Scary thought

Today's WSJ includes two pieces that are seemingly unrelated, but I wonder. First, Holman Jenkins writes about the Tucson shootings and others like it. " ... Pima officials are likely to be haunted by the findings of the panel investigating the Virginia Tech massacre. That investigation found that state officials had booted ample opportunity under the law to corral a dangerous person. They failed to even provide the simply accurate record that would have disqualified him from purchasing a gun." So none of the usual suspects (lax gun laws, talk radio, Sarah Palin, etc.) Just incompetence.

The piece right below Jenkins' is by Lenore Skenazy ("Eek! A Male!") which highlights what the author calls "worst-first thinking. ... Given the level of distrust, is it any wonder that, as the London Telegraph reported last month, the British Musicians' Union warned its members they are no longer to touch a child's fingers, even to position them correctly on the keys?"

We hear about zero-tolerance embarrassments all the time. Do we embrace zero-tolerance because we are simply incapable of anything less nutty? It's a scary thought.

UPDATE

Instead of facing the troubling truths cited by Jenkins, today's LA Times' front page (not on-line) expressed the hope that the President's speech on the shootings will "bring us together."