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Monday, April 16, 2007

Virginia Tech Tragedy

I was running around literally all day long. I had to go into town early this morning to get to the bank and handle some financial stuff, then I went grocery shopping, then I came home and called the local computer shoppe about the modem and they had me bring the XP box in (which I go into detail about over to The Wording). At any rate, the only TV I saw today was Frasier and a few minutes of Will & Grace, then the Charmed mini-marathon (of course), so you can imagine how shocked I was when I came across the headline from the BBC.

It seems almost more shocking to me that this was going on and I didn't hear anything about it until earlier tonight. When the Columbine thing happened, cameras were rolling as it went on; this time, it seems that the guy killed at least one person, then about 32 others some two hours later!

And I'm not being glib or trying to be cute here, but it occurs to me that I knew more about Anna Nicole's flipping diaries - and sooner - than I know about this whole episode so far. Right now I'm watching a Dateline special which is drawing parallels to Columbine (of course) and they've actually spent more time on that than they have on the actual details of the incident at-hand. I don't think much of anyone knows much of anything about what exactly went down, when it went down, who was responsible, and why it happened.

It has yet to really sink in and I guess it makes some kind of weird sense in a way, but in our celebrity-obsessed culture, we know more about things that truly don't matter than those that do. I had the radio on all day long and was watching cable TV and flipping channels here and there and was online all day long, blogging and reading and working on the site and it really is true that, had this been Anna Nicole's cause of death announcement, I'd already be sick of it. I'd have heard about it on the radio, seen it on the TV, and glossed past it online several times over by now.

But excepting the celebrity obsession - that's a dead horse, anyway - I have to wonder if maybe the media played it right this time. They haven't turned it into a big show like they do everything else. You know those sumbitches over to Columbine made a rock video of the incident and sold it? The effing cops did! And they rushed to report rapes and murders and all such when Katrina hit, and then later kind of admitted they jumped the gun. Well, you know, not so much admitted as basically didn't disagree when they were accused of it. I truly don't think anyone really knows exactly what happened this go-round, but at least they're playing it close to the hilt instead of exploiting the hell out of it.

Ah, but there's always tomorrow. And the rest of the week. And the end of the year retrospective. And the after-school special.

Our heartfelt condolences go out to everyone who lost loved ones in this tragic incident, as well as everyone indirectly affected. This is actually an historic event, being the worst gun-related crime in America, so it's going to be hard for a lot of people. This is one of those things they will be forced to face and deal with for the rest of their lives - not something they can just put behind them and move on from.

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