10 guys with guns go on a rampage in Mumbai, India and kill over 100 people.

A mob of shoppers kill a temp employee at a Wal-Mart in New York.

2 die and a dozen are injured in a six car pile up near Taos, New Mexico in a traffic accident.

2 U.S. soldiers die in Iraq.

These tragedies happened this Thanksgiving weekend.

There seem to be no shortage of tragedies these days. People dying from guns and mobs and cars and disease and so forth. We say 'What a shame, what a shame.'

On Wednesday, I drove a man to the airport, who was heading back to Dallas unexpectedly. His three-week-old grandson had died of SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome). The ride was quiet, and I told him to hang in there at the end. What a shame.

What do you do? What can you do? What should you do? I've developed a thick skin to the tragedies that don't directly affect me. Is that right? Should we persevere? Should we mourn? Build up our defenses? Enact new safety laws?

We are dropping like flies in this world, and yet there seem to be more and more of us. How can we save ourselves from each other? We can't. What a shame.

Questions, questions, and all the answers and solutions appear short sighted or self interested.

Is a soldier's death more noble than a temp worker at Wal-mart? Most would say yes, but which gets more attention? Soldiers are supposed to die, or at least put themselves in harm's way. Temp workers at Wal-mart don't even get benefits.

What of the killers? The gunmen, the fanatical shoppers, the enemy, the road. The gunmen are dead, the shoppers were forced not to shop, the enemy is still out there and the road remains the same. Satisfied? Hardly. What a shame.

I haven't been able to step in line for a while in this world, and I always wonder why we are the way we are. Why do we shop at 5 a.m. on the day after Thanksgiving? Why are we at war? Why do terrorists attack the innocent instead of the ones they truly despise? Why do people drive so close to each other at high speeds? The simple answer is that's just what we do. What a shame.

I read the paper, and pundits have all kinds of reasons and complaints and rationales and rhetoric. I can't remember the last time any pundit in print, radio, television or the Internet changed my mind on anything. They usually make me consider the opposite of what the propose. They have no answers for our tragedies, only blame. What a shame.

I don't mourn any of the deaths this Thanksgiving weekend. I felt blue for fifteen minutes about the SIDS baby while I was driving. Probably because I have a baby girl and imagined how I would feel if I lost her. She's sitting in a little basket next to me right now. A little life near you overpowers a lot of distant death.

No doubt that people will demand for better homeland security, better planning for holiday shopping, safer roads, more testing of babies, and improved armor for our soldiers. This will not bring anyone back, this will not stop new and evolving ways to die, this will do nothing but allow people to say 'We did something in light of tragic tragedy.'

Nobody wants to die in vain, but really, nobody dies in vain. It is the final stage of life, and it completes whatever journey we've been traveling. We can avoid for a while, but someday, for some reason, we all finish the game. Maybe we shouldn't say 'What a shame.' What a blessing that we even got to play.

Keep on living, folks. Who knows when, how, or why it's time to go?

Chris Jungle isn't as morose as he sounds.