Once again, we confront the unimaginable horror of the slaughter of children and their teachers, and we are shocked and saddened. But our contact with all this remains filtered by its presentation in the media. Our legislators, at least enough of them to prevent meaningful reform, engage in the customary pieties, invoking the usual thoughts and prayers before turning their attention elsewhere. It occurs to me that what is missing is some means of bringing home to them and their constituents a true sense of what has happened here. The media sanitize their reporting by never showing photos of the bodies of the victims. This is certainly understandable, but is it perhaps a mistake? National consciousness of the Vietnam War was sharpened by pictures such as that of an officer shooting a suspected guerrilla in the head on national TV, or of a little girl fleeing naked, her clothes burned off by napalm. Mike Barnicle remarked this morning that people may need to see how an assault rifle can turn the body of a child into “mush.” Maybe those legislators and constituents need to see that too.

Dr. Herbert Ross

Lyme