ARIZONA GRIEVING

Arizona coyotes howling. Their song sounds like my grief feels...


 
Sometimes things are supposed to happen a certain way. 

I drafted a long, informative blog post about the tragic shooting of Gabby Giffords and 19 others, six of whom died.  I wanted to talk about the political ramifications, about the divisive rhetoric that may or may not have inflamed an angry Jared Loughner, the shooter.  I wanted to ask what a rhetoric of violent metaphor means to our country.  I wanted to make a case that, while we cannot pin the murders on the rhetoric any more than we can officially pin other youthful violence on violent video games, a culture that allows violent rhetoric to become common place is a culture that is heading back toward wild west politics. 

And in the wild west, anything goes.

Somehow the "save function" was inoperative and I lost the entire post.  I do not have the heart or the time to recreate it - and I think maybe the universe is trying to tell me we need to grieve first, talk politics later.

So, I offer prayers for the speedy recovery of Gabby Giffords, her two staffers, Pam Simon and Ron Barber, and the other injureds whose names I do not know, as well as for those who lost their lives, including Christina Greene, 9, a student at Mesa Verde Elementary, Dorothy Morris, 76, a retiree, U.S. District Judge John Roll, 63, Dorwin Stoddard, 76, a retiree, Phyllis Scheck, 79, a retiree, and Gabe Zimmerman, 30, Giffords' director of community outreach.