A ceremony held on the first day of class after the tragedy in which one balloon is released for each victim. Original source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/spector1/sets/72157600104116028/ Photo Courtesy of Roger Gupta
A banner from Anderson University, on display in front of Burruss Hall, reads "We are all Hokies today as we share in your grief, may God grant you strength for the dark days ahead, solace for your pain and suffering, and courage for a brighter tomorrow."
The challenge of preventing violence is not just an American problem
Commentary John Monahan and Jeffrey Swanson Sunday April 22, 2007 The Observer One of the largest mass killings in American history was carried out last Monday at the hands of a 23-year-old university student with mental illness. The reverberations of the events that ended the lives of 32 students and faculty staff at Virginia Tech - and of the offender as well - are shaking the already wobbly mental health system. This American tragedy surely holds lessons for the UK as it considers the revision of its Mental Health Bill. The scientific challenges of predicting violence, and the legal challenges of preventing it, transcend national borders. Both UK and US look first to mental health professionals. But how good are psychiatrists and psychologists at distinguishing which people with a mental illness will be violent? Research shows professionals are better than pure chance, but not much. Predicting harmful behaviour is like predicting bad weather. An inaccurate prediction doesn't necessarily mean the clinician or the meteorologist has 'missed something'; it may just mean the science of forecasting has a long way to go. Tools to aid mental health professionals in the task focus on proven risk factors: characteristics that define the person (e.g. young, male); disorders that a person has (e.g. a major mental illness, a personality disorder, and alcohol or drug abuse); what the person has done (e.g. past violence); and what has been done to the person (e.g. being raised by violent or substance abusing parents, and being physically abused as a child). These risk factors can distinguish patients with a low risk of future violence from patients with a high one. What can be done to preclude anticipated violence? If people need treatment, don't want it, and might do something harmful if they don't get it, can the state override their right to refuse? The law of civil commitment - being hospitalised against one's will - in almost every US state focuses on two things: whether the person is seriously mentally ill and whether they are likely to be imminently violent to self or others. Many states have recently struck the word 'imminently' from their statutes as being too restrictive. There are many state laws authorising 'outpatient commitment', or in Britain 'community treatment orders', requiring certain people to get treatment in the community rather than, or in addition to, in a hospital. Cho himself had received a judicial order in December 2005 to 'follow all recommended treatment'. In Virginia, however, such an order is effectively unenforceable. Civil libertarians see these laws as an Orwellian intrusion on the freedom of people with mental illness, most of whom will never be violent, to make their own decisions about treatment. But family members often argue that their relatives are so sick they don't realise they're ill and won't accept treatment voluntarily, or will stop taking their medication or therapy when they feel better. They argue that some people have to be required by law to accept outpatient treatment, or they won't get any treatment at all, sometimes with catastrophic effect. In Cho's case, opponents will argue that the outcome proves a judicial order to community-based treatment cannot prevent murder and mayhem; proponents will say that these statutes need more 'teeth'. But this controversy raises the question of whether the policy actually works: can legally enforced outpatient treatment prevent violence? Evidence is mixed. However, one study found that if people with mental illness were on a community treatment order for at least six months, they were much less likely to be violent than people who were not on outpatient commitment or on it only briefly. As the science of violence risk assessment improves, and clinical interventions to reduce that risk become demonstrably effective, there will be no avoiding trade-offs among cherished Anglo-American values of autonomy, social responsibility, privacy, and security. Our advice is to beware all those who find these trade-offs easy. In the process of defining the rights and responsibilities of those among us with mental illness, we define ourselves. John Monahan is a psychologist and University of Virginia professor. Jeffrey Swanson is a sociologist and associate professor at the Duke University School of Medicine. On Guardian Unlimited Full coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings Gun violence in the US Gun violence in Britain Full US coverage Related articles Virginia massacre gunman named Unofficial list of shooting victims emerges Massacre on campus Q&A: US gun laws World news guide North American Media Media CNN New York Times Washington Post Government Virginia state government portal US government portal White House Senate House of Representatives Copyright Guardian News & Media Ltd 2007. -- Original Source:http://www.guardian.co.uk/usguns/Story/0,,2062866,00.html
In consideration of the fee of GBP 0.00 ("the Fee") Guardian News & Media Limited ("GNM") grants the Licensee the right to: publish on its website for 10 years. Contact info: Eve Thompson;permissions.syndication@guardian.co.uk
Letters to the Editor The forest for the trees Tragedy struck at Virginia Tech Monday. Unfortunately, the sadness of events is not only in the actions themselves, but also in the reactions. I want to assert that we still need to keep an eye on the forest while inspecting the trees. Reporter after reporter fired questions, and I use the term fired here for a reason, at Virginia Tech Police Chief Flinchum, about security policy. The officer looked visibly shaken, dismayed, saddened and reporters piled on frustration as he tried to deal with the condescending questions from the gallery. Now, let's be clear. Was the reaction as good as it could have been? Of course not. Was it even good? It doesn't appear that it was. But let me say this. I'll bet that if you poll anyone who went to college after1999 (Columbine), you'll find that over 85 percent of the students have or had no idea of any kind of "lockdown policy." As a recent University graduate, I can't even tell you what the school's hurricane policy is. But here is where we're missing the point yet again. The problem here isn't campussecurity. Chief Flinchum didn't kill anyone. The Virginia Tech police didn't harm anyone. The problem yet again is gun control. As we approach the eight year anniversary of the tragedy at Columbine, what has happened since? To truncate the depressingly long list of school shootings, I'll just focus on Virginia colleges. In 2002, the Appalachian School of Law was the site of a tragedy where a dean and fellow student were killed by a student. Two of these shootings in five years in the same state at college campuses exemplifies the problem we're facing as a nation. So what's the real problem here? Is it security? Is it emergency response? Of course not. If people want to commit crimes, people will commit crimes. The problem is that when they want to commit these crimes, access to weapons with which to commit these crimes is tragic. What's the answer? If we continue missing the forest for these trees, we'll never get to the real problem. Aaron Schmidt CLASS 2005 -- Original Source:The Cavalier Daily - April 18, 2007
Players come in from the field after the game. Photo by George Norton.
April 26, 2007 By CLAIRE ST. AMANT Staff writer Even in the Garden of Eden, questions of evil abounded. Thousands of years later, we are still wrestling with the issue of depravity and the nature of evil. The tragedy at Virginia Tech University is the latest reminder of the human capacity to act in ways that harm others. Two psychiatrists, Dr. Michael Stone of Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons, and Dr. Michael Welner, a forensic psychiatrist at New York School of Medicine, are developing systems to rank evil deeds according to degrees of heinousness. Both scales have implications for the legal system. Welner hopes his scale on depravity will be used as a guideline in criminal sentencing, and Stone's 22-level hierarchy of evil is based on biographies of violent offenders. Dr. Daryl Koehn, author of The Nature of Evil and chairwoman of business ethics at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, said she believes it's dangerous to rank evil behavior. "It seems to me that the ranking system would say that the people themselves are more evil and not the acts they are committing," Koehn said. "I think it will make us see some people as monsters and completely unlike us." "I don't believe Cho (Seung-Hui) was a monster," she said. "I think it's a mistake to see him as motivated by malice." Koehn said we're all "caught up in the same dynamics" of good and evil and are guilty of "identifying with a false self and trying to transfer our pain to others." When we suffer in some way -- physically, emotionally or otherwise -- we become frustrated and react in different ways, she said. Koehn offered the example of road rage as one modern expression of frustration. "The false self tells us we are a nobody," she said. "In some ways we are all trying to transfer that pain." Becky Robertson, a George W. Truett Theological Seminary student from the Ivory Coast, said the universal guilt of humankind manifests itself in different ways. "We have a natural tendency to say, 'I told a white lie. I didn't kill anybody,'" she said. "We always want to justify our actions, but in the end we are all sinners." Even though Robertson said distinctions for criminal actions are necessary, she believes the Christian outlook needs a component of grace. "If we were really caught doing every evil thing we did, what would our consequences be?" she said. Koehn identified another trouble spot with a ranking system. "Intent can be a hard thing to establish and rank," she said. "We have to be extremely careful telling people what their intentions are." Koehn said she believes the current system works well at separating legal levels of offenses, such as distinctions between murder and assault, and doesn't need remodeling. "I believe it's better to keep focus on the acts themselves rather than the evilness of the individual," she said. Dr. Dennis Tucker, associate professor of Christian Scriptures at Truett, said while Christianity has not historically had a hierarchy of evil, the issue can be explored outside of a theological context. "Creating a new way to distinguish levels of crime is entirely different than ranking sins," Tucker said. "It's not an issue of making one sin worse when it's serving the judicial system." Both Tucker and Kohen highlighted the difference in the understanding of evil in the Old Testament and current culture. "Today, we talk about someone doing something evil, but in the Old Testament the lines are a little more blurred," Tucker said. The word evil in Hebrew has a wide range of meanings, he said. In addition to what we commonly understand evil to be, it can also mean "disaster" or "destruction." "Older ideas of evil in the Hebrew and Greek traditions didn't identify evil with malicious intent, but with suffering," Koehn said. She said the question as to why God allows evil to exist is becoming of less interest as people begin to question the nature of evil itself. Tucker echoed Koehn's thoughts, and added that our contemporary culture could learn from the perception of evil in the Old Testament. "In the Old Testament the idea is that humans create or make evil," he said. Tucker said he believes the Old Testament wasn't as preoccupied with "the riddle of evil" as Christianity is today. "In the Old Testament, they understood that evil things happen, and God is still God of the universe," he said. "We have to learn to live with that tension." -- Original Source: Baylor University http://www.baylor.edu/Lariat/news.php?action=story&story=45532
The Hokie Nation Stood On a cold April morning A shock went through the campus Two of their number were gone The Hokie Nation woke up Hours later, as the leaders tried To make sense of what was happening Word came of more tragedy The Hokie Nation came to its feet Throughout the day and into the night They stood with each other for support They stood by around the world waiting for news The Hokie Nation stood together The next day They were standing in the Cassell and in the Lane They were standing with candles on the Drill Field The Hokie Nation was standing firm They stood to remember those who were no longer among them They stood to console to those who suffered They stood to show the world The Hokie Nation will always stand Decades from now The April morning will be a few lines in a history book The pain of the memorials will have faded The Hokie Nation will still be standing SKS - VT'78 April 18, 2007
Waco, TX. Oklahoma City, OK. Columbine, CO. Blacksburg, VA. Fifteen years ago, a person could have looked at those four cities and wondered why they have been grouped together. None of these places had anything in common. Most people might not even have heard of three of those cities, save for people that live in those states. April 19, 1993. April 19, 1995. April 20, 1999. April 16, 2007. Fifteen years ago, a person could have looked at those four dates and wondered why they have been grouped together. None of these dates could have possibly had any future significance, save for the fact that they would all occur within the same calendar week. Fifteen years. Such a small window in the grand scheme of things we call time. Julius Caesar was told by the Soothsayer to "Beware the Ides of March." Perhaps the third week in this month should be called the "Ides of April." All four tragedies have occurred within the same calendar week, the third week of April. These events helped shape - or scar - today's society. To be sitting here, writing about the worst shooting in United States history, is almost surreal. It goes along with events like the Kennedy assassination, the Challenger space shuttle, and September 11th. People will ask you years from now, "Where were you that day?" Almost regrettably, my answer will be, "Across the street from West AJ." I remember sitting in my dorm room my senior year in college, waking up to see that the World Trade Center had fallen and the Pentagon had been stuck by terrorists. I recall the sense of anger, so much so that my hands were shaking. A sense of utter disbelief ran wild through my head for days as I sat glued to the television newscasts. I felt a need for vengeance, a need for retribution. Our troops took care of that for us, and are still fighting nearly six years later. As I sat through today's event in Blacksburg, all I could think of was that this is how the story ends. There will be no revenge, no retribution, no release from our anger. All that is left after today is the memory of 32 of Virginia Tech's finest students, staff, and faculty that came to class today to find a way to make tomorrow better. Instead, tomorrow we will grieve their loss and ask the Lord to help guide them to their final resting place in Hokie Heaven. It's hard to put arms around the situation, almost impossible to feel the gravity of the situation at the time being. As time passes, wounds will get worse before they get better. Pain will work its way deep into our hearts before it can be lifted. The Virginia Tech motto, Ut Prosim, translates to, "That I may serve." May we all serve the families that have suffered such a great loss by keeping them in our hearts, our minds, and our prayers. God Bless
The intangible bond between two broken hearts
The post title isn't an exact quote (because it would've been damn hard taking notes while trying to hold a lit candle (and, more importantly, given the windy conditions this evening, keeping it lit) from the remarks of NIU President John G. Peters at tonight's candlelight vigil at Northern Illinois University to honor the memory of the Hokies who lost their lives a year ago today. But they're a close approximation: I know he used both phrases in his speech, though I can't swear that they were that closely connected. Nevertheless, it's a good description for the relationship that will forevermore exist between our two campuses, our two communities. We're both members of a club that nobody wants to join--and would to God that NIU and Virginia Tech were the last two ever given the opportunity to join it. We speak each other's language: a language that neither of us was looking to learn, and one that both of us would rather we hadn't had the opportunity to learn at all. But we have learned it, and having learnt it, we cannot--and should not--forget it. The image is the design of the T-shirts that were handed out to the first 900 people who came to the Martin Luther King, Jr. Commons. I'm happy to report that there weren't any shirts left that I could see, meaning we had at least that many people at the event. Among them, God love them both, were two Virginia Tech students. They gave up the opportunity to be with their compatriots in Blacksburg at their own vigil today so they could come and support us--even as we tried to show our support for them and their fellow Hokies. Their presence is just the latest in a long line of expressions of support that Virginia Tech and its campus community have offered to us in the wake of our own tragedy two months ago--support for which we are eternally and profoundly grateful, and which we can never truly repay. Somehow, though, I don't think my Hokie brethren and sistren will mind. Tonight's vigil was a concrete and physical reminder of a spiritual reality that my faith tradition has taught for centuries: that we are all one body, one family--and our destiny is to help one another along the road we each must travel from cradle to grave. Yes, Virginia, you are your brother's keeper--as I am yours. Or, as Jesus told his disciples in Matthew's Gospel: á½Ï„Î±Î½ δὲ ἔλθῃ á½ υἱὸς τοῦ á¼€Î½Î¸Ïá½½Ï€Î¿Ï… á¼Î½ τῇ δόξῃ Î±á½Ï„Î¿á¿¦ καὶ πάντες οἱ ἄγγελοι μετ' Î±á½Ï„Î¿á¿¦, τότε καθίσει á¼Ï€á½¶ Î¸Ïá½¹Î½Î¿Ï… δόξης Î±á½Ï„Î¿á¿¦Î‡ καὶ συναχθήσονται á¼”Î¼Ï€ÏÎ¿ÏƒÎ¸ÎµÎ½ Î±á½Ï„Î¿á¿¦ πάντα τὰ ἔθνη, καὶ á¼€Ï†Î¿Ïá½·ÏƒÎµÎ¹ Î±á½Ï„Î¿á½ºÏ‚ ἀπ' ἀλλήλων, á½¥ÏƒÏ€ÎµÏ á½ ποιμὴν á¼€Ï†Î¿Ïá½·Î¶ÎµÎ¹ τὰ Ï€Ïá½¹Î²Î±Ï„Î± ἀπὸ τῶν á¼Ïá½·Ï†Ï‰Î½, καὶ στήσει τὰ μὲν Ï€Ïá½¹Î²Î±Ï„Î± á¼Îº δεξιῶν Î±á½Ï„Î¿á¿¦, τὰ δὲ á¼Ïá½·Ï†Î¹Î± á¼Î¾ Îµá½Ï‰Î½á½»Î¼Ï‰Î½. τότε á¼ÏÎµá¿– á½ βασιλεὺς τοῖς á¼Îº δεξιῶν Î±á½Ï„Î¿á¿¦Î‡ δεῦτε οἱ Îµá½Î»Î¿Î³Î·Î¼á½³Î½Î¿Î¹ τοῦ Ï€Î±Ï„Ïá½¹Ï‚ μου, ÎºÎ»Î·ÏÎ¿Î½Î¿Î¼á½µÏƒÎ±Ï„Îµ τὴν ἡτοιμασμένην ὑμῖν βασιλείαν ἀπὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου. á¼Ï€Îµá½·Î½Î±ÏƒÎ± Î³á½°Ï καὶ á¼Î´á½½ÎºÎ±Ï„á½³ μοι φαγεῖν, á¼Î´á½·ÏˆÎ·ÏƒÎ± καὶ á¼Ï€Î¿Ï„á½·ÏƒÎ±Ï„á½³ με, ξένος ἤμην καὶ συνηγάγετέ με, γυμνὸς καὶ Ï€ÎµÏÎ¹ÎµÎ²á½±Î»ÎµÏ„á½³ με, á¼ σθένησα καὶ á¼Ï€ÎµÏƒÎºá½³ÏˆÎ±ÏƒÎ¸á½³ με, á¼Î½ φυλακῇ ἤμην καὶ ἤλθατε Ï€Ïá½¹Ï‚ με. τότε á¼€Ï€Î¿ÎºÏÎ¹Î¸á½µÏƒÎ¿Î½Ï„Î±Î¹ Î±á½Ï„á¿· οἱ δίκαιοι λέγοντες· Îºá½»ÏÎ¹Îµ, πότε σε εἴδομεν πεινῶντα καὶ á¼Î¸Ïá½³ÏˆÎ±Î¼ÎµÎ½, ἢ διψῶντα καὶ á¼Ï€Î¿Ï„á½·ÏƒÎ±Î¼ÎµÎ½; πότε δέ σε εἴδομεν ξένον καὶ συνηγάγομεν, ἢ γυμνὸν καὶ Ï€ÎµÏÎ¹ÎµÎ²á½±Î»Î¿Î¼ÎµÎ½; πότε δέ σε εἴδομεν ἀσθενοῦντα ἢ á¼Î½ φυλακῇ καὶ ἤλθομεν Ï€Ïá½¹Ï‚ σε; καὶ á¼€Ï€Î¿ÎºÏÎ¹Î¸Îµá½¶Ï‚ á½ βασιλεὺς á¼ÏÎµá¿– Î±á½Ï„Î¿á¿–Ï‚Î‡ ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, á¼Ï†' ὅσον á¼Ï€Î¿Î¹á½µÏƒÎ±Ï„Îµ ἑνὶ τούτων τῶν á¼Î»Î±Ï‡á½·ÏƒÏ„Ï‰Î½, á¼Î¼Î¿á½¶ á¼Ï€Î¿Î¹á½µÏƒÎ±Ï„Îµ. Whenever the Son of Man may come in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit upon the throne of his glory: and all the nations will be gathered together in his presence, and he shall divide them one from another just as a shepherd divides the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep upon his right hand, and the goats upon his left. Then will the Ruler say to those upon his right: "Come here, you who are blessed of my Father; inherit the realm that was prepared for you before the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave me to eat; thirsty, and you gave me to drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me, naked, and you clothed me. I was ill and you looked after me, in prison, and you came to me." Then the just will reply to him, saying: "Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and come to you?" And the Ruler will say to them in answer, "Amen I tell you, as often as you did it for one of these the least of my brothers or my sisters, you did it for me." --Matthew 25:31-40, my translation from the original Greek The campus community of Virginia Tech has lived out that Gospel pericope. Tonight's vigil was one small downpayment on NIU's attempt to do so. It will not be the last, I'm sure. Nor should it be. 22:13 in NIU, Personal | Permalink Story by Michael Spires. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Generic -- Original Source: http://musing85.typepad.com/blog/2008/04/the-intangible.html
It was 7am on Monday. Another week was starting at Virginia Tech. Then the first shots rang out. Within hours, 32 people lay dead and America was left trying to make sense of the carnage. Paul Harris reports from Blacksburg. Sunday April 22, 2007 The Observer A group of Amish men, all in black, shuffled towards the chapel at one end of the enormous sports field that dominates the centre of Virginia Tech's campus. They had come to pay their respects after a tragedy they knew all too well. It was only last year that a killer struck their community, shooting dead five young girls in a tiny Amish school. Now they had driven many long hours from their Pennsylvania farms to southern Virginia, to offer solace to another American community devastated by a mass killing. They spoke in hushed tones to the Reverend Kelly Sisson, one of the pastors of Glade Church in Blacksburg. Then they entered the comforting dark interior to pray and to mourn the dead of Virginia Tech. 'They understand what has happened to us in a way few others do,' Sisson said. Everyone is trying to understand what happened at Blacksburg last week. Impromptu memorials have sprung up on the sports field, covering the grass in flickering candles, pictures of the dead, and flowers. Students, friends and family have written messages, sad, desperate, noble. They speak of loss and love. They vow to remember lives brutally cut short on what should have been just another Monday morning. But, although there was nothing ordinary about last Monday, there was a dreadful familiarity to it. Cho Seung-hui's bloody rampage cost the lives of 32 of his fellow students and staff. It was the worst mass shooting in American history, but far from the only one. There is almost a ritual to such attacks: the fleeing students, the wailing sirens, the mourning survivors, the suicide of the gunman - Cho shot himself in the face. Columbine, the Amish school, Virginia Tech, all are now names that haunt the popular imagination. Yet no one pretends last week's rite won't happen again, somewhere else in America on some other seemingly ordinary day. For now it is Blacksburg's tragedy that has the attention of the world. What Cho did last week is well known. In two separate attacks, he shot his victims methodically, without any outward show of emotion. It was an assault he had planned for weeks: buying guns, training physically and preparing a 'manifesto' of his beliefs in writing, pictures and video. But the real question is not how Cho killed so many. It is why. And that is a much more difficult issue. What could have caused him to hate so much? If he was ill, should it have been spotted? Why did he pick the targets that he did? These questions could shake the strongest faith. Sisson shook her head at the thought of them: 'I am determined to not give easy answers. Cliches are cheap and we are still waking up to this.' Then she thought of Cho. 'He was in great pain. Great brokenness,' she said. A faint smile of incomprehension hovered around her lips. She was close to tears. The first sign something was wrong last Monday was a scream and 'popping' sounds in the West Ambler Johnston dorm building. It was just after 7am: many students slept through the noise. Those who emerged bleary-eyed into the corridors found a dreadful scene. Two bodies lay near Room 4040, in the open space near the lifts. There was no sign of an attacker. The killer had disappeared, leaving a trail of bloody footprints down a hallway. By the time Cho claimed his first victim, he had already been planning his attack for weeks, possibly months. Not that anyone knew it. Cho was a solitary figure on campus, even among the five students with which he shared a 'suite', Room 2121. He spoke rarely and shunned human contact. His only visitors were his parents. 'He never showed any interest in having conversations with anybody. He seemed like a shy person. He never spoke a word when he was around any of us in the suite,' said one room-mate, Karan Grewal. In the past few weeks, Cho's routines seem to have shifted. He started going to the gym, beefing up his slight frame. He cut his hair short. He started waking up earlier, rising at 5.30am. He began taking night-time bike rides, disappearing for hours to roam the campus paths. These were the superficial changes. Unknown to anyone but himself, Cho was plotting mass murder. Nineteen days before he began shooting, he took a road-trip, renting a car and staying a night in a nearby hotel in Christiansburg. It was on this trip that he would film some of his rambling, hate-laden last testament. It is likely that he also used the privacy to take pictures of himself posing with his guns, a knife and a hammer. He also began drafting manuscripts blaming the outside world and decrying the lifestyles of his fellow students. Cho prepared in private. But police are checking to see if he had mentioned or hinted at his plans, whether by phone or email. He certainly had to buy his guns in public. Tragically, it is neither difficult nor unusual for a 23-year-old student legally to buy powerful weapons in Virginia. On 9 February, Cho purchased a Walther P22 pistol from a pawn shop on Main Street in Blacksburg. He then waited just over a month - in order to comply with Virginia state law - before buying a second weapon. On 16 March, he picked out a Glock semi-automatic from Roanoke Firearms, in a town about 30 miles away. With each purchase Cho filled out the correct forms and passed a background check. No one asked what a 23-year-old English student could possibly want with two powerful hand-guns. What the sellers did not know was that Cho had once spent a night in a mental hospital in 2005. Nor does Virginia law deem it necessary that anyone divulge such information. Yet it represented, perhaps, the biggest sign Cho was not an ordinary young man, but had at least once been through a very troubled passage in his life. There were other signs, albeit less definite. In two separate incidents, young women on campus had complained to police he was bothering them with unwanted advances, in person, on the phone or via text messaging. Last autumn, one of Cho's teachers, poet Nikki Giovanni, had become so disturbed by the violent imagery in Cho's work that she insisted he be removed from her class. 'I am not allowed to say what he was writing,' she explained 'But it was not bad poetry. It was intimidating. What I wanted was him out of my class.' He had also been taking pictures of his fellow students, many of whom had stopped attending class to avoid him. At the same time, Cho - in a rare remark to a dorm mate - said he might kill himself after the police spoke to him about pestering girls. The student reported the remark and Cho was sent for an overnight evaluation at the Carilion St Albans Psychiatric Hospital - the 2005 visit. 'Affect is flat and mood is depressed,' a Carilion doctor wrote, but noted that Cho's 'insight and judgment are sound' and that he had denied suicidal intentions. The next day, a judge, following the doctor's advice that Cho was mentally ill but posed no immediate danger, ordered him to take outpatient treatment. That was probably the greatest opportunity that presented itself to stop or help Cho. After that, he resumed his solitary existence, a phantom presence at Virginia Tech. Perhaps it was also the moment that Cho's deep resentment came to fruition. His stalking - though disturbing - was at least an attempt to reach out to other human beings. That grasp for contact had ended with the police and a stay in a mental hospital. It is not too great a stretch to imagine Cho's warped rage at such rejection. Perhaps, almost 17 months ago, the first thoughts of revenge began to take shape. At just after 5am on Monday, Karan Grewal bumped into his flatmate, Cho. Grewal had stayed up all night to finish an assignment and he had been to the bathroom before going, finally, to sleep. Cho looked normal, Grewal thought. Two hours later Cho killed Emily Hilscher, 18, and Ryan Clark, 23, at Ambler Johnston. Why he chose them - or that building - is not known. But investigators have strong suspicions that Cho may have had some form of contact with Hilscher, and have since been scouring her computer and phone looking for evidence. Cho's whereabouts immediately after the attack are unknown. Perhaps he returned to his dorm room; perhaps not. What is certain is that he eventually walked across campus to the post office in Blacksburg, a 15-minute stroll away on Main Street. The post office was busy with people rushing to beat the national tax deadline and Cho did not stand out among the crowd. He was posting a package - wrongly addressed - to NBC News in New York. It contained his 'manifesto'. He finally mailed his package at 9.01am, after a clerk noticed that he had put the wrong postal code on it. Then he made his way back to the campus. Cho - despite having murdered two fellow students - was still anonymous; the campus was still mostly normal. Unknown to Cho, police and university officials had gone down a disastrous blind alley in their reaction to the Ambler Johnston shootings. When police broke the news to one of Hilscher's room-mates that her friend was dead, she told them that Hilscher's new boyfriend, Karl Thornhill, loved guns and had recently taken them shooting. At 8.25am, university and police officials held a meeting and decided they faced a 'domestic'. Thornhill was tracked down in his car and pulled off the road. It was decided not to lock down the campus. They believed the gunman had fled, or that they had already caught him. Some time before 9.40am, Cho walked into Norris Hall, on the other side of the sports field from Ambler Johnston. Once inside, he closed the doors with metal chains. He wandered the corridors, even poking his head into the German class in Room 207. Students inside assumed he was lost and late for a lecture. Cho shut the door and resumed his wandering. He may have been dealing with last-minute regrets, mulling whether it was too late to turn back. More likely he was selecting his first target. He choose Room 206, where Professor Give Loganathan was giving a hydrology class. Cho simply walked in and started shooting. Aiming his two guns methodically around the class, he shot people repeatedly, wordlessly and without any hurry. Only four people survived in Room 207, by playing dead or being shielded by the bodies of their dead friends. Then Cho walked out. Yesterday, Loganathan was buried. In other classes, the popping sounds were greeted with confusion and fear. Some appeared to know exactly what they were; others thought it was noise from a nearby construction site. Cho walked into Room 207. He fired a bullet into the head of the German teacher, James Bishop, a well-liked 35-year-old. Cho then stood at the front of the class, killing students in the first rows and then moving to the rear. He fired and reloaded, fired and reloaded. Students fell dead or wounded. Others cowered behind desks. He went next into the French class in Room 211. Alarmed by the initial bangs, the teacher, Jocelyne Couture-Nowak, had asked her class in disbelief: 'That's not what I think it is?' It was. She told her students to get to the back of the class and began putting desks against the door. It was heroism on her part. But it was not enough. Cho barged in, shot her dead and then worked his way through her class. Cho then returned to Room 207. By then, students had blocked the door. Cho tried to force and shoot his way through. But, fighting for their lives, the students - some gravely wounded - held him off this time. It was the same in a computer class. Those students also fought off Cho, even though he fired at the door. There were many acts of heroism. Some staunched their friends' wounds and tied tourniquets around shattered limbs. Many blockaded doors despite having been shot. By now students and staff were fleeing through windows. As Cho walked from room to room, trying to find more people to shoot, he killed Kevin Granata, a biomechanics teacher who had served in the US armed forces. Granata had rushed downstairs and confronted Cho. He shot him dead. Then Cho tried to get into Room 204, where Professor Liviu Librescu was giving an engineering class. Librescu, a 76-year-old Holocaust survivor, had been urging his students to flee out of the windows. Most of them did. As Cho tried to enter the room, the ageing teacher flung himself against the door, buying vital time for more students to leave. But Librescu could not hold him off forever. Cho murdered him and entered the room. By now, it was almost over. Cho had fired more than 200 rounds, reloading an estimated 15 times. The police arrived, eventually smashing open the chained doors. Bodies lay everywhere in slicks of blood. Cho had shot many of them repeatedly in his determination to kill. Armed police moved from room to room, ordering wounded survivors to hold up their hands to show they had no weapons. Cho knew the end was near. He put one of his guns to his head and pulled the trigger. The shot almost tore off his face. When police found him, his guns at his side, they knew he was dead. 'Shooter down! Black tag!' they screamed. Cho's killing spree was over. The story of the horror he left behind had barely begun. When Cho's identity was first released, it came as no surprise to a few who had had contact with the loner. It confirmed their worst fears. But to most, the reaction was simply: who? Gradually, piece by piece, a picture of Cho's life has emerged. It is a disturbing one. Just as his time on campus was marked by solitude and anger, so was his school and childhood. Cho seemed to have been born in a personal mental prison from which he either could not escape or chose not to. The one true surprise was that this perpetrator of such an American crime originally came from many thousands of miles away. Cho was born in South Korea. His parents ran a small, second-hand book store in Seoul, the capital, and lived in a cramped apartment. They had been a reluctant husband and wife. Cho's father was from a poor southern family, while his mother's kin were landowners from the north, dispossessed during the Korean War. The marriage was arranged against the wife-to-be's wishes, but she had little choice. The family struggled to build a life and eventually moved to America at the invitation of relatives. They arrived in 1992, hoping for the best for their two children. They worked hard, in a laundry and a restaurant. And, like so many determined immigrants, they made it. They lived in a pleasant Washington DC suburb. Cho's sister, Sun, went to Princeton. But there was one cloud on this heart-warming story of success: Cho himself. Back in South Korea, the family had noticed his deep, sullen silences as an infant. His grandfather worried he might be mute; his mother thought he was mentally ill. A committed Christian, she tried to involve her church in reaching out to the boy after his silences grew worse on the move to America. She prayed for him regularly. It did not make for a happy teenage existence. Clearly depressed and struggling with English, Cho became a target for bullies at Westfield High School in nearby Chantilly. Once, after refusing to read aloud in an English class, Cho was forced to speak. When he did, students laughed at his strange voice and told him to 'go back to China'. He was teased as the 'trombone kid' for his habit of walking to school alone carrying his musical instrument. He rarely spoke, playing solitary basketball in his home's quiet cul-de-sac and ignoring the hellos of his neighbours. Things got worse in college. His fellow students remember reaching out to him at the start of class or when they moved into a dorm with him. He was invited to dine with them at local restaurants. But Cho showed little interest in talking. He would ignore them or answer in one-word replies. It was the same in class: Cho sat at the back, wearing dark glasses and a baseball cap. In one now notorious incident, when he filled out a sign-in sheet at the start of a literature class, he refused to write his name. Instead he put a question mark. In campus banter, Cho had turned from the 'trombone kid' to the 'question mark kid'. It became his totem. One of the girls he stalked awoke one morning to find a large question mark written on her room's message board. Undoubtedly Cho's stone-like facade hid a mind in deep distress. A few signs broke the surface. Once, at a party, Cho revealed to room-mates that he had a girlfriend, presumably imaginary. She was called Jelly, he said. She was a model and she called him Spanky. It was a brief and bizarre glimpse into Cho's inner world. Another incident occurred after he had been reprimanded for bothering a girl student. In a quiet moment, he told one room-mate that he had wanted to look in her eyes and see if she was as 'cool' as he thought. But he had been disappointed. He had gone to her dorm room and seen only 'promiscuity'. Such insights were few and far between. Some students joked about him being a possible college shooter. One teacher had a codeword she could use when teaching him if she became fearful for herself. It sounds dramatic, but she never used it. Cho continued to keep to himself. He wore sunglasses in class. He had no friends. His room had no pictures or posters. He often just stared blankly at the walls or ceiling. He slept with the light on and never shut his door. He was a walking void. The silence Cho maintained in life was broken after his death. The package he sent to NBC contained 29 photographs, 27 short videos and an 1,800-word diatribe. In the clips, Cho is hard-eyed, his voice a tense, controlled staccato of rage. He speaks quickly but clearly. He is no longer silent. The pent-up emotions of his damaged psyche boil to the surface. Cho finally revealed himself. Cho was severely mentally ill: no sane person murders 32 people. But such sicknesses vary greatly. Cho was no serial killer. He was not a sociopath. In fact, experts say, Cho's rampage was a form of suicide. He killed because he considered himself the victim; those he killed he saw as villains. 'This was revenge. He wanted to kill himself, but first he was going to take others with him, people he saw as persecuting him,' said Professor Jack Levin, an expert on mass murderers at Northeastern University in Boston. Certainly that was what emerged from Cho's own words. He felt himself utterly victimised. 'You have vandalised my heart, raped my soul and torched my conscience. I die like Jesus Christ, to inspire generations of the weak and the defenceless people,' he said. 'You' was the world as a whole, especially the students who he felt ignored him. He claimed he had not chosen to kill but had been forced into it. The coming massacre, he warned, was not his fault. 'You had a hundred billion chances and ways to have avoided today, but you decided to spill my blood. You forced me into a corner and gave me only one option. The decision was yours. Now you have blood on your hands that will never wash off.' Such transference of blame is rare among serial killers, for whom blame or guilt are alien concepts. 'It is a very elaborate blaming system. These people come from a sense of powerlessness,' said Gregg McCrary, a former FBI profiler. Cho also railed against what he saw as hedonism and materialism all around, perhaps revealing a deep resentment of his poorer background. 'Your Mercedes wasn't enough, you brats,' he cried 'Your golden necklaces weren't enough, you snobs. Your trust fund wasn't enough. Your vodka and cognac weren't enough. All your debaucheries weren't enough. Those weren't enough to fulfil your hedonistic needs.' It was the product of a diseased mind, but the words strike a tone horribly familiar to those who had shared creative writing classes with Cho. In poetry and drama classes, Cho had consistently produced work whose violence, sexual imagery and anger had upset classmates and teachers. One former student, Ian MacFarlane, had kept copies of Cho's two plays and posted them on-line. They are deeply disturbing. One, Richard McBeef, deals with a young man confronting his step-father about murder and child abuse. The second - Mr Brownstone - has three students describing their desire to kill a sadistic teacher. Reading the plays is not easy. They are violent, profane and obsessed with scatological sex. They are not like reading the mind of a deranged 23-year-old: they are like reading the mind of a deranged 13-year-old. MacFarlane said he had thought of what he would do if Cho were ever to bring a gun to class. 'I was that freaked about him,' he said. As people struggle to understand Cho, many experts think the specifics are not important. It is the tone of persecution and victimhood that matter. 'He is clearly clinically depressed, probably delusional, and has been so for a very long period of time,' said Levin. There are other tantalising clues the meaning of which may never be known. Cho was found with the words 'Ismail Ax' in red ink on his arm. The return address on the NBC package was 'A. Ishmael'. It is impossible to know what that means, but suggestions have varied from the Bible to the Koran to Moby Dick to a Turkish hip hop artist. One literary reference Cho used was obvious. He quoted Romeo and Juliet. 'My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself,' he wrote. Cho picked out the words about forbidden love and turned them against his own identity. It was morbidly fitting. He had denied his own name in class. His last act in life was to blast off his own face. Cho Seung-hui did not exist in a vacuum. His actions sprang from the gun-drenched culture of America where buying a rifle can be as easy as buying groceries. The shop where Cho bought his Glock is Roanoke Firearms, standing on a busy road about half an hour's drive from Blacksburg. A bumper sticker on one wall declares, 'Buy A Gun For America'. America is a highly armed society. Gun rights groups argue that citizens have to be able to defend themselves. Yet it is also easy for deranged people to obtain powerful firearms. The statistics speak for themselves. There are 200 million privately held guns in America. Each year, they cause roughly 30,000 deaths and 300,000 gun-related assaults. Cho's massacre is just a drop in a very bloody pool. 'It is long overdue for us to take some commonsense actions to prevent tragedies like this from continuing to occur,' said Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. That such steps have not been taken yet is the result of the power of the National Rifle Association and the popular worship of gun use it encourages. The NRA is one of the most effective lobbying groups in American politics. It is motivated by a desire to protect the right of any American to own, carry and use firearms. It has an annual budget of $180m and 3.8 million members. The NRA also contributes about nine times more money to politicians' campaign coffers than gun control groups. Even now, even after Cho and his two hours of carnage, few politicians dare speak out against gun rights, despite the fact that Congress is now controlled by the Democrats. In fact, the one thing that seems certain in a post-Cho America is that another such massacre will happen again, and that it may possibly be even worse, as each perpetrator attempts to 'beat' the last. Already a spate of copycat incidents have occurred across the country. In Houston, a man killed a hostage and himself at the Nasa space centre. In Florida, a teenager was arrested after threatening in an email to kill 100 people. Near Seattle, another high school student was arrested while in possession of three loaded guns. Classes in a Nevada university were cancelled after a man sent a text message saying: 'The Korean is my hero.' The saturation media coverage, and especially the controversial broadcast of Cho's videos, will provide an anti-hero for some disturbed youth. Somewhere in America, in some school or college, a future Cho may already be allowing themselves to think along the same lines: loneliness, victimhood, revenge and suicide - and all on a world stage. They will not find it hard to find guns with which to kill. 'We are in trouble. This is not the end of it,' said Levin. But, just as Cho's actions reveal the dark heart of an American society at home with firearms, it also reveals the other country, the emotional America, the America of positives. The America of his victims. The roll call of the dead speaks of a land of variety and opportunity. The dead should not be defined by dying at Cho's hands, but by their own lives and deeds. They came from everywhere. There was Minal Panchal from Mumbai, a graduate student in architecture. There was Juan Ortiz Ortiz from Puerto Rico, who loved to dance salsa and played the timbales. There was Waleed Shaalan, 32, from Egypt, who leaves behind a widow and three fatherless children. Professor Librescu had escaped the Nazis and Romanian communism only to give up his life for his students. There were also young American women, full of hope and prospects - girls like Hilscher, whose small frame led her to name herself 'Pixie'. Or Reema Samaha, 18, who loved dancing and planned to spend the summer in France, working at a children's camp. Or Austin Cloyd, 18, the daughter of a Virginia Tech professor, who went on Christian mission trips in the Appalachian mountains, repairing the roofs and plumbing of the poorest of the poor. Or Erin Peterson, 18, a star basketball player who was as gentle off court as she was ferocious on it. They were also young men such as Jarrett Lan, 28, who was about to graduate in civil engineering and had been a four-sport athlete at his high school. Or Henry Lee, who had come to the US from China barely able to speak English. He belonged to an internet socialising group called 'My name is Henry Lee' with other people sharing his name. In a recent online post, he had joked about having a convention. 'We wouldn't need name tags,' he wrote. Cho's victims spanned a vast spectrum of life. They were young, middle-aged, elderly. They were students and professors. They were men and women. They were biologists, engineers and linguists. They were black, white, Middle Eastern, Jewish and Asian. They were Christian. Hindu, Jewish and Muslim. They were American and foreign-born. They had all started that terrible Monday in the expectation that their lives would continue. Cho cut them short, suddenly and inexplicably, leaving behind unimaginable grief for husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, children, colleagues and friends. But Cho also ensured they were honoured in their deaths. Their lives were celebrated by a mourning nation. Amid all the tributes springing up on campus, the tone is one of happy remembrance as well as grief. Perhaps one example among the thousands can stand for them all. It was written to Reema Samaha: 'Reema, wherever you are, I know that your smile and your dancing is joyous.' Cho's own family are in hiding under police protection. They are also shattered and despairing. Late last Friday, Cho's sister, Sun, released a statement for the family as a whole. It mentioned each victim by name. 'Each of these people had so much love, talent and gifts to offer, and their lives were cut short by a horrible and senseless act,' Sun said. 'My brother was quiet and reserved, yet struggled to fit in. We never could have envisioned that he was capable of so much violence.' There is still a long way, a marathon, for this college, town and country to travel on the road to recovery. And incredibly many are determined to take Cho along with them. There is very little anger at Cho on campus, just disbelief and despair. He is not hated: he is pitied by many who wonder how someone can commit such evil, and slaughter 32 fellow human beings. Steven Dellinger, 20, stood on a rise in front of the main memorial. He thought about Cho all the time, he said. 'I just wish someone had got to him. If only he had been able to have a friend who could have helped him out.' Behind Dellinger, a row of stone blocks - a memorial - has been laid out in a semi-circle, hugging a cluster of candles and messages. Each unmarked stone is topped with a flower and a Virginia Tech pennant. They represent the dead. There are 33 stones. Cho, whose lonely life turned his mind in ways one can hardly imagine, finally has company. On Guardian Unlimited Full coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings Gun violence in the US Gun violence in Britain Full US coverage Related articles Virginia massacre gunman named Unofficial list of shooting victims emerges Massacre on campus Q&A: US gun laws World news guide North American Media Media CNN New York Times Washington Post Government Virginia state government portal US government portal White House Senate House of Representatives -- Copyright Guardian News & Media Ltd 2007. Original Source: Guardian Unlimited / EducationGuardian.co.uk http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,,2063553,00.html
In consideration of the fee of GBP 0.00 ("the Fee") Guardian News & Media Limited ("GNM") grants the Licensee the right to: publish on its website for 10 years. Contact info: Eve Thompson; permissions.syndication@guardian.co.uk
The Matawan Ribbon Campaign for Virginia Tech
When the events of April 16 happened, I was sitting in school, not aware of what was going on. As soon as I got to my eighth period class, which was English 4 with Mr. Lloyd, I sat down and was looking for my pen. A friend of mine walked into class late because he was talking to a teacher. He said, "Something happened at Virginia Tech. 22 people were killed." I looked at him and the entire class looked at me because I am the only one from my high school attending VT in fall 2007. I was upset, but held it together until I got home. Once I got home, I put CNN on and sat down, processing everything that I was seeing on TV and hearing. My world turned into a big blur. I had to do something to make myself feel better. Two hours after I got home, I went to Michaels and bought enough ribbon and pins to make 30 ribbon pins to hand out to anyone who would take them. Two days later, I ran out of ribbons and had to go to Michaels to buy a lot more. I had people asking me for ribbons. Thursday of that week, my school principal authorized me to sell them as a fundraiser, and he bought the first one. I ended up selling or handing out over 100 ribbons and the money totaled $200. I had my school district cut the check and send it down. When I tell people about my fundraiser, it makes me feel good, because I can say that I did my part to help.
The Moon-After, Virginia Tech Memorial (2007) 40"x30" oil on canvas It is the first time the full moon is observed after the massacre of Virginia Tech. For many, the moon will never look the same again. This is a quest to extract the feelings for the souls that will be missed in the lives of many, and for the souls among us that were touched in different ways. A trans-mix of materialistic and spiritual elements is represented by colorless buildings, lilies to convey an overwhelming feeling of surprise, shock, grieve and hope. Thirty-two different types of lilies in white and orange emerge from the gray-shaded mix of figures, symbolizing the spirits of the 32 victims. With the absence of the victims from sight, they become like images, or like seasonal plants, that are soon gone. Lilies were chosen to represent the diversity of the victims, as lilies grow all over the world in different types. The work on this memorial started with the first full moon after the massacre, and was concluded early June 2007. Original Source: http://www.tonysky.net/tony/pntg12.htm
Shortly after 8 AM on Monday, August 20 - the first day of classes - a group of cadets makes their way across a largely empty drillfield. The intermediate memorial, visible center right, was dedicated the previous day. The large tent used for the dedication ceremony has not yet been taken down. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0.
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0
The presidential motorcade arrives at the convocation. Original source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ndicken/464093119/in/set-72157600089911912/ Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.0
Permission: Nathan Dicken http://www.flickr.com/photos/ndicken/464093119/in/set-72157600089911912/ Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.0
The presidential motorcade arrives at the convocation. Original source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ndicken/464093429/in/set-72157600089911912/ Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.0
Permission Nathan Dicken http://www.flickr.com/photos/ndicken/464093429/in/set-72157600089911912/ Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.0
By Uwe E. Reinhardt Princetonian Columnist Students gathered in Richardson Auditorium last night for a service in memory of the victims of Monday's shooting at Virginia Tech," reported The Daily Princetonian on April 18. A day earlier, President Tilghman stated that "my reaction was horror at the loss of so many innocent young lives," a sentiment echoed by President Bush when he remarked that "those whose lives were taken did nothing to deserve their fate. They leave behind grieving families and grieving classmates and a grieving nation." Congress openly prayed for the victims and their loves ones. Flags flew at half-mast across the nation. It was good. Solidarity with stricken fellow human beings forges a group of people sharing a geography into a "community" or "nation." As Associate Dean of Religious Life Deborah Blanks put it so eloquently during the memorial: "We dare to affirm that there is strength in community." It takes nothing away from the grief we share with Virginia Tech's community to let the mind wander from that tragedy to another one, the daily toll of fellow human beings grotesquely destroyed or maimed in Iraq, among them many American men and women just as young and innocent as those killed at Virginia Tech. As Keith Olbermann of MSNBC's "Countdown," standing out from the herd politically correct journalists, asked boldly on April 17: "In just the last 10 days, 32 American troops, many the same age as the Virginia Tech students, have died. While one may take issue with the comparison, one cannot ignore the similarities ... It seems fair to ask the question, if the violent deaths in Virginia send the nation into shock and expressions of concern and anxiety, why is not the continuous flow of blood in Iraq creating a similar reaction? Why isn't our flag permanently at half staff?" Olbermann has a point. In just the two days following the shooting at Virginia Tech, close to 400 Iraqis were brutally blown to shreds and hundreds more seriously wounded, along with the usual daily toll of U.S. military personnel. Stories on their fate were pushed way down the list of reports on TV or in the daily press. Did Congress pray for them? Are these human beings part of Dean Blanks' "community"? It appears that the daily slaughter of people in Iraq has become so routine now that reports on it must compete for America's attention with updates on Wall Street, sport scores and the Anna Nicole Smith story. On our campus, the indifference may be amplified by what USG president Rob Biederman '08 called at the memorial the "Orange Bubble," namely, the fact that "every college should be a place apart," presumably from the outside world. The tragedy at Virginia Tech seems to have penetrated that Bubble only because of what Biederman called "the similarity of all students' campus experiences." Military service for one's country and the horrors of war are as far removed from the campus experience as one could imagine. To illustrate, in early October of 2005 I wrote to the then editor-in-chief of the Daily Princetonian: "I would like to make a suggestion that would add grace to the 'Prince.' Show every day, on the front page of the paper, the names of American troops who have been killed in Afghanistan and Iraq. The idea would be to remind young Princetonians, many of whom aspire to be future leaders, that there is a war going on and that they have contemporaries who are willing to stand tall for their country and to pay the ultimate price for it." In a courteous email, the editor replied that she understood and agreed with my sentiment, but that "The Daily Princetonian has a defined scope as a newspaper: We cover events and people affiliated with the University Community." She pointed out that the national newspapers are to keep us abreast of other events. Alas, who among college students these days actually reads these dailies? In fairness to the 'Prince,' not all dailies report on the blood cost of the war either. For example, I had earlier asked The Wall Street Journal, a major cheerleader for the invasion of Iraq, to honor on its front page the names of the fallen warriors. That request did not even warrant an answer, presumably because the Journal does not want to highlight that war has its costs. As a member of the University community, I can well understand the comfort the stricken Virginia Tech community may find in Princeton's and the nation's vigils for them and the sentiment that begot the vigils. But as the parent of a Marine who narrowly escaped death on the battlefield in 2005 and may yet have to serve a fourth tour of duty (because too few career-minded inhabitants of the College Bubble are willing to take over from him), I also share the loneliness that all military families feel in a nation that seems preoccupied with things other than the human toll in Iraq. Uwe E. Reinhardt is the James Madison Professor of Political Economy and a professor in the Wilson School. He can be reached at reinhard@princeton.edu. -- Original Source: Daily Princetonian - April 23, 2007
By KEVIN FRISCH Messenger Post Columnist Posted: Apr 23, 01:00 PM EDT What a difference a weekend makes. Last Friday, the big story was brand new man of leisure Don Imus, who was ousted from his nationally syndicated radio program after making a disparaging remark about a women's basketball team. Since the comment was racist in nature, there were calls for a new discussion on the topic of race; a new dialogue on the parallel universes that are black and white America. By Sunday, this conversation was put on hold — along the East Coast, anyway — as attention turned to more immediate concerns. Namely, the weather. A full-fledged 'noreaster made an unwelcome April visit and, for some 36 hours, it snowed slush. Or slushed snow. Or rained snow and slush. Whatever, the result was inches and inches of precipitation leading to flooding, treacherous travel and widespread power outages. By late Monday morning, even those with cold homes and flooded basements were suddenly counting their blessings as they heard the first news reports from Blacksburg, Va. An unspeakably violent week in recent American history had another blood-soaked chapter. In the past 15 years, the week between April 15 and April 22 has seen the siege of the Branch Davidian Compound in Waco, Texas; the Oklahoma City bombing; the Columbine High School shootings and, now, the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history: the massacre at Virginia Tech. Including the gunman, 33 souls were lost on the college's campus on April 16. Another 26 people were wounded. As the initial shock and confusion gave way to anguish and a search for likely-nonexistent answers, a few reflexive voices were raised. There was right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh, who climbed onto his high horse to condemn the "drive-by media," whoever they are. (Apparently, Rush has a problem with news people showing up to cover what may well be the biggest story of the year.) There was the almost immediate debate over firearm rights, a customary echo when gun-related violence explodes. Have you ever head a loud crash in the next room, then run in to see Junior standing next to a broken lamp and the first words out of his mouth are "I didn't do it"? Then you've got some sense of the tone of a fax sent out the night of the slayings by Gun Owners of America. "When will we learn that being defenseless is a bad defense?" asked Larry Pratt, the group's executive director. "All the school shootings that have ended abruptly in the last ten years were stopped because a law-abiding citizen — a potential victim — had a gun." Actually, the Virginia Tech gunman took his own life, as did the two teens who wrought carnage at Columbine, but, oh well. On the other side of the argument were people like Josh Sugarmann, executive director of the Washington-based Violence Policy Center. "In the wake of these shootings, too many routinely search for any reason for the tragedy except for the most obvious — the easy access to increasingly lethal firearms that make mass killings possible," he told the Toronto Globe and Mail. It wasn't hard to side with Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine. "I think that people who want to take this within 24 hours of the event and make it their political hobby horse to ride ... I've got nothing but loathing for them," he said. Kaine's point is well taken; his revulsion understandable. An informal waiting period of at least a week before latching an agenda — any agenda — onto sad and painful events would be a welcome change in this country. The time will come for dissecting media coverage and debating the availability of firearms. In the meantime, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg and America as a whole have wounds to heal; tears to cry; losses to mourn. Whoever thought we would so quickly be nostalgic for the days when the big issue was the Don Imus controversy? Messenger managing editor and aspiring president Kevin Frisch's column, Funny Thing..., appears each Sunday in the Daily Messenger. Contact him at (585) 394-0770, Ext. 257, or via e-mail at KFrisch@MPNewspapers.com. -- Original Source: Rochester, NY - MPNnow http://www.mpnnow.com/news/view_story.php?articleId=8158 Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5.
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5
Posted April 17th, 2007 - 15:39PM by Steve Fox Well, it didn't take long. One of my students at the University of Maryland has a brother who attends Virginia Tech and lost two friends yesterday. She started to break down as she told me she would not be in class tonight. As everyone steps up to applaud the "citizen journalism" that occurred yesterday, with kudos upon kudos give to the cellphone video made infamous by CNN, I can't help but think what my student's brother thought yesterday upon seeing that video played over and over and over again. Consider this: the video had no inherent news value and told no story. It did have sounds of bullets being fired and screams. Those were bullets that killed, maimed and injured students and faculty members. This wasn't a video game. Is such video responsible journalism? Are these the types of Citizen Journalists that people want to see? Are we doomed to create "citizen journalists" to play the I-patsies for cable television? There were other not-so-proud moments, including the decision to publish this and then the rush to judgment reported here. As most professional journalists who have covered breaking news and tragedy know, the facts are never clear in the first couple of hours and will likely change. And, when reporting on tragedy, two things rise above most -- try not to do harm and think of those involved -- both victims and their families. It means slowing down. And, thinking, should I really whip out my cellphone here? Cable television long ago threw out the baby with the bath water. Now, breaking news events are an opportunity for ratings as viewers watch tragedy unfold. Journalism? Hardly. Students who were in shock were interviewed regularly, with the final question of "how are you feeling" inevitably searching for a sob. Watching tragedy unfold via cable news is the soap opera of the modern era. It's hardly journalism. Which brings us back to our heralded cell-phone videographer yesterday. The London bombing showed us how anyone with a cell phone can capture images. But, that was after a news event had occurred. Our heralded citizen journalist captured sounds of people being killed, injured and maimed yesterday as it occurred. Is this really the type of behavior to applaud, to train citizen journalists to take part in? More importantly, what's the news here? Finally, step back for a second. Play the video. And, imagine you have a son or daughter attending Virginia Tech, you can't get ahold of them and you turn on CNN to find out some information and instead you come across that video. -- Original Source: AssignmentZero.com http://zero.newassignment.net/blog/steve_fox/apr2007/17/now_infamous_va_tech_video This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License
April 18, 2007 [Update: I stand by my piece, which is mostly a bunch of questions, rather than statements linking race and culture in the explanative way it is being taken. I merely pointed out that as an American working deeply in the education field for years now, and having identified just such problems (and seen them connected in the Korean-language media for years), that perhaps questions about culture, as related to specific conditions that surround child-rearing, education, being educated overseas, the taboo of discussing mental health in Korean society, etc. might not have played some role here, on top of the fact that many Asian and Asian American males indeed might have specific ways of feeling alienated in "white society." Obviously, to even broach mere questions is deemed "racist" by many readers. Fine. I don't delete comments (unless they are abusive) and people have a right to come in and say what they want - that's why I blog, after all. Yet, before we start flinging around the "R-word" I hope people actually think about what I'm saying, and remember that what I said was that cultural context may be helpful as far as looking at context, but that "Korea" and the rest of the world should look at him as an individual. I spend half my post saying that, and the two need not contradict. And yes, when it comes to the fact that most serial killers have been/are still white men, it does astound me that America seems to have trouble talking about this obvious fact, and mums was the word when Columbine happened. Yet, broaching the topic is going to get one accused of saying their horrendous acts were committed "because they were white," which would again, be not what I said. But pundits of all kinds of backgrounds have license to talk about the concerns of "black youth" as it relates to drugs or violence for years. I don't call doing so "racist" although some strains of it certainly can be. For those who call such explanations as this "back-tracking," well, I guess you can call it what you like. I feel that despite the obvious difficulty anyone can have theorizing culture as a backdrop for what are undeniably individual actions, people are only reading one side of what I am actually saying, even after I have carefully delimited the extent to which "culture" can be expected to lead to culpability. I speak as an educator who watches (and inevitably participates in) the nearly inhumane grind of the education system here, the extreme testing regime these kids are expected to endure, the harsh penalties meted to those who can't, the sudden skyrocketing of youth suicide due directly to mental health problems linked to academic achievement, and myriad other pressures that quite often lead to education in the US as a goal for Korean kids. And even in the Korean American community, the culture of such processes, as well as the patterns of culture do not necessarily end with a green card or an American address. So, in that context, this does frighten me, and I think this incident, while extreme, does warrant reflection on some serious structural shifts in Korean education, the family, and other factors between which Korean kids get crunched in the middle. If you want to call such efforts or lines of thinking "racist", I can't stop you. Yet, I think it's significant, from this side of the water, to think about the fact that yes, he is not a white kid from Colorado, especially against the backdrop of what's been happening in Korean education in recent years, as well the socialization of males in Korea and Korean culture. And since mine is an identity partially shaped AS an Asian American man, as well as an African-American one, I have a more direct interest in asking these questions. And if you think I am saying I lay claim to all the answers, I want to make very clear again that I don't profess to have them, and I don't consider culture as responsible for his actions here. But to assume from the very beginning that "it doesn't matter," when I think it may be worth looking at, especially given the copycat nature of high-profile suicides in Korea over just the last couple of years, I would hate for there to be a similar effect over there. Call it "racist" if you will, but mental health professionals have been saying for years that there are cultural factors when it comes to mental health concerns, especially in communities in which such talk is considered taboo. I guess to raise such issues in this context, no matter how carefully prefaced or qualified, is taboo as well. So, are all Muslims terrorists? Clearly not. Are the vast majority of terrorists in recent years Muslim? Clearly, yes. I don't confuse the logic, yet it's easy to do. Yet, the mainstream media talks about the mindsets and motivations of many of the young men who get recruited up into horrible acts. To talk about "culture" as some generalized, essentialized force would indeed be "racist;" but to talk about the factors of poverty, religion, and the motivations for entering such groups isn't; they are reasonable questions. Do they dismiss the actions of individuals? No. People are all responsible for their actions. Just as we talk about the "culture of poverty" or in more recent years, have more elevated conversations about African-American culture and what often leads black male youth to join gangs, or commit crimes in ways that white males generally don't - I also don't consider that "racist." But is a black gangster responsible for his acts? Damn straight s/he is. I find it unusual that it can be legitimate for me, as a student back at Brown in the 1990's, as an active Asian American and "multiracial" on campus, to listen to job candidates for the Psych Services position talk about the "special mental health needs of Asian American youth" and for Asian American campus reps to sit there and nod approvingly while they talked about educational and familial pressures, relate those to Asian American notions of masculinity and femininity, and a lot of factors that I mention in this article as clearly relevant, but merely broach the subject now is completely out of bounds. Unlike the mainstream American media, or whichever talking heads are on TV right now in the States, I've been thinking about something like this happening for years now, in a Korean context; I've actually wondered when and if something like this might happen, and how this may play out. I come at this from someone who lives and works in South Korea who works with kids in high schools, college, and alternative schools daily. And as I look at this both as an Asian American and an American living in Asia, I don't think cultural pressures and patterns can be so easily discounted out of hand, as mere "racism", and suddenly unworthy as points at least worth thinking about. In the end, Cho wasn't just another white kid who committed yet another school shooting. But he also isn't the representative of Korea, nor his diasporic nationality, nor his supposed "race." He was a warped individual. I am simply saying that perhaps there are factors in his "warping" that may have had cultural aspects worth thinking about, especially for those of us concerned about the mental and spiritual health of both Asian and Asian American youth. And that's where I'll leave it. If you're looking for "answers," keep looking, and don't think you'll find them here, or blame be either for professing to have them, or not having them. I don't, and don't claim to. I lay out some things to think about below, but mostly ask a lot of questions that I think are worth asking. And I am somewhat surprised that even broaching the topic, no matter how tentatively or awkwardly, is somehow "racist."] This is sort of a followup piece to "The Walking Wounded" post that clearly is spurred on by the recent events at Virginia Tech, with the mass murder-suicide of Cho Seung-Hui, the worst in American history. As I try to formulate a response, I do so while trying to stay true to my own intellectual convictions, while trying to make sense out of something that is far more complex than any single person can make out. How will I interpret this? How can I? I can't profess to know the mind of the killer, nor work from information that I don't have. And the media speculation will go on and on, while the Korean media will work in "national shame" mode that is the necessary flip side of the extended "national pride" that is taken in anyone of Korean descent who does anything of note overseas. I'm of two minds about this, but I don't feel my impulses are in conflict. On the one hand, I feel like this incident makes it worth looking at some of the social factors that very well could have helped determine one man's actions; on the other, we have to remember that Cho was an individual, and that the faulty logic that "Korea" is the bearer of collective guilt over this incident is just as flawed as Korea taking full responsibility for a member of its "own" who had been socially cast aside, as was the case with Hines Ward. My posts on the issue: "Korean Folks Don't Like Black People" "Hines Ward - Lost in Translation" "Hines Ward - Nail On the Head" "On 'Korean Blood," Social Policy, and the Dangers of Race-Based Nationalism" "Where Do Koreans' Ideas About Race Come From?" "Hines Ward - What If?" "The Gates of the Minjok" í˜¼í˜ˆì¸ 내가 'ì›Œë“œì‹ ë“œë¡¬'ì— ì§œì¦ë‚˜ëŠ” ì´ìœ (in Korean) 한국 ì˜ì–´ì‚¬ì „ì€ ì¸ì¢…íŽ¸ê²¬ ì „ì‹œìž¥? (in Korean) More interesting to me than the details of all this and trying to figure use the blunt tool of structural arguments and social psychology to tease out the subtle and complex motivations of an obviously troubled individual, are the implications this will realistically have for Korea tomorrow morning, when this hits the Korean public when it gets up to read the paper or catch the news over coffee and the morning commute. This is a big moment - and I am thinking mainly along these two lines. There will be a lot of things worth thinking about, social problems worth looking at - but at the end of the day, Cho was an individual. And "Korea" can no more be held "responsible" for this horrible crimes than it could have been for Hines Ward winning the Super Bowl. On the issue of someone like Hwang Woo Suk, the folly of setting him up as a hero and the irony of his inevitable fall was much more of a marker of the society in which he lived, because his status as a public figure depended on the collective mind and will of the public. He was not a true individual, but rather a figure created according to the needs of a government, media, and public who created him. The shooter in Virginia was a Korean (the extent of his ties here having yet to be determined, regardless of when he apparently gained residency there), but he was also - and importantly - an individual. That is something that will be hard, but necessary, to remember over the days and weeks to come. Cho Seung-hui will live in the national identity of Koreans forever. He is the anti-thesis of all the national "heroes" whom Korea imprudently lauds as extensions of the national character (again, Hwang Woo Suk), as somehow expressions of the positive character traits imbedded into the genetic material of Koreans itself. Now, after this horrible affair, perhaps the faulty logic of those connections will be apparent. I wonder if the move will be away from that logic itself, or an ongoing circus show of national shame. I do hope that the logic of not performing the latter will be apparent. Strategically, the best thing to do would be for the South Korean government to express its remorse and regrets, make meaningful yet symbolic gestures expressing those sentiments, and move on. If an American did this while studying in another country, I would expect the same from my government. "That crazy dude has nothing to do with me." But that's not the way this is going to go down, is it? At least at first. There is going to be serious national shame, expressed through the shock of this "representative of the culture" - even if the kid had been living in the States most of his life. There will be Korean media pointing at the parents, expressions of shock that "a Korean could do such a thing" (despite the fact that violence in the schools and against women are actually rampant in Korean society), and the glee that many people here in South Korea have at pointing out "American" character traits whenever horrible things happen in the US will be inevitably tempered. Because the flip side of the logic now applies, like a mofo. Let me just say that I don't know the details right now, besides the basics of the shooter having been identified. Nor does anyone else at the present time, really. I'm writing, getting a million Messenger messages a minute, and don't have time to closely scan the papers as I write this, not that there's a lot of information, anyway. In a way, I don't want to, as I want to write what I write clean, before the details make the issues temporarily more obfuscated, as they surely will. But in the end, will we ever know why Cho did this? Like the Columbine shooters, we'll speculate forever. Even when if and when we realized a concrete motive, how does one truly know when or how an emotionally fathomable rage becomes a horrible, inexplicable madness? So I'll go with what I got, which is a lot of opinions about South Korean society, education, and social problems involving youth, education, and women in this society. I will say right now that I am extrapolating far too much from this incident from the git-go, but I think my lines of argument will tend to make more sense than the Chosun Ilbo or Hangreoreh will, or most "explanations" of this horrible incident. In a nation that wants to crack down on the rash of gang rapes and ongoing sexual violence committed against girls and women by launching a campaign against foreign porn sites as the main solution and logical conclusion, what, oh what, sense will the media make of Cho Seung-hui? Let me just start by saying that I see a lot of social factors converging that might offer a social context - not an explanation - to this situation. It's also an excuse to talk about some social issues in Korea (since this is, after all, what this blog is about) and do some more productive hand-wringing than I think the mainstream Korean media will. I wouldn't even be surprised if this is used as more ammo to show just how much America can "corrupt" good Korean youth. Just like Western porn is responsible for Korean boys (and girls!) conspiring to rape and sexually extort the victims that have made the news in a couple of pretty scandalous cases over the last few months. And since my posts can tend to go on quite a bit, let me just list these topics, in no particular order: This isn't new (HT to reader). Several years ago, I was with a group of university administrators being given a tour by the US State Department, hosted by Fulbright Korea, and being given a tour by a respected mentor of mine when several of the administrators stopped to ask a question that seemed to be burning at them for some time. "Why is it that Korean male students seem to have the most trouble adjusting to life in the US?" Kind of surprised, but yet not, I and my mentor pressed further, and they explained that the students who had the most disciplinary problems of all their international students were Korean males. These representatives of large state universities all then cited incident after incident of Korean males threatening Korean students seen walking with a foreign man (a graduate student walking with her black professor - she received dozens of insults and death threats on her answering machine), physical conflicts with other graduate students over simple matters, and a some domestic violence in cases of Korean couples living on campus. In that conversation, what came out is that many Korean men felt displaced and disempowered as males who lived in a society that catered to them, while in the US, those forms of automatic power and status - being male, rich, or having come from Seoul National University - mean nothing. And at the same time, Korean women experience a social liberalization compared to where they would often be in Korea; many Korean female friends and colleagues of mine who studied in the US cited how they felt constricted and uncomfortable (부담) when a Korean male would end up in a seminar with them, because often, the man would expect them to acknowledge or "respect" (ì¸ì •) them. When they didn't receive it, and often were dressed down by people younger than them or female, or by the professor in front of the class, they often felt particularly frustrated. And that has been a big issue and has led to social conflict and trouble before. And that is just about all I'll say on that. Then there's the interesting fact that the record holder for the worst shooting in world history, Woo Bom-gon (우범근), is also Korean, this time a Korean national who lived in Korea. That's not in the least bit interesting? From about the only other site on the Internet I could find on this subject (there is exactly one I could find through Korean search engines, and that's a pretty weird site): South Korean spree killer. Has argument with girlfriend. Being a police officer, Woo Bum-Kon robs the police armory and goes on a drunken 8 hour shooting spree through three villages, leaving 57 dead and 35 wounded before he suicides with two grenades in Uiryong. The Korean interior minister resigns. (28 Apr 1982.) Sound familiar? So the top two spots for shooting sprees in history are now held by two Korean men. Hey - I just find this interesting. Is this information not somewhat relevant to the issue at hand? Don't know why the Korean media isn't picking up on this. Or maybe it will? This is another interesting fact to throw in with the others. Even The New York Times had a piece on it back in 1982. Well before this incident, and with the high number of suicides and actually pretty gruesome serial murders that take place in this country without guns - and I've heard Koreans joking about this as well - people wonder what Korea would be like if guns were legal and freely available here. Given the recent spate of violence and suicide in the schools here, I also give a shudder. Suicide is rampant in South Korean society. It's the #1 cause of death in people in their 20's and 30's in Korea. And since I consider these incidents of mass murder as actually horribly violent forms of suicide - "take a few with you" - I think it's something worth thinking about. I've blogged about this extensively, especially as it's related to the education system. How do you add up the affects of parental, societal, and other kinds of pressure on Korean youth, the extent of which few American kids I know even come close to feeling? I've already said enough about this that doesn't need to be rehashed here; it's better to just read them directly. "The Walking Wounded" "On Suicide in Korea" "On the Korean Obsession With Educational Success" "Podcast #27 - The Korean Education System" "EPIK as Case Study: Why Korean-Style Management Sucks" "Attack of the Clones" "The Phantom Menace" Violence against women is endemic in Korean society. What would be called stalking or considered inappropriate is often standard practice here in terms of dating, sex, and marriage. I often cite the case of when I saw a man slap his apparent girlfriend as hard as he could, sending her head back with visible shock. In front of a police station in Chungmuro, where, as a photographer, I had made my haunt. I immediately walked over, shooting away with my motor drive, saying that "you can't do that" and that I witnessed it. He looked annoyed and ignored me, at which point I walked to the police station about 20 meters away and informed the older officer on duty of what I had seen, in fluent Korean. He seemed annoyed, but obliged to get up out of his chair, and he went over to the door, cracked it, observed the couple still fighting, and said, "It's OK. They know each other." After I asked him if "this is all cops do in Korea" and "shouldn't he go check?" he just told me to go home. He never even asked if she was in trouble. That's a lot better than the incident, circa 2004(?), when a group of boys from some small town outside of the capital were convicted of serially raping 2 high school students (they had been in middle school at the time, if my memory serves) after one boy had had consensual sex with one of the girls but had videotaped it and used it as a weapon to make her sleep with other boys - up to 30 or 40, I recall - and also impress her friend into similar sexual service. When this was discovered, the girls were berated by police as having run a prostitution ring, and were called sluts and whores, while the parents of many of the boys as well as members of the community gave death threats to the girls' mothers for "ruining their sons' lives." And such stories keep popping up again and again here, while the tendency is to not punish the men at all, if possible. I personally attended a small protest around a large police station in relation to this issue, which many Seoul residents and the more enlightened did, to their credit, find reprehensible. But the level of violence against women here, as many Fulbrighters have heard as they lived with Korean host families all across the country, in apartment complexes where you regularly hear women being viciously beaten and screaming at night - no one calls the cops, except for me, it seems - and the many times I've seen women just straight slapped around in public...the level of violence against women that is readily apparent if you live here is undeniable. I can't speak for all foreigners here, but this is something I hear again and again and again. And yes, there is sexual and domestic violence everywhere in the world, but this is a place where I can't even count on two hands the number of times I've seen a women slapped down in public. And no one does anything. How much is a woman's body really worth here? Other factors? In the end, we just can't know. So it's not even clear how much time Cho spent in the US, although it appears he has spent a considerable amount. The information is changing by the hour. How does one sum up one's connection to culture(s)? But I do think it is worth at least mentioning the factors that often affect Korean men living as foreign students in the US, the pressures that come from living in one of the least happiest developed societies in the world, where I argue that the mental violence of the repressively harsh developmental dictatorship has finally started to find expression, even as the pressure cooker that is the failed Korean education system sends more and more Korean students overseas at an earlier age, to experience more stress and even higher parental expectations. What can we make of this? Well, it just strikes me that the motive for a male Korean student to commit this heinous act apparently includes being feelings of revenge against his girlfriend and was precipitated by a fight with her. Beyond that, one can't really speculate. One can only talk about factors that might illuminate. But speculate and make specious extrapolations the Korean media will, and I assure you, dear readers, that they won't stop at mere speculation around social factors, but there will be a slew of culturally essentialist assumptions that lead to really suspect "conclusions" as to what the "real problem" was. It will get more complex if he turns out to have lived most of his life in the US. Then, the onus of cultural responsibility can and will be shifted to "America." If his ties to Korea are stronger, then perhaps his parents will be blamed for his actions. They will be anyway. Although it is not a nice thing to foresee, I wouldn't be surprised if other suicides out of shame come from this, especially if "national blame" gets shifted to the individual, and by extension, the parents. In Sum But sometimes, we just can't "know." The pathology of the individual isn't something nations should be responsible for, because this isn't a logical or fair thing to do. If I go out right now and kill all of my officemates and then blow up a building, much will be made of my political leanings, little "signs" from the scribblings on my blog here, and most likely the anger I had after Katrina and talking about the song "Bin Laden Didn't Blow Up the Projects." But maybe it was me. Me who was crazy, me who wanted to take out my anger in a horrible way. Is my nation responsible? Is Bush? Are my parents? Was it because I played Sniper Elite on my Xbox, or Halo 2? When the process of going over Cho's life with a fine-toothed media freakout ends, I'm sure we'll see a lot of such explanations. But in the end, I don't think we can ever know. How does one know the face of madness like this? If we could, wouldn't it be easy to spot and prevent? However, this incident leaves a lot to think about. Not the least of which is the fact that the linking of "national pride" is just about as useless as the linking of "national shame", but the cultural logic of this is far from out of favor. Perhaps if one positive thing comes out of this, it will be a national discussion of a lot of these issues, and if we're lucky, people will be even asking the question, "Does 'Korea' even really need to feel responsible for this?" One might even see an angry rejection of this "national shame" - which in some ways, I think would be healthy; psychologically, it may be useful and hence, inevitable. In the end, this will be the beginning point for a lot of different discourses around culture, race, and nation. People can and should now talk about all the things that very well may have gone into influencing one Korean man's way of expressing his anger, however inappropriate that may have been. There are cultural patterns to things that are caused by clear and present structural influences, customary and culturally-informed modes of interaction, and a great number of things. But that doesn't mean "Korea" is responsible. Thinking about both factors will involve walking a subtle line that will be very, very easy to cross. I just hope the conversation can be more elevated than some of the things I can imagine being said about this incident, this one troubled man, and the culture of which he was, to some extent, a part. A few more thoughts... And on the American front, things are still swirling. How will race, gender, and sex play into this, as well as the stereotypes of Asian Americans in general and Korean Americans specifically? One thing that occurred to me was that I'm sure Arab Americans are breathing a sigh of relief that the shooter was not of Arab descent or Muslim. That's the last thing the Arab community needs in the States. I'm sure most people were expected the shooter to be a white male, as almost all mass murderers in recent years have been. What is interesting is the fact that the mainstream American media has never made much of the fact that serial killers are almost exclusively middle-class, white men. The FBI and criminal psychologists have this as a base assumption; interesting that in the public mind, this is not even a question. Imagine if nearly all serial killers were Korean; or Arab; or black; or female. Then, it would mean something, right? The gun control lobby will have a field day with this, while the NRA will likely emphasize (thanks, Jacco, for changing my mind about this) the kid's immigrant status and the fact that it wasn't the gun who killed those people, but an immigrant on a visa. Yes, people kill people, and it's not just the guns; but is sure is easier with a Glock 9mm with a low trigger weight that pops off bullets as fast as your index finger can flex. And back in Korea, I really hope that after the nation has gone through the expected paroxysms of guilt and shame, that some South Koreans will tire of it and say, "OK, enough. Why do I have to feel bad about some crazy kid who cracked? It's not my problem." And I think I'd feel the same way; I'd have to agree. From there, if that happens, the real interesting questions and debates can begin. More than anything, I hope that this might be what it takes to partially break the foundations of national identity into smaller and more interesting parts, ones that can be digested by a logic other than the dichotomy of "pride and shame" and into something more complex. An even more unlikely hope will be for the Korean media and by extension, a large part of the populace, to move past the crude and problematic stereotyping and categorical thinking that defines a lot of the discourse around foreign others, and even Koreans themselves. Perhaps now, the logic that because the murderer who dumped a girl's body in Ansan Station turned out to be Chinese means that "Chinese are dangerous" will now become suspect. Or that "Arabs are dangerous and terrorists" if the shooter in this case had been Arab, or that "America is dangerous" because of this incident, when it's much more likely that you'll be killed in a car accident than shot by a Crip in a driveby or even a crazed killer in a school. Because by extension, that would mean that "Koreans are dangerous killers" who should be avoided, or "are all about to snap." I doubt Koreans would accept that, as well they shouldn't. I just hope that this can translate into the realization that the logic is equally flawed the other way around. Posted by Michael Hurt on April 18, 2007 -- Archived with permission of author. Original Source: Scribblings of the Metropolitician http://metropolitician.blogs.com/scribblings_of_the_metrop/2007/04/the_politics_of.html
More gun control doesn't infringe on right to bear arms By: Editorial Board Posted: 4/23/07 It took little time for the journalists and political pundits to start talking gun control. This editorial is not just about last week's Virginia Tech shooting. It's also about the North Mecklenburg High School student who brought a gun on campus last Wednesday, threatened two other students and then left and shot himself. It's about the rumors of a planned shooting that circulated around Orange County High School last Friday and about the student who killed his father, then injured two others at that same school last fall. This editorial isn't about the Second Amendment or taking away Americans' right to bear arms. It's about how to keep guns away from those who are unfit to use them. It's about taking away an easy means of suicide for the roughly 16,000 Americans who killed themselves with a firearm in 2004. It's about limiting the 14,000 murdered by guns in 2005 and the 650 fatal accidents the year before. One reason to study history is to avoid making the same mistakes as in the past. Stricter gun control laws might not prevent tragedy from striking, but they can make it far less likely. Even simple regulations such as background checks can make a huge difference. If somebody has a history of mental illness, that should certainly show up in a background check and prevent that person from buying a gun. And there is no sense in destroying information gathered during those checks after 24 hours, as is mandated by national law, when, in some states, that person can return to buy another gun 30 days later. A comprehensive registration system of gun owners would not hurt anyone but criminals. In Texas, residents do not need a permit to own a gun and do not have to register their firearms. The authorities don't even know how many guns are in the state. In addition, 80 percent of prisoners who own guns received their gun from family or a friend or bought it on the street or illegally. These person-to-person transactions go unrecorded. Automatic and semiautomatic weapons - for instance, a 9 mm Glock - only are available to police in almost every other country. You can buy an AK-47 online for $379.99, and nobody in their right mind - and certainly nobody not in their right mind - needs one of those. The assault-weapons ban, which expired in 2004, should be renewed. Gun-related crime has fallen since the mid-1990s, but rose sharply again in 2005. Unfortunately, the rates are still exorbitantly high. The gun-murder rate in America is more than 30 times that of England. Tighter gun control won't necessarily bring that down. If somebody has a strong enough inclination to kill another, that person likely will find a gun regardless of how strong the restrictions are, but it sure won't hurt to conduct thorough background checks and ban automatic weapons. We're not trying to take away Americans' rights to hunt or own a gun in case anyone feels the need to start a militia and revolt against tyranny. But nobody should complain if America is a safer place. -- Original Source: The Daily Tar Heel - April 23, 2007