The recent verdict in the George Zimmerman trial in Florida and the backlash, attention and repercussions ensuing is a puzzling and disturbing trait in our collective national psyche. The attention that has been focused on the shooting incident in tiny Sanford, Fla., since black teen Trayvon Martin was killed by Zimmerman more than a year ago has been intense to say the least. Race and gun-politics have made this particular shooting death a testy, touchy one nationally.

What do you think about the Zimmerman verdict? That was the question of the hour. Everybody was asking it of friend, family and stranger alike. The scrutiny on this incident from the moment two men allegedly tussled and a gun went off to this writing is something that is beginning to be a national obsession with America.

An old, old story says that giants and other creatures were on the earth in the beginning, before man appeared. Among the strange creatures were the Cyclopes, monsters with one enormous eye - as big as a wheel - right in the middle of their forehead. These creatures came to be favorites of Zeus, who cherished them for their workmanship. Zeus had the Cyclopes craft his thunderbolts.

Another story says that Odysseus, a soldier who was on his way home from the Battle of Troy, had the misfortune of experiencing a shipwreck, and he and his men washed up on a shore near a cave where one of these Cyclopes, named Polyphemus, lived. This fierce giant moved part of a mountain so that Odysseus and his men could not escape. Polyphemus ate a couple of the soldiers and planned to eat more the next day. Odysseus devised a plan: He and his men took a huge timber, as big as a ship’s mast, sharpened it into a point and hardened the point in the fire. When Polyphemus passed out from drinking too much wine, Odysseus and his men rammed the huge stake into the giant’s one, big eye and blinded him.

I pass these stories along because, on one hand, our big public eye is right down on certain events like the death of Trayvon Martin and the circumstances surrounding George Zimmerman’s role in it. Our giant eye is rolling up and down, scoping out every little detail and is unblinking as we weigh all the factors involved. We stare and glare until we burn a hole in it the way a mother’s steely eyes can bore into a child having too much fun on the back pew of the church during Sunday morning worship service.

At other times, however, we’re like blind Polyphemus with our big ol’ eye put out. While I had several people ask my opinion on the Zimmerman verdict and while I listened to other people’s opinion on it more than I care to mention, I can’t help but be struck by what we fail to scope out or turn our national Cyclopean eye on. For example, I never had one person ask what I thought about Sgt. Robert Bales killing 16 civilians in Afghanistan, most of them women and children. Nor did I hear one other soul even mention the civilian slaughter apart from national news broadcasts. Actually, the Bales’ massacre contained more sensitive “components” than the Trayvon Martin killing: race, religion, politics, war, post traumatic stress disorder, multiple tours of duty.

Yet, we can’t take our eye off the one and it’s as if the other never existed. My question is, why do we eyeball and gawk to the point that we can’t let go of certain things and then see absolutely nothing in other events and situations that are equally bad or even worse? Or, can we afford to eyeball certain things to the point of ripping asunder the fabric of this Republic, while at the same time playing blind Polyphemus where the rest of the world is concerned?

Bob Morgan is a retired, award-winning journalist and an author.