There's not a whole lot anyone can say about the horrific developments on the campus of Virginia Tech yesterday.  33 people, 30 or so of whom may have had nothing to do with the shooter are dead. 

Obviously, this is a top of mind, hot button story.  Everyone from the networks to your local FUD news team to the talk show host on your local radio station to bloggers will try to make sense of what happened yesterday.  And you really can't. They really can't.  Someone sitting in a studio in Los Angels or Minneapolis or Grinell, Iowa can't possibly fathom what happened yesterday because they weren't there and the intelligence they have is from second hand sources.

There are legitimate questions regarding the response time of campus police and how it took them two hours after the first shooting to do anything and make inbound students aware that there may be shooter on campus.   Reading some of the reports this morning, it almost seemed like Chief Wiggum was running the campus police.  But again, I don't know all the facts, so that is a hypothesis.  I won't know all the facts until an investigation is done by an impartial group who has nothing to gain from this senseless tragedy.  And then, there still may be unanswered questions.

Sadly, in tragedy there is opportunity.  We mourn the loss of 32 people who were loved, had families and certainly didn't wake up yesterday thinking it was going to be their last day on earth.  Let's honor their memory by making the campus safer, by giving police funding for adequate special tactical response training and an understanding, that if the police response was not appropriate and the campus was not safe, heads will roll immediately. 

And, let's do that away from the media circus and out of the media spotlight. We owe that to the memories of the victims and the sanity of the survivors.

Lightning Round

• Virgina Tech head football coach Frank Beamer and the sports community weigh in on the Virginia Tech tragedy.
• In the chase for Lord Stanley's cup, what's up  with Martin Brodeur and the New Jersey Devils?  Tampa Bay is a fast and pesky little team while the Devils look old and like they are skating in cement.   On the Island last night, the only thing in an Islanders sweater that looked good was Christie Brinkley.  Other than that, it was all Sabres.  And in San Jose, the Sharks proved who the more rugged team was putting on a defensive clinic in the third period and taking the Nashville Predators 3-1.  The Preds missed Alexander Radulov terribly last night.
• The Texas Rangers visit U.S. Cellphone field tonight to open a series with the Chicago White Sox.  Former Sox and Cub Sammy Sosa will be on hand as a member of the Rangers.  It is certain that Sosa will draw an enthusiastic response from the Chicago crowd, one which Sox manager Ozzie Guillen thinks fans should avoid.  Hey, Ozzie, when you pay upwards of $20 for a ticket, it's sort of your prerogative to boo.  Why don't you worry about the lack of offense lately. Besides, that line you had about "we don't represent the north side or the south side, we represent the city" just goes to show that even after all these years you don't get it.
  
• In a typical ripped from the headlines Cub story, the $136 million dollar man has pulled a hammy. 
  
• In order to buy the Cubs, you'd better suck up to the owner of the Sox.  This is wrong on so many levels.   Do you think owners in other sports have this kind of clout with the commissioner?  No, because if it were possible Daniel Snyder, Al Davis and Jerry Jones would be running the NFL.  Baseball is the only major sport where decisions are not made for the good of the sport, but for the benefit of the owners.
• Air Force is promoting assistant Jeff Reynolds to head men's basketball coach after Jeff Bzdelik fled the jurisdiction for the University of Colorado.  I wonder if he gets a free flyover during the press conference.
• NBC has added Keith Olbermann to the Sunday night football crew.  This is a disaster waiting to happen, not because of any other reason that it is unnecessary.  You now have a group consisting of Bob Costas, Jerome Bettis, Chris Collisworth, Peter King and now Olbermann, who brings little to the table outside of his wicked sense of humor.  When are all these people going to get to talk exactly?  And, if Olbermann wants to be a political commentator, he should focus on that and not on sports.  Chris Matthews is also being considered for a sideline reporter.
• Rotten Tomatoes has released their list of the 53 greatest sports films.  Guys, for the 100,000th time, "Bull Durham" is a chick flick, not a sports flick.  I also couldn't understand how "Rudy" didn't make the top 20 and "Slapshot" and "Hoosiers" didn't make the top 10.  If you have thoughts on this, I'd love to hear them.
• Bill Clinton canceled his scheduled April 28th appearance in Milwaukee yesterday.  I guess he found out the sausage race wasn't what he thought it was.
• Alleged Republican presidential candidate Tommy Thompson apologizes for some misconstrued comments regarding Jews.  So, where are Al and Jesse to express their outrage? 
  
• Actor and friend to gerbils Richard Gere got himself in hot water in India after he kissed Indian actress Shilpa Shetty at a public discussion pertaining to HIV and AIDS.  One minsitry official said "he has committed an indecent act." No telling what the outrage would have been if he had kissed Shetty immediately after eating a Big Mac.
• I've got to a message to you: Johnny Cash's former home, which fell into a burning ring of fire (which was a Tragedy) is Stayin' Alive so we have nothing to be guilty of and this is no Jive Talkin'.
  
• Score one for the little guy.  Bank fees suck, especially when they aren't fair.
• Scientists have found that eating too much bacon is bad for your lungs.  No report yet on the effects of second hand bacon smoke.