The so-called "festive" season was marred this year by the killing of 20 children and two adults at the Sandy Hook School in Connecticut. However, the massacre and its aftermath took more away from our basic humanity than it did unite us in it or highlight it. As the pundits claimed, the world watched in horror as little bodies were mourned on street corners, in livingrooms, and at front doors where relatives of the victims were willing to talk to the cameras and diplay their grief globally. Poignantly, the next day and the next, an unarmed soldier stood guard by the flag outside an elementary school in California after promising the children they would be safe. All moving stuff - heart-breaking and heart-rendering at the same time. Hard enough to take without major news stations spending a full week stirring the story, pulling heart-strings and making reference to the accessibility of handguns in America. While no one who has either had or had and lost a child would come down hard on...