On the Anniversary of the Ecole Polytechnique Massacre...

Today is the sad anniversary of the massacre at Montreal's Ecole Polytechnique yet this Blogging Tory cannot even bring himself to offer one word of sympathy for the victims, deciding instead to blame the men who were forced out of the school by Marc Lepine at gunpoint after shots had already been fired while bringing up the old fearmongering tactic of pointing out that 'Gharbi was the second generation son of a Muslim immigrant' because that talking point now fits in neatly with the right-wing hysteria and bigotry towards Muslims. I'd like to know exactly what that blogger, Frank Hilliard, would do if he met face to face with an armed gunman in the midst of mass confusion under the threat of death. I guess we'll never know. In the meantime, however, he preaches from his pulpit that others in such a situation should have acted differently. Well, hindsight is always 20/20. Being there in that moment, however, is an entirely different story. Anyone who's lived through a traumatic incident knows just how true that is.

These are the women who were lost that day. May they never be forgotten:

* Geneviève Bergeron (b. 1968), civil engineering student.
* Hélène Colgan (b. 1966), mechanical engineering student.
* Nathalie Croteau (b. 1966), mechanical engineering student.
* Barbara Daigneault (b. 1967) mechanical engineering student.
* Anne-Marie Edward (b. 1968), chemical engineering student.
* Maud Haviernick (b. 1960), materials engineering student.
* Maryse Laganière (b. 1964), budget clerk in the École Polytechnique's finance department.
* Maryse Leclair (b. 1966), materials engineering student.
* Anne-Marie Lemay (b. 1967), mechanical engineering student.
* Sonia Pelletier (b. 1961), mechanical engineering student.
* Michèle Richard (b. 1968), materials engineering student.
* Annie St-Arneault (b. 1966), mechanical engineering student.
* Annie Turcotte (b. 1969), materials engineering student.
* Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz (b. 1958), nursing student.

Keep their families and friends, along with everyone who was directly impacted by the horrors of that day, in your thoughts and prayers on this day.

Update: Kathy of the Relapsed Catholic blog is also quite proud of herself for making this proclamation: 'The young men who left their female classmates to their fates during the Montreal Massacre were wimps.' Just how sadistic do you have to be to blame victims? And yes, those men were victims of Lepine's terror as well.