It can be so upsetting to have grisly violent horror foisted upon us -- do you remember about a year ago, when I was really undone by some absolutely gruesome pictures I found -- completely unexpectedly (there was nothing in the topic of the book to suggest I should be preparing myself for enormous violence) -- in a book? At that time, those images touched a deep chord of suffering and horror in me. And the fear that some child might happen upon them was something I felt -- and was probably standing in for the thought that the child-in-me had stumbled on them and been hurt.
I am always against the excessive coverage of sensational trials, though of course very much of the mind that they must be covered (trials conducted in secrecy would lead us towards a different kind of horror). I do think that some things can work as a kind of poison, if our minds focus on them too much. Most people are not "evil," for instance, but thinking about these awful crimes makes them seem too close to the center of the world and the heart of human nature. I guess it's a bit like Denethor staring into his stone and being mastered by it!
There was a big spurt in numbers of people jumping to their deaths after the movie about Golden Gate Bridge suicides came out (and all the attendant publicity). That makes me uncomfortable.
vison, protect the kids around you as best you can and comfort the kid in you wounded by all this horror.
