Blow up your TV

From the Omaha World-Herald:

Mark Dotson said his ex-wife was staying at his southwest Bellevue house with their two daughters when she invited Hawkins, her son, over for dinner. It was the night before the Westroads shootings.

Dotson, who was in Thailand on a vacation with a girlfriend, said Hawkins took his rifle from a closet when his ex-wife left with the girls to buy a birthday present at Wal-Mart. They were gone an hour, he said.

When Dotson's ex-wife, Maribel "Molly" Rodriguez, returned, Hawkins abruptly ended a session on the Internet, said goodbye and "plenty of I-love-yous" and left.

After the fact, she thought she could have read something into that," said Dotson of the mother. "She feels horrible."

Phone messages left with Rodriguez were not returned. A day after attending the private burial of her son, Rodriguez was in New York, her ex-husband said.

Part of an interview with Rodriguez by ABC News aired Wednesday might. Her account of the evening spent with her son matched Dotson's. She said she's "thinking now my life is over."

"I'm so sorry, so sorry," she said. "Please forgive me and my little Robert."

THE MOTHER OF the Murderer Whose Name Must Not Be Spoken is in New York, giving an exclusive interview to ABC News. She'll be on Good Morning America this AM.

Of course, ABC News and Diane Sawyer and Good Morning America are long gone from Omaha, having "moved on." Meanwhile, the eight victims of the Terrorist Whose Name Must Not Be Spoken -- at least not be spoken unless really necessary, like in the World-Herald story -- were buried in yesterday's-news anonymity and their families have been left to grieve far from the network spotlight.

The dead and buried, and the people who loved them, no longer are sexy, happening or now. We're all about the "now" now. If only the tales of many victims' heroism -- heroism that meant certain death -- had surfaced a couple of news cycles earlier. . . .

Oops, too late! Irrelevant to the national conversation, unlike the Oprah 'n' Obama Show.

BUT IF YOU HAVE an exclusive interview with the mama of the homicidal whack job . . . well, that's something! Diane can elicit gut-wrenching tales of a troubled, misunderstood youth who made some bad choices. Like committing mass murder in a crowded department store.

Tears! Mama will shed tears! Motherly tears from a heartbroken mom from a broken family with a broken kid who went berserk and broke a city's heart.

Now that's drama!

Not Drama (not to mention Not Worthy of National TV) would be the mundane story of husbands, wives, children, siblings and friends back there in the middle of Flyover Country, stuck in an overgrown cow town, wondering how to go on living after being gobsmacked by death.

After their loved ones' unfortunate encounter with the Maniac Whose Name Must Not Be Spoken.

Blow up your TV.