Another horrific school shooting

There has been another tragic school shooting, this time at Northern Illinois University. I don't know what to say about such senseless violence, and although many universities have updated safety protocols in the wake of Virginia Tech. it is still all-too-easy for a disturbed person to walk into a lecture hall and kill whoever happens to be there.

As John Lynch reflects at Stranger Fruit, it is sobering to learn of such events, the news making me think about escape routes & what I would do if the unthinkable happened during the course of what would have started as any other normal day. I can't simply tell myself "It couldn't happen here," and push it out of my mind, and it is a bit unnerving that we live during a time when such tragedies occur with horrifying frequency.

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Those of us who teach can imagine what would be like. A lecture hall full of students. Some eager to learn, some who couldn’t care less. Some still in their teens, some returning to college after many years. All vibrantly human. And then the unthinkable happens, as happened today in Northern…
All last week I was silent on my blog because I wasn't feeling well enough to spend much time on the computer. So I didn't post anything when many other people were writing about the horrible tragedy at Virginia Tech. I thought about what I might say if I were well enough to blog and I concluded…
I just got back home after driving from West Lafayette. I heard on the radio about YET ANOTHER HORRENDOUS SHOOTING on a university campus. My breath caught in my throat as I heard the NPR news staff interview the faculty advisor for the student newspaper at Northern Illinois University. I couldn'…
Here's Franklin Graham, from last night's Scarborough Country, reminding us of what's important about the VA Tech shooting: First of all, we know that God loves us and God cares for us. And there is a devil in this world. There is evil, and we have seen this manifest itself today in the life of…

The instructor for the class, a graduate TA, is a vertebrate paleontologist. He was hurt, but is in good enough condition to be talking to the press.

Hopefully you will get to meet him at a conference someday, and will be able to talk about much better things.

whatever happened to your post about your slight paranoia concerning these shootings? I just can't find it. I searched "shooting", "university", and "Illinois" yet still no result.

By the_astrocreep (not verified) on 29 Feb 2008 #permalink