In the midst of a post-tragedy news cycle, it's fascinating to see how long it takes before the most heart-wrenching of headlines trickle down to a world that seems far removed from all the chaos and soul-searching in Connecticut: the retirement industry.

But it turns out that we're all in this together, in some strange kind of way, and that the various degrees of separation between a mass atrocity at a schoolhouse and the kinds of investments made by some of the most significant pension organizations in the country – well, they're not all that distant.

While I will not touch the issue of gun control in America with a 10-foot pole (nor will the NRA, for some reason, who had been suspiciously silent since Friday morning, even pulling their Facebook page offline while they "regrouped," finally issuing a statement on the shootings Tuesday afternoon), the spin-off issue of ethical pension investments certainly came to a head over the weekend.