The Sandy Hook massacre is on our all minds today.
I am pretty much not not watching anything about it on TV. Really, is there anything to be gained from sticking a mic into the face of a Sandy Hook parent? Do American parents really need Geraldo Riviera to remind them to hug their kids?
But there have been several solemn and worthy pieces on this profoundly-affecting event.
John Steele Gordon’s blog on Commentary headlined “Kindertotenlieder” is well worth reading.
Commentary editor John Podhoretz, who wrote a piece headlined “Gehenna in Connecticut” immediately after the killings, also reprinted Mark Lasswell’s 2009 piece on the serial killer TV show “Dexter.” The show glorified the killer and appears to have been a factor in inspiring a previous massacre.
Liza Long wrote a chilling piece about life with her mentally ill son headlined “I Am Adam Lanza’s Mother.”
In the aftermath of the killings, I thought about existential thrill killer Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment, but Ross Douthat thought of another Dostoyevsky novel, The Brothers Karamazov about the meaning of suffering.
In a post headlined “Tenebrae,” Rod Dreher of the American Conservative takes the sentimental hugs theme and fills it with grace, something much needed in a time of pain and horror.