Sympathy

The big tornado that cut through the Deep South not only killed hundreds of people and did who knows how much damage to property, but effectively ended the school year early for the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa.  For some reason, it's the latter fact that shakes me a little more — maybe I'm getting a little jaded about tallying death and destruction, given some of my recent research here in Research City. 

Dear Old University is also a big state school whose campus is central to life in DOU-Town.  It's tough to imagine a disaster big enough to make DOU conclude that it couldn't complete the school year, and send home students while rescue workers tried to find out what on earth had happened to a whopping eighty employees that no one could locate since the disaster struck.  But UA is really going through that right now.  My heart goes out to them.