"Heard about it" would be a gross understatement - it's completely taken over every medium of discussion in the country. In a rather macabre way it demonstrates what it means to live in an information age: an event of such magnitude generates a huge quantity of information, from facts to opinions to outright lies, and the information rapidly flows out from ground zero to flood every available pool and niche. I've seen it reported on the Web at all major international news sites, as well as in some high-profile blogs such as Pharyngula at ScienceBlogs.com.Piet_B wrote:Someone near there heard about it?
It's a horrible tragedy, of course, but what's almost equally horrible is how quickly some people have rushed in to twist its meaning toward their own ends. The manifest left behind by the shooter is making things worse, because it gives pretty much everyone something to latch on to. Those wishing to raise hysteria about the dangers of videogames tout the fact that the killer was into first-person shooters. Those who oppose the theory of evolution are having a ball with the killer calling himself "natural selector" and wanting to eradicate those he deemed unfit to live. Those looking for reinforcement for their anti-Americanism overemphasise the example set by American school shootings and the (completely predictable) gloating of the Westboro Baptist Church, as if those are somehow representative of the U.S. in general. There's a deeply bitter irony in the realisation that so many people, while professing a devotion to making the world a better place, are actually acting out the killer's slogan, "humanity is overrated".
Apart from that loud minority, the general mood here seems to be one of solemnity and mourning mixed with disbelief. I expect that the speculation on what makes a young man's mind snap like that will run its course without reaching any conclusive answers, since the shooter fired his final round into his own head and died in hospital before the end of the day. Personally, I just hope this will remain an isolated incident and won't provoke any overblown and oppressive countermeasures in the name of making our society "safer".
