What can men do against such reckless hate?

In the deadliest act of school violence in American history, at least 33 people lie dead at Virginia Tech after what was presumably a jilted student's bloody shooting rampage."'It is difficult to comprehend senseless violence on this scale,' said Virginia's Governor Timothy M. Kaine in a statement."

And, as details from this story emerge, I've been catching up over at Medley on the recent nightmare befalling blogger Kathy Sierra, who's been the recipient of sexually repugnant death threats as a result of her posting on, of all things, tech issues. (Not to say that posting on anything else would justify the depraved sexist bile thrown her way, but I've sadly come to half-expect that sort of vileness from Freepers, the uglier elements of dKos, and the like.) I guess I shouldn't be all that surprised by the disgusting misogyny pervading this latter incident -- it's sorta like people acting surprised that we've found a racist in our midst in Don Imus, as if bigoted old white guys in positions of power were a dwindling species or something. And, true, these two events have little or nothing to do with each other, except that I'm finding out about them at the same time. Still, I have to say, sometimes all the rage, ugliness, and despair that seems to lurk just under the brittle crust of our society is overwhelmingly disheartening. Let's get it together, people. To go back to Auden again, we must love one another or die.

Update: Exhibit C in today's litany of horrors, this ghastly assault on a Columbia Journalism grad student, which occurred not more than twenty blocks from here over the weekend. Sweet merciful Jesus, this is a sick, sick world sometimes. Update 2: They got him.