Tag End

In today’s Journal (Saturday), Win Quigley has written a superb column on the tragic killing of Tyrus Toribio, the little boy found buried in sand in an Albuquerque park. His mother has been arrested in the killing.

A lot of words have been written and said about this terrible event, but no one has approached it with the insight and humanity as Quigley did in this morning’s Journal ($ sub. req.)

Here’s how it begins:

A single paragraph in the Journal’s coverage of the Tiffany and Tyrus Toribio tragedy jumps out at me.

Toribio’s attorney, Lelia Hood, said her client recently fell on bad economic times when retailer Linens ‘n Things closed its doors. Hood said Toribio had worked for the retailer for about 18 months before losing her job.

What grabs me is that 18 months is a long time for a young woman to work in a single retail store, an industry where turnover is expected to be high. My image of an accused murderer is tempered just a little bit by the possibility Tiffany Toribio was, like most of us, trying to get by.

I suspect his careful examination of human frailty will result in the usual e-mail deluge from those who see no worth in such careful examination, but if you can get your hands on a Journal, do yourself a favor and read Win’s column. You won’t regret it.

A Pennsylvania newspaper has apologized for accepting and printing a classified ad that openly hopes for the assassination of Barack Obama.

How did we get here? What have we done to ourselves that brings us to the point where newspapers print classified ads hoping for the assassination of the President of the United States?

How did we come to this? How did we do this to ourselves?