Galaxy Newsbrief - July 25th, 2012

* Last night I explained in a little detail why I'm here and what you might be able to expect in the near future: I Got A New Sensation.

* I didn't mean for it to be, but today's Newsbrief is dominated by the Aurora, Colorado shooting spree. So let me just say a little bit about that. As ambivalent as I am about superheroes in general and as hostile as I feel toward the abusive, immoral and unethical way DC Comics treats the creators that made it possible for it to exist, Batman doesn't have anything to do with the killings in Colorado. If the gun-wielding psychopath had let loose at a showing of The Muppets, whatever their last movie was called, would Miss Piggy fly to Colorado to meet with the families of the victims? Did Christian Bale ever meet with the guy who he went all OH GOOD FOR YOU on during the shooting of the previous Batman movie? I bet that poor bastard was pretty traumatized too.

* Look, it's not about Batman. The media and the fundamentalist Right want you to think it is, because for the media it gets ratings and for the Right it's a distraction from their real agenda, which is that murdering psychopaths like the one in Colorado should continue to have access to all the assault weapons and ammunition they want. I heard a fundamentalist guest pretty much come out and say that yesterday afternoon on The Sean Hannity Show, and you can bet Hannity didn't argue. You see, psychopathic gun nuts are a large portion of the Right's constituency, and don't let yourself think otherwise. Don't listen to their claims to have the victims and their families in their "thoughts and prayers," rather, pay attention to the laws they do and don't want on the books, and how they continue to deliberately and with bad intent misinterpret the second amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

* In the end, Aurora Colorado is just another shooting in a country that has grown accustomed to them. Another shooting does not and cannot surprise in a nation that has done fuck-all to prevent easy access to guns, the only purpose of which is to kill. Taking away the right to own assault weapons won't stop determined would-be killers from killing, but it will make it harder and slower for them to do, and give decent people a better chance at stopping them, or at least running away when all hell breaks loose at the movies, which it inevitably will again, although next time "the movies" may be Wal-Mart, or a bowling alley, or McDonald's, or anywhere that someone crazy might happen to turn up. Which, wake up, America, that's everywhere.

* Why Batman's gun was taken away.

* Actor Jason Alexander talks sense about America's senseless tolerance of guns and the people who love them, who love them more than the human life they claim to care so goddamned much about. Mark Evanier has some points, too, and he sometimes writes comic books.

* Uncomics: Dmitry Orlov on why shooting sprees like last week's Batman massacre keep happening. Orlov is a sharp observer of the unraveling of civilization here in Los Estados Unidos, and you should be paying attention to him.