Monday, August 23, 2004

 

America: Shoot first, ask later

Coincidence is the reasoning of the unaware. And the foolish. The foolishly unaware. Most things...perhaps all things...happen for a reason. That reason may or may not ever make itself evident to us. At least not to our conscious selfs, perhaps because life in the 21st century evolves at a faster pace than ever imagined. A lot of water passes under the bridge between happenstance and the utlimate reason for it's occurence. It slips right by us in the cacophony that passes for human experience. We need to fine tune our comprehension in order to appreciate the irony involved in the human condition.....in our personal experiences as well as our collective understanding and being.

These thoughts occur to me tonight as the result of the following Olympic story:

U.S. rifler way, way off target

ATHENS - Matt Emmons was focusing on staying calm. He should have been focusing on the right target.

Emmons fired at the wrong one with his final shot yesterday, a shocking mistake that cost the American a commanding lead in the Olympic 50-meter three-position rifle final and ruined his chance for a second gold medal.

Leading by three points and needing only to get near the bull's-eye to win, Emmons fired at the target in lane three while shooting in lane two. When no score appeared, he gestured to officials that he thought there was some sort of error with his target.

Officials huddled before announcing that Emmons had cross-fired - an extremely rare mistake in elite competition - and awarded him a score of zero. That dropped Emmons to eighth place at 1,257.4 points and lifted Jia Zhanbo of China to the gold at 1,264.5.

Whoooops....!..... Sorry!

~*~ Let's take another look at this story....except this time it will be filtered through the brain of the Brahma

In the greatest of world-wide sports exhibitions....before an audience of multi-millions.....with every nation represented, including Afghanistan and Iraq as the Bush advertisement boasts.....America proves where it's expertise really lies. In the discharging of weaponry.

I've no doubt that Matt Emmons could shoot the gonads off a gnat. Unfortunately, America (which he represented) shot the wrong target as the world looked on. It's becoming part of our national identity. Shoot straight and true.....don't be concerned with locating the proper target. The comparison to present world-wide affairs should be as inevitable as it is obvious.

And true to form, Matt tried to blame the target for his mistake...! Perhaps it posed an imminant threat. Either way.....SURELY the world is better off without that target!

~Brahma*

posted by ~Brahma 10:49 PM