Ten years ago today, two teenagers initiated a bloodbath at their local high school--and made the word Columbine synonymous with arbitrary, agonizing violence. At the time, reporters and television crews swarmed the small town of Littleton, Colorado, located not far from Denver. The slaughter and its immediate aftermath became one of those round-the-clock media spectacles, from which a disbelieving nation could hardly avert its eyes. And while the media--and the audience--eventually moved on, Columbine has never lost its resonance. It is evoked almost every time another demented gunman opens fire: think of the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre, or of the spate of recent shootings that have killed 57 Americans over the last few weeks.



A decade after the fact, it is still hard to know exactly how to commemorate such an event. Dave Cullen, a journalist who covered the massacre back in 1999 and stuck with the story long after most news outlets left town, has just published a meticulous reconstruction of the tragedy. In Columbine, he not only delves into the psychology and family background of the killers, but suggests that the media got the story wrong: Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were reasonably popular and accomplished students, not trench-coated outcasts, and the killings were anything but impulsive.

Oprah Winfrey had originally planned to air a special documentary episode, "10 Years Later: The Truth About Columbine," which promised "shocking revelations and clues the killers left behind." No doubt her intentions were good. But the packaging smacked of sensationalism and crude banality. (A nice touch: the "Related Links" under the Columbine teaser included such gems as "Sean Penn's Latest Passion" and "Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones.") To her credit, however, Winfrey canceled the episode. In a statement she Twittered to the masses--or at least to the 380,297 people who have signed up to follow her--the talk-show icon indicated that dignified silence would be more appropriate. "I pulled the Columbine show today," she wrote. "After reviewing, thought it focused too much on killers-hold a thought for the families, hard day for them."

And what sort of conversations are going on throughout the Web? Over at Twitter, Oprah was not the only one with Columbine on her mind. For many, the events of April 20, 1999 have never completely receded into the past. Said @aarondelay: "Sitting in front of the thick black crosses brings it all back again. Columbine never leaves you, & I know it never will." (Presumably he was referring to the memorial in Littleton, pictured above.) There was a statement of solidarity from @Faerielicious: "'We Are Columbine' I didn't go to school there, but I live only five minutes away. Please take a moment of silence today." Others mulled over the ongoing implications of the massacre. And in one indignant tweet, @Zawmer scolded the National Organization for the Reform for Marijuana Laws for scheduling its annual "smoke-out" on this most indelicate anniversary: "I am NOT a 4-20 celebrant. Do the potheads realize it's Hitler's Birthday? And the anniversary of the Columbine massacre?"