It's April, time for a tragedy!

Now, it's certainly not every April of every year that some tremendous, news-media-orgy-style, tragedy happens nor is it obviously exclusively April when things like the Boston Marathon bombing goes down. But it sure seems like the third week of April is a fairly common time for massive, nation wide, nightmares to occur:

• Waco Siege ended April 19, 1993
• Oklahoma City Bombing, April 19, 1995
• Columbine Massacre April 20, 1999
• Virginia Tech Massacre, April 16, 2007
• Deepwater Horizon Oil Rig explodes, April 20, 2010
• Boston Marathon Bombing, April 15, 2013

Also, Hitler was born on April 20, 1889 and in 1939 Germany made April 20 a national holiday celebrating his birth! Plus Tax day in the U.S. is always April 15 and in the "stoner counterculture" 420 is slang for the appropriate time to get high thus April 20th is oft cited as a holiday for pot heads. So, clearly THIS MEANS SOMETHING!

How could this random spattering of tragedies (that also happen to have been massive media events) just happen to occur on or around Hitler's birthday? I also have a former, ornery co-worker who's birthday was 4/20...So, it can't be a coincidence it has to be fate as deemed upon our tragic mortal coil as penance for all of human transgressions and sinful behavior. IT IS! IT TOTALLY IS!?!?

But seriously, it truly is a coincidence because we have naturally had massive, media-fueled travesties at all times of the year and they happen when they happen. The question I am really asking, during this Boston Marathon bombing week (that also happened to include record heavy rains & flooding in the Chicago region, a massive fertilizer plant exploding in Texas, and a ricin poisoned letter being mailed to the President and a Mississippi senator allegedly from a disgruntled Elvis impersonator) is are things getting worse these days or does it just seem like it because of our insane, 24 hour, internet fueled media?

I think it's the media and the never ending negativity forever perpetrated by the insatiable internet monster. One of which I am also quite guilty of as I am practically drowning in social media these days myself. IN fact, an apropos Tweet I saw just a little while ago, from @theTweetofGod, sums up the insanity quite well:

Behold the dawn of the 24-second news cycle.
— God (@TheTweetOfGod) April 19, 2013

As I write this post the media is frantically speculating all about "suspect 2" as he has not been caught or killed at the moment. He's  Chechnyan, is he or isn't he a Muslim.  He's trained or not trained, he's a lost soul who, along with his brother, are like the Columbine guys, or not...And, if you choose to watch, the news is just spiraling around in an information maelstrom, a virtual tornado of empty rhetoric, anger and confusion fueled by endless speculation and worry. And the Boston story is just  the biggest one of several "BREAKING NEWS" threads spinning and spinning and spinning. In the end, besides my belief that climate change is making the weather weird, the only thing that is different is the media amplification resulting in the perception that things are somehow worse than they were in the proverbial, undefinable, really just an abstract concept of "BEFORE."

And this post, and really this blog in general, does nothing but add a teeny, tiny, micro drop into the media shit-storm of misinformation and opinionated bullshit. All the same, though, it's been a long week.