Mondays - Still Bad

Today's round of school shootings has me particularly perturbed. Mainly, because it is another reminder that I've grown a hard calloused heart and that what used to horrify my mind, shock my senses and bring nightmares to my nights, merely has me shaking my head, looking at my watch and wondering how long it will take for humans to just hurry on up and go extinct. Nothing personal, but I'm getting pretty damn tired of Us.

Kids, in general, are innocent. Amish kids are something even beyond that so today's mess is an especially disgusting act. These are folks who specifically and willfully reject a world of cars, cell phones and Paris Hilton. Sounds nice, doesn't it? Well, it also means they churn their own butter, grow their own food and build their own homes. In other words, the Amish life is not an easy one and most of us wouldn't last a day. Still, I think some of us look upon them with awe and a touch of envy. They exist in a place and time when things were simpler.

That is, until today.

When did school shootings begin? I see constant references to Columbine but only because it had the highest casualty rate. It certainly wasn't the first and apparently, not the last. Actually, in 1979, sixteen-year-old Brenda Spencer received a rifle for her birthday and used it to shoot kids at an elementary school near her San Diego home, wounding nine and killing two. When a reporter asked her later why she had done it, she replied: "I don't like Mondays. This livens up the day." (The Boomtown Rats jumped on this catchy phrase and made it their biggest hit.)

This is the earliest example I can find and yet, the main ingredients couldn't possibly appear less innocent and idyllic. A teenage girl in sunny San Diego trying out her Christmas gift - just something to spice up an otherwise droll day. The incident did not involve a confused boy obsessed with video games, or any feelings of social ostricization, no decades-old grudges to be squared away. Not unlike the spooky faceless terrorists we 'fight' abroad, we may have to start asking ourselves the same question that keeps popping up around Washington: Are we somehow unintentionally breeding these fuckers?

So, it may have all began with Brenda but the real question is: Where does it all end?

The silicon chip inside her head
Gets switched to overload.
And nobody's gonna go to school today,
She's going to make them stay at home.
And daddy doesn't understand it,
He always said she was as good as gold.
And he can see no reason
'Cause there are no reasons
What reason do you need to be shown?

Tell me why?
I don't like Mondays.
Tell me why?
I don't like Mondays.
Tell me why?
I don't like Mondays.
I want to shoot
The whole day down.

The telex machine is kept so clean
As it types to a waiting world.
And mother feels so shocked,
Father's world is rocked,
And their thoughts turn to
Their own little girl.
Sweet 16 ain't so peachy keen,
No, it ain't so neat to admit defeat.
They can see no reasons
'Cause there are no reasons
What reason do you need to be shown?

Tell me why?
I don't like Mondays.
Tell me why?
I don't like Mondays.
Tell me why?
I don't like Mondays.
I want to shoot
The whole day down.

All the playing's stopped in the playground now
She wants to play with her toys a while.
And school's out early and soon we'll be learning
And the lesson today is how to die.
And then the bullhorn crackles,
And the captain crackles,
With the problems and the how's and why's.
And he can see no reasons
'Cause there are no reasons
What reason do you need to die?

Tell me why?
I don't like Mondays.
Tell me why?
I don't like Mondays.
Tell me why?
I don't like Mondays.
I want to shoot
The whole day down.


Brenda was sentenced to prison for 25 years to life, currently being served at The California Institution for Women in Corona, California. She has been up for parole four times and has been turned down each time. Brenda will be eligible for parole again in 2009.