Noted with curious dismay

I honestly don't know what to make of the fact that it seems that in China there has been a rash of incidents involving attacks on schoolchildren. As noted by Reuters on Friday, they include:

- On Friday, a man forced his way into a primary school and stabbed 12 first graders.

- In November, a man broke into a Chinese school dormitory and stabbed eight sleeping children to death.

- In October, a man killed a 5-year-old boy and his teacher at a kindergarten.

- In September, a bus driver stabbed 24 primary school children with a kitchen knife and kidnapped a nine-year-old girl.

- Also in September, a man with a knife and homemade bombs attacked 28 kindergarteners.

- In August, a janitor stabbed 17 kindergarteners, killing one.

I should note that in a country the size and population of China, it's possible that these incidents add up to nothing more than coincidence and as tragic as they are, I hope that's all it is. Still, the fact that they all involve men using knives to attack young children at school is an odd pattern (although the knife use may simply indicate the difficulty in obtaining other sorts of weapons).