Hell

This piece in National Review Online is one of the most powerful and poignant reflections on the Virginia Tech madness that I've come across.

It’s not hard to imagine it. A regular, ordinary Monday morning. None of the students thought it would be their last. None of them imagined, pulling notebooks out for class, they were about to get caught in the middle of a killing spree. None of them. It’s just not the sort of thing you expect. Death disguised as an ordinary Monday morning in an ordinary classroom on an ordinary American campus. Hell in Blacksburg — hell on earth.

[snip]

What sense is there to be made of hell on earth? And why is it always catching us by surprise?

Please click through to read the whole thing.