April 17, 2007, The Horror
Words fail me in talking about the worst-ever-gun-rampage-in-American-history that left 32 people dead after a shooting spree at Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg, VA yesterday.
Perhaps there is something frightening about April in this country... (T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land called April the cruelest month)... we had the Oklahoma City bombing 12 years ago this week, the Columbine shootings 8 years ago this week... and now this.
I don't know. What events like this show is that neither I, nor anyone else I know, seem to know anything about what makes the universe-- or especially the human soul-- tick. An utterly senseless horror, about which we will learn nothing. As "the facts" and the presumably irrational motivations of the gunman (a radio report I'm listening to identifies him as an "Asian male student") are learned... they will, in the end, still mean nothing.
Because this act of horror was, like all acts of horror, in the end, totally senseless.
My heart goes out to all of those touched by this horror.
Comments
A Symptom of our "Chain Letter Society"?
Read an analysis of the influences in our "Chain Letter Society" that may be precipitating events like the tragedy at Virginia Tech and how our focus on winning and being number one may be fostering a generation of children with fully inadequate coping skills who have a misguided sense of self-worth...here:
www.thoughttheater.com
Posted by Daniel DiRito at April 17, 2007 9:46 AM