Day 2 - Three Stabbings and a Funeral

**WARNING:  DISTURBING CONTENT **
(NOTE - It is not my intent for my daily blog posts for this NaBloWriMo exercise to be dark and depressing, but I need to purge these thoughts swirling in my head before they consume me--and writing them out has always proven a good way to do that.)

Life's Short...sometimes TOO short!

This bedroom community that I live in has a population of just under 2,000 people. I have actually not found this town to be overly friendly ever since moving here 15 years ago, but at least I have felt relatively safe.  In light of some recent criminal activity, however, not only am I not very fond of this little burg, but I am not comfortable living here anymore.  I suppose no community is immune to crime of one form or another.  But a crime like a stabbing in any community is terrifyingly heinous, and that's what we've been dealing with here lately.

While a stabbing in a big metropolis is certainly tragic and senseless, it's like a drop in a large body of water.  A stabbing in a town with a population of less than 2,000 is like a drop in a drinking glass of water--the ripple effect is felt by all!  What is infinitely more disturbing here, is that after a homicide-free record for a countless number of years, three stabbing related incidents have occurred in the last four months--two resulting in death.

Even though the incidents in question were domestic situations and not random acts, it's still very unsettling.  One stabbing occurred in our city park in broad daylight and another occurred across from our school.  Coincidentally, residents from the public housing project were involved in two of the three stabbings, and drugs played a role in the third.  So words like gangs, race, and stereotypical are bandied about at the local market and coffee hangouts with the news and rumors on everyone's lips.

While I didn't know either one of the victims, I'm still left mourning...mourning the loss of innocence and a simpler time.  What is happening in our society today that makes people have a total disrespect for the sanctity of human life?  Are parents in today's generation ill-equipped to raise healthy, compassionate individuals?  Has the government-created welfare-state-of-mind been a factor? Have the public schools been so limited in dealing with negative and inappropriate behavior that it has become impossible to control on an academic level?  Have we, as a nation, been so desensitized through the instant media reports throwing the daily violence in our faces, that we are indifferent to it all and unable to take a stand?  Is the fact that churches and religion are no longer significant and having a Biblical foundation is not a priority so we no longer comprehend right from wrong?  Perhaps it's a combination of all of the above.

I keep hearing that there is still more good in the world than evil...but the statistics in my little corner of the world are proving otherwise.

Life's too short to be negative...tomorrow my post will be positive and bright!