What Caught My Eye Today - Colorado, Warner Bros., Syria

Colorado - I bet if you asked most Coloradans they would be hard press to recall a month as lousy as July has been. Half state got ravaged by firestorms and if that's not enough, some whack job takes completely takes leave of his senses in the middle of a packed movie theater. A gunman in a gas mask and body armor killed 12 people at a midnight premiere of the new "Batman" movie in a suburb of Denver early on Friday, opening fire on moviegoers after hurling a gas canister into the theater. Armed with an assault rifle, a shotgun and a pistol, he wounded 59 others with gunfire during a screening of "The Dark Knight Rises" at a mall in Aurora. Arriving on the scene within 90 seconds of the first emergency calls, police immediately took into custody the suspect in a parking lot behind the cinema, where he surrendered without a fight. President Barack Obama and his Republican presidential rival, Mitt Romney, toned down their campaigns, pulled their campaign ads from Colorado and dedicated their scheduled events to sympathy for the victims. I am generally an optimist. Sure, my sense of humor is a bit twisted, but I really am a glass half-full sort of guy. Then something like this happens. I cannot help but wonder what sort of world we live in where someone has the capacity and will to commit such an atrocity. However, I'm confident this feeling will pass as the survivors of this tragedy show us all what it means to get back on their feet and get on with the business of living. See...glass half full. Warner Bros. - The midnight screening of "The Dark Knight Rises," of one of the most anticipated films in years became enmeshed with a horrifying tragedy. The shooting reverberated through Hollywood and upended carefully laid plans for the global release of "The Dark Knight Rises."

Warner Bros. quickly canceled a premiere planned for Paris and canceled press interviews in France. "Warner Bros. and the filmmakers are deeply saddened to learn about this shocking incident," read a statement from Warner Bros. "We extend our prayers and deepest sympathies to the victims, their loved ones and those affected by this tragedy." I cannot imagine a worse nightmare scenario for a movie opening than this. It almost makes you feel sorry for the guys in the corner office...almost.

Syria - What a mess. The Syrian uprising, also referred to as the Syrian civil war, is an ongoing internal armed conflict in Syria. It began in March 2011 with public demonstrations as part of the wider Arab Spring and developed into a nationwide uprising. Protesters have demanded the end to nearly five decades of Ba’ath Party rule, as well as the resignation of Bashar al-Assad. On July 15, the International Committee of the Red Cross assessed the Syrian conflict as a "non-international armed conflict" (the ICRC's legal term for civil war), thus applying the international humanitarian law under the Geneva Conventions in Syria. According to various sources, including the United Nations, between 18,925 and 50,170 people have been killed, of which about half were civilians. Thousands of protesters have been imprisoned, and there have been reports of widespread torture in the government's prisons. International organizations have also accused the government and Shabiha of using civilians as human shields, and of intentionally targeting civilians. The U.N. refugee agency said between 8,500 and 30,000 Syrians had entered Lebanon in the past 48 hours, and thousands of Iraqis have also returned home, a bitter trip for many who fled to Syria from their own country's civil war. Jeez. Some people just cannot catch a break. The U.N. refugee agency estimates that some 120,000 Syrian refugees were in neighboring countries and another 1 million were displaced inside Syria. Note to self: glass half full, glass half full, glass half full...