The Bridge No One Crossed

Bridgethought of the Day: Why is it that for a person to get a closer, deeper understanding of God (and the meaning of life), they must always separate themselves from other people?

And yet other people are one of the most important elements of life. And being cut off from them can be demoralizing; it can turn the heart inside out.

Nobody wants to meet him, but everybody did. Meet "Cho", aka "Mr. Question Mark". The worst kind of meeting is at the end of a loaded gun, especially after the trigger is pulled. The explosion was as close to atomic as any person could probably get. What blew?

Betsy L. Angert has an unusual, insightful, and in many circles, probably unpopular take on the Virginia Tech "shooter", mass murderer, and almost-grad.

"My heart aches. Of course I mourn the passing of the thirty-two Virginia Polytechnic University students, as do we all throughout the globe. Nevertheless, I cannot forget how my heart hurts for the thirty-third victim, the one the media never seems to count among those killed, Seung-Hui Cho." Read more...

There are the expected reactions of disgust that a mass murderer should inspire sympathy, and the general idea that it is almost criminal to empathize with a criminal, especially one whose actions were so callous, cruel, and randomly destructive. I would hope, however, that this same sentiment would apply to politicians and leaders who send thousands to war to kill thousands more with no justifiable national defense reason. Why suddenly give them immunity, sympathy, and support?

The solution to terrorism is like the solution to random mass murders - stop burning bridges, start building and crossing over them. No one apparently tried hard enough to cross the bridge to Seung-Hui Cho. Not that I blame his parents or family, or anyone else. Society itself, here in America, makes crossing important bridges difficult to impossible by virtue of not being on the to-do list in a crammed timeframe for survival.