Help please, explain todays Tom the Dancing Bug to me. I just don't get it.

[uppityperson]

Is it that people carry around their concerns, their fears all the time? Usually I think TtDB is quite funny, but this one stumps me. Thank you.

[ret5hd]

1. The way the masses cope with their fears...

is often to pick (or have given to them) a convenient scapegoat that often has nothing to do with the cause of their fears.

[uppityperson]

2. That makes sense, thanks.

[displacedtexan]

3. What it says to me...

... is that society can't handle randomness, and we have to
compartmentalize every seemingly random act of violence as
the consequence of some identifiable group with an identifiable
motive... whether the "facts" fit the evidence or not.

The people carrying the boxes appear to be satisfied, even if they've
based their understanding on fact or fiction.

Just my take. I could be wrong.

[EstimatedProphet]

8. I agree

I think what it's saying is that we can't accept that what happened was simply the act of someone who had mental issues, and that there's no more meaning to it than that. We have to put it in our little box that says what it is supposed to mean.

[Sabriel]

4. Here's how I read it

He didn't know how to react to the tragedy until the M$M told him how he SHOULD react. He was incapable of processing it without help from the talking pinheads.

[Kelly Rupert]

5. There's no talking head here, or anyone telling him

how to react. Just like everyone else there--liberal and conservative--he had no idea how to react until he came across some fact (in this case, Cho's ethnicity) that allowed him to fit the whole mess into one of his preexisting opinions.

[Sabriel]

6. Talking head represented by the Internet, radio, & TV info he receives. n/t

[Sapere aude]

7. He's got a whole bunch of physiological baggage and can't take responsibility for it

He finds a scapegoat and blames them.

[ET Awful]

9. Perhaps the concept that everyone feels a need to wrap every problem up

into a neat little package in order to feel like they're in control? It seem stha tthe others in the strip have chosen different packages to wrap the issue up in, but everything can be categorized and boxed up into one neat little package, thus requiring no further thought?

[MissMarple]

10. Perhaps we all need my "no current label " box.

Mine is pretty full right now, but that's OK. It is quite expandable. This saves a lot of wasted angst and misplaced hostility. Plus, I don't have to carry it around with me. It is quite content to hang out up in the cobwebby attic with the real mysteries of the universe.

At this juncture my daughter would tell me to quit trying to channel Terry Pratchett. :)