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One Thing I Haven't Seen Mentioned in the Virginia Tech Coverage

Filed under: Personal Tagged: in memoriam, music, technology

The local cell-phone networks were jammed throughout the day. Students couldn't call each other, administrators couldn't call faculty, parents couldn't call kids. Even if the university had set up an emergency text-messaging system, it might not have been functional. Hasn't the technology evolved at all since Sept. 11? How many years have they had to address this?

If you can stand the sadness of hearing some pretty beautiful singing by one of those people killed with a readily available gun ("He didn't look fidgety," explained the gun store owner about the killer), listen to some songs, like a wittily acoustic "Baby, It's Cold Outside," performed by one: the clearly talented Daniel O'Neil, a graduate student and songwriter.

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Emdashes, founded December 2004, is a place where keen and dedicated readers of The New Yorker, past and present, can find related news and commentary: about people, subjects, and ideas within the magazine, and events and conversations outside its pages. Learn more about us and our contributors.

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