Stephen Downes

Some people have started a campaign to have one day of blog silence April 30 to mark the Virginia Tech shootings. I don't intend to take part. The editorial in today's Globe and Mail explains my reasoning quite nicely: "How common are school-based shootings in the United States? Between 1994 and 1999, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta documented 220 separate incidents, accounting for 253 deaths. Leaving aside summer and holidays, that's nearly one homicidal incident a week over six years at schools. Yet the CDC called the incidents rare."