Axpocalypse Now

coming soon to a neighborhood near you

Looking for a signs of the apocalypse?  Look no further than the recent spike in ax-murders.  After the New York Times was kind enough to devote front page space (below the fold) on the brutal ax-murder of a 13 year-old settler, I wondered why an israeli teenager killed by an ax while being forced by his parents to assist in the occupation of palestine gets better coverage in the venerable Times than four murdered Oakland cops (buried on page A9)?  The answer is simple, but terrifying.

This is only the most recent in a terrifying trend of ax attacks.  At first, the fact that the New York Times only cares about this one (curious…) led me to believe that it was an isolated incident, front page material only for its freakishness.  If only that were the case.

Two weeks ago, a soon-to-be divorced Pierce County couple’s legal battles came to a premature resolution when the husband hacked apart his wife and daughter.  Around the same time, Chicago residents were shocked to learn that a man who had been arrested after wielding an ax in what police described as the “March 19 melee” lacks the basic human decency to be honest about his crimes.  In January, a Native American man killed another Native American man by chopping his head with an ax, on some reservation somewhere than none of the major news outlets care about.  Even Utah has its share of ax-murderers: earlier this week a Utah man was sentenced to three years in prison for attempted murder with a battle ax.

Is there something in the water?  These cases are not geographically isolated, so probably not.  Given the fact that none of the victims were zombies or mutants, (yet) and the fact that at least one of these attacks was committed using a lame medieval battle ax (instead of a cool, futuristic ax-gun), I think its unfair to lay the blame squarely at the feet of violent video games.  Lets be realists, its time to face facts: this is incontrovertible evidence of the coming apocalypse.  And the only way to fight axes, is with axes that have swords hidden inside them.

this lord of the rings geek's jeans and t-shirt are made of invincible spider silk

At the end of the day, there’s one other lesson to learn.  The New York Times doesn’t give a shit about your ax-murdered relatives, unless they were murdered while living on someone else’s land.  I’m sure they would have covered the Native American victim, if he had wandered off the reservation before being dismembered.