I carry a firearm. I argue the pro-gun side of gun control debates (though I think that Nugent is a dick). But that didn’t have anything to do with it.

I can’t begin to entirely understand what drives a guy like Sideshow Bob (which is what they’ve been calling him over at Fark.com). I don’t understand how opening fire on a group of moviegoers satisfies even the most base of urges. But I do know that if he, like the Joker of The Dark Knight just wanted to spread chaos and disorder by a random act of violence, looking at something I considered safe to now be dangerous is tantamount to letting the bastard win. Even if I chose to avoid the film out of respect for the dead, I fail to see how avoiding a film that was the collaborative effort of hundreds over the span of years during the time that is most closely scrutinized by the studios as they determine if this was a worthwhile effort and investment does a damn thing to honor their memory or pay them tribute.

I appreciate the sentiment, but I don’t agree with the expression. There are better ways to offer our collective grief and sympathy than to let this movie become a symbol of madness and misery.

- Federally run healthcare doesn’t work; it has to be run by the state. healthcare has been and will always be two-tiered, kids!

The people seeing Batman: Rise of the Sequels did not “die” to see it. They died SEEING it. It was a night at the movies, not a fucking love affair.

Don’t cower at home. Don’t avoid seeing the movie that these people died to see. Who’re you trying to hurt or punish, here?

These people went to that movie and stood in line because they liked – and in many cases, loved – the Batman mythos. That guy who lost his eye – HUGE batman fan. What good does it do these fans, for you to boycott the stuff they love?

And Warner Bros are leaping in and saying “We’ll help with that”. That didn’t seem to be forced on them. Nobody, that I could see, was saying “You should be helping these people with no health insurance and millions of dollars in healthcare bills just because it happened to have been your movie they were shot at.” – far as I can tell, WB is just Doing the Right Thing. Which is so freaking rare in corporate America, I think it should be rewarded. Seems to me that helping the victims is, from a corporate stantpoint, insane and suicidal: it’s like they’re claiming part of the moral responsibility for it, and that could have legal repercussions when they inevitably get sued! And that’s gonna be millions of dollars of profits down the drain: it’d take a LOT of good PR to even cover that!

Well done, WB. Seriously, well done. I mean… I’m sure your bean-counters crunched the numbers and decided that it was worth the money for the good PR, but still: kudos to you for even thinking of helping, and asking them to consider that idea and crunch those numbers. Most corporates would never get that idea past even the first layer of red tape.

[std disclaimer: I could just be a corporate shill (but am not). I might well be entirely wrong about everything. Do your own damn research before forming opinions or taking actions, rather than just going with what someone says: it's not like it's hard now we have the net.]

Captcha Ron Jeremy memoir: Varicum History