Our Best of 2022 List
More than a tradition, it is compulsory that every writer publish his or her or their “best of” list at the end of each year. Best 800 books of 2022, Best 5 fountain pen inks of 2022, etc.
As you well know, these best of lists are getting boring and don’t really address the issues relevant today and going forward. Raise your hand if you use fountain pen inks. No one. Raise your hand if you plan to read the top 800 books of 2022? Same number of people who use fountain pen ink. Do you really care about boring lists? You don’t.
Some also put out a worst of list. For the past several years all those lists have been dominated by the filth at Mar-a-Lago and will probably remain so until DeSantis announces.
Moving forward, how about a best of list for natural events like tornados? Of course, you want to know what the five best tornados were in 2022. You may want to move if one landed on your house in 2022. Or earthquakes? Inquiring minds need to know so they don’t move into a best of earthquake zone of 2022.
Doing best of lists for natural disasters gets into muddy waters. (The philosopher Nietzsche supposedly said, “They muddy their waters that they may appear deep.” Clever, but not useful in the long run. Nietzsche staggered home one night drunk from the Berlin Ale House when he tripped and fell face down in a mud puddle. He panicked, momentarily thinking he was going to drown in deep waters. Then he thought of his own saying and relaxed knowing the waters were muddy but not deep. Subsequently, he fell asleep with his face down in the mud puddle and was surprised when he drowned anyway. If you doubt the authenticity of this story, I remind you that drowning in a puddle is a thing. It took the life of the WWII hero Ira Hayes, re: Johnny Cash’s “The Ballad of Ira Hayes.”)
Where was I? Oh, yeah, best of lists for 2022.
So how to wrap up this rumination on the best of lists for this blog? I propose some best of lists related to gun violence in America, including best of mass killings, best of handgun killings, best of killings with an assault rifle, and best of killings when good guys with guns are ineffective.
We need to have a rule to avoid the worst of list problem of having the bums at Mar-a-Lago dominating every list. Each atrocity can only be on one list.
I’m going to let you readers vote. On which list do you put the school shooting in Uvalde? Best of mass killings of children? Or best of good guys with guns being ineffective? I mean the dozen or so Texas good guys with guns hung around for an hour hiding in a hallway while children were killed. THAT’s impressive. I know what you are thinking: Texas Number One!! But you must make room on a best of list for the Highland Park parade shooting with 55 casualties leaving a 2-year-old boy as an orphan. Best of use with an Assault Rifle? Or Best of Most Casualties? On which list do you put the Club Q mass shooting, or the Buffalo grocery store racist atrocity? The latter could also be on the best of list of good guys with guns who are ineffective. But that list may already be crowded. Like in Allen City, KY, where a guy shot and killed three policemen AND a police dog. (A dog? Really? Who raised that asshole?) Or in Texas recently where a women killed two police officers who were talking to her while she sat in a car. Then she killed herself, wrapping the whole thing up with a bow so no one needs to think about it going forward. (Raise your hand if you heard of that one. Of course not. In Texas, gun violence is not news.)
I’m going to have to come up with a plan to publish these lists. And I will add some lists next year. Now that gun violence is the leading cause of death for children in America, children should have their own gun violence best of lists.