History

Those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it. Or something like that, anyway. And yet it seems that the past is an event that is forgotten within the customary 24 hour news cycle. Don't believe me? Then try the Internet Archive by looking at your favorite site (preferably news site) and seeing what the news was and how much you remember of that news. Heck, try to see how much you know of what happened after the actual event itself? Was it a huge murder case? What happened to the murderer(s)? If it was a scandal, what actually happened to those involved in the days and weeks following the scandal?

The great majority of people do not, and will never, know. They do not care. They care about the big explosion but not in how it was fixed. They care about the grisly murders but not in the convictions that (hopefully) followed. Because those are far more mundane and not nearly so exciting (to the general public, anyway). And, because the temporary excitement created by the latest tragedy is what tends to catch the public's opinion and everyone seems to want their 15 minutes of fame (or infamy, as the case may be), it seems inevitable that people will start to plan something even worse than the most recent event.

Soon, they all become part of the cacophony of our normal lives to the point that tragedy is all a part of the history that no one wants to remember and thus learn from. Yes, I'm pretty certain I should not be ending a sentence with the word "from" but I will remember this in the future and hopefully not repeat this mistake again.