in a half an hour there will be a news conference to address the shootings at Virginia tech. like much of the rest of the wired world, i have a few questions about what the fuck this means about anything, everything. a student killed 32 people, 12 more are in the hospital. they’re calling it the worst shooting in our nation’s history. it’s incredible, how one person can create so much horror and carnage and bloodshed. it’s absolutely horrifying.

and still, what do we expect? every day we are given thousands of opportunities to view carnage and bloodshed first hand, either for entertainment’s sake or defended by our commander in chief, who refuses to answer for the murders taking place by his very hand. murder, and violence, and give me what’s mine, are our modus operandi. the united states of america was founded on the principal of kill ‘em and get ‘em out of our way, and we’ve only continued what our founding fathers started. we take our own personal manifest destinies with us everywhere we go, we live by these edicts, but we pull our hair and tear our clothes when it becomes too much, when some nutbag crosses the line.

i feel sorrow for the victims. i feel sorrow for everyone touched, even through the most remote passing, by this. i pray for them. but what plagues me is not how this happened or why this happened, but how we will move on from this. nothing will change. those of us not involved directly will react, impose stricter controls and security measures, look at strangers with even more suspicion, and watch this become a political, media, ego spectacle. when that happens, who will you pray for?