Decency

Gun's Quote-of-the-Week:

“Each time anyone comes into contact with us, they must become different and better

people because of having met us. We must radiate God’s love.”

-Mother Teresa

Will Norton just graduated high school when he and his father were driving in Joplin, MO and encountered what would-be called the single deadliest tornado in US history since 1947.

Will, wearing a seat-belt, was “sucked out” of the sunroof of his Hummer, and whisked into a nearby debris-strewn pond where his body was found several days after the tornado struck the now-leveled city of Joplin.

Will joins the now 139 dead in the wake of the deadly twister.

He was the face of the missing in the Joplin tornado. He appeared on YouTube where he had posted several videos of himself, and on Facebook, where his profile became the “Missing” sign that went viral on the internet. That face would later come to represent the innocent loss of life that died too young and left too many asking the question, “Why?”

I followed Will’s story because he had been a former Missouri Boys Stater who attended our Journalism School. I didn’t know him personally; I don’t believe we ever met. Yet, just knowing that he was a participant in the program that will start here again in about two weeks made the devastation a bit more real. This wasn’t a Facebook profile or a YouTube celebrity; this was a person.

Following his story, however, revealed a horrible theme which I feel compelled to discuss. You see, several media websites allow comments on their news stories, and it seems that the people who post comments on these stories are the cruelest, most tactless, and most ignorant our civilization has to offer.

It started when an “engineer” posted about how our media was so “ignorant.” He said that nobody could be sucked out of a sunroof, even in 200 mile-per hour winds, because the air has to flow through the cab and there would have been no opening in the bottom of the cab. His argument was that Will was thrown from the vehicle. Then somebody called the engineer an idiot, declaring that he probably wasn’t an engineer at all because he couldn’t understand the simple concept of the force of 200 mile-per-hour winds. Somebody else said something about how his father, riding in the car with Will, was probably delusional during the experience and misreported Will being sucked out of the car in the first place. Then somebody else said that tornados violate the laws of physics. Then that provoked even more insults as people took advantage of the opportunity to call that poster an idiot. This was only the beginning… I’m reading the news today and there is page after page after page of bantering, complaining, arguing, insulting and, frankly, hating on someone of something.

For all that is good and right with the world; a young man died, OK? Are you really going to lower yourselves to second-grade bullying over his death? How grossly offensive to him, to Joplin, and to humanity in general.

Mother Teresa said that we should radiate God’s Love. This should happen all of the time, but especially during times of such great sorrow and loss for so many people. Yet, I am appalled at how cruel or condescending some can be.

Thankfully, we know not everyone is like this. Certainly several people have pitched-in to help Joplin recover. We have sent money and food and filled our blood banks to provide the aid that they all need right now. I would hope they have the majority of our country’s support.

Even so, you should carefully consider if you radiate love when you encounter another human being, regardless of whether the encounter occurs on Facebook, in person, over the phone or E-Mail or even as a comment on a news story.

Perhaps if you have nothing good to say then you shouldn’t say anything at all.

…and that’s why it’s a Gun’s Quote!