Blog Focus: Fort Hood
Blog Focus is Technorati's daily roundup of the top stories as told by the bloggers of the world. Each day five posts, no matter how popular or nascent, will be selected by editors to portray a general unscientific reaction to discussion points around the 'Net.
On Thursday, Army psychiatrist Major walked into the Soldier Readiness Center at Fort Hood in Texas and opened fire. In 10 minutes he killed 13 people while injuring 30 others.
The media buzzed, Twitter exploded, Facebook statuses were updated and the blogosphere swelled with reactions to the tragedy. First the gunman was shot dead, then it was reported he was alive. Initially someone reported that Hasan was a "recent convert to Islam," but later it was changed to that he is Muslim but not a recent convert, he was raised in Islam.
President Obama said at a news conference Friday, "We don't know all the answers yet, and I would caution against jumping to conclusions until we know all the facts."
As more information becomes available, bloggers will continue to share what they know and what they think about what occurred at Fort Hood.
GetReligion.org: "The three reporters and additional contributor who penned the 18-paragraph story didn’t think that it’s relevant that Hasan had praised Muslim suicide bombers or that former colleagues report that he was pleased with Muslim shootings against military institutions or that Hasan’s family says he was distressed by news he faced deployment to the Middle East. None of these things, apparently, are newsworthy to the Times, at least not in comparison with similar reports elsewhere."
Home Fires: "Could it be that the psychiatrist we want to hate saw the unbearable suffering of warriors he was tasked to treat? Could it be that he identified with the suffering of those he treated at Walter Reed Army Hospital? Did he become one of us, another soul tortured by war’s anguish? I cannot forgive this man who betrayed us but I must try and understand him nonetheless."
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