I’m not going to turn this blog into a mindless rant against PR spam (which would be the equivalent of ranting against the weather), but: Three hours after the shootings last week at Northern Illinois University, I got an unsolicited e-mail from an unknown publicist, pitching an author who could talk about violence on college campuses.

Three hours. Three hours. Three hours. The bodies weren’t even cold and someone was trying to make money off of them.