7-20-12. Today’s events:

1. The highly anticipated conclusion to the emotionally dark and often sadistically violent Batman trilogy premiered across the nation at midnight.

2. In Aurora, CO a neuroscientist and likely madman entered the theater with guns. He opened fire. He killed either 12 or 14 and wounded nearly 40. Among the victims were a six year old child and an infant.

3. No one knows what the children were doing at the midnight showing of this mature film. Perhaps it didn’t matter. Perhaps the connection is subtle.

4. In San Diego, the shooter’s mother, upon hearing the news, knows almost immediately that her son must have been involved. Things had not been right for some time.

5. By the time the East Coast is waking up the morning pundits are already debating gun control laws. It is unclear whether the victims had names: All that is clear is that this is now a political talking point.

6. Residents in Colorado remember this routine. They’ve been through it before.

7. A handful of websites declare that the shooter is Iranian, although the police make it explicit that this is not an act of terrorism. Had the shooter been Iranian, it presumably might have been terrorism.

8. At least one pundit mistakenly attributes the shooting to a Tea Party movement. He later apologizes.

9. One lawmaker declares that this is the result of a nation that has turned its back on God and asks why no one in the theater had a gun for self-defense. It is still unclear whether any of the victims have names.

10. The hospital can not accommodate all of the victims so a local high school gym is turned into a makeshift hospital.

11. It is an election year. By mid-afternoon every candidate for every office sends highly emotional tweets and FaceBook status updates sending warm thoughts to the families and victims. It is still unclear whether the victims have names.

12. As evening descends little is known about the killer except that his apartment was rigged with explosives that law enforcement is still dealing with. Whether he had a motive or not is unknown. A police official in New York leaks to the press that the shooter may have been dressed like a comic book villain.

13. As of this moment, we have been informed by the Pentagon that some of the victims were military personnel. It is unknown who the rest were: Maybe teachers, maybe students, maybe sales clerks; each has a name, but no names have been named, except the shooter’s, whose name is the only one anyone will remember.