I’m creeping home. Noted:
* Arrest of man who made threatening calls to U.S. senator’s office in Colorado.
* Gawker-style note: The lunch crowd at Capital Hotel, one of few eating spots in downtown open at lunch today, included (not at the same table I should have noted originally) Gov. Mike Beebe and his entourage; the publisher of the daily newspaper; editors of two weekly newspapers; owners of one of the city’s largest ad agencies; executives from Stephens Inc., and a whole bunch more. (I know what you’re thinking; don’t say it. Violent metaphors are not allowed this week.)
* Go here for smiling mugshot of accused Tucson shooter Jared Loughner, who was denied bail today.
* Good Q&A here with an academic expert in rhetoric from Baylor University. Takeaway: Violent rhetoric isn’t new, the media have provided more channels and fewer gatekeepers on what gets transmitted. Different political sides dominate at different times. Also:
Americans from the very beginning have tended to a more violent discourse. You can go all the way back into the eighteenth century and find all sorts of examples of the use of rhetoric. This is very deeply woven into the American culture and in the American experience. Violence permeates our culture in a way that it does not permeate some of the European cultures, especially the social democracies such as Sweden, Norway, and Finland.
You could say the same thing about guns.