If you have a student-loan horror story, send it to us at studentloans@thephoenix.com and cc it to studentjustice.org — they’ve been keeping a record of these tales and pushing for thorough reform of the industry. We’ll post your stories on our Web site — and hopefully they’ll help spur action on Beacon Hill, in Washington, DC, and in college administrative offices across the Commonwealth.
We bow our heads
As the Phoenix goes to press, details are now rapidly emerging about Monday’s horrific murder rampage and its perpetrator on the Virginia Tech campus, in Blacksburg, Virginia. All of us are shaken by the events, but the shootings must be particularly jarring to those who spend much of their days on college campuses — in dorms and classroom buildings not unlike those in Blacksburg where more than 32 people were killed.
In a tragedy like this one, we are often tempted to immediately offer explanations, assign blame, or prescribe solutions — it’s a way of psychologically gaining control over the chaotic, imposing order on the irrational.
Commentators are already second guessing with perfect 20/20 hindsight and rushing in with observations about everything from schools’ responsibility to spot dangerous psychological profiles to gun control and campus security.
Such analysis should wait until investigators have done their work and we have a greater understanding about what happened in Blacksburg, if we ever can. For now, the best we can do — all we can do — is feel the sorrow, bury the dead, and mourn their loss.
