The Virginia Media Shooting

Vester Lee Flanagan ruthlessly gunned down Alison Parker (24) and Adam Ward (27). If all facts are to be believed, this was a crash course for which the two victims had no idea how this man saw the world. Not only did we see the live feed through Adam's camera, as he was recording it, but Vester took it upon himself to actually capture it on his own camera and post it online.

I have no words to speak about the cowardly act of firing on unarmed people while their back is turned, but it does raise questions about how much coverage of these tragedies effect our desperate need to be heard.

I think in the world of information first, the internet really has changed the dynamics of human interaction. Without going into the thought processes of Vester, we are instantly fed so much background of all parties involved. And I got to thinking about these other shootings and seeing the aftermath and the sadness it brings, and it doesn't appear to slow this train down. Watching terrible events happen seem to have zero effect on carrying out your own agenda.

For instance, I recently watched the Boston Marathon bombing documentary and saw it from a different perspective. It was nauseating to see, because it had no reason to be a preventable terrorist attack. These monsters actually walked amongst the crowd, blending in as typical Americans, and then unleashed terror. I wanted to reach through the screen and choke these kids before that happened. But it was looking at history. The sickening feeling is that you see it unfold and can't undo it. I would think that perhaps there are people who see these events and are deterred by the anger and pain it causes to innocent people. The mind boggling thing is that Vester and all these other shooters or stabbers or whatever, have no clue the toll it takes on humanity. It's as if they elected to place themselves on a different strata. A God ability that seemed to have been stripped on this planet. I just don't see and cannot feel the amount of anguish a person could inflict if their world tends to be so dark. My guess is that they don't see the aftermath.

But back to my point, I feel that maybe if we didn't see so much coverage of these events, there wouldn't be decisive arguments online. Or people being unnecessarily cruel. I think the less we see of these events, we tend not to understand these options. I don't recall this many large scale tragic events as I was growing up in the early 80's. Probably were, just didn't hear about them until much later. Like a myth. I recall hearing about a politician in Pennsylvania who killed himself on live television. I just heard about it. It was strange to even wrap my head around it. It seemed my imagination made it far more tragic than the actual event.

I don't think we need to see everything.