what i think is an interesting question about events like vatech: to what extent do we, should we, can we (or: do i should i can i) feel connected? well, i do feel more connected than to a bunch of bodies in baghdad. why? sheer physical proximity? class or national solidarity? is it because i'm soaked in coverage? i do feel like there's a slight element of simulation in the "we are all vatech" moments all over the country, a bit of emotional forcedness, a bit of ethical theatricality that is about establishing our own goodness, to ourselves among others. but surely we ought to respond, ought to feel something? should it be something deep, and if it isn't are we defective? a friend of my wife's spoke very movingly about the whole thing, choking up a little, and she asked him whether he had a connection to the people. his response? "my daughter almost went there." that's pretty thin: but yet we are eager to make some kind of emotional claim. should we shut down the campus, the state, the nation, the world? i'm not purporting to answer these questions but to raise them raises a series of fundamental ethical questions about the extent of empathy, the principles of connection, our claim on one another and the processes by which these claims and connections are mediated.