Thursday, December 25, 2008

It Could Always Be Worse

I was going to do a post whining about this Christmas. I never really got into the holiday spirit this year, what with the troubles up north, my wife getting laid off for the third time this year, stress at the job, too many friends having too many serious medical problems, this winter picking up where last winter left off, etc, etc, etc.

Then I saw this story on the news, and I realized things could have been much, much worse:
In a bizarre Christmas Eve rampage in a Los Angeles suburb, a 45-year-old man in a Santa Claus outfit opened fire on a gathering of his in-laws and then methodically set their house ablaze, killing at least six people and injuring several others, the authorities said on Thursday.

In adition, three people who were at the party in the suburb of Covina — including the couple who owned the home and the former wife of the suspect — were missing, the police said.

The suspect, identified by witnesses as Bruce Jeffrey Pardo, later killed himself in front of his brother's house in Sylmar, about 40 miles from the scene of the shootings, the police said.

Witnesses said Pardo, armed with cans of accelerant, went to the house looking for his former wife, Sylvia, with whom he had been entangled in a bitter divorce..

The frenzied shooting occurred just before midnight Wednesday at a two-story home on a cul de sac in Covina, a middle-class town about 22 miles east of Los Angeles. People who escaped the home, including one woman who broke an ankle as she leapt out of a second-floor window, said they had gathered for a family celebration.

I can't even imagine what that family is going through now.

It makes my problems, all of our problems, seem less insurmountable, and helped me focus on the important things in life.

1 comment:

  1. helped me focus on the important things in life

    You mean you're finally going to read Edmund Burke's "Reflections on the Revolution in France"??

    ReplyDelete