Ticker Tape Sensitivity

I was in Manhattan this week when the New York Yankees won the World Series. New York can now claim the distinction of holding baseball's highest ranking for all of 27 times. Yankee fans are fanatics, so there was all this excitement, shouting and laughter, people rushing into the street and crowding Times Square as the game ended in victory, lots of celebration and plans for a big ticker tape parade in lower Manhattan today.

And then yesterday, something awful happened in Texas. Another kind of fanatic knocked my attention away from over-excited New Yorkers. A soldier shot 51 of his fellow soldiers and civilians on an Army base. He didn't kill himself, or try to; and we’ll never really know if that was part of his plan, since someone stopped him. I saw the report on the news, and like many others, I cried.

So it seemed quite surreal to me to be caught in the crowd returning from the ticker tape parade today. There was great festivity and jubilation, some of it maybe alcohol-powered. Grown men didn't have to hide their tendency for childish pleasure today, so many big little boys acting true to form in their Yankee shirts and caps. I strained my ears to hear a single comment, looked for any sign that the revelers even remembered yesterday’s heartbreak, but nothing.

Such a disconnect, it seemed, from the latest failure of humanity. I couldn't help but think people really have unplugged from bad, painful news altogether. Just last week, the talking heads on TV peddled their shock and outrage that young people in California stood by and watched a woman being raped. That was a tragic and disturbing incident. We heard about desensitization then. Today, in New York, I wondered if this wasn't more of the same. Had anyone noticed?