It just doesn’t make any sense. Early Tuesday evening, I was startled by the sound of my housemaid, Jake, bounding down the stairs at warp speed yelling, “Ellyn, turn on the TV. Any channel.”

With mild curiosity, I turned on the set and adjusted the rabbit ears only to be met by overwhelming mortification. The usual nausea incurred through news of NATO bombings, death of innocent refugees and a growing sense of anti-American sentiment in Western Europe had been put aside for one evening.

I found myself suddenly absorbed in a tear-jerking emotion fueled by the all too frequent horrors taking place in our own star-spangled country. Jonesboro, Paducah and now Littleton; this rampage was the latest in a series of tragedies at schools across the U.S. Another massacre of innocent high school students by fellow classmates has plagued newscasts, daily papers and tabloids across the country.

I started asking myself which country’s morality we should be more concerned with: the land where two ethnic groups are fighting over liberty, justice and cohabitation or the country strong in personal liberty and the pursuit of happiness where an unthinkable number of innocent children are killed by their peers for essentially no reason at all?

While our so-called humanitarian effort in Kosovo may be seen as noble and heroic; stories of guns in schools, group suicides, gang bangers and more tragedies filling American headlines remind us that we are not the example of a picture-perfect society.

This disaster in Littleton brings the dreaded outside world too close to home for many of us here in Ames. As a school with approximately 1,800 students, the small Colorado high school and the affluent community of 35,000 is comparable to the statistics surrounding this little corner of America.

Is the next innocent victim going to be someone you know? Maybe a younger sibling, a niece or nephew, the morning paper boy or even your own child?

What can this community do to stop the insanity that is spreading like the flu through so many of our American high schools?

The first step is determining the source of the problem. Psychotherapists pin the enraged acts on depression, the home environment and other colorful assortments of mental anguish. True, one must be in some way unbalanced to commit such a blasphemous crime, but the idea is unknowingly delivered and fueled by nearly every single one of us.

We are all familiar with the name Charles Manson, but how many of his victims can we name?

The infamous unabomber will live forever in the pages of history. Name two people his madness affected.

The list of infamous criminals and their nameless victims is endless. The concept is simple: An outrageous and murderous act is one surefire way to become a permanent part of the past.

I think that now is the perfect time to stop catering to the whims of madmen and start respecting the lives of those who suffered during their reign. It’s time to show the youth of this country that those committing cruel and heartless acts are not to be given immortality through decades of widespread coverage.

During the news-breaking story of Littleton I was reminded of a story told to me by a devoted Beatles fan. In 1980, when John Lennon was shot in front of his apartment building in New York City his killer claimed one motive. He wanted to be famous. He knew this would be on straight ticket to the front page fame associated with similar acts of unexplainable violence.

Paul McCartney was so disgusted by the man and his superficial reasons for ending the life of his dearest friend that he vowed to never speak the killer’s name in public. McCartney at least attempted to never give the gunman the satisfaction of becoming a household name.

The students, teachers and faculty who were injured and killed in Littleton deserve the same respect. I will not waste these concluding lines with the names of the heartless killers and whatever their deranged reasons might have been.

I save these last few inches to remind you of those young people who have already lost their lives to this tragedy. Think of the friends and relatives of Columbine students who sat and waited through the night awaiting word from missing loved ones. My heart goes out to each and every one of them.

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Ellyn Peterson is a senior in journalism and mass communication and international studies from Algona.