I'm in Minneapolis this Monday morning. Later today I'll be on stage at the Guthrie Theatre - 6.30pm, I believe, which is a little early for me, but leaves longer in the evening for theatregoers to drink themselves into oblivion after I've depressed the hell out of them.
It is a grim start to the week with (at latest count) just under 60 dead and more than 500 injured after a gunman opened fire on a country-music festival near the Mandalay Bay resort in Las Vegas. Unlike the ideologically-motivated, social-media-connected, ISIS-inspired "known wolves" of Islam, the Strip shooter appears to be a genuine lone wolf - but a lethally effective one. This was a bloodier attack not only than the weekend's terror incidents in Edmonton and Marseilles, but even than the carnage at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando: It is the deadliest single-shooter massacre in American history. There appears to be no "motive" for it, other than that the perpetrator was said to be upset over his recent divorce. His girlfriend is also in custody, and is reported to be an Australian citizen of Indonesian descent, formerly resident on the Gold Coast.
There will be more to say about this as the facts emerge. Which is a polite way of saying one should resist the urge to retreat to one's tropes. But it's a sobering reminder of how easy it is, even in the post-9/11 panopticon security state, to kill large numbers of people if you know how to go about it.
~Before the carnage, it was a busy weekend at SteynOnline, including an appearance on Fox News with Judge Jeanine. We were both pretty fired up. Click below to watch:
My interview with best-selling author @marksteynonline - take a look: pic.twitter.com/ejGpQJMQKM
— Jeanine Pirro (@JudgeJeanine) October 1, 2017
For more on this theme, see my recent SteynPost. And, if you're a Mark Steyn Club member, feel free to take issue with me (or Jeanine) in the comments.
~Also over the weekend: I pondered the racism of Dr Seuss, and celebrated a guy who (as Steyn Club Founding Member Joseph Huber pointed out) really knew how to take a knee. And goodfella Paul Sorvino joined me to salute one of the most beloved songs in the world. If you missed any or all of those, I hope you'll want to catch up on at least one or two, if only as a temporary respite from what will be a depressing and heart-rending day, as the toll of the dead clarifies and the details of the victims emerge. See you at the Guthrie Theatre later.
