Virginia Tech Tragedy

I refer to this as a tragedy because I was finding the references to massacre by the media to sound canned, almost as though it were a show. "NBC will be right back to Massacre at Virginia Tech." It made it sound like a bad made-for television movie.

In terms of the horror of it, there is not too much to say. It was pretty much every parent's nightmare and was the type of daily occurrence that takes place in much of the world that we are so fortunate not to experience very often in North America and Europe.

I am distressed that the assignation of blame is already beginning before parents and friends have even had a chance to say good-bye and I am afraid that much of the discussion will not be fair to the Virginia Tech administration.

I lived in Virginia for ten years before moving north partially due to its right-wing political climate. If the so-called Commonwealth wants to start examining things, it might start with its own system of law and justice, before trying to throw blame on the administration of Virginia Tech.

Part of the problem here is that the shooter had the good sense to kill himself. Unfortunately, the "Commonwealth" now will be unable to do one of the show murder trials that it is so good at and now has to find some other place to foist blame. Hmm, the guns appear to be sold legally and we can't admit that the "Commonwealth's" permissive gun laws might have had something to do with this tragedy, so why don't we blame it on Virginia Tech.

Murders happen all over the country and blocks of cities are seldom shut down in the interim unless the accused is directly cornered. The President of George Washington made this point today, saying that GW occupies 25 city blocks. Virginia Tech is a large sprawling campus. As sad and tragic as this is, Virginia Tech made the best choice they could given the information that they had. Obviously in retrospect they would have acted differently, although it is not entirely clear whether that would have changed the outcome or not.

Let's not let the politicians' desire to shift blame, shift our focus from remembering the entire Virginia Tech community and communities and states around the South and the country, including North Carolina, Georgia, New York and others, who have lost sons and daughters.

I have at times written on a site called DaveSez which has a focus on the ACC and Virginia Tech is one of the newer members of this conference, but I think that we can all agree with what he posted on his site this week--this week, we are all Hokies in spirt.