You try screaming and shouting and letter writing campaigns, and still another child joins a gang instead of going to school, another person dies of a drug overdose, and another single mother has to choose between feeding her child or paying to keep the electricity on in her apartment.

And nobody listens.

How big a noise do you have to make to get anybody's attention? What will it take to make people hear the information you have? There are people eating dog food while others pay three million dollars on interior design and nobody seems to think there's anything wrong.

What does it take to be noticed? How can you get past the I-Pods and cell phones to make them aware? The government uses violence when they want to solve things: the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, The War on Terror, The War on Drugs, and capital punishment is how they answer their need to be heard. So why not follow their example?

I have to admit there are times when my own brain goes that route. I get so frustrated with people not seeing or hearing that I would be tempted to blow something up to get their attention, but like my friend's mother, I couldn't bear the thought of taking an innocent life.

I've always considered violence as the recourse of the lazy and the cowardly. It's much easier to shoot somebody than to try and work out your differences and possibly have to admit you were wrong about something. We have glamorized violence as the great problem solver through out most of our culture.

With the 'settling it like a man' in the boxing ring ethos when it comes to a dispute instead of talking it through, we are instilled with a 'might makes right' attitude to problem solving from an early age. We live in a society where intellect and reason are disparaged as being oddities and our heroes solve their problems with their fists and a weapon instead of their brains, compassion, and wisdom.

If I, with my attitude towards violence, can actually consider for even the briefest of moments using it to attract attention to a problem, how difficult would it be for someone else to cross that line? I will never condone the use of violence as a tool for problem solving, but I can see how seductive it could be as an option for those who think they have no other choice.

What surprises me is not that people have resorted to violence in an attempt to enact social change, but that more haven't done so. I only hope this continues to be the case.