“If you build it, they will come,” a much overused expression for just about any kind of venture, originally referred to a “Field of Dreams” ballpark in an isolated Iowa cornfield that would attract the unsettled spirits of disgraced ballplayers. In the case of the Boston University Biosafety Lab on Albany Street, which has stood for several years awaiting resolution of a controversial risk assessment, it is more like “If you open it, they may come.”

The “they” in this instance are a lot more worrisome than a bunch of ghosts with leather gloves. The “they” include nefarious folks, terrorists and saboteurs who would see the facility as a prime target for their malicious schemes.

Despite a healthy dose of resistance from my South End community to a perceived health risk, Boston University has been eager to establish a Level 4 biosafety lab for research on highly dangerous pathogens. The interests of science were delayed, however, when the first risk assessment report, released two years ago, was deemed wholly inadequate, particularly given the high stakes of potentially exposing a densely populated area to Ebola and other deadly viruses.

Where is the outrage? More to the point, where is the news coverage?

You may have missed it. Actually, unless you were searching for it (or are a frequent viewer of Sean Hannity's show), you probably did.

It seems that a version of the 911 tape that we all heard over and over again of George Zimmerman calling the cops to report suspicious behavior by 17-year-old Trayvon Martin just before fatally shooting the boy was like something out of the Nixon White House -- edited. Sure, we all heard it with our own ears, but it is what we didn’t hear that’s key to understanding the confrontation between the neighborhood watchman and the Skittles-toting youngster.

When it comes to criminal justice matters, some politicians get it--and Governor Deval Patrick is one of them. . Unlike the "get tough at all costs" blowhards who pander to the three R's--Retribution, Revenge and Retaliation--for the sake of the ultimate R of Re-election, some leaders recognize the critical importance of crime prevention, treatment and rehabilitation.

Regrettably, the prevention approach has at times been disparaged as "worthless" and as "soft on crime." Yet, this cynical perspective reflects gross misunderstanding of the process and goals of prevention, and a selective examination of outcomes. Simply put: Prevention programs can work; good prevention programs that are well-implement do work.

Too often, prevention initiatives are funded and implemented on a shoestring, and a rather short shoe-string with a brief window of opportunity to show results. This is a recipe for failure and provides additional fodder for skeptics. Besides the matter of funding adequacy, there are five fundamental principles of crime and violence prevention that are critical to a successful investment.

It was good to see Colton Harris-Moore, the young man who was dubbed by the media last year as the “Barefoot Bandit” and applauded by thousands of fans for his brazenness and elusiveness, sentenced to seven years in a Washington state prison for his multi-national crime spree. It was important for the court to send a strong message that the 20-year-old’s crimes were punishable, not admirable.

Whatever statement the penalty would make, the judge had her own to place on the record. While announcing a sentence at the lower end of the statutory range, Judge Vickie Churchill added, “This case is a tragedy in many ways, but it's a triumph of the human spirit in other ways.”

Although it was certainly appropriate for the judge to have considered mitigating circumstances in determining sentence length, her expressions of compassion and sympathy for the defendant’s troubled childhood would only add to his appeal – appeal in the non-legal sense of the term. Many people endure childhood trauma far more severe than Harris-Moore, yet never respond by stealing airplanes and other valued property.

Anyone living anywhere except under a rock would have reacted to yesterday's news of a shooting at Virginia Tech by recalling the unspeakable horror that occurred nearly five years ago on that Blacksburg campus. No one needed a reminder of what came before.

The New York Times, however, felt it necessary and appropriate to lead its coverage of what appears to have been a cop murder then suicide with a first-phrase reference to that tragic day in April 2007.

BLACKSBURG, Va. — Nearly five years after a massacre at Virginia Tech that was the deadliest ever on a school campus, two men, including a campus police officer, died of gunshot wounds there on Thursday afternoon.

Of course, yesterday’s deaths may not have been quite as newsworthy were it not for earlier events.

I’m waiting to see what the behavior police at the National Football League will do in response to the display of unsportsmanlike conduct at last night’s nationally televised Eagles-Giants game.

I’m not talking about the sequence of post-whistle skirmishes between the two rivals of the gridiron or the fight that resulted in offsetting penalties on players from both teams. I’m also not referring to the stupid taunts from Eagles DeSean Jackson directed toward the entire Giants team after the receiver pulled in a 50-yard pass right in front of the opponent’s bench -- a truly juvenile act that prompted a penalty flag negating the big gain.

I’m much more concerned about a spontaneous celebration from Eagles linebacker Brian Rolle midway through the second quarter, a rookie mistake that warrants an NFL sanction. You may have missed it -- the refs apparently did. And the NBC announcers failed to take notice, even when the player’s antics were shown on replay.

As the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks approaches, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is experimenting with a plan to supplement high-tech screening measures with what might be considered a more intuitive yet rational strategy. The experiment, implemented last month in Terminal A at Logan Airport, could be called a “No Lie Zone.” On a 60-day trial basis, passengers are to be screened for hints of deception as an indicator of risk.

For periods of four hours every day, about one dozen so-called “Behavior Detection Officers” interview all passengers as they move from the boarding pass identification checkpoint to the electronic body scanners. The one-minute interviews represent a shift from the often-criticized “one search fits all” practices that indiscriminately subject everyone from young children to VIPs to random searches.

Allegations of scandalous activities involving the University of Miami football program have fueled speculation over whether the NCAA will come down hard against this perennial Division 1 powerhouse by imposing the “death penalty.” Meanwhile, I’d like to know what “genius” was the first to have characterized the supreme sanction levied against big-time college athletics in such a graphic way.

Was it a sports journalist, an athletic director or a college administrator? I sure hope it wasn't a representative of the official accrediting body for intercollegiate athletics who thought that comparing a temporary program suspension and the forfeiture of scholarships to the ritualized taking of human life would be appropriate.

Go ask one of the thousands of prisoners awaiting an assigned end-date to earthly existence whether his or her plight is like sitting out a year of athletic competition. Or maybe ask the mother of a brutally murdered child whether the egregious crime that forever broke her heart is at all akin to under-the-table payments for amateur student-athletes and top prospects.