Thought for Today

"It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value."
                                                                 -- Arthur C. Clarke

Photo Blog

I wanted to draw attention to the new photo blog.  The link is on the right side of the page.  Posting photos has always been one of my favorite parts of blogging, and I plan to post pictures more frequently now that they have their own blog.

Also, after a gap of more than two months, I've made a new post on the Dry Country News blog.  I'll take some pictures of my new projects and post them there before long.

Tucson Memorial

Laura and I were in the University of Arizona area on Tuesday, Jan. 11, so we decided to check out the memorial at the University Medical Center, about half a mile from the main campus.

There was a continuous stream of people to the area.

Three days after the shooting, the memorial was already quite sizable.  People brought the usual icons to place on the ground:  candles, flowers, balloons, stuffed animals, cards, pictures, posters.  Notice the satellite truck in the background.  The massacre created a full-fledged media frenzy, and there must have been a couple dozen satellite trucks parked in front of the hospital.

Close-up of the memorial.  Being there was a surprisingly emotional experience for me.  Was it just me?  Perhaps.  Was it the vibe caused by the focused energy of thousands of people?  Quite possibly.  In either case, there was no way for me to tell.  I think our human boundaries are more arbitrary, and more permeable, than we commonly suppose.

Another view.  After three days, there were already upwards of 1000 candles there.  According to the Tucson newspaper, the shrine has grown "exponentially" since I was there.  There is also a memorial in front of Congresswoman Giffords' office, and one at the scene of the shooting.

Stop it!  A message for the powers-that-be.

The memorial from the other side.  The crowd had grown a bit from the time we first arrived.  I would assume that this memorial, and the one in front of Giffords' office, will eventually be dismantled, but the one at the shopping center will be there indefinitely, because that's where the killings took place.

There were posters for all of the victims.  The media went to great lengths to acknowledge the low-profile victims.

Good Bless Tucson.  A worthy sentiment for any town.

There were several media encampments, with all their equipment and sun diffusers.  Notice the newsman wearing a suit coat and jeans, because the camera would only be aimed at the top of him.

It was hard photographing the satellite trucks, because they were so spread out.  Here are a few of them.

Tucson Massacre Gawking

Laura and I took a little midwinter getaway to our closest subtropical metropolis, Tucson.  We arrived on Sunday, the day after the shooting.  By some coincidence, our motel was located on the same road as the massacre, and it turned out that we would be driving right past the scene of the crime on our way to Biosphere 2 on Monday.  So, being tourists, we decided to stop at the shopping center and gawk.

TV news in Tucson gave frequent updates from the shopping center.  Here, a newsman awaits his cue.  Notice the bright TV lighting on his face.  The infamous Safeway is in the background.

A team of FBI and other law enforcement perform an evidence sweep.  Nearly 48 hours after the shooting, I'm not sure what they expected to find.  Probably these late sweeps were a combination of covering their ass, and giving the law enforcement personnel something to do.  Surely the obvious evidence (shell casings) was collected immediately after the shooting.

I was expecting to find an impromptu shrine to the victims, but the shrine turned out to be located at the University Medical Center, located several miles away.  More details on this in my next post. 

UPDATE:  After we got home, we discovered that the night before the shootings, Loughner had rented a room in the same motel we stayed at.  This helps explain the weird behavior of the motel clerk when she checked us in.