Tornado Watches

Entry:

Storms throughout Calhoun County today. The government and weather services have issued tornado watches. This has led to a deluge of emails from students asking if I am going to cancel classes, or if they can be excused. Since I have been at the school since the early morning the answers are No and Yes. Class is still being held, and yes, of course, safety comes first. I will need to reiterate this to the classes that their safety always comes first and they don’t need to ask my permission to protect themselves.

Driving to school today I was reading some of the ridiculous signs that populate the margins of the road. One, right outside of Jacksonville, depicts stick figures shooting each other, stick figures laying on the ground bleeding to death, and a message that “this” is what happens when “god is removed from schools.”

Another at an old gas station / four wheeler shop claims “Jesus is the true light. Are you a reflector?”

These signs range from the comical, to the occasionally clever, to the terrifying.

But I can’t help but wonder how this spectacle distracts us from the overriding normalcy of most of what surrounds us. For every ridiculous Jesus/Hell/Abortion billboard are dozens advertising commercial goods and services. Yet those never catch my attention in the same way. Jesus Hell is much more likely to get attention than Used Tires.

In this way, we see how spectacle is not just distraction, but purposeful misrepresentation of what and who people and places are.

End Entry.