Monday, July 23, 2012

On my mind

Our country offers opportunity and freedom. Applied by a sane loving person, everyone benefits. This freedom, which many of us take for granted, covers all. Even those for whatever reason decide to kill as many fellow humans as possible. Arming ourselves to the teeth will not prevent innocent people from dying anymore than taking away the guns. The lid has been off that Pandora's box for too long.

We instead need to change our collective mindset. We control our immediate environment, so we need  awareness, then action.

I wish the media would resist labeling their coverage of such events with catch phrases which cheapen the lives of the dead. Yes, learning about the killer and the hows and whys fit right in with our gossipy society. We care more about the details of a movie star's divorce than the children "in that other part of town" who grow up alone and starving.

Are our lives so miserable and mundane that murder no longer makes a dent in our collective psyche? Nowadays only the "massacres" grab the media's attention. What about the woman who died at the hands of her spouse? Why don't we care about her? What about the families that have to grieve their mother, sister, cousin? Even victims of "massacres" fall by the wayside with the next horrific occurrence.

At first, the losses sear our hearts with grief and a determination to change. Then we build memorials so we will not forget. We drag out the dead to mourn on anniversaries. The years pass and those who remember the events firsthand start to die. The younger ones remember the carnage as they do the past, with hazy pictures.

The cycle continues.

Later Dude.

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