I'm not one to follow the news too closely. Watching NBC Nightly News about once every three months is usually plenty to keep me depressed for a year.
But it's nearly impossible to have not seen something about Penn State and Aurora, Colorado, the past few days.
One channel was showing some Penn State students yesterday as they reacted to the sanctions being levied against the school by the NCAA. Their faces were aghast. I couldn't help but wonder had they been as heartsick about the horrific allegations (and eventually conviction on 45 counts) of child sex abuse by assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky. And were they bothered at all that their beloved head football coach, Joe Paterno, was implicated in concealing the allegations for years? I hope so.
Twitter was overrun yesterday with the same thing: How dare the NCAA punish Penn State! What does this mean for the Penn State football program? Those poor football players! One deeply disturbed person (immediately unfollowed by me) was already making jokes about the situation.
But I think the moment that stands out most to me came last week when throngs of people gathered around Paterno's statue to show their support for the coach and voice their opposition to the possibility of the statue being taken down.
Really?
Look, I get it. No one is a more rabid football fan than I. Few things are more important to me than football. But the few that are, are pretty damn important.
KIDS. WERE. MOLESTED. And you're out there staging an all-night vigil -- NOT for the victims, mind you -- but for some statue?
I was glad they eventually decided to remove the statue, because all I could think about was the victims and their families turning on the TV every day, and the slap-in-the-face it must have been seeing those people out there demonstrating.
Then there's the Colorado shooting. And again, I use Twitter for my example. One of the people I follow has posted no fewer than four pro-gun messages in the wake of this tragedy.
I'm sure you know the ones I'm talking about: "Guns don't kill people. People kill people." And "If the people in that theater had all been armed, this wouldn't have happened." Like I'm sure a hundred people all firing guns in a dark theater would have turned out real well.
And look, I know there are just as many anti-gun messages out there. This is not at all intended to support one side of the issue or the other.
It's just... people died. And the initial reaction of some is to use the occasion to push their personal agenda? I just want to ask them, what if that was your son or daughter, or brother or sister? Would you still be rushing to turn this into a political issue?
When did the world become so desensitized? Or maybe it's always been that way, and the internet just gives those people a voice now. Or maybe it's just me. Am I the one that's crazy?
I just feel like the victims in both of these tragedies-too-terrible-for-words almost become an afterthought sometimes.
Whatever happened to mourning the dead?
Can't we simply be sad for awhile? Is that still OK?
"How I wanna hear the anchor man talk about a county fair / And how we cleaned up the air / How everybody learned to care..."
But it's nearly impossible to have not seen something about Penn State and Aurora, Colorado, the past few days.
One channel was showing some Penn State students yesterday as they reacted to the sanctions being levied against the school by the NCAA. Their faces were aghast. I couldn't help but wonder had they been as heartsick about the horrific allegations (and eventually conviction on 45 counts) of child sex abuse by assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky. And were they bothered at all that their beloved head football coach, Joe Paterno, was implicated in concealing the allegations for years? I hope so.
Twitter was overrun yesterday with the same thing: How dare the NCAA punish Penn State! What does this mean for the Penn State football program? Those poor football players! One deeply disturbed person (immediately unfollowed by me) was already making jokes about the situation.
But I think the moment that stands out most to me came last week when throngs of people gathered around Paterno's statue to show their support for the coach and voice their opposition to the possibility of the statue being taken down.
Really?
Look, I get it. No one is a more rabid football fan than I. Few things are more important to me than football. But the few that are, are pretty damn important.
KIDS. WERE. MOLESTED. And you're out there staging an all-night vigil -- NOT for the victims, mind you -- but for some statue?
I was glad they eventually decided to remove the statue, because all I could think about was the victims and their families turning on the TV every day, and the slap-in-the-face it must have been seeing those people out there demonstrating.
Then there's the Colorado shooting. And again, I use Twitter for my example. One of the people I follow has posted no fewer than four pro-gun messages in the wake of this tragedy.
I'm sure you know the ones I'm talking about: "Guns don't kill people. People kill people." And "If the people in that theater had all been armed, this wouldn't have happened." Like I'm sure a hundred people all firing guns in a dark theater would have turned out real well.
And look, I know there are just as many anti-gun messages out there. This is not at all intended to support one side of the issue or the other.
It's just... people died. And the initial reaction of some is to use the occasion to push their personal agenda? I just want to ask them, what if that was your son or daughter, or brother or sister? Would you still be rushing to turn this into a political issue?
When did the world become so desensitized? Or maybe it's always been that way, and the internet just gives those people a voice now. Or maybe it's just me. Am I the one that's crazy?
I just feel like the victims in both of these tragedies-too-terrible-for-words almost become an afterthought sometimes.
Whatever happened to mourning the dead?
Can't we simply be sad for awhile? Is that still OK?
"How I wanna hear the anchor man talk about a county fair / And how we cleaned up the air / How everybody learned to care..."
