I was surprised to hear on the radio, on the way home from my grandfather's funeral, about the shooting in Littleton. The details were sketchy at that point so I turned on the TV when I got home to hear more.

I am used to hearing about violence at school lately, there's a few of them every year or so. The thing that surprised me was the scope of the tragedy. When they first said there were upwards of 25 deaths I was fairly shocked. Rarely (in this country) do you hear of such massacres. And then to top it all off, bodies were booby-trapped and couldn't even be recovered at first.

It was very sad, but I think the media is milking this tragedy for all the ratings it will rake in. Every news show is now having specials on the tragedy. They are scrambling to get the best interviews, the most students. Reporters are probably getting bonuses for landing interviews with people who knew the individuals in the so-called "Trench Coat Mafia", or, better yet, actual members.

I can see the graphics on these shows now: LITTLETON TRAGEDY: DAY 23 like there are with hostage crises. It probably won't stop until sometime in July. Then after that there will be "Revisiting the Tragedy" shows beginning in September. It probably won't stop until another plane explodes.

I hope that you're not getting the wrong idea about my intentions. It may seem like I'm being a little harsh or insensitive towards the tragedy but I'm not. I was shocked by the tragedy and feel very sorry for all the victims and their relatives. It struck a unique chord with me because it was right after my grandfather passed away. The reason I'm being a little harsh is because I'm getting disgusted with the tragedy's exploitation.

It is even spreading to the internet; e-mail, more specifically. A "prayer" e-mail is going around, urging people to forward it to as many people as possible and instructing you to add your name where you live on the list. I can only begin to imagine the uses for such a list, but I digress. My main point here is that, again, we have another insidious e-mail going around instructing people to forward it to as many people as possible, clogging up the internet.

I suppose it is possible that the intentions behind this e-mail are true, but it's still not necessary. We don't need a huge e-mail forever growing in kilobytes to remind us all to pray for the victims. We can do that at home, in bed, without annoying e-mail messages.