Unspeakable Horror (and Sloppy News Mistakes)

[NOTE: although I began this posting in the week after the shooting, it has taken me a while to compose due to a variety of reasons, which include the year-end holiday season and finding out that I have a personal connection with this horrific tragedy.  You will see a 'break' below between my first attempt and the concluding information.]

The front page of the December 15th edition of the New York Daily News says it all (graphic courtesy of the Newseum)

This past weekend was supposed to be when I would "regroup" and start up my postings here but that all changed with the news last Friday of a school shooting in Connecticut.  Although Americans have grown used to hearing such information with growing frequency in recent years, this one was different due to the setting and the method in which the gunman committed his heinous deed.  When Adam Lanza put a semi-automatic pistol to his own head and pulled the trigger as first responders arrived on the scene, he had already taken the lives of 27 other people (his mother back at their shared residence and 26 at Newtown's Sandy Hook Elementary School).  Of the school fatalities, 20 were first grade students between the ages of 6 and 7 and all of them were shot multiple times with a semi-automatic assault rifle (one child, Noah Posner, was struck 11 times).  The other six were all women who worked at the school, to include the principal, the school psychiatrist, and four teachers and aides in the targeted classrooms.

An Unfortunate Pattern Returns

If one is gifted with the sense of deep introspection (although some might classify it as a neurosis), you sometimes get to be our own worst critic and I am taking this opportunity to introduce mine.  Due to a "perfect storm" of issues (a change in my work schedule and prolonged proposal writing at the office, the end of my current school term, and a lingering bout of some hearty strain of seasonal "crud" my body just cannot seem to shake), I have not been posting here with the frequency that I hoped I would be this far along into my journalism "journey".  I had a similar bout of this around the same time last year although that was mostly attributed to a death in the family and a sudden out-of-town trip for the funeral.  Since my job requires my primary focus (and energy), schoolwork and blogging have suffered for the duration.  I am supposed to go back to my normal schedule next week and should be able to reestablish my writing routine at that time (the semester ended on the 7th but I have until the 17th to turn in our last online assignment).