We’ve all created groups on facebook for various reasons — boredom, procrastination, humor… But yesterday, many of us took the time to dedicate our groups to something serious, something real — the horrific, sad, scary shooting at Virgina Tech.

I heard what happened on the news yesterday. I was shocked. But I can’t say what happened to those poor, unsuspecting students hit me until this morning when I saw the many V-Tech memorial groups on facebook. I saw pictures of the actual students who were shot and killed having fun with their friends, enjoying college, living a carefree life like the rest of us. I read other students’ comments from other schools and felt the sympathy and sadness in their words.

Check out the links to the memorial pages. Read More »

According to the Chicago Sun Times and Fox News, the shooter was an Asian National, in the US on a student visa. Unfortunately, in typical new media fashion, they soaked the wrong person’s name, Facebook and MySpace page ALL OVER THE NEWS. If I had not seen it, I wouldn’t have believed it. They pasted his name, bashed him, and then went, “Oh…uh…our bad, we have just been notified this person is still alive and was not involved in the shooting.” They think they have the right name now, but we will see over the next couple of hours.

…OK…time to slow down people. If we have learned ANYTHING as Americans and our global media machine, it is that we cannot rush to media bash innocent-till-proven-guilty people until we have some shred of proof. Then again, I am actually WATCHING Geraldo re-showing his MySpace page to show WHY they thought it was him. In good conscience, I will not link you to it but I am sure by tomorrow we will all know.

Regardless, we know it was 1 guy with a gun and a lot of bullets. There are more comments and updates from people all over the country on Bloomberg. com.

The truth right now is, no one knows why the hell anyone would do this or who this person is. They are assuming that the same person who shot at the dorm in the morning, is the same one who shot up the classrooms. (It seems logical to me.)

However, witnesses have popped up who were in class where the shooting occured. He shot with no words, no comments, nothing. Read more

As the day of absolute shock comes to a close, students and the community torn apart by this event prove that they can band together in this time of need.

See the photos of support here.

This person matched the description of the shooter, but was later released.

President Bush weighed in here and promised to help support the investigations in any way.

CNN posted a student video of the events (a little tasteless but they ARE the media).

MSNBC posted a map and timeline of the events.

The sad part is, while the news and every other TV station in the US was covering this – the students had very little information except for an email blast. That is crap. They blamed it on trying to keep students in the safest possible place. If I was a commuter student, the safest place is AT HOME – cancel class for F–KSAKE! But instead, more students were subjected to harm. Now, of course, there is a reasonable expectation – but call radio station, tell the news, do SOMETHING. But early in morning after it happened they thought it was an “isolated” situation.

The students disagree.

What do you think about the University’s decision?

Some sites like CollegeHumor have said that they will continue business as usual, and that’s ok. We, on the other hand, have made the decision to post some links to the most concise information we can find.