I have no reason to be embarrassed about my "panziness". Why should one be? That's who I was. An introverted, timid, and scrawny kid. There was nothing I could have done to change that fact. Growing out of timidity is part of growing up and maturing.

The people I'm worried about are the ones who try and act all tough and cool. Those are the kids that are the real culprits in these situations. Those are the kids that really need help. Those are the kids that have never been taught compassion or humility. And you wonder why this world is so messed up.

4/21/2007 9:36:53 PM

I find it strange that nobody ever seems to get the message behind these attacks. Cho and the Columbine killers explicitly say they felt mistreated and they consider what they did to be acts of justice. Instead of people saying, "Damn. Maybe we should teach our children to treat each other better", they call them nuts and start profiling kids in trench coats. Retributive massacres are nothing new. Ever hear of the Bath School disaster? Guy was pissed that school taxes contributed to financial hardship. So he set up a few explosions at the school, killed about 40 small children. He left behind a sign that said "Criminals are made, not born." This was 80 years ago. Were his actions bad? Probably, but he sure made those people regret taxing him. He was also trying to change the payout matrix for the future, and so was Cho. That's why he called himself a martyr.

4/24/2007 5:26:38 PM

We can still think we should treat people better and think that these kids are nuts. The two ideas are not mutualy exclusive.

4/24/2007 6:27:16 PM

What if the kids you are trying to treat better sympathize with these guys?

They feel like they're all fucked up on the inside.

4/24/2007 6:30:47 PM

Quote :

"the act of a violent revenge as a culture script has now been so ingrained in society"

Well, when our media behaves reasonably, then change in these cultural scripts can come. Airing the boy's video, posthumously, certainly set the cause of decent people back about twenty years.

There will always be dangerous people. Broadcasting suggestions to them for how to deal with their pain, is kindling for their internal fire. Giving massive attention to the killers in these situations does just that.

Cho Seung-Hui was given a voice in our culture. And the others like him certainly are listening. His infamy is the cultural script.

Quote :

"That's why when I see stuff like this happen in Virginia, I have slight compassion for the criminal."

I don't -- everyone has excuses. One might have also compassion for him because he was, frankly, just bat-shit crazy and there wasn't much he could do about that. Excuses for things like this -- that's a long, dark road.

There's a lot of currency in correlating the bullied youth to these isolated stories of adult killers. I don't see it. I used to. But being an adult and looking back -- I feel I was always internally stronger than the people around me who caused me pain.

This man, he wasn't internally stronger, internally weaker, or internally anything -- he was just nuts. Do we really believe that had he grown up with "good times, noodle salad," he'd have been any less nuts?

Maybe if someone can conclusively prove that school bullying (or ostracism) directly leads to a total psychological break with reality after awhile, I might start to believe it. Frankly, in his case, I think it was the other way around -- he scared people away. We'll learn more, I'm sure, after the media opens up his whole life story and makes him even more infamous.

4/25/2007 12:24:06 PM

my whole argument is that this will keep happening regardless of whether they air the killers tapes or the columbine basement tapes. it doesnt matter if they air them or not. the whole point is that because these things keep happening is why they will keep happening. the culture script is here to stay a while or at least until someone changes it somehow.

4/27/2007 4:37:07 AM

Walter Williams seems to lay the blame squarely on school authorities....

Quote :

"Murder at VPI Walter Williams, 4/25/07 The 32 murders at Virginia Polytechnic Institute (VPI) shocked the nation, but what are some of the steps that can be taken to reduce the probability that such a massacre will happen again? A large portion of the blame can be laid at the feet of the VPI administration and its campus security personnel, who failed to warn students, faculty and staff. Long before the massacre, VPI administration, security and some faculty knew Cho Seung-Hui, the murderer, had mental problems. According to The New York Times, "Campus authorities were aware 17 months ago of the troubled mental state of the student. . . ." More than one professor reported his bizarre behavior. Campus security tried to have him committed involuntarily to a mental institution. There were complaints that Cho Seung-Hui made unwelcome phone calls and stalked students. Given the university's experiences with Cho, at the minimum they should have expelled him, and their failure or inability to do so is the direct cause of last week's massacre. But there is something else we might want to look at. There's a federal law known as the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA). As VPI's registrar reports, "Third Party Disclosures are prohibited by FERPA without the written consent of the student. Any persons other than the student are defined as Third Party, including parents, spouses, and employers." College officials are required to secure written permission from the student prior to the release of any academic record information. That means a mother, father or spouse who might have intimate historical knowledge of a student's mental, physical or academic problems, who might be in a position to render assistance in a crisis, is prohibited from being notified of new information. Alternatively, should the family member wish to initiate an inquiry as to whether there have been any reports of mental, physical or academic problems, they are prohibited from access by FERPA. Of course, the student can give his parent written permission to have access to such information, but how likely is it that a highly disturbed student will do so? FERPA is part of a much broader trend in our society where parental authority is being usurped. Earlier this year, San Francisco Bay Area Assemblywoman Sally Lieber introduced a bill that would prosecute parents for spanking their children. Because of widespread opposition, the assemblywoman withdrew her bill. Schools teach children sex material that many parents would deem offensive. Texas Gov. Rick Perry issued an executive order mandating that every 11- and 12-year-old girl be given Gardisil HPV vaccination as a guard against a sexually transmitted disease that can cause genital warts and even cervical cancer. Last February, the Commonwealth of Virginia's legislature unanimously passed a law, the first of its kind in the country, that bans universities from expelling suicidal students. Such a law suggests that the Commonwealth's legislature is more concerned about the welfare of a suicidal potential murderer than the lives of his innocent victims. As such, those legislators might consider themselves in part culpable for VPI's 32 murder victims. There is a partial parental remedy for governmental and university usurpation of parental rights through the power of the purse. Prior to writing out a check for a child's college tuition, have a legal document drawn up where the child gives his parents full and complete access to any mental, physical and academic records developed during the child's college career. While such a strategy might not be necessary for every parent, it should at least be considered by parents whose child has an unstable mental or physical history."

4/27/2007 11:23:24 AM

I think he's wrong. Expelling the kid may have prevented the massacre from occuring on VTs campus, but it isn't guaranteed, nor would it have ensured that he wouldn't have just committed a massacre anywhere else. I agree that he should have been expelled in general, but as we've already established, people who want to kill others will do so regardless of the obstacles in their way. Expelling him would only have meant he wouldn't be a student anymore, it would do nothing to keep him from walking on to the premises and shooting up people.

4/27/2007 11:44:48 AM