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About This Author
I am SoCalScribe. This is my InkSpot.
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Blogocentric Formulations
Logocentric (adj). Regarding words and language as a fundamental expression of an external reality (especially applied as a negative term to traditional Western thought by postmodernist critics).
Sometimes I just write whatever I feel like. Other times I respond to prompts, many taken from the following places:
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September 12, 2025 at 11:28am September 12, 2025 at 11:28am
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Day 3942: ON this day in 1952, Investigating the possible crash of a UFO, residents of Flatwoods, West Virginia, encounter a creature they describe as 10 feet tall, with glowing eyes and claw-like hands. Skeptics dismiss the “monster” as likely an owl. Try writing another possible scenario. Have fun!
While an owl perched in a tree would probably be a likely scenario, can we ever truly rule out the possibility that maybe it was a "monster alien" after all? Or at least a government-engineered cover up like the moon landing? I can't think of what the government would be trying to cover up in Flatwoods, West Virginia, but hey, you never know!  #TheTruthIsOutThere
Day 2672: Are your familiar with Hopalong Cassidy? If not, what westerns have you seen or read? Have you tried your hand at writing westerns?
The character of Hopalong Cassidy was invented long before I was born (1904), and become popular even before my parents were born (1930s-1950s). When it comes to the westerns I grew up with, the first one that I distinctly remember watching was Back to the Future III as a kid. In film school, I got exposure to spaghetti westerns, some classics of the genre, and then-current films like The Last Samurai, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, Open Range, and Firefly / Serenity. As an adult, it was No Country For Old Men, the remake of 3:10 to Yuma, True Grit, Django Unchained, etc.
That was also around the time I started to get into Elmore Leonard and, while I tend to enjoy his crime fiction more, he's written some great westerns.
I've written a handful of western short stories over the years, but I've never really tried my hand at longform westerns like in novel or screenplay form. I enjoy the genre as a setting or for its larger and more popular tropes, but I don't think it's a genre that I'm particularly passionate about to the point where I have something particularly original to add to it.
 
Prompt: What are your thoughts about the passing away of Charlie Kirk and the reactions you have observed to it?
On the one hand, death is a loss no matter who it happens to. Charlie Kirk was young, and left behind a wife and two very young children, and that's awful. I would never wish for someone to die, or a person to lose their spouse, or kids to lose a parent. It's a tragic circumstance that this family now has to process through.
On the other hand, Charlie Kirk was someone who espoused vile ideology under the guise of supposed Christian values, who tried to normalize and advance the spread of racism, homophobia and an anti-LGBTQ+ agenda, nationalism, antisemitism, white supremacy, and misogyny. While I don't think anyone should be killed over their political ideology, he was an outspoken proponent of gun rights, even telling people at an event in 2023 that, "I think it's worth it to have some gun deaths every year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights." He has repeatedly shown callous disregard for the lives and wellbeing of countless marginalized groups and political rivals. When Nancy Pelosi's husband was attacked in his home and beaten with a hammer, after admitting the attack itself was "awful," Kirk called for an "amazing patriot" to bail out the attacker.
I have been extremely irritated at the reactions to his death. Someone's death should never be celebrated, even if you don't like the person. But there is also an incredible amount of asymmetry in the response to Kirk's death as compared to, say, the assassination of Melissa Hortman (a Democrat who served as speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives), or the attempted abduction of Gretchen Witmer (a Democrat who serves as the Governor of Michigan). Charlie Kirk was a key figure in a movement that celebrated both of those horrific situations and blamed them on Democrats. And now that Kirk himself has been killed, that same movement is also blaming the Democrats for this.
I find double-standards and hypocrisy incredibly frustrating. So I don't have a lot of patience for people celebrating political violence when it happens to the opposition party, but then finger-wagging and crying impropriety when the opposition party celebrates political violence that happens to "their team." If someone wants to scold others for not being sufficiently sorrowful over Charlie Kirk's death, I want to see some evidence that they were also scolding right-wingers over not being sufficiently sorrowful over the tragedies and injustices being inflicted upon members of the left. Or even those inflicted on normal residents of this country without any specific political affiliation. In my opinion, you don't get to celebrate cruelty toward others and then demand sympathy for yourself.
To be clear, I don't think that any political violence should be celebrated, and political violence won't recede so long as there are people on either side of the political divide willing to turn the tragedy of someone's death into a talking point to rile up the opposition, or a mechanism for scoring points with the most extreme elements of their own base. The one thing Charlie Kirk and I do agree on is that politics should be a civil discourse and not a violent one. Where we differ though, is that I think the partisanship has to stop. I don't think you can fan the flames of intolerance and then be surprised that violence is the end result. I sincerely hope that we all get to a place where we prioritize each other's inherent humanity and value; when we can realize that our commonalities are more important than our differences. We shouldn't play politics like it's a team sport.
I won't celebrate Charlie Kirk's death. And I do pray for his family and those sincerely mourning his loss, who now have a very difficult road ahead. But, at the same time, I won't spend a lot of time lamenting the passing of someone whose death was likely caused — or at least indirectly contributed to — by his own political project to ramp up partisanship and rancor in this country for financial and political gain; who made a living by preying on people's anger, fears, insecurities, and prejudices, and weaponizing them for use against marginalized communities.
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