Hypocritical Perspective

[essentialsaltes]

I have no desire to take any importance away from the horrible crime at Virginia Tech, or from the pain of the community and the families, or from the memories of the slain (which include some friends-of-friends-of-friends, such as the son of SF writer Michael Bishop).
But as the media now wallow in encomia of the fallen and bloggers compile lists of their myspace pages, I just feel the need to mention that America has suffered one hundred VT massacres in Iraq. Roughly two massacres a month for the past four years.
Apart from a slideshow of the names of the week's fallen that they flash on "This Week" on Sunday morning (that I stare at morosely), they get next to no acknowledgement. Sure, the soldiers volunteered for a dangerous job, but that makes them no less innocent or make it less regrettable that their lives were cut short.
But I'm still just going to play games and drink a lot of beer on Memorial Day.

Comments

My two cents

[sjo.livejournal.com]

IIRC, about 80 people die of gunshot wounds every day in the United States. About 50 of those are self-inflicted. If the Virginia Tech massacre was such a tragedy -- and it is sad indeed -- isn't it more of a disgrace that we haven't readily available mental health care to prevent those 50 daily deaths?