re: the past few days

I'm always in class when the bad news hits.

I remember back in elementary school when word of the Oklahoma City bombing began to spread. I remember my high school being locked down for the last hour of classes due to Columbine (which I still don't get - did they think there was some nation-wide conspiracy going on? I guess they were worried about impromptu copy-cats). I remember Mr. Henline telling our AP Physics class there had been a "major terrorist attack in New York City."

I was in Contracts on Monday when I logged onto Widener's wireless, and went to my usual cycle of websites. I checked my fantasy baseball team, then moved on to Mary Katharine Ham's political blog and saw this post. I can't really remember what was taught in the remainder of the class. I was too occupied just reading and praying.

It hit me pretty hard. Not just because VT is in the ACC, but because they're in the ACC I had seen "Virgina Tech" at games - their athletes and students, their fans, their proud parents. Hell, the only football game in Groves I went to last year was against VT, when I was genuinely more concerned about my friends' safety from the very large, very packed, and very drunk crowd then whatever was happening on the field.

I don't have much to offer other than the normal shock, sadness and anger that this happened. I will add one observation - remember the Muhammad cartoons? Remember how all of the mainstream news outlets refused to publish or show the cartoons in order to respect Muslims? Contrast that to the absolute rush to air all the pictures and videos and writings of the shooter - he doesn't deserve to be named - that news outlets could get their hands on. I think its pretty damn disrespectful for CNN, Fox News, etc. to put an enormous image of the shooter pointing a gun straight into the camera on their web site's front page. Think about what that says to a VT student or parent. "Hey, here's the last thing your friend/child saw before they died." Then the subsequent captions - click here to watch his video! Click here to read his manifesto! Isn't that just granting his death wish? For the world to hear his thoughts? I don't get it. If the media is so obsessed with being PC and unoffensive, then why are they playing into this sick bastard's fame game?*

I may be rambling here, but I just refuse to watch any of his videos that he sent to NBC. At least not in the foreseeable future. I simply have no interest in hearing his explanations and excuses because what he did was unexplainable and inexcusable.

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And on a COMPLETELY different note...

My NBA fantasy league ended in pretty much the closest finish possible. Check it out (I'm the San Antonio Sirloins):

That's right. The top three teams are separated by half a point. HALF A POINT. The tie at the top was made possible by me being tied with other teams in both blocks and FG%, as you can see here. Follow me here - in the 824 individual games played by my team, if I had just one more block, I would have won outright by half a point; one less block and I would have been tied for 2nd. One block in eight-hundred and twenty four games! In. Sane.

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*The answer, of course, is that the friends and family of the VT victims won't blow up anything in response to being offended. Unlike... well, you know the rest.