From The Chicago Reader Blogs:
On Saturday the Sun-Times ran a small item about a man who had set himself on fire during rush hour Friday morning near the Ohio Street exit on the Kennedy. His identity has still not been officially determined, but members of the local jazz and improvised music community say they are certain it was Malachi Ritscher, a longtime supporter of the scene.
[...]
Buried on Ritscher’s web site Chicago Rash Audio Potential, a compendium of invaluable show postings, artwork, and photography, are a suicide note and an obituary. Both indicate that he was deeply troubled by the war in Iraq and pinpoint it as a motive for suicide [...] Ritscher was a familiar face at antiwar protests, and he was arrested more than once for his involvement, including this time this past May. A note found at the scene of the immolation reportedly read “Thou Shalt Not Kill.”
This news bit has effected me deeply in ways I can’t quite comprehend. I’ve become absolutely complacent about national and state politics, deciding instead to focus my mediocre efforts on projects where I can effect change directly. I’ve given up on American society to make any sort of rational decisions about their leaders, and I’ve given up on American leaders making any sort of beneficial decisions for the populace. Even in this day after the election, this day of joy for Democrats And Other Good Hearted Individuals, I’m still cynical that anything beneficial and/or meaningful and/or different will arise out of this change in power. The destruction of Iraq, the destruction of the environment, the destruction of the things and people I take for granted, all of it affects me. Depresses me. Makes me irritable and hopeless. I have to tread water for a while until I catch the next wave.
There’s a scene in Waking Life where the main character is walking down the street and runs into a guy who rants about society a little bit and then says “I feel that the time has come to project my own inadequacies and dissatisfactions into the sociopolitical and scientific schemes. Let my own lack of a voice be heard!”. Then he sits down on a street corner and lights himself on fire.
I’ve always thought – that is me. One day I will be old and people will listen to me even less than they do now and I will have lived my life. Then, I will choose the time and fashion of my death and that will be my statement. I read Ritscher’s “mission statement”, and I think – that is me. I’m just not old yet.
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