Burying the News

I woke up this morning to see what the updates were on Binghamton, only to spend about 5 minutes trying to find it on the CNN website. Nothing updated since last night at 10:42PM. The national venue had moved on: the senseless slaughter of "Kurds, Russians, Chinese, Arabs, Laotians, and others" (NY Times) was not of interest to the nation, I suppose.

The New York Post has a cover story that does some justice to the situation, at least giving us more information and refraining from the assault against immigrants that we expect in the days to come. Although again, I wonder if this had been a mall rather than a citizenship services organization, what the response would have been. Will we get the stories of all those lost and saved: whose people may not be here in the United States, whose English skills are not as polished, nor names as familiar to the general American public?

Or perhaps this will open up a dialogue of some kind, or the sense that there is a need to protect refugees and immigrants who come into our small cities, live on the periphery, make out their existence quietly and patiently, trying to build a life out of the fragments that many come from, or without the familiar elements of home that we are all bound to miss if we have to leave things behind. I feel for these families, I feel that their stories must be shared and their lives grieved and celebrated as our nation does with many different victims. This is a moment for people to show that they care about more than the familiar.