I watched “Bowling for Columbine” for the first time last night.  No way in the world that should have won an Oscar.  It was interesting, but unquestionably slanted in a way I don’t think documentaries should be, even if the documentary falls in line with my politics (simply put, I hate guns).
That said, it raised some very good points.  Most notable among them was the unfortunate tendency of the media to accentuate the violent and negative aspects of society, something that contributes to the building racism and xenophobia in this country.
After watching that flick, it was fitting that I caught my man Bruce Feldman’s Insider blog, where he mentioned that we’d be better served to try to use the Virginia Tech massacre as a time to look at the good people are doing.  At this point, it’s far more constructive to do that rather than to attempt to understand the insanity of the gunman, especially since it’s nearly impossible to make sense of insanity.  That’s like trying to turn lead to gold.
He linked this page that profiled the victims of the shooting.  Instead of thinking of them as bit players to the tragedy, we should take some time to bring them to the forefront.  It’s a shame those people were lost, but the world was a better place for having a lot of them, even if just for a short time.