Last night I was looking at Flipboard and came across the Top Ten Pinterest Pins by Mashable. In amongst the beautiful photos such as this water tower made out of stained glass and this cutesy little kitty pic worthy of being repinned a million times,

was a picture of a black ribbon made to look like Batman’s mask. The black ribbon was designed to remember the lives that were lost during a horrific shooting on opening day of The Dark Knight in Aurora Colorado. And an image of it made the top ten list on Mashable.

Top Ten? Really?

First of all, who in their right mind would even think to connect a Hollywood movie, in which the lead actor, Heath Ledger died in real life while filming The Dark Knight to this tragedy in Aurora, Colorado?

I refuse to put the photo up here because I don’t want you to think that I am exploiting it for a blog post. It is your choice to go find it on the web. I am merely pointing out that an ignoramus went way too far.

Twelve people died in Aurora Colorado that evening and so many more injured. Including a baby. Isn’t that horrific enough? It’s bad enough that we’re being bombarded by news like this and that we have to even know about the kind of sick person who would do this.

So many people lost those they loved. And now someone is exploiting and profiting by designing a black ribbon to sell on the street corner. Really?.

I’d like to know who is was that created this ribbon so I could shake some bloudy sense into them.

I don’t want to remember or even think about this anymore. I want to forget.

It is not cold-hearted of ignorant of me to want this because I feel desperately sick for the families. I can’t imagine their pain but now that I’m a parent it shakes me to my core at a whole other level. I want to hold my kid and keep him close and make sure he knows he is loved no matter what.

Some may say that emblazoning this tragedy deep in our psyche with the likes of the stupidity mentioned above is a way to keep it raw, to keep it real. That in turn it will inspire the powers that be to do more to prevent events like this happening again.

That’s what marketing crap like this does to our sensibility.

From what I read the guy responsible for the shootings had no previous records, minus a parking ticket. And most likely he was a bit odd to those around him. But as a PhD candidate he probably appeared to be hardworking and driven, and for the most part ‘normal’.

We can’t prevent this sort of thing from happening again any more that we can prevent natural, normal death.  He was a mad man. And kept it to himself.

I’m not sure if I feel better having written this. But it had to come out.

That’s all.