26 Christmas trees line the road leading up to the school...

[cynatnite]

From an anonymous donor. Just saw this on MSNBC.

[HERVEPA]

1. I'm sure that will help a lot.

Especially the parents of the Jewish kids.

[FightForMichigan]

4. Thank you.

Little Noah Pozner, his funeral is today. May his memory be a blessing.

[msanthrope]

6. Oh fer chrissakes...you think those parents are concerning themselves

with that? Taking offense?

Not everyone is as petty as you think.

[FightForMichigan]

9. No

I don't think those trees will do anything for those parents. Those poor people are probably beyond the point of this kind of gesture being able to comfort them.

Gestures like these are for people who want to express grief but have no other way to do it. You don't know the family, you're not from the town, but you want to do something.

It's not heresy to say that it would be nice if that something were a little more mindful of who these children were.

[Capt. Obvious]

10. As blunt as you were

you were also very much correct. These gestures are not for the victims.

[DavidDvorkin]

8. Well said

It's that default assumption nonsense again.

[Earth_First]

2. Im not sure what this does...

An interview I saw with a resident of Newtown said that a lot of people were removing their Christmas decorations as there was little to celebrate this year...

[cynatnite]

5. They become shrines...

What they showed on the news had people decorating them, sitting stuffed animals and all that. I can understand the need for this. It can provide a source of comfort and dealing with the pain.

On the other hand, I'm wondering if it's too painful for many to even look at.

[SoCalDem]

3. We certainly are number one in symbolic gestures, aren't we

Let's see how good we are when it's time to legislate meaningful changes that might save future victims from BEING victims.

Just like the magnetic "yellow ribbons" so many festooned their SUVs with for our wars, flowers, candles, balloons, teddy bears, etc.. are just schmaltzy publicity-seeking gestures we are sadly becoming addicted to.

Every horrific "event" gets "public memorialization" that gets "tweeted-facebooked-meet-the-pressed"....claim moral outrage..squeeze out some tears..and then we're all off to the next "event"..

Legislating is hard..

Balloons, teddy bears & Xmas trees are easy..

[Sheldon Cooper]

7. Seriously.

More teddy bears and flowers and ribbons etc. and no meaningful change.