My son's facebook status...

[one_voice]

Can't go to school. Can't go to the movies. Can't go to work. Can't walk to the cornerstore and buy Skittles. Can't run a marathon. Can't do anything in this country anymore.

He's 21.

Makes me sad he's seen that much violence.

[MaineLinePhilly]

1. That is sad

He cannot be deterred though. Thats the point of terrorism. They want people to have a fear that they can't do these every day things without fear some tragedy could happen. Understandable, but tell your son he still lives in the greatest country in the world!!

[one_voice]

8. No he never would be..

just an observation.

He went to see the Batman movie after the Aurora shooting and he and his girlfriend got seated and the movie was about to come on and in walks a guy with a backpack and sits like 3 or 4 seats from them. He had to decide to get up and leave--fear--or stay, he liked the movie.

[moobu2]

2. Awwe that's sad but really the chances of being caught up in something like this is very remote.

[Journeyman]

3. Grim times when I graduated high school, too. . .

Let's see, when I graduated high school, in the early '70s, I'd dealt with the murders of the Kennedy brothers and Martin Luther King; saw a localized war in Vietnam explode into a regional conflagration with tens of thousands of American soldiers dead and countless Vietnamese, maybe a million or more, slaughtered; witnessed fellow citizens shot down in the streets for daring to protest the increasingly reckless and illegal actions of an out-of-control President; huddled beneath school desks in mock anticipation of nuclear annihilation; witnessed a police riot in Chicago, and the disintegration of the social bonds in my hometown (Los Angeles), as well as countless other flashpoints for riots across the land -- Newark, Baltimore, Chicago, Louisville, and more; saw and participated in a raft of protests against the war, against social conditions, prison conditions, the grinding poverty that is life for too many millions in America; gasped in horror when Charles Whitman climbed the Texas U tower, reeled in shock when the Manson Family preyed together; sputtered in near impotent rage when the government refused to heed Rachel Carson's warning how we are poisoning ourselves and endured instead a corporate media blitz about the dangers of littering; debated the inanity of television and the dumbing of America; worried and complained that the media didn't cover the proper issues, that it too often gave only the government line and excluded alternative voices; worried about wars, and rumors of wars, and the relentless stockpiling of nuclear weaponry; sat in shocked disbelief as Munich unfolded; watched as a plethora of terrorist groups highjacked planes and used them as weapons against their "oppressors," flying them to Cuba & elsewheres, threatening to kill the passengers; wondered at the long-term effect of the OPEC embargo as the realization of oil's end became all too real . . . and these are just what I remember off the top, quickly typing in the busy hours of an April afternoon.

My schooling was bracketed by a death in Dallas and wanton killings in Kent. The dream -- the national fantasy inculcated into so many after the War -- died with JFK. But the hope . . . the hope spawned by Jefferson, reaffirmed by Lincoln, restored by Franklin Roosevelt . . . the hope remained, and beats as strong today as it did when I received my first diploma. From that hope we can generate anew the dreams that will carry us into the future, a future that grows increasingly bright if we but know how to focus on the light . . .

[Glimmer of Hope]

5. Rec.

[kiva]

6. 1973

All of the above, and don't forget growing up wondering when the bomb was going to fall.

Every generation has different challenges.

[one_voice]

7. Oh my...

After I posted this, I thought about all that. The Vietnam war, Kennedy assassinations, MLK, the whole civil rights movement and the violence that brought down on people.

I didn't want to make light of those things. God, when I think of some of the 22 year old kids in Vietnam (my dad) or in the south fighting for civil rights...makes my blood run cold.

[Hekate]

10. All that you said

And the shadow of The Bomb over all our little heads.

Thanks for the reminder of what we came through, but most of all thanks for the final paragraph.

Hekate

[reformist2]

4. Even if the odds of being harmed are 1 in 100,000, it feels like one in 100.

[Sissyk]

9. Oh, one_voice!

I am glad your son is safe. Take care.

[Libertas1776]

11. I guess it's no surprise...

that a favorite motto/expression, what have you amongst today's youth is YOLO (you only live once).