8:53 a.m. - 2007-04-17
dealing with tragedy...part next
At this point, everyone I know at VT has checked in safe and sound. This does not mean that my snarky comments will stop, it just means that they'll be surface, general situation reaction snarky comments.
Our family friend GP works near VT. His girlfriend works at VT in a building near where the shootings took place. She was safe, and left at 12:30 yesterday. GP is dealing with this thing, at least partly, by sending forwards about completely unrelated news stories--specifically, the Montebello High School flag story.
I checked it out on Snopes.com and the story is legit. Over a year old... and the highlights are this: some 1000 students from two rival high schools came and, among other things, took down the US & state flag, put a Mexican flag up, and reversed the US flag beneith it, and ran it up the flagpole. Pictures were taken. The story was not run nationally, and the e-mail protests it. (The e-mail lacks the facts about who committed the heinous flag acts, and calls for us to act against the immigrant evil, etcetera.)
And the twisted part of my brain took the high school rivalry thing and wondered--"was the shooter a student from Not-VT? Could this be over an academic suspension at another university and a bad break-up?" Which brings the question--how twisted am I to think of things like this?
I did not make any snarky comments about the school of origin of the shooter to my friends. But I have to tell SOMEBODY, lest it perforate my brain.
And now, I'm going to cause trouble elsewhere....
