Does anybody see this hostage situation as a harbinger of coming violence?

The parallels between this decade and the 60's were always there--the traumatizing national tragedy, later incorporated into everyday political rhetoric...the increasingly unpopular foreign war with no end in sight...a despised lame duck president...times of lost innocence, rampant cynicism, and universal anger. I once told a friend, jokingly, that if the 2000's were truly the 1960's, the music would be a whole lot better.

But one thing that era had that this decade doesn't, thus far, was an explosion in homegrown violence. This decade hasn't been quite as big on assassinations, riots, or thrill-killings as the 1960's--but the bubbling anger is there on both sides, fueled by media demagogues on the right, and the make-or-break tension involving the 2008 election is palpable.

Let's hope this nut, whoever he is, isn't the opening salvo in another wave of national vigilantism. I'm hopeful but still worried.