Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory

"Little surprises around every corner, but nothing dangerous." -- Willy Wonka 

So, if you haven't heard, and I'd be impressed if you haven't, there was a shooting the other day here in Omaha. There were also shootings in New Orleans and Chandler, but those aren't as important as a school shooting, everybody knows that. In the event that you don't know the details, essentially some dumb ass kid got suspended from school and decided to take out his frustrations by shooting the principal and vice principal. Secifically, Vicki Kaspar passed away after her wounds, which is compounded by the fact that her 59th birthday would have taken place the very next day. All in all, a tragedy. Omaha hasn't gotten this much publicity since 2007 when some punk kid decided to shoot up Westroads Mall while I was working. This post isn't about the tragedy itself, this was a horrific event that is an unfortunate side-effect of our society. My heart goes out to the family, friends, co-workers and former students of this educator/administrator. This is about my lack of approval for using a tragedy to promote your own agenda.
Among preparations for the funeral, it was discovered that our good friends at the Westboro Baptist Church would be attending the funeral at a local church in an effort to spread their message of hate. You may remember Westboro Baptist from their visit during 2002, or their yearly visits whenever we have a dignitary of some sort visiting either the SAC museum, or the AFB. I've counter protested against WBC a total of seven times now, and each of those times, I was personally affiliated with the event, or people being protested, and held a position within the community that required I attend for the sake of solidarity.  Early Thursday afternoon, I got a text message asking me for my help in coordinating the efforts for a counter-protest. It took a while to come up with the words to say it wouldn't be happening.

I took part previously because I was closely connected to the events being protested. Now though, people who've never been to Millard South, who don't know the woman in question, and in fact have nothing to do with these people and this situation are using this poor woman's funeral as a way to spread their 'cause'. Let me clarify here that I'm not against this counter-protest. I encourage friends, family, co-workers and former students to do their part to ensure that the memory of this woman is untainted. What I am against is the local gay community, who have only just heard about this tragedy because WBC has insisted on showing up, putting on their airs of superiority in an effort to rally support for their individual causes. Sure, the primary focus of WBC is to combat the existence of homosexuality in the world, but realistically, fighting fire with fire does not work. It's true, I looked it up.

I can't imagine being a part of this family right now. They already have the tragedy of a death to deal with, adding on this blatant show-boating and sensationalism must be terrible for them. I appreciate the excuse of feeling like you need to do something, but this is just as bad as the week following the Von Maur shooting, where I couldn't help a single customer without somebody giving me a piece of candy, or a plate of cookies, or asking if I was dealing with it ok. Hell, I even knew a couple of the people who died. Fuck! One of them was a customer of the Jewelry Counter at Younkers where I was working.

This outpouring of affection is... fake and gay. It has me all emotional and shit.