the murderer may have acted on sentiments which parallel her own thoughts.

    My compliments on a thoughtful piece, Dana and my condolences to your friends.

    Rick Ballard (c15cdb)

  15. I’m so sorry, Dana. The death and grief seem suddenly all to real.

    Patricia (5fc097)

  16. I know people, today, who still don’t know if the people they know who were at this festival survived. I know many other people who know, but who went through a time today of not knowing, of worrying and anticipating and being frightened.

    One of the things about music festivals that ma not be obvious to those outside of the community of fans is this: they are *assumed* to be a mostly safe space. There are dangers, of course. But they can be minimized, and for the most part, most of the people who there are not thinking about them, not focusing on them. They’re not watching for the wolf in the night because they’re in a space where it’s assumed the wolf in the night has been kept out.

    So those of us who go to these things are … taken aback, at best, today. It’s only random chance that this happened *here* and not at a festival I was at; it could easily have been me. It could easily have been *any of us*.

    It wasn’t, and yet it could have been.

    aphrael (e0cdc9)

  17. Also: thank you for being there, to take care of your friends; their suffering must be enormous, and I hope that you are able to bring them some small solace in this terrible time.

    aphrael (e0cdc9)

  18. Excellent post.

    Prayers for everyone effected by this insanity.

    Seeing everything today from a schoolteacher tweeting that she hoped “only Trumpkins died” to a sports site leading with a list to demonize politicians who had accepted support from the NRA is as frustrating as it is despicable.

    harkin (be4c6e)

  19. It’s an interesting thing, harkin — I’m an urban liberal, and I don’t listen to country music, but there’s a shared culture among festival goers, genre notwithstanding. These people were my people, every bit as much, and maybe more than, the people at Pulse.

    Someone tweeting they hope “only Trumpkins died” is a hateful asshole, and should be treated as such by the rest of us.

    aphrael (e0cdc9)

  20. There are tens of millions who feel as the Lawyer does. Said similar things when Houston went down. Just most know enough to keep quiet.

    KRS One (987b85)

  21. A beautifully written piece. I only hope that the next time there’s a post about yet another jihadi attack, commenters remember that “not politicizing” applies even to people who are killed an ocean away.

    To back up what Aphrael said: the local rock station here is part of the I Heart network and participates in the IHeart Festival which uses the exact same venue. The afternoon DJ on that station had more to say–and was more perceptibly emotional–about the massacre than the DJs on the local CW station, from whom I heard only a formulaic “our thoughts and prayers are with the families”. (Of course there may have been more, since I listen to that station only intermittently.)

    kishnevi (e93d54)

  22. The lawyer is walking back her statement:

    In a statement sent to media Monday night, Geftman-Gold said, “Earlier today I posted an indefensible post in a Facebook discussion thread concerning the tragic Las Vegas shooting, a statement I sincerely regret. I am deeply sorry for diminishing the significance of every life affected by Stephen Paddock’s terrorism last night and for the pain my words have inflicted on the loved ones of the victims. My shameful comments do not reflect the beliefs of my former employer, colleagues, family, and friends. Nor do they reflect my actual beliefs — this senseless violence warrants the deepest empathy. I understand and accept all consequences that my words have incurred.”

    Her attorney, Carrie A. Goldberg, added: “In the last few hours my client, her family and friends have been bombarded by online death unimaginable in quantity and detail. We beg people to show love and support to survivors and loved ones — in Las Vegas and their own lives — instead of creating more violence.”

    I think she said what she meant in her original comments and that they reflected her views and political beliefs.

    Dana (023079)

  23. Further, I think she really believes Republican lives are woth less than liberal lives. What a horrible weight of measurement she has used on human life.

    Dana (023079)

  24. She previously worked as an in-house lawyer at MTV Network. Colombia Law, good Wall Street firm, married, three kids. I don’t know what was or is in her heart, but what she wrote is consistent with things she’s previously written, if less spectacularly offensive. Perhaps this will be an epiphany for her, but I shan’t hold my breath worrying about that. She’s not worth that much of our regard or attention in my opinion, either way.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  25. Her statement is more on the order of “desperately trying to knit a parachute out of thin air while in mid-plummet,” Wyle E. Coyote-style, than “walking her statement back.”

    Beldar (fa637a)

  26. There’s plenty of awful people out there that say some people had it coming, after whatever it is.

    Frederick (63491b)

  27. Words cannot express your friends loss, condolescences.

    This is the same CBS that has the silly trek series with the non canon analogy of klingons to trump followers. I bet you would find similar sentiment at any of the other nets

    narciso (d1f714)

  28. So true, aphrael, all of the sudden we all feel so vulnerable. I thought twice about hiking with a few friends today–we would be sitting ducks on that trail.

    //

    As for the terrible words of that lawyer, she doesn’t realize it, of course, but this is the kind of unreasonable, implacable prejudice she imagines she is against. It’s as if she thinks of her kind as some kind of master race or something.

    Patricia (5fc097)

  29. She got slapped down hard enough, I think. Let’s forget her, like Beldar says.

    nk (dbc370)

  30. I don’t know what else to say except I sure am sorry to hear all this. Life can be hard enough for people without this added burden.

    Tillman (a95660)

  31. Dana, I hope you at least received some small degree of catharsis as you wrote this excellent post. I would imagine that you provided a great deal of comfort to your friends by being with them today. That is hard duty; it takes equal measures of compassion and stoicism, and not everyone is up to the task. I hope you can recover from this and get some rest at the end of what must have been an emotionally exhausting day.

    As for the CBS lawyer, I’m tired of playing the Internet outrage game so I will just say this: I hope there was someone at CBS who liked her enough to sit her down and tell her that she really needs to seek help for her stunted and warped mindset. There was a recent academic study that suggest that people who live in a political echo chamber not only become more secure in their beliefs, but their beliefs themselves become more hard-edged and extreme as a result. I’m guessing that CBS is something of an echo chamber when politics is discussed, and based upon this woman’s background I would further guess that she has spent most of her life seeking out people who think exactly as she does. Maybe this is a problem that needs to be addressed by her former company.

    JVW (42615e)

  32. Seeing everything today from a schoolteacher tweeting that she hoped “only Trumpkins died”. . .”

    Sadly, a young schoolteacher — a middle school special education teacher as a matter of fact — in my neighborhood was among those killed. She leaves behind a fiance. I have no ideas as to what her politics were, but even if they were radically opposed to my own it would seem that she was living a life worthy of respect and admiration. It’s too bad people have to be such jerks at moments like these.

    JVW (42615e)

  33. Kishnevi, I have friends who were at Life Is Beautiful, at the same venue last weekend, and they’re all … staggered, I think, today. It could have been them, and they know it.

    aphrael (3f0569)

  34. JVW: her politics should not matter. My condolences to your community for its loss. :{

    aphrael (3f0569)

  35. Dana, a few weeks ago, in our small community a father was shot in his car by his own, meth-addled, son in the parking lot of a fast food restaurant. I had the difficult privilege of discussing issues with some of the family in my office, within sight of that parking lot.

    There is nothing one can say but much one can do.

    SPQR (a3a747)

  36. > It will, of course, take time to be able to process this. A whole lot of time.

    I have had the occasion, twice, to provide support for the parents of friends of mine who died, at an age when nobody would expect their children to be dying. In both cases, despite it being more than a decade, the parents were never quite the same; the premature death of adult children appears to be one of those events that one never *fully* recovers from. :{

    aphrael (3f0569)

  37. Words normally cannot express the pain and horror of such evil, but you’ve done much to help us understand what misery your friends much be experiencing. I cannot do more than use mere words to express my sympathy, so I will offer a prayer instead. May God help your friends heal and find comfort in due time. May He help them through their suffering and find peace no matter how long it takes. Amen.

    NJRob (7f4bec)

  38. Dana-
    The best to you and your friends, as Red Skelton used to say – May God Bless.

    mg (31009b)

  39. @19 aphael

    These are my people

    This is where I come from

    We’re given this life everything

    We’ve got and then some

    It ain’t always pretty

    But it’s real

    It’s the way we were made

    Wouldn’t have it any other way

    These are my people

    Rivers Rutherford

    Pinandpuller (9ab225)

  40. I cannot imagine the loss. It would seem like infinity.

    Kevin M (752a26)

  41. 21.A beautifully written piece. I only hope that the next time there’s a post about yet another jihadi attack, commenters remember that “not politicizing” applies even to people who are killed an ocean away.

    Not politicizing means not bringing political jihadi attacks into the conversation.

    Rev.Hoagie® (6bbda7)

  42. So sorry for your loss. Beautiful post. I lost a friend who was shot by a criminal a couple of months ago, so I know what you are going through. And despite the pain, you must press on.

    Patrick Henry, the 2nd (e04f50)

  43. Dana, A loving friend in the senseless times is the greatest gift of all. God Bless you all.

    crazy (d99a88)

  44. Its not “politicizing” a problem to try to figure out how to fix it, as long as that’s done in good faith. I understand and appreciate that this is a time to mourn the dead and comfort the living. When does that time of grief and comfort end, and when do we get down to the hard work of trying to fix this problem that continues to afflict us? We have a bad habit, as Americans, of going straight from grief back to the status quo, without taking a sustained period of time for reflection and problem solving.

    Leviticus (67f244)

  45. It’s not “politicizing” a problem to try to figure out how to fix it, as long as that’s done in good faith.

    Whether or not “politicizing” is the correct word for the way the left invariably schemes to hijack and prostitute grief and shock in the immediate wake of tragedy, Mr. Ballard nailed it in #14:

    As a pilot, the murderer could have easily chosen an even more powerful instrument to perpetrate his evil. The gun talk is chaff and the idiot attorney too heavily and too easily discounts the possibility the murderer may have acted on sentiments which parallel her own thoughts.

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  46. It would have been hard for him to kill so many people with a small plane.

    Sammy Finkelman (30b6b6)

  47. And less fun.

    Sammy Finkelman (30b6b6)

  48. 44. Its not “politicizing” a problem to try to figure out how to fix it, as long as that’s done in good faith.

    Jimmy Kimmel on his show last night had a huge collage of faces of Republicans who voted against recent gun control legislation…..legislation that would not have done one thing to stop the Las Vegas shooting. That’s absolutely a politicized smear that they defeated a ‘fix’ that could have prevented what happened.

    He implies that the NRA corrupts the Republicans to defeat common sense laws (they’ve donated $3.5 million to current members of congress since 1998), while during that same time labor unions have donated $700 million.

    harkin (166824)

  49. #HasHayleyLandedYet

    This incident is not going to look good on her resume. Kudos to CBS for taking swift action. God bless all the Vegas victims and their families.

    furious (4ec846)

  50. the murderer could have easily chosen an even more powerful instrument to perpetrate his evil.

    Jihadi killed 86 with a truck in Nice, France.

    furious (4ec846)

  51. Politicians have always been vermin. Sometimes necessary vermin, but vermin. And while there have been newspapermen who rose above vermin status, I can’t recall any journalists who did or do.

    Condolences to your friends.

    C. S. P. Schofield (99bd37)

  52. My response to idiots trashing the NRA was to buy a new .308 bolt gun. They can go to their church, and I’ll go to mine.

    ropelight (051652)

  53. Amen, ropelight.
    I’m losing my marbles not being able to fire a few rounds the last 2weeks. Soon to return to my range. I hope.

    mg (31009b)

  54. harkin –
    If the republicans had any balls they would’ve been brow beating these baby killers with the same tactics. Compassionate conservatism is folding on your beliefs hoping the democrats like you. Dolts run the republican party.

    mg (31009b)

  55. Dana

    I, too, am sorry to hear about your friends.

    Just a quick story:

    I had a friend and mentor die on Continental Airlines flight 1713 at the old Stapleton Airport in Denver. He left behind a wife and six relatively young kids.

    My dad observed that his widow took the settlement that the airlines offered. I don’t know if she negotiated or not but I guess his point was that she didn’t hire a lawyer after she left the funeral home. I guess a lot of families did and had to split their payouts and perhaps strung things out needlessly. Just food for thought.

    Pinandpuller (16b0b5)

  56. I think, Leviticus, that this is the sort of thing that we can only really work on when we have gotten back to conceiving ourselves as one people. Right now it simply turns into a partisan-tribal battle as soon as anyone starts talking about it, and talking about it isn’t going to change that.

    aphrael (e0cdc9)

  57. from the super-graphic suicide pic it looks like he’d shaved his head

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  58. It would have been hard for him to kill so many people with a small plane.
    Sammy Finkelman (30b6b6) — 10/3/2017 @ 7:21 am

    Mix a divine wind with Aum Shinrikyo.

    Pinandpuller (16b0b5)

  59. I watched Tokyo Drift for the first time last night. The moment Sonny Chiba’s nephew pulled a gun I had to suspend my disbelief.

    Pinandpuller (16b0b5)

  60. Leviticus:

    We have a bad habit, as Americans, of going straight from grief back to the status quo, without taking a sustained period of time for reflection and problem solving.

    I think Americans do try to solve problems. It’s one of our strengths. However, another strength is that those of us who are not directly affected by tragedy try to return to our normal lives as quickly as possible.

    DRJ (d35869)

  61. What I am seeing on Facebook is a trend by 2A supporters to see either a jihadi terror attack or a leftist False Flag, aided by the government. Anything, apparently, is better than admitting that one psychopath, acting all alone, could do this.

    kishnevi (10c258)

  62. Call this comic relief, in a black humor sort of way
    https://articles.oregonlive.com/today/index.ssf/2017/10/panicked_london_train_commuter.amp

    kishnevi (10c258)

  63. 58, If that cult from San Diego 20 years ago was any indicator, he used a bigger blade down there. http://dayshistory.wordpress.com/tag/voluntary-castration/

    urbanleftbehind (52e6e0)

  64. I don’t know what the investigation will reveal but if this is a mental health issue or a psychopath with a grudge against the world, the message for me is that close friends and family need to pay attention to any signals. There may not be any but usually there are.

    DRJ (d35869)

  65. If the family (meaning the brother at this point) is to be believed they were not close enough to pick up signals. But they have an interest in saying that.

    There might be a jihadi connection, for all I know. But I know of no actual evidence at this point that points to anyone other than the shooter himself.

    kishnevi (10c258)

  66. It sounds more like he went postal, kishnevi. But I don’t know what in his history might make that happen.

    DRJ (d35869)

  67. His girlfriend should have seen something, even if the family might now.

    DRJ (d35869)

  68. But the girlfriend makes me unwilling to rule out a jihadi connection. She is from a region that has Muslim extremists, so I don’t think we can rule it out. I don’t think the FBI has, either, despite the immediate statement that this wasn’t terrorism. I would imagine the FBI didn’t want to say anything that might make her decide not to come back to the US. Saying she wasn’t a suspect and this isn’t terrorism might have been a ruse to reassure her that she was safe from being investigated or prosecuted.

    DRJ (d35869)

  69. FBI Political correctness is really annoying.

    If this guy was a Trump Voter, they’d have already determine Alt-Right Violence and started rounding up innocent people.

    Purge desperately needed everywhere in Govt.

    Poor Biggie (987b85)

  70. “See something, say something.”

    …..

    Unless I am a Filipino skipping out on the Country with $100K wired to my accounts in Islands.

    Poor Biggie (987b85)

  71. She is from a region that has Muslim extremists

    What region would that be?

    Davethulhu (fab944)

  72. Her attorney, Carrie A. Goldberg, added: “In the last few hours my client, her family and friends have been bombarded by online death unimaginable in quantity and detail. We beg people to show love and support to survivors and loved ones — in Las Vegas and their own lives — instead of creating more violence.”

    …. Typical Liberal BS, “I AM THE VICTIM HERE!”

    That women and 95% of her Manhattan Friends are laughing at the dead bodies. Would be so much more honest to just shut up and let the storm die down.

    Poor Biggie (987b85)

  73. The phiilipnes and indonesiahome of Abu sayyaf, gemmaa islamiyah and Islamic state’s aceh franchise

    narciso (d1f714)

  74. Poor Biggie, her inexcusably rude and boorish behavior doesn’t excuse death threats.

    aphrael (e0cdc9)

  75. Being realistic, it seems to me, that when these horrible events happen, there is a collective pause as the public waits for the FBI’s determination about cause and culpability. Sides are waiting for their cause to be justified. A large faction of the public are hoping it is the work of jihadis in order to say “I told you so,” while feeling their politics (and maybe their prejudices) have been fully justified, and even vindicated before the masses. Another large faction is desperately hoping that a white male is guilty because that will confirm their ongoing blame of white men for almost every societal ill that is allegedly continuing to destroy our country. They too feel vindicated, and are smug in knowing the historical woes that white men caused can still be politically profitable today.

    I don’t want to ever want be a member of those tribal factions.

    Dana (023079)

  76. I think the girl friend was an agent for someone or maybe a golddigger.

    Patricia (5fc097)

  77. Nevada’s getting some good rain tonight

    but not Vegas

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  78. Because facts drove policy, Oklahoma city was an outlier, but the bureau spent the rest of thecdecade investigating militias with operation megiddo, largely downplaying what Steve Emerson had turned up.
    Paddock is as atyptical as the bath schoolhouse bomber of 1926. The shooting of that labour party member as well as the finchley park incident are also out of the norm, but cage and other outfits seize on it.

    narciso (d1f714)

  79. DRJ @68. His girlfriend is still in the Phillipines, and a person of interest again. Paddock wired a lot of money to the Phillipines, but I don’t know if that was unusual for him – maybe it was just to pay the expenses of the trip. News reports on that point are sketchy so far.

    His girlfriend was a “High-limit” hostess at the Atlantis casino in Reno, Nevada from 2010 to 2013, according to her Linked-in account. The New York Times explains that the hotel’s web site indicates there is a loyalty club called Club Paradise for those who spend large sums of money, and apparently they gave themm concierge service.

    Sammy Finkelman (f1bb90)

  80. 33. aphrael (3f0569) — 10/2/2017 @ 9:58 pm

    Kishnevi, I have friends who were at Life Is Beautiful, at the same venue last weekend, and they’re all … staggered, I think, today. It could have been them, and they know it.

    More than you think.

    Stephen Paddock actually wanted to attack another Las Vegas crowd a week or so before, but he couldn’t get the hotel room he wanted.

    Sammy Finkelman (f1bb90)

  81. Or maybe it was a condominium

    Anyway here is one citation:

    http://nypost.com/2017/10/03/vegas-shooter-may-have-been-targeting-another-music-festival

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  82. “Stephen Paddock actually wanted to attack another Las Vegas crowd a week or so before, but he couldn’t get the hotel room he wanted.”

    Where did you read?

    Ben burn (c770f4)

  83. http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2017/10/updates.html?m=1

    A little edgy but interesting. He follows the pro gambling leads.

    http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2017/10/updates.html?m=1

    Ben burn (c770f4)

  84. People remark that it was a country crowd therefore cobservative/Trump (we all here know not to easily conflate the two), within the spectrum with Brad Paisley at a left end and Charlie Daniels at another, where does Jason Aldean fall un.

    urbanleftbehind (52e6e0)

  85. Sammy and Ben Burns: I know a number of people who were at LIB (as opposed to this festival, where I only know people who know people). That’s not unusual; I go to 3-4 festivals a year, which means I have friends who go to all of the west coast festivals.

    They, and my friends who go to EDC, have all been very aware that this could easily have been them.

    aphrael (e0cdc9)

  86. Australia is touting their success banning firearms but the impetus is based on this…

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Arthur_massacre_(Australia)

    “Paul Mullen, a forensic psychiatrist with extensive involvement following the string of massacres in Australia and New Zealand, attributes both the Port Arthur massacre and some of the earlier massacres to the copycat effect.[31] In this theory the saturation media coverage provides both instruction and perverse incentives for dysfunctional individuals to imitate previous crimes.”

    Ben burn (c770f4)

  87. Aphrael

    We’re the Harvest and LIB events Christian endorsed? Just curious.

    Ben burn (c770f4)

  88. Have a vehicle accident where the car driven is at fault…not the driver. Have a kitchen knife cut off your finger and blame the knife. Ban firearms for yourself when your home is invaded by thugs with guns and blame yourself for failing to protect your family.

    Ben burn (c770f4)

  89. Ben burn – I don’t know what it means to be “Christian endorsed”. Neither of them were explicitly Christian in orientation — one of them was a general contemporary music festival, one of them was a general country music festival.

    I can’t speak to expectations at a country festival as the closest i’ve ever come is Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, but in general music festivals aren’t religious in nature or orientation, so the question strikes me as being an inherent non sequiter.

    aphrael (e0cdc9)

  90. “Harvest” often a theme in Christian public events. Looking for motive and it’s very elusive, Aphrael.

    Ben burn (c770f4)

  91. Ah, fair enough. You’re coming from a background with experience with Christian events that use a “Harvest” motif, and I’m coming from a background with experience with music festivals which are generally areligious.

    I would direct you to the event’s web page, but they’ve replaced the entire thing with a memorial splash screen, which is understandable but still frustrating (they could have a way to bypass the splash and get at the old site, but they don’t).

    My guess is that it’s unrelated — it’s a LiveNation event, and seems to be generic country music (as opposed to religious-themed country music); “harvest” could just be the time of year.

    LIB (who have also put up a memorial splash screen, but who have left their actual website still accessible) is an Insomniac event (these are the people behind EDC) focused on rock, alt-rock, and hiphop. It’s certainly *not* Christian themed.

    aphrael (e0cdc9)

  92. So I’m gathering Aphrael. I’m a bait fisherman and nothing is biting.

    Ben burn (c770f4)

  93. @92. Ben, Hollywood’s visited this terror a few times… Black Sunday; Two-Minute Warning come to mind… chances are the seeds for motive were planted a year or more ago when he started planning this. Revisit what was going on then in the world and/or his life to ‘trigger’ it. Eventually some pieces will be ferreted out but reasoning it will never be fully satisfied. It’s like wondering how different things would have turned out if Marina Oswald had just rolled over early on November 22, 1963…

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  94. DC: Madness has a learning curve and I understand that. Logic in the human mind is an aunt Annie’s pretzel and we see this false logic every day. I’m going to save these people by killing them (sending them to Heaven?) Or protect them from the embarassment…?

    My question to the dead, if I could ask
    ..’what purpose was there in your early death?” Eternal question..

    Ben burn (c770f4)

  95. The law enforcement response is problematic, and it’s not just LVPD.

    90 Minutes is unacceptable. So much concern for personal safety makes the Thin Blue Line a joke unless it’s just THEIR line. Firefighters run toward danger. They don’t wait for safety before they act with decisiveness. Cops afraid for their own safety while citizens are dying is not acceptable. If you are that concerned about your safety,
    apply for a job at the Post Office.

    Ben burn (c770f4)

  96. Firefighters run towards fire mostly

    they have one job

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  97. Jimmy Kimmel can crawl back under his rock any time now. What a mendacious POS.

    Colonel Haiku (43fb26)

  98. An old saying I made up fits here: “The further out the outliers lie, the further out the inliers can lie without being outliers.”
    Means that defending a group from accusations of being less than human because the exemplar is an “outlier” doesn’t necessarily work.
    If you can quantify assholishness, and the exemplar is at 100, which is unacceptable, the implication that the rest of the group, being inliers, is not to be blamed. So they’re only at 50. Interesting, but not a problem.
    So when the CBS lawyer did her thing, she’s at, say, 200, which means the inliers, being half as bad, are at 100, which the group used to acknowledge is unacceptable.
    She may be the worst at CBS, or at least the worst to run her yap where the rest of us can see it, but, even if she’s the worst, how much less bad is the next in line? And the next hundred? Pretty close, I suspect. There’s no obvious defense by firing her and implying she’s an outlier.

    Richard Aubrey (0d7df4)

  99. Update:

    http://insider.foxnews.com/2017/10/25/tucker-carlson-las-vegas-massacre-questions-jesus-campos-security-guard-and-police-hung

    they wonder even if he was really wounded. At least seriously.

    The New York Times also has a chronology which they got by combining cell phone videos using the shots as fingerprints. They have Campos been shot (or fired at) after the shooting first started.

    Campos was on the show with another person whom he had called up. He later stopped him.

    Meanwhile the missing brother of Stephen Paddock has been found. They were after him for child pornography in 2014 and now they found him in some assisted living facility or nursing home.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)


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