My Pale Shelter

On This Day In History
1969: Murder at the Altamont Festival brings the '60's to a violent end

Quote Of The Day
"Rape! Murder! It's just a shot away!"
(The Rolling Stones)

Did anybody honestly believe that the end of Bacchanalia and debauchery would be anything other than violence and murder? How criminally naive. And amidst the chaos that he had helped to engineer by hiring Hells Angels as security and paying them with beer, including the murder of Meredith Hunter, two accidental hit and run deaths and an L.S.D. induced drowning in an irrigation canal, Mick Jagger just pathetically implored from the stage, "Hey, people. Sisters. Brothers and sisters. Brothers and sisters. Come on, now. That means everybody just cool out! Will you cool out, everybody. I know. Everybody, be cool now. Come on. Alright?"

Today we had a lockdown drill at school. I had no idea whether it was a drill or whether there was a violent intruder in the building. I have to confess, I was rather nervous. I didn't show it, but the thought that someone could burst into the classroom and start slaughtering my precious pupils ..... it really brings it home how fragile the lives we fool ourselves are safe really are.

It's just a shot away.

Gimme Shelter