Thoughts, Prayers and Condolences

Even on the far side of the world, the news still came. Even on the far side of the world, it still shocked me.

I am of course talking about the Virginia Tech. Shootings of earlier this week. I honestly don't know what to say about this but I feel that I should say something.

First off, I need to say I'm sorry. If any of you out there in Cyber Space know anyone who was at all affected by these tragedy my heart goes out to you. I am sorry that there is not more that I can do right now other than give these hollow condolences.

The news filled me with a mixture of shock, anger, sadness, frustration, terror, and most of all confusion. How can things like this keep happening? Especially in the richest country in the world.

I was in Grade 11 back in 1998 when the Columbine Shootings happened and I was scared. Here there was violence in a High School just like mine. Now here I am at the tail end of my University career and here we have a shooting at a Post Secondary Institution. It scares me to think that this type of thing seems to be following me wherever I go. But what scares me the most is that it could have just as easily happened to me.

Sure you may say that I live in Canada and not America so these things don't happen to us. Well the people of Taber, Alberta or Montreal, Quebec would beg to differ.

I just don't get it. We North Americans have some of the highest quality of life in the world and we are so quick to throw it all away. Sure this guy was from South Korea, but the vast majority of earlier school shootings were done by people born and bred in our very own backyard.

Why does this always seem to happen?

Why are always so quick to provide grief but so quick to move on and forget?

Why can we never accept some of the blame ourselves?

What's that last part? Well all of these school shootings from the Montreal Massacres to Columbine to the tragedy at the Amish School back in October to this week all of something in common. They all happened in North America. These things do not happen to often elsewhere in the world, sure there is the occasional Dunblane Tragedy but those are few and far between. The one commonality here is North American culture, which we are all a part of. There is something about us, which I really don't know, that makes this happen. Some blame the parents, some blame the media, some blame video games, it doesn't matter what the cause is, we all buy and sell it all the time.

So you say that the killer may be from South Korea, but I say that every one of us somehow has blood on our hands. How can we wash it off? I really don't know, but there has to be some way. If you find out please let me know.

Until next time,

G