I had to answer a question to a teary eyed 8 year old Timothy this morning. He caught a glimpse of the news and asked if that was going to happen to Skylar when he left for college. OK. How can you answer this question honestly? We obviously do not know what's going to happen to any of us or our loved ones at any moment in time. All he knows is that in 2 years his beloved brother will be going off to this scary place called the real world. All the horrible shit you see on the news or they talk about in school. You have to ask the question are we making them more aware....Or are we desensitizing them??I as a parent am caught in this horrible spot. I want them to grow up safe, self-assured, feeling secure, NOT scared and anxious. Not hearing/seeing all the bad things and none of the good that is left in humanity. I don't know where I'm going with this, he just got me thinking I guess.
OUR WORLD TODAY....
August. 1, 1966: Charles Whitman points a rifle from the observation deck of the University of Texas at Austin's Tower and begins shooting in a homicidal rampage that goes on for 96 minutes. Sixteen people are killed, 31 wounded
Killeen, Texas, in 1991, when George Hennard plowed his pickup truck into a Luby's Cafeteria and shot 23 people to death, then himself
May 21, 1998: 15-year-old boy shot six classmates at Heritage High School in Conyers, Georgia a suburban of Atlanta. He used weapons he stole from a locked gun cabinet in his home.
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Littleton, Colo. On April 20, 1999, two teenagers killed 12 fellow students and a teacher before taking their own lives.
The Amish school shooting occurred on the morning of Monday, October 2, 2006, when a gunman took hostages and eventually killed five girls (aged 7–13) and then killed himself at West Nickel Mines School, a one-room Amish schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, a village in Bart Township of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, United States
April 16, 2007 Thirty-three people were killed, and 22 injured on the campus of Virginia Tech in what appears to be the deadliest shooting rampage in American history, according to federal law-enforcement officials. Many of the victims were students shot in a dorm and a classroom building.
September 11, 2001, when nineteen terrorists affiliated with al-Qaeda hijacked four commercial passenger jet airliners. Each team of hijackers included a trained pilot. The hijackers intentionally crashed two of the airliners (United Airlines Flight 175 and American Airlines Flight 11) into the World Trade Center in New York City, one plane into each tower (1 WTC and 2 WTC), resulting in the collapse of both buildings soon afterward and irreparable damage to nearby buildings. The hijackers crashed a third airliner (American Airlines Flight 77) into the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, near Washington, D.C. Passengers and members of the flight crew on the fourth aircraft (United Airlines Flight 93) attempted to retake control of their plane from the hijackers; that plane crashed into a field near the town of Shanksville in rural Somerset County, Pennsylvania. In addition to the 19 hijackers, 2,973 people died; another 24 are missing and presumed dead. The victims were predominantly civilians.
WAR TOLL:
Date Total In Combat
American Deaths
Since war began (3/19/03): 3308
Total Wounded: 24645
A reported total of almost 62,000 Iraqi deaths since the war started....
ANOTHER BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD....
Sorry so random (and depressing), I guess I've just had an interesting, thought provoking morning.
