Thursday, April 19, 2007

Silver Lining: The cynic in me used to always shrug off news descriptions of murder victims. It seemed that everyone who died automatically became a saint.

The descriptions are always the same: "He was a nice man." "She was a generous person."

You never hear anyone say: "Actually, he was a real jerk."

Now talking to the families and friends of the deceased from Virginia Tech, I'm finding that these really were kind and decent people who were needlessly killed. They had proven it through their work, their devotion to their families, and their time spent with charities.

This doesn't mean that only the good die young, that they are either targeted or just always have the misfortune of being in the line of fire. It shows that most of humanity is good.

I know that's hard to remember sitting in rush-hour traffic, or just while watching the news. But most people are generally good at heart, just trying to do what they can to make a living and not harming anyone in the process. It's just the few assholes that get all the attention.

So despite this senseless tragedy, or the next violent episode that will undoubtedly occur, at least we can remember that, regardless of how many bad people there are in the world, we will always greatly outnumber them.