10th Apr 2008
april is the cruelest month
We’re on lockdown, more or less, since a threat was found scrawled on a desk in another building earlier this week. The threat specifically mentioned a shooting on April 10, so there are cops everywhere checking IDs and I have to say that I think the University’s response has been excellent. They’re doing everything they can do — and today is probably the best day of all to be on campus. Yet many students (most, I think actually) aren’t here and many faculty have canceled class. I didn’t, because I don’t want the bastard who did this to have that kind of power. To be honest, I’m not worried about today. I’m worried about 4/16 or 4/20 — the anniversaries of Virginia Tech and Columbine, and also the anniversary of Hitler’s death, the Oklahoma city bombing, and the Waco shootings.
There has been terrorism in this country since the Europeans found it, and very probably before. We have to be acutely aware of what we don’t want to think about — that shooters go for groups of people or situations where they can pick people off, so I don’t park in the garage but rather out in the open, and sitting on the stage at Convocation always makes me uneasy. April is nothing but anniversaries and on a bright beautiful spring day I am back, remembering those rainy days in Colorado almost 10 years ago.
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