The events that took place Monday at Virginia Tech were tragic.
Such a gratuitous loss of life is always shocking and painful to witness.
And yet, while the nation mourns the loss of the 32 killed, I question why it is these lives we choose to honor.
Certainly, yes, they deserve remembrance. They deserve candlelight vigils. They deserve our heartfelt sorrow and sympathy.
But they are not the only ones.
Saturday, 32 people - mostly primary students - were killed when the bus carrying them on a field trip to study rock formations collided with a truck on the Aksaray-Konya highway in Turkey.
A flash flood in southern Thailand killed 35 people, including 15 children, when they were celebrating the Buddhist New Year by swimming in two waterfalls. Ten people remain missing.
As a result of the nor 'easter dumping water on the East coast, at least three people have been killed in related accidents.
Monday saw the third deadly suicide attack in Afghanistan in as many days. In the most recent bombing, the killer ran up to a police station as daily training was commencing, ending the lives of ten officers.
Eleven people died as a passenger train crashed into a minibus and dragged it for half a mile near Thirumatpur, India.
A roadside bomb blew up a United Nations truck in Kandahar, killing four Nepalese UN workers and their Afghan driver.
The 61-year-old mayor of Nagasaki, Japan, was shot to death Tuesday by a 59-year-old local gang member who may have had a lingering grudge about damage to his car that occurred at a public works construction site four years ago.
As drug dealers tried to take control of a Rio de Janeiro shantytown, Brazilian police became engaged in gun battles with the dealers, leaving 19 people dead and the city in chaos.
Thirty tons of molten steel spilled into a room where workers were waiting to change shifts at Qinghe Special Steel Company in China on Wednesday, leaving 32 workers dead as rescuers were forced to wait until temperatures cooled before they could enter the site.
Sixteen high school students in Egypt died on their way to school when the truck they were riding in collided with another vehicle.
In the bloodiest day in Iraq since troop numbers were increased, almost 200 people were killed in a number of bombings across Baghdad.
The lives lost Monday at Virginia Tech ought to be remembered and mourned, but they are a mere fraction of the world's citizens who died unnecessarily in the past few days.
They are a mere fraction of the number of horrific, grievous, avoidable deaths and yet they are the subjects of a vast majority of radio, television, Internet and newspaper media coverage this week.
Yes, the massacre at Virginia Tech belongs in the news.
Yes, I, too, want to celebrate the heroism of Dr. Liviu Librescu, who survived the Holocaust to die holding his classroom door closed against the attack of Cho Seung-Hui as his students escaped out the window.
But I also want to celebrate the unknown heroism of those who dragged victims away from burning vehicles and rescued their neighbors from flooding waters.
I believe we ought to mourn every human life that is taken from the world too soon, and not only the ones that are convenient for us.
Hanna Ricketson can be reached at: hanna.ricketson@asu.edu.
