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It is such a coincidence that being an avid DVD movie collector, I watched one of my favourite Spike Lee joints, "Son of Sam", just three weeks ago. It's a coincidence because it was then when the Washington sniper started a killing spree in an around the Washington/Baltimore areas.

Unlike David Berkowitz, a postal worker who called himself the Son of Sam and took orders from a dog to go out and kill in the hot New York City summer of 1977, the Washington sniper is much more ambitious. Dead are a young child, a man who was mowing his lawn, a woman passerby, a bus driver, and a man at a gas station. Talk about equal opportunity-this guy doesn't discriminate.

And so everyone has been glued to CNN, and all the newspapers have front page coverage of the situation and everyone is talking about the poor United States being the victim of violence once again. This is a terrible state of affairs in which children are not safe to walk to school for fear of being killed, and parents are worrying for their children's safety as well as their own. Anyone who would target and kill small, innocent children to prove some political point or create some sick legacy for himself should be castrated; but this in itself would prove difficult seeing as it is that this person obviously has no balls.

Even a forty-nine year-old Berkowitz wrote a letter to a U.S. television network saying that he feels he is reliving his nightmare all over again through the sniper, and that the police should look for clues by watching the Hannibal Lecter movies ( I'm not making this shit up), citing that the killer is constantly trying to outsmart the FBI. Apparently Berkowitz is repentive these days, having "found" God (funny, I didn't know that God was lost to begin with). So once again, everyone weeps for America.

And as long as the U.S. promotes a culture of entitlement in a sea of egocentrism, and citizens cling to their right to bear arms, there will always be another Son of Sam lurking in the star-spangled shadows.

Because the last thing the U.S.A needs right now is another Son of Sam.

"Networks at work keepin' people calm, you know they went after King when he spoke out on Vietnam".
- Zack de la Rocha, from the song "Wake Up"

"Networks at work, keepin' people calm, ya know they murdered X, and tried to blame it on Islam".
- Zack de la Rocha, from the song "Wake Up"

© 2002 Aaron Bayley