our short attention spans

Remember this story: young, beautiful ballerina, student at Syracuse college, murdered during Thanksgiving break, supposedly by her estranged on-again-off-again boyfriend?

If you google her name, you get page after page of newspaper postings from late November.

But what’s happened since? Does anybody know? Does anybody care?

Is our attention span really this short?

I’m just as bad — I was just popping through various months on my blog to read old posts, just curious as to whether there were things I had forgotten about, and THIS WAS ACTUALLY ONE OF THEM.

I’m ashamed of myself.

I can’t help but wonder if the world as a whole paid significant and lasting attention to such atrocities whether there might be fewer of them.

Do we really see each other? Are we looking out for each other? Are we so afraid of violating someone’s privacy or of getting ourselves into “trouble” that we don’t reach out when people need us? Are we so hungry for the latest “dish” that we can’t be bothered to maintain attention, concern, empathy?

Sigh.

tragedy

This young man:

is suspected of having murdered this young woman

the day after her return home from college for Thanksgiving break, following 18 months of an “on-again-off-again,” apparently troubled, relationship.

Now of course, he is to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, and maybe I should avoid “jumping on the bandwagon” by writing about this, but I have children, and can only imagine the pain both of these sets of parents must be feeling at this point.

What crucial emotional piece is missing that would allow anyone to do such a thing?

I’m going to go hug my children now.

Sigh.