Feb 20 2008
Tragedy Forgotten
A horrible tragedy happened yet again on a college campus; a man who has been identified as a former Northern Illinois University student walked into a lecture hall last Thursday afternoon and opened fire before killing himself. Six people died and 16 others were wounded. When it appeared on Yahoo’s homepage, the first thing that came to mind was “Not Again”!
As I read the article, all I could think of is why are they doing this, and what a senseless crime to commit. I was expecting a huge cover on the story over the weekend, but they barely mentioned it. I can’t believe that they would rather talk about Britney Spears and her marital problems and not something that is more relevant. It really saddens me to know that we don’t even care any more that things like this could be avoided totally. We need to address the issue and it seems as though no one wants to put this as priority number 1 on there ‘things to do list’. This is crazy when you think that parents are making all sorts of sacrifices to make sure the kids get into colleges. They’re selling things, they’re taking out second mortgages on their homes just so there kids can have a better life. The six students who died in that lecture hall will not continue on with their lives, because some lunatic decided that he will just end it today and in a cowardly manner he took other lives as well.
Here is what I think the reason why is: the killer knows that America will air a 15 second segment on the evening news, show his face and never talk about it again. Life will continue on just like normal. I went on-line to do more research and not even the top web sites (i.e. Yahoo, Google, or even CNN) are discussing the tragedy that happened a week ago. People, this happened last week. I’m a little disturbed about this, and I would just like to bring it to the fore-front before it is buried under all the other irrelevant events happening in America. We need to recheck our priorities and do something before this turns into a sick trend that kids will do, just to get their kicks. It needs to stop.
I completely agree. Unfortunately, important news like this is only mentioned temporarily, while other news like Britney and her rehab, Clemens and steroids, etc. are mentioned almost on a daily basis. It is sad to say, but I think the majority of folks actually would rather hear the gossip type stories rather than the real stories that affect our community. This is why I think the media caters to that.
Either way, this is a very sad situation and my heart goes out to all the families affected.