Ripples coming from Virginia Tech

There are already some ripples through our community emanating from Blacksburg, Va., site of yesterday's horrible mass shooting.

I have heard some discussion about people whose kids go to Virginia Tech. I heard a rumor that one of the victims' father is from the government IT community. I haven't heard anything specifically, but...

The students and families are in everybody's thoughts. Whenever these things happen, I always ponder what brings somebody to a place where they are able to do something like this...and the horror that students at Virginia Tech will go through in the coming hours, days, weeks, months and years.

My sister is a college student up in New England and I can only imagine...actually, I can't!

I was listening to PBS's "NewsHour" last night about the shooting. They spoke to Kevin Anderson, a Virginia Tech student and the associate news editor for the school's newspaper, the Collegiate Times, and he seemed almost...matter of fact. Sometimes reporters get that way, but he is also a student. And I think these things do take time to fully process. There is a certain degree of shock as one's brain processes what has happened. Then, on the radio this morning, they were noting that these kids -- particularly those from the D.C. area -- have been through Sept. 11, the anthrax incidents, the sniper shootings...and now this? And one of the anchors asked a psychologist how much these young people can take.

The Virginia Tech newspaper has a story about how students turned to Facebook to help each other out.

I just hope that these young people find support in whatever for works for them.