Of course, more than two dozen innocent people being executed by a mad gunman is just another normal, everyday occurrence in Iraq or Afghanistan these days where broken nations full of rival factions and foreign occupiers experience a living hell. 

But on a college campus in Virginia?

The first shots were reportedly fired around 7:15 a.m. this morning.

Caught the first word when CBS broke in at 12:38 with a brief report there had been a tragedy in Blacksburg, Virginia at the campus of Virginia Tech.

It’s one hour and 20 minutes later – all the cable news networks are covering it, but the “Big 3,” i.e. CBS, ABC, and NBC are sticking with their soap operas.

By now, dear reader, surely you too, have heard.

Still no answer from authorities to the basic questions:

Who?

How?

Why?

Life, the life we live at this moment, is a precious gift.

It can end at any moment.

Let the ones you care about, the ones you truly love, know it, while you’re both still here to share it.

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Peter Freyne, 1949-2009, wrote the weekly political column "Inside Track," which originated in the Vanguard Press in the mid 1980s; he brought it to Seven Days in 1995. He retired it shortly before his death in January, 2009. We all miss him.