Words and What-Ifs...

Another VA Tech post...

I'm sitting here watching The Today Show (God only knows why), and I'm starting to get annoyed at some of their coverage (gee, that never happens).

First off NBC News decided to go with "Massacre at Virginia Tech" as their tagline for coverage. I can't help but think that every time "massacre" is said, someone, especially anyone connected to the tragedy, gets a good swift punch to the stomach. I think NBC wants that to happen. Their choice of words is pretty obvious as you watch the coverage..."bloodbath", "carnage", etc. I have my theory as to why they choose these words, but that'll be another post.

Additionally, many of the stories play the "what-if" and "blame" games. That pretty much started by midday Monday. I know we need to understand what happened and the killer's motivation in order to hopefully avoid another horrible tragedy such as this one. However, the constant flood of reports on how this murderer should've been put into counseling, etc etc. just seems to play the blame game. As withdrawn as he was, as grotesque as his plays and writings were, apparently you can't FORCE an adult student to go into counseling unless he wants to. The professors and VA Tech did the best they could do within the parameters they could work with to try to help him and shouldn't be blamed for not stopping the attack beforehand. As far as the gun control debate being re-ignited, I'll save that for later.