But, Jim - how do we know EXACTLY what happened to your ancestors 500 years ago: are there first-hand eyewitness and videoed accounts?

Statistically, your ancestors are also probably a whole heap of other people's too: some of mine were French Hugenots and German Jews (one of whom (my G.grandfather) ironically ended up in a British internment camp as an alien in WW1) - but I really don't think we can be feeling victimised for what happened several hundred years ago.

However, I think I see a point in what you are saying - the carnage in NY is appalling almost beyond comprehension, but let's not forget other equally appalling deaths at the hands of others: take your pick - in 500 years there are so many - Dunblane traumatised me for weeks (my son was just the same age as those children) the image of little childrens'splattered blood up the Gymnasium walls where the gunman had picked them off as they tried to escape - that's almost unbearable isn't it? Much easier to think: Soooooo(?) during the Crusades Christians slaughtered 10s of 1,000s or how about the Final Solution - 14 million including Jews, Poles, Gypsies? Or Stalin? Or Mao Tse Tung's March of Death and 3 million there?

Your ancestors' deaths isn't irrelevant - it is very relevant to "So what have we learned in 500 years?" What we need to learn is to care about each other and to cherish life in all its many forms. Yes, all death (and taxes *G*) is inevitable but, caused by premature, unjust, randomised brutal means, it should not be irrelevant.

Maybe there's some truth in the adage "Denying others' pain is denying your own"?

Best wishes, Hille