"How Many Deaths Will It Take Till We Know, That Too Many People Have Died??????????"

                                      With just ten days to go till Christmas, darlings, I should be writing about visions of sugarplums, or, at the very least, all the Christmas shopping I still have yet to do.  Or I could write about yesterday's office Christmas party, a basically nice, but lackluster affair, populated with the usual glad handers and players-to-the-higher-ups that populate these things, and whom I avoid like the proverbial plague.  Even my beloved Monsieur, at this third party, said it was poorly attended, so even the usual gladhanders and higher ups were not enough on hand in quantities enough for them to bullshit and schmooze each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                        Prior to the party, I was waiting to meet Monsieur at the Lincoln Center Fountain, that meeting place of everyone in that vicinity!!!!!!!!!!!  As I waited, I noticed the flags flying were at half mast.  "Who in the arts passed on?," I asked myself, having no idea what really happened.

                                        Early on at the party, I mentioned the flags to our wonderful Security Guard, Andy, and he was the one who told me about the Newtown, Connecticut Tragedy!!!!!!!!!  And, of course, when we got home, and turned on the television, what do you think was planted all over the tube????????

                                         Instantly, my mind flashed back to March 13, 1996, when 43- year- old unemployed shopkeeper and alleged pedophile, Thomas Hamilton, open fired on a gymnasium full of young kids at Dunblane Primary School in Scotland.  Now, it seemed to be happening again.

                                           Earlier this year, there was James Holmes, and the movie theater in Colorado.   Now, we have Andrew Lanza, and his fiendish actions, which began with shooting his own mother in the face, at home, then driving to Sandy Hook Elementary School, where his mother had worked as at least a Teacher's Aide, and open fired on groups of kids between 5 and 10, plus six adults.  When the carnage was over, with Lanza shooting himself, twenty seven (if you count Lanza) people were dead, making this the deadliest school shooting, since, of course, Columbine.  Not since the conviction and execution of the innocent Justine Moritz in "Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" has there been such a slaughter of innocence!!!!!!!!

                                              And now people want answers, and so do I.  Andrew Lanza, age 20, was unemployed, living with his mother, Nancy, and said to be brilliant.  He suffered, allegedly from some undefined personality disorder.  An aunt said his parents were the type who would have addressed the issue of mental illness in their son.  Would, yes, but did is another story!!!!!!!!!!!!  Or, to be fair, perhaps they did, and Andrew either refused help, or his meds, if he were on any.  We just don't know yet. His parents had divorced four years earlier, when Andrew was 16; his father, Peter, has remarried, while living nearby. Could all this have been a trigger?  But the rage seemed directed particularly at the mother, so what was going on there? A neighbor described the mother as "rigid." But what does that mean?  And plenty of children raised by "rigid" parents do not go out and kill!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                                What we have is a tragedy that it will take months to resolve, and with its proximity to the Holidays, will always and easily be remembered.  My childhood friend's birthday was yesterday; what a way to have to remember this in the incoming years!!!!!!!!!

                                                     And it is impossible to know just whom to point the finger of blame at!!!!!!  But something has to be done about gun accessibility, because these tragedies just don't seem to stop!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                                      These were children who were supposed to be enjoying getting ready for the Holidays, And their parents readying to make them happy on those days.  Now, for these twenty parents, the Holidays will forever be a time for being grief stricken!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                                        Let us call for a moratorium on all senseless tragedies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!