As refugees flee Kosovo, people mourn in Littleton, and midwestern states regroup following the tornadoes there, tough times also have also hit local communities.

Racism should be a thing of the past. This is a given and yet right in Massapequa the ugliness of a biased crime hit this past week. When a Massapequa resident left her home this week it was to find racial epithets spray-painted on her house along with the words "Get out" and "die." KKK was scrawled on the sidewalk in front of her home. This unfortunately was not the first time a situation like this has arisen. This one resident has been a victim of bias crimes several times over the last couple of years. How can an educated society allow this to happen right in our own backyards?

The Columbine High School tragedy hit close to home this week when two Plainedge students called in bomb threats to the high school. It is hard to imagine that, after seeing the faces of students whose lives will never be the same after the terror they endured as two of their classmates killed their friends, any student could think it was funny to terrorize their own classmates by calling in bomb threats. The Columbine High School students could probably tell them that there is nothing funny about the grief and fear that they will have to live with for many months and years to come.

As these incidents bring worldwide issues into our own hometowns, communities must consider what can be done to further educate people, both children and adults, so that these acts of ignorance do not spread any further or hurt anyone else.

-Susie Trenkle