Degrees of separation

[julesjones]

I haven't commented here on the killings at Virginia Tech yet -- there's shock and grief enough, and I can't say any more than the obvious, that this is a terrible thing. One of the dead lecturers was the son of the sf writer Michael Bishop. The nature of fandom means there's an entire web of people with first and second and third degrees of separation right there. But another of the dead taught one of my friends some years ago. This is the nature of multiple murder at a school -- teachers are people who have touched the lives of many, many other people, and their loss takes something away from more than just their family and friends.

I have no personal reason to grieve tonight, but many of my friends and friends of friends do. My condolences and prayers are all I can offer.

Comments

[silly-swordsman.livejournal.com]

When something like this happens I'm always reminded of a paraphrase of the Open Source Software dictum that "many eyeballs make all bugs shallow".

It feels like "many mouths make all comments shallow", a sort of "AOL! AOL! AOL!", regardless of how sincere the condoleances may be meant.

So I tend to keep schtum, as I simply don't know what to say that doesn't sound like a rote-delivered "mee too".

Personally, I can only say the obvious.

[julesjones]

I know -- I wouldn't have said anything at all, for just that reason, if it hadn't turned out that a couple of the people I know were students at VT and are very directly affected by this.