Ah Oh....Here it comes......

News article this morning (another one - newspapers love nothing better than a rocking tragedy to soup up circulation) about one of the victims of the LA Fitness shooting. Headline says 'Victim Worried About How She Will Pay Her Bills'...(anyone else see the unwritten word, 'DONATIONS' here?)

It seems this young woman has no health insurance.

It seems that she - (unlike any of the thousands who suffer from accidents they were not responsible for, such as being nailed by a drunk driver) merits this headline in the local paper.

My question is: being unemployed....owing student loans... why in hell would someone be in a commercial gym that charges (on average) 30 bucks a month, and in many cases, nearly a thousand for a year's membership in the first place? (Maybe she was there on one of the many many 'free passes' you say?) Those passes are lures, and they wouldn't give them out if folks who shouldn't be making that financial commitment, end up doing it anyway.

Why would a newspaper print this as a headlined article unless it felt it might drum up a 'fund' of some kind and further perpetuate this story -- maybe get a couple more articles out of this violent episode.. boost circulation, garner some more online hits. And why would this young woman give this story to the media unless she was hoping for financial assistance in the form of checks from little old ladies and sympathetic types who feel the need to be doing something about such a horrible event.

Funds for fallen policemen for instance, I understand fully. Those fellows were risking their lives for each and every one of us - and their deaths result in families with no means of support after they are gone - so yes, we do owe that. In fact, it should be an obligation.

But from all angles, this hysteria in this society (if you've read the entry below) is highly predictable...preventable...and its causes are rooted in a culture that devotes itself to hedonistic pursuits of every stripe.

As long as we're more concerned with the surface of things, the bottom falls out and disasters happen. I can't be clearer than that.