We started off this week with the firm intention of not reporting news.
We know that seems a bit silly, but we figured that with all the terrible events especially of the last four months we have had to deal with one week of boring might be a relief.
It is graduation week after all and this years class should have their moment in the sun.
The best laid plans of mice and men.
Our resolve began to crack Monday with the shooting in Ely, Tuesday it was shriven with new developments in the Patten/Fratto case and with the plane crash Wednesday we threw in the towel.
Sorry seniors we really did work hard for our lead story to be about the Western Tananger but the world did not cooperate.
Perhaps that is a good life lesson.
Life often does not cooperate with anyone’s schedule or plans.
While unexpected events should not detract from a graduation, a wedding, a birth or a funeral they often do and it is up to us to put it all in some kind of context that more or less makes sense.
In 20 or 30 years from now the events of this week, this month, this year will all be forgotten except by those who were directly involved. That is just the way it is. It is how we cope with the unexpected disaster that defines us as people and as a people.
Ignoring tragedy does not make it any less tragic, it would just make us stupid.
It would be nice to live in a world where the biggest event of the week was the colonization of our high desert of a beautiful yellow bird.
But frankly the only reason why those birds are here and are heard is because of us. We planted the trees they need to nest in and the grass and other plants whose seeds they eat.
While they gladden the eye with their plumage and the ear with their songs, they don’t exist for our benefit but for their own.
We on the other hand are important to each other.
No man is an island.
We were once asked by a brownie girl scout why newspapers print mostly bad news. We thought about for a moment and told her that newsworthiness depends largely on the unusual. Getting up and brushing one’s teeth or going to school is not news worthy because it happens every day hopefully.
Bad things however are rare and therefore unusual and therefore newsworthy and interesting.
It would be a terrible thing if we as people and as a people began viewing mayhem with the same interest as one would give the time on a clock.