JS stopped on his way out the door this morning and admonished:

“Don’t read the blogs. You’ll just make yourself angry and frustrated. You don’t need to get really upset right now.”

The boy knows me pretty well.

He was, of course, talking about all the spew going on regarding the shooting at Fort Hood yesterday. The event brought back ugly memories of being a young, new reporter sent to cover what was then the largest mass murder in U.S. history:  the Luby’s shooting in Killeen in 1991. It took me years to come to grips with what had happened that day. I knew no one inside that restaurant, but watching people being told someone they loved had died, looking into the blank eyes of those who survived… it was slow-moving nightmare. The major networks came and went, but for those of us who lived there, it hit you on a personal level. They were our neighbors. Pulling baseless accusations and guesses out of our asses to fill space and airtime was akin to firing bullets at those people all over again.

And, here we are again. My heart goes out to all those poor souls involved. The horror, the pain, the mind-numbing confusion of it all. It saddens me because I’ve seen that kind of horror up close. It fills your nose for days. Your mind can’t find the right file to put the images. Your heart feels torn in two.

So, Jim was right. I can’t read the insanity today. It was bad enough that someone I’ve know since college (a conservative christian) wrote “Anyone who does not believe Islam is a religion of violence is either naive or a fool” on his Facebook page yesterday. While I have not commented on his equally stupid posts before, the anger at the utter contempt and hatred of that statement forced me to respond. And, to my surprise, many others did as well, a great many christians who were admonishing him on his unchristian-like behavior.

The filth that bubbles up like sewage from the gutters is reeking today. The self-proclaimed “good” christians denouncing all Muslims (or anyone with a last name other than Smith), screaming “terrorism” and somehow linking this horrific crime to our President… it all makes me choke. I feel for Muslims or anyone from the Middle East who lives, peacefully, in our country right now. Somehow, in the minds of all the raving pundits and blogging idiots, all of these people are evil and responsible for what happened yesterday.

The blood spilled on 9-11, in the name of Allah, is no more horrific than the blood spilled at the Salem witch trials in the name of God. Or the Inquisition. Or the Crusades. Or that of a doctor shot to death entering his church. No religion is free of its extremists and violence. No religion is exempt.

But, in the face of such carnage, we want immediate answers and someone or something to punish. We want someone to suffer. We, as a nation, somehow think the answer to violence is always more violence. Eye for an eye. Arm for an arm. Death for death.

It makes me tired. And sad.

So, I’m trying very hard not to read blogs and much of the news today. There will be nothing new. The investigation has barely started. No one knows why yet. So, the vacuum will be filled with endless speculation, no matter how hatefully, incendiary or wrong.

I wish peace to those involved… the families of both the victims and the suspect, the law enforcement and emergency personnel and those who live and work at Fort Hood.

And, I wish peace for those of us who just hurt today. Because while, in times such as this, humanity can be at its best, it is also at its absolute worst.

*bimbles off*