Sometimes, there aren’t any words.
They were just children.
Even in this state of shock, raw as it is, I can see the need to reach out, connect, understand, grieve, vent…. all around us.
In the midst of seeing the horror on my sidebar today as I wrote,the feelings that kept coming back to me beyond that of absolute empathy, anger and sadness…were feelings of compassion for friends and colleagues who would relive this incident all day long while reporting the news.
I know.
For many of you the first reaction to that might be WTF? The MSM bites, corporate lackies, etc etc…. But if you trust me, go with me for a moment. Go with me to a place where many of you may not have gone.
As reporters, writers, editors, columnists.. bloggers…. and I speak for many while only really knowing the circumstances of a few, including myself…. there is far more that those in the business of news see, and hear, and absorb, than what most of us see every night on the news, or read in the daily papers.
For them, and on a less frequent level, for myself, there are suicides, murders, admissions, pictures, stories… lives born and lost, atrocities committed, and on days like today, events that have such a surreal impact that life as we know it stops for a bit because it is just too damn much to bear.
You, we, don’t always see what the rest of these news people see, or read, or hear, and when we do, we here at home have the option to turn it off, block it, go for a walk or move on.
They don’t. Sometimes, I don’t. You can’t un-see something when you’ve seen it, you can’t unread an email sent in the night, you can’t forget what you know once it’s been unleashed.
Now, I’ve been right there holding some of the medias feet to the fire along with others, but today, someone I really respect and admire had a full shift while this disaster unfolded. And at the end, his Facebook status was short and brief, but spoke volumes. I relayed my respect and admiration and urged him to go do whatever it was he does to release as much as he could.
Tonight, before I go to bed early,sick, literally -and tired of the insanity of the world we live in, I am still thinking about him and hoping he has a method of coping and of release. You won’t last long if you don’t.
That applies to each of us.
We can only do, what we can do.
Westcoast Views with Laila Yuile 
When will they ever learn………?
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The murders of innocents is Horrendous! American drones do it with impunity
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ummmmm Dave
The slaughter of kindegarten children at a school is probably not a great time for your political agenda against the US govt’s use of drones in the middle east…..
This sensless crime would be just as horrific to Afghani’s if it happened in their country at one of their schools. And I doubt they would use that time to raise the issue of drones.
Perhaps another time……..
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Well said and I agree. I’ve been rather sickened by the political messaging erupting all over the net, facebook etc, by gun control advocates and opponents, the right and left, and people like David.
Thank you. Sometimes we just need a break to breathe and digest.
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You, above all, Laila, should realise that politics play THE major role in the world
People like David, nice* shot Laila
People like me rub the noses of people like you in their own stuff
Your ilk allows emotionalisms to cloud reason and then wonder why the world operates as it does.
Take your sanctimonious pap and choke on it!
Had you and you loyal slavish following taken actions towards those who engineer these horrendous acts you might very well have prevented them from happening in the first place!
Have you given that any thought or are simply satisfied in continuing to moan how sickening the acts are?
*nice (adj.) Look up nice at Dictionary.com
late 13c., “foolish, stupid, senseless,” from O.Fr. nice (12c.) “careless, clumsy; weak; poor, needy; simple, stupid, silly, foolish,” from L. nescius “ignorant, unaware,” lit. “not-knowing,” from ne- “not” (see un-) + stem of scire “to know” (see science). “The sense development has been extraordinary, even for an adj.” [Weekley] — from “timid” (pre-1300); to “fussy, fastidious” (late 14c.); to “dainty, delicate” (c.1400); to “precise, careful” (1500s, preserved in such terms as a nice distinction and nice and early); to “agreeable, delightful” (1769); to “kind, thoughtful” (1830).
“In many examples from the 16th and 17th centuries it is difficult to say in what particular sense the writer intended it to be taken.” [OED]
By 1926, it was pronounced “too great a favorite with the ladies, who have charmed out of it all its individuality and converted it into a mere diffuser of vague and mild agreeableness.” [Fowler]
“I am sure,” cried Catherine, “I did not mean to say anything wrong; but it is a nice book, and why should I not call it so?”
“Very true,” said Henry, “and this is a very nice day, and we are taking a very nice walk; and you are two very nice young ladies. Oh! It is a very nice word indeed! It does for everything.” [Jane Austen, “Northanger Abbey,” 1803]
nice (adj.) Look up nice at Dictionary.com
late 13c., “foolish, stupid, senseless,” from O.Fr. nice (12c.) “careless, clumsy; weak; poor, needy; simple, stupid, silly, foolish,” from L. nescius “ignorant, unaware,” lit. “not-knowing,” from ne- “not” (see un-) + stem of scire “to know” (see science). “The sense development has been extraordinary, even for an adj.” [Weekley] — from “timid” (pre-1300); to “fussy, fastidious” (late 14c.); to “dainty, delicate” (c.1400); to “precise, careful” (1500s, preserved in such terms as a nice distinction and nice and early); to “agreeable, delightful” (1769); to “kind, thoughtful” (1830).
“In many examples from the 16th and 17th centuries it is difficult to say in what particular sense the writer intended it to be taken.” [OED]
By 1926, it was pronounced “too great a favorite with the ladies, who have charmed out of it all its individuality and converted it into a mere diffuser of vague and mild agreeableness.” [Fowler]
“I am sure,” cried Catherine, “I did not mean to say anything wrong; but it is a nice book, and why should I not call it so?”
“Very true,” said Henry, “and this is a very nice day, and we are taking a very nice walk; and you are two very nice young ladies. Oh! It is a very nice word indeed! It does for everything.” [Jane Austen, “Northanger Abbey,” 1803]
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My “ilk”?
There are thousands of battles large and small to be fought in this world, I pick mine, you choose yours.
This post was not, is not about gun control, or laws, or government. Carry your anger elsewhere,I’ve had enough for one week.
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I strongly advice you get up to speed on the entire chain of events rather than focusing on what you so erroneously see as the cause of the criminal actions in the world
http://www.dailypaul.com/235730/hillary-clinton-admits-the-us-government-created-al-qaeda
sniped from another source> Al Qaeda was created by the CIA, in their offices in Washington D.C., According to Richard Clark in his most recent book. It was created for Saudi Arabia to bankroll Osama bin Laden, through the House of Saud, “in the Afghan war against the Soviet Union during the 1980’s and Riyadh and Washington together contributed an estimated $3.5 billion to the mujahideen.”
“In late 2003, U.S. News & World Report conducted an exhaustive study titled. ‘The Saudi Connection.’ Its findings included the following.”
“The evidence was indisputable: Saudi Arabia, America’s longtime ally and the world’s largest oil producer, had somehow become, as a senior Treasury Department official put it, ‘the epicenter’ of terrorist financing’
Starting in the late 1980’s – after the dual shocks of the Iranian revolution and the Soviet war in Afghanistan – Saudi Arabia’s quasi-official charities became the primary source of the funds for the fast-growing jihad movement. In some twenty countries the money was used to run para-military training camps, purchase weapons, and recruit new members’
The fantasy was spun in January 2001 by Jamal al Fadl, a Sudanese who had been with Bin Laden in the early 1990s. Jamal al Fadl stole money from Bin Laden, and then sought protection in the USA. The FBI and CIA paid him hundreds of thousands of dollars to create the al-Qaeda fiction. In fact, al Fadl invented the name al-Qaeda.
• During the Reagan years, the CIA knew that the USSR verged on collapse, but William Casey (Reagan’s psychopathic head of the CIA) demanded that the CIA fabricate a “global network” of Soviet-led “terrorism.” Casey had read a best-selling novel titled Terror Network: The Secret War of International Terrorism (1981) by right-wing fantasist Claire Sterling. Sterling imagined that the PLO, the IRA, the Bader Meinhoff group in Germany, and every other group was part of a global Soviet terror network. William Casey took that fictional work and made it “real” in order to give Reagan his “evil empire” of Russia. After 9-11, the Bush regime did the same thing with the fictional “al-Qaeda.”
• The rise of jihadist Zio-Christians, and how they rode to power on the “Islamic threat.”
• Who Bin Laden really was, what he thought, and what he really did. He was never a leader, never had any organization, and never took part in any act of resistance. He simply provided money for several resistance groups in Afghanistan that dreamed of overthrowing corrupt regimes in places like Chechnya, Uzbekistan, and so on.
• The power struggle in Afghanistan between Palestinian Sheikh Abdullah Yusuf Azzam (who favored peaceful Islamic resistance) and the Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri (who favored armed resistance).
• Tora Bora, Afghanistan. Here the pro-Bush Northern Alliance claimed that “Islamofascists” (the Taliban and visiting Arabs) had vast underground cities, like the old NORAD base in Cheyenne Mountain (closed on 28 July 2006). Cheney is shown spreading this fantastic lie, claiming that such cities exist all over the world, like giant underground UFO bases. Whenever the US military found nothing, the Bush regime and the Ziocons expanded the myth. They use lack of evidence as further “proof” of how evil and cunning the “Islamofascists” are. The less something exists in physical reality, the more it “really” exists as a “global threat.”
• Where most of the victims in Guantanamo and CIA torture centers came from. Afghanistan’s Northern Alliance kidnapped anyone that looked remotely Arab, and sold them to USA for fun and profit.
• How Abu Zubaydah (under torture) dreamed up the fantasy of a “dirty bomb,” which the Bush regime uses to frighten the masses. The U.S. Dept of Energy tried to make its own “dirty bomb,” but concluded that such a weapon has no practical use, since it cannot be made to actually harm anyone. Much of the Bush regime’s propaganda came from Abu Zubaydah, who confessed to anything under torture.
• The change in western thinking. Rather than lock people up for what they did, America locks them up for what Americans fantasize their victims might do in the future. Victims cannot defend themselves against sick fantasies, since there is no actual charge. The lack of evidence is taken as further “evidence” in the pre-emptive “war of civilizations.” Imprisonment without trial. McCarthyism on a global scale.
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This is where you ran afoul “Well said and I agree. I’ve been rather sickened by the political messaging erupting all over the net, facebook etc, by gun control advocates and opponents, the right and left, and people like David” And by doing so opened the door to my response of ilk.
Your “thousands of battles” comment was addressed long ago – “There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.” –
Henry David Thoreau and because you and people like choose the little battles the war rages on. But Hey! your blog, your followers, no matter how ill informed they may be. Your choices are accept a counter position or reject it by blocking my voice. You are correct, though, in identifying anger, we differ on the point of my anger. I see it as just while your position indicates it to be an irritant.
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Actually it is the BEST time! That is of course if you wish to continue having your head in the sand and could care less who is behind all these horrendous acts
http://inagist.com/all/279957268999589888/
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Ahhhhh, yes we’re all morons and David is a genius.
Must be tough living in a world with so many stupid , blind people eh dave?
Great to know you have sooooo much time to troll the internet picking and choosing your “proof” to substatiate your version of the world.
Perhaps you should look up the definiton of paranoia.
Let me guess, unemployed university grad with a huge debt?
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You’re right Laila….”There aren’t any words”. I don’t think I could cope, and yet I guess you have to. And this in the ‘civilized’ world. Its a mere drop in the bucket compared with Syria, Egypt, and all the other places I know nothing about. Be well. J
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perhaps Al Queda should stop stock piling weapons in mosques, hospitals and schools if the pakistanis want their kids to be safe from drone attacks.
Just a thought
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Beautifully said. Thank you Laila.
Sent from my iPhone
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I’m afraid, I actually cried. Poor little children murdered for what? Murdered adults who were likely parents too? Where do we even find words of comfort for the family’s?
What do we have to do, to keep our children safe in their schools? Make their schools like prisons? High cement walls, with hot barb wire on the top? Perhaps some towers manned with machine guns?
I am happy my little granddaughter is home schooled. I was totally amazed by the number of children, who are home schooled. This is impossible, when both parents have to work. Schools for our kids, need to be safe havens, not places of dread and fear.
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There absolutely no words that can be said that make this event something i can understand as a parent i look at my kids and could never imagine what id feel if that was to happen to my kids , my heart just goes out to those involved and affected what a tragedy .
Hug your kids tell them you love them today be happy we still can.
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‘
This emotion of disgust is just what gun control advocates need to overcome the powerful pro gun lobby in America.
This is the best time to bring in more control and the window is short indeed.
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it seems so unreal but it is there on the news, constantly. it is more than I can stand to watch as the reporters go over & over the incidents & then bring in their “experts” to disect it all. It is really easy, if the shooter’s mother didn’t have those 3 high powered guns in her home he wouldn’t have access to them & she would most likely still be alive today.
The gun fetish is so ingrained in American life it won’t change, regardless of how many innocent people are murdered by guns. Yes there are other weapons of choice in other parts of the world but the guns in the U.S.A. send out some many rounds per second, no one can escape.
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Lest we forget
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Dedicated to those chastising me for being “political”
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No, not political.
For using the dead to further “your” cause ….
I believe you would termed a “ghoul”.
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Oh Dave, just in case you’re not sure of the pronunciation of “ghoul” .
It rhymes with ‘Fool”
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Hmmmm,
Just googled David’s name.
Got linked into his website.
He’s asking for donations………. (big surprise)
To purchase more “herb” no doubt.
Time to take your conspiracy agenda somewhere else Dave?
And stop hijacking this blogsite?
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Really support your claim because at don’t have a web site The one thing I cannot tolerate is a liar, nonconfidencevote, and it there is a website up using my will have whoever put it up charged with fraud. Nor have I “hacked” this website. Another lie! As far as purchasing “herb” s you put it fat chance of that, too: Laila has known of me for years and we have had many exchanges. I have repeatedly asked her to remove me at any time she sees fit
All that aside for the moment It is now you whose integrity is in question for character assassination
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Wow! There’s two lunatics in BC with the same name?
Spewing anti-american, anti Israeli conspiracy diatribe?
Jeez.
Studs Terkle WAS right!
When asked why there were so many crazy people on the west coast of America ( after the Charles Manson murders).
Mr Terkle replied ” On the EIGHTH Day! God tipped North America on it’s side and all the fruits and nuts rolled west…..”
45 years later ………he’s still right.
Who woulda thunk it?
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https://www.google.ca/search?q=David+Jones-Cook&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a#q=David+Jones-Cook&hl=en&client=firefox-a&tbo=d&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&ei=-BfOUK2_B5H6sgbiroEw&start=20&sa=N&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&bvm=bv.1355325884,d.Yms&fp=5092fb0c9e82b759&bpcl=39967673&biw=1234&bih=482
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When there are no words , when its forensic evidence and the size and shape of body bags, we need images to condition us . Heres one , I bet each of us shares a few genetic markers with the victims . Sympathy , please .
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there are for me a rush of emotions. outrage is a strong one. I can not imagine the pain of the parents and relatives of the victims and MY feelings go to the deeper question of exactly who created this outrage
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YOUR personal agenda is your own. Not mine, not anyone else’s and keep it your own please. This IS NOT MY FIGHT.
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“MY personal agenda is for the betterment of mankind and you have a problem with that I PITY you…..”
WTF?
Wow! A week before Christmas and the Messiah speaketh( er sorry….. typeth).
How unbelievably arrogant of you.
To assume what YOU believe is right and what we believe is wrong.
Pathetic.
Dave ….
At the risk of repeating myself.
Perhaps time to start your own blog? If you dont have one already?
Since the David Jones-Cook in Kelowna at
unitedtruthseekers.com isnt you?
Perhaps we should contact him to sue you?
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as a courtesy to Laila, nonconfidencevote I invite you to https://www.facebook.com/david.jonescook1/posts/531000136912346?ref=notif¬if_t=like where we may continue you little game and thereby not further “high-jack” this thread
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contact you on another site?
ahhhhhh no.
I have a life.
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If you had a life might it not be better put to use, but as you don’t and are a twice cursed cowardly liar please carry on here on Laila’s blog
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Seriously, this is done so move along now.
You have completely ruined the sentiment of this post, which was about the burdens we feel as those who report and or comment on the news around us. Not gun control, not frigging agendas, but burdens.
Bye-bye, sayonara, adios, see you later,farewell,vaarwel,Auf Wiedersehen,Adieu…..
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And Of course I did that completely unaided?
Did you, or did you not, add fuel to the fire?
there is a rule of linguistics which states in part, what you feed grows!
Assume YOUR part
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ps who made my comment into an argument? Had you and nonconfidencevote not chosen to pick a fight there would have not been a fight!
Take responsibility for YOUR actions. I have for mine.
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“How unbelievably arrogant of you.
To assume what YOU believe is right and what we believe is wrong.
Pathetic.”
And how utterly believable of you to assume what I believe! Assumptions are two edged swords and you placed yourself in the path of the return swing. The irony of your use of “arrogant” has not gone unnoticed.
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Again, you are done now, you refused to stop when first asked, this post is not about you. Get over it and take your bitter rage somewhere else.
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