Pushing that button, one way or another

Nuclear war (yeah)
Nuclear war (yeah)
Talkin' about (yeah)
Nuclear War (yeah)

It's a motherf****r,
don't you know.
If they push that button,
your ass gotta go.

THE BAND IS YO LA TENGO. The song is "Nuclear War." It's a catchy little thing, a classic call-and-response number, of which the band has cut several versions.

Most charming is the version where the response part is done by a children's chorus. Nothing warms the heart like an aggregation of what must be first graders happily singing "It's a motherf****r . . . ."

The time is a few minutes after 1 a.m., Central time -- just after 2 Eastern. It is Tuesday, April 17, 2007. I'm listening to the radio, via the Internet.

The station is WUVT, 90.7 FM, Blacksburg, Va. The student voice of Virginia Tech, where something truly unspeakable happened Monday morning -- ironically, Holocaust Remembrance Day.

THIRTY-TWO STUDENTS and faculty members lay dead, along with the 24-year-old student from China 23-year-old Korean student who gunned them down. Calmly. Bemusedly. Impassionately. Methodically. Mercilessly.

Why? Because he could, armed with a 9mm, a .22 and enough clips of ammo to do the job . . . and more.

It's a motherf****r,
don't you know.
When he squeeze that trigger,
your ass gotta go.

I GOT NO ANSWERS. None.

No answers as to why some foreign student blew away his (reported) girlfriend, her dorm-floor resident assistant, as much of the rest of the Virginia Tech community as he could . . . and then himself, as police closed in.

I got no answers as to why some students on the campus radio thought it in any way appropriate to play several versions -- one after another -- of a song proclaiming nuclear war to be "a motherf****r" on the public airwaves. I got no answers as to why anyone who wasn't raised by wolves would think it remotely appropriate to play such -- with a giggling introduction, no less -- when classmates and professors lay on morgue shelves and classroom floors remain caked with blood.

I. GOT. NO. ANSWERS.

Once upon a time, the God of Abraham told His people, Israel, to sacrifice the spotless lamb and mark their doorposts with its blood so that the Angel of Death would pass over their dwellings, and their first born would be spared the horrible plague.

Once upon a time, the God of Abraham sent His only begotten Son -- truly and mysteriously one with Himself as part of the Triune Godhead -- to be the spotless Lamb of God, to be executed and then rise from the dead, destroying death itself.

Once upon a time, that meant something. Once upon a time, we could conceive of ourselves as precious enough -- and wretched enough -- to warrant such extraordinary acts by the Creator Himself.

Now we kill with little passion and great efficiency, and we wallow in "motherf****rs" through the night while young victims of yet another American atrocity lay in cold storage. Waiting for grieving parents to carry them home, to bury their hopes and dreams, to bury the future -- the generations that will never be.

The Angel of Death has done little passing over lately.

This is America in these times. We have extraordinary freedom still, which we regularly exploit to unleash great horror upon the land. Maybe we're the Angel of Death.

It's a motherf****r,
don't you know.
The Culture of Death means
your ass gotta go.