The Saturday after the presidential election, 25-year-old Andrew Veal from Georgia hopped the fence at the World Trade Center site and committed suicide, apparently due to the re-election of George Bush.
 

That Wednesday, actor Vincent DiNofrio of “Law and Order: Criminal Intent” fame, passed out on the set due to stress following Kerry’s defeat. All the craziness that is ensuing from the post-election fallout makes me almost ashamed to have supported Kerry this year. Almost.
 

While it may be embarrassing to have all of this, plus all the other stuff that isn’t even reported, happening just because of an election, it is (hopefully) an isolated incident. The election of 2000 went off without, thankfully, someone killing him or herself because of the result. I can understand being somewhat depressed, especially if you were involved heavily in the election effort, but killing yourself is a bit extreme. Veal was engaged and was as happy as he could be before the election. So, why the sudden down spiral? Unfortunately, we will never know.
 

But what we do know is that, although Kerry lost the election, us Democrats, Libertarians, and other Anti-Bush men and women can and will survive. I have to urge any other person reading this paper to not do anything wild just because Kerry lost his first shot at being president.
 

This is an overwhelming problem we face even today, a month after the election. We, as a society, cannot place the importance of people’s lives on top of something as small as the election. Let me rephrase that. The election is huge, but when compared in the grand scheme of things to a human life, the two don’t match up very well.
 

When the New York Yankees lost to their bitter rivals, the Boston Red Sox this fall, aside from the usual hate-spit thrown out by the pinstripe faithful, no one took to the Empire State Building and hopped off, so why should the election be different? Come to think of it, the rivalry between the Yanks and the Sox is about 1,000 times more bitter than the election of 2004 was.
 

So, people, get off your melodramatic soapboxes and get back to real life. Try to get back to the things that are more important in life, like eating applesauce and Pop Tarts. Besides, there is always 2008. The power always switches sides after eight years of one party controlling things. Bush is having enough problems keeping people on his staff to worry about any Republicans continuing in power, such as Giuliani, McCain, and God help us, Dick Cheney.