Tonight, I was checking out the front page of StarTribune.com, trying to come up with a topic to discuss in my Your Voices blog. I found a couple of articles that made me notice a trend.

The first story was about a 32 year old Burnsville man who was being charged with having sex with a 13 year old girl.

Another headline read "Father Pleads for help in search for St. Thomas freshman."

A little further down the list of stories was about an earthquake in Italy that, as of last count, killed 235 people and has left another fifteen missing.

The common thread in each of these articles, in my mind, is that there are victims. There are stories like these each day in all newspapers across the country and around the world. And in many cases, the next day, they are forgotten. In many cases, we may not even read the entire article before flipping to another story. To most people, stories like those above, are just stories. They are words and names on paper, or on your screen. And that's too bad.

Three weeks ago, there was another headline that appeared in newspapers, "Bodies of Minnesota snowmobilers missing in Canada recovered." Many people probably saw the article, some may have even read it. Wayne Windahl and his 16 year old son Jeremy went through the ice on Lake of the Woods and lost their lives. I worked in the same office building as Wayne for about ten years in Warroad. Wayne was a great worker, but he was also an absolutely tremendous person. He liked to laugh, and had this chuckle that I can still see and hear.

The Roxana Saberi story has been in the news since the Fargo native and freelance reporter in Iran was arrested in January. The details seem to be rather curious and uncertain yet, but it appears now that he is being charged with espionage, for being an informant for the United States. Saberi has dual citizenship. She is both and American and Iranian. Her father is from Iran. Her mother is from Japan. They were able to visit their daughter in jail in Iran this week.

Saberi graduated from Concordia College in Moorhead, MN, on the same day I did. Since we both have last names that start with S, we sat near each other at the commencement ceremony. I can't say that I know her. I talked to her a few times over the course of four years of college, maybe had a couple of classes together. I had very little interaction with her and yet, the story has caught my attention.

Now take a step back and realize how much these stories and these events affect the person involved, his or her family and friends, their co-workers and many others. I don't expect that any of us will start reading each sad story in the paper every day, but I think it would be good to at least acknowledge that as minor as some of those stories may be to us, they may mean everything to some people.