The World Beyond BetterMost > The Culture Tent
In the New Yorker...
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: serious crayons on August 01, 2022, 06:14:41 pm ---So the first week I missed having to write a story about a woman who killed her son with a shotgun and stuffed him into the trunk of her car. Later, I missed having to do one where a family of five was pulled out of a lake because the suicidal husband had killed the wife and three kids.
And yesterday I didn't have to do a story about a guy who stabbed four young people, killing one and seriously injuring others, who were riding innertubes down a river near the Wisconsin border.
--- End quote ---
Both of those stories made national news.
Front-Ranger:
Is it always this violent in your area?? :o
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on August 01, 2022, 06:24:32 pm ---I can answer that by quoting you! "Coincidence does not imply causation." Did I get that right? :laugh:
--- End quote ---
Well, my usual saying is "correlation does not mean causation," because I'm usually referring to research that finds a correlation but doesn't control for all the factors that could cause it (e.g. "parenting" studies that don't take genetic relationships into account).
But in this case, coincidence -- or is it?? -- is definitely appropriate!
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: southendmd on August 01, 2022, 07:55:13 pm ---Oh, Katy, I had no idea what you went through. What an awful ordeal. I'm glad you're on the mend.
--- End quote ---
Thank you, Paul! I really do feel like I was pretty lucky. For a while there my face was swollen and half looked like it had been brushed with a purple paint. Prince would have approved but most people ran away screaming. It didn't hurt, though, partly because it was completely numb. Now sensation is coming back but it looks pretty close to normal.
As for the arm, that DID hurt for a while, but not much at this point. And I have most of the movement back. My ortho doc was impressed!
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on August 02, 2022, 10:14:14 am ---Is it always this violent in your area?? :o
--- End quote ---
No, it's weird! Obviously the mom killing her son (following a custody battle) is a crazy one-off, as was the dad committing suicide and killing his family. Those are probably coincidence =/= causation.
But there's also been a wave of shootings as well as carjackings that are sometimes accompanied by physical assaults. And a FB friend just posted that she held a gathering at her house and when the guests left in a group three guys pulled up, pointed guns at their heads and stole purses, wallets, phones.
We're a long way from New Orleans in the early '90s, which peaked at 450 murders one year, in a city only a bit bigger than Minneapolis. In New Orleans, almost everybody I knew (besides me) had been mugged or worse at some point, including my husband carrying our 1-year-old in a backpack at 7 p.m. on a lovely summer evening.
Last year there were 96 murders in Minneapolis. Speaking of coincidences, that's exactly how many Denver had, according to Google. The cities are roughly the same size, although Minneapolis (not counting St. Paul) is slightly bigger.
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