Summary
The nation's response to the tragedy at Virginia Tech University is to be as expected. No doubt the flags fly at half-staff; there will be numerous candlelight vigils held across the nation for the fallen; tributes songs, poems, memorials will begin to surface and remind us that there are good people out there that care for the 33 souls, 33 people that they never knew. This invasion on a place of sanctuary will no doubt rise to the infamous status of the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church, the Columbine High School attack and Amish schoolhouse shootings, and the Kent State Massacre.
Thumbing through the pages of American history, I stumbled across the Boston Massacre of 1770. British soldiers opened fire on the streets of Boston, killing five. The citizens of that time saw the death of five as a massacre. In a horrible, twisted sense of the cliche, those were the good old days. After the events at Virginia Tech, the perception of a "massacre" seems rather all the more ridiculous -- one individual shoots nearly 50 people, kills 32 in addition to himself. Things can't be more twisted, shocking and grotesque than that, can they? Well, actually, they can.See the full content of this document
Extract
Making a Point: Tragedy Is Sadly Common
In fact, things are a lot worse; we just fail to notice. For example, according to ...
See the full content of this document
Sponsored links
