AURORA

The carnage of last Friday’s theatre massacre in Aurora Colorado injected a horrifying and everlasting trauma on friends, family and the community there like nothing anyone could ever imagine. The bald faced terror and shock that an event like this creates is something most of us will never experience. Unexpected and unexplainable Catastrophes have a way of shattering the ever so thin plate glass layer of civility that provides us all with the illusion of relative safety and comfort as we go about our lives. Those who survive these ordeals are often released of their innocence and left with little more then bare naked questions about the randomness of chance and the meaning of their lives. They are forever changed.

In the days and weeks following this tragedy we will all be spectators to a grand showing of political hand wringing and blame throwing over this incident. The lefties will bring out their time honored gun control mantra. The government controlled media will hunt feverishly for a connection between the murderer and anything conservative or right wing. ABC wrote a new chapter in the art of despicable conduct on the very morning of the shooting when they initially identified a man in Colorado with the same name as the suspect as being a member of the Tea Party. They retracted their piece after it was discovered that it was a different person altogether but they broadcasted it on network news none the less. I honestly have a hard time finding anything more grossly unprofessional and irresponsible then that bit of trash news from ABC only a few hours after the tragedy occurred. I can only hope there is a special place in Hell for liberals like that.

Both the emperor and Mitt Romney stopped throwing dirt clods at each other and addressed the Aurora tragedy. I watched both speak and neither took cheap shots or played politics with the moment. The emperor without a teleprompter makes a lot of his staffers nervous, especially after last week’s debacle in Roanoke Virginia but he handled himself fairly well and didn’t go all Trayvon Martin with the victims. I have no complaints.  

News stations all over the country sent reporters to the scene in a frenzied stampede and declared on camera to their viewers that they were all grieving with the victims and their families during this trying and difficult time. It was like they jumped in line at the convenience store to claim they bought the winning lottery ticket to! I don’t think even well intentioned news networks understand how little we care about their reporters and their phony grieving dialogues. Most of us know they want ratings for their network and the reporter wants a Pulitzer. After that it is completely inappropriate for them to insert themselves in any other way into the event. True grieving does not a camera want.

As usual, the suspect always becomes an instant celebrity during incidents like this thanks to the media. The Aurora shooting suspect has had more personal information about his life made public in the first 24 hours then the president has yet divulged about his in the last four years. Funny how quick the media can garner information when they really want it. I wonder how many other borderline psychopaths are out there right now watching the news coverage and salivating at the possibility of creating their own little piece of infamy. When you’re at wit’s end, you stopped taking your meds and your thoughts are getting more and more radical, being famous for a while seems pretty cool I imagine. Does anybody know a better and faster way to get the president of the United States to fly in to your town and talk about you?

In a year or two, someone will one up the Aurora killer. The news people will zoom in and establish another group grieving session. The suspect will have his sixth grade picture posted all over the web and the world. Every friend he ever had will write a book. Politicians will dust off their playbook and sound bites will be flying everywhere from cable news experts. The tragedy in Aurora will take the place of Columbine or some other mass shooting as a reference for talking heads to launch their discussions. But just like in Columbine, and just like Virginia Tech and just like all the other senseless, hideous act of mass violence on school campuses or malls, there will always be the real people who were affected forever. The deceased, the families, the close friends and others who will never be the same. There will be suicides and substance abuse, spousal violence and depression. The cameras will have been long gone; the politicians will have evaporated into thin air. The ceremonies and vigils a thing of history. What will remain is the heavy burden of memory and a constant reflection in the mirror that won’t go away.

There are victims of Aurora that will be incubating for years and it is likely that somewhere or sometime in the future, a fire fighter, a law enforcement officer, a wife, a husband, a son or daughter, a brother or sister, a mom or dad, a store owner, a priest or a best friend will once again experience in some way the horrific after effects of that night in Aurora Colorado.

Who will grieve with them then…………………..