"Let his name be erased"

James Holmes, YMS.

So would go an ancient Jewish curse if applied to the accused Aurora, Colo., shooter. YMS is an abbreviation of the Hebrew, "yemach shemo," which means "Let/May his name be erased."

In its own context, this is not to say that the accursed one merely should be forgotten, but an imprecation of extreme malignancy.

It is a curse, an active assault on the soul: it expresses a wish and a prayer for the utter annihalation of the evil individual referred to--that he be erased: Not merely from human memory, but from eternal memory. I.e., let his soul disappear, let him never have existed.

This occurs to me in the context of the massacre in Aurora because the two leading political figures relevant to the event have stated that they will not utter the name of the accused shooter.

Jordan Ghawi, related to one of the shooting victims reported after meeting President Obama during the president's recent trip to Aurora ...

... reported on Twitter that the president had promised not to speak the name "James Holmes." On Sunday, Ghawi tweeted that he had received word that the White House press secretary "will not utter the name of the suspect who committed this act."

During a recent evening vigil held for the victims and their families,

The governor of Colorado, John Hickenlooper, told the crowd, “We refuse to even allow our state, our communities to be defined by irrational, senseless violence.” Hickenlooper drew a strong ovation when he made it a point of saying he would not refer to shooting suspect James Holmes by name, only as “Suspect A.”

Obviously, the news media can't abide by such a concept. They must name the suspect by name in their reporting. But they can and should make sure not to nickname him as they have done in some prior, notorious cases.

Reporters, says [journalism instuctor Al]Tompkins, should avoid labels like "loser" and "mysterious," and should not create monikers for criminals, like "Son of Sam" or, in Holmes' case, "The Joker," or "Batman Killer."

Shall his name be erased? No, not possible. But neither should it be be magnified.