Reflections on a Mass Homicide (Commentary)

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Commentary

<b>Reflections on a Mass Homicide</b>

Jimmy Lee,¹ MBBS, MMed (Psych), Tih-Shih Lee,^1,2 MD, PhD, FRCP (C), Beng-Yeong Ng,¹ MBBS, MMed (Psych), FAMS

¹ Department of Psychiatry, Singapore General Hospital, Singapore² Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School, Singapore

Address for Correspondence: Dr Tih-Shih Lee, Department of Psychiatry, Singapore General Hospital, Singapore, Outram Road, Singapore 169608. Email: tihshih.lee@gms.edu.sg

<b>Introduction</b>

The names "Virginia Tech" and "Cho" will be associated forever with the tragic mass homicide of 32 persons <i>cum</i> suicide by Seung-Hui Cho on 16 April 2007. In the aftermath, many questions have been posed: "What happened and why?", "Was he crazy?", "Could it have been prevented?", "Could it happen here?" This was the third mass killing in a US campus, with the largest number of fatalities. The first was in 1966 in the University of Texas with 16 dead and 31 wounded, then the Columbine High School shooting in 1999, in which 13 students were killed. We do not profess to know more about what happened in Blacksburg, Virginia, or Cho&#39;s neuropsychiatric condition than whatever is published in the popular press.¹ But through a series of questions, we reflect on this tragedy, attempt to place it into a human and psychiatric perspective, and offer insights into if, and how, it can be averted in the future.

<b>Question 1: Was Cho insane?</b>

Cho was described as a shy and quiet child, who was good in mathematics, but struggled with English. There were allegations of him being taunted and bullied in school since young. Both his pastor and relatives had suspected he might be autistic and suggested professional assistance. There was no record of him being involved in overt violence except that he had harassed 2 female classmates, one of whom called in the campus police.

He expressed suicidal ideation and was involuntarily committed by a judge in a mental health facility briefly for assessment. A psychiatrist wrote in his chart, "Affect is flat and mood is depressed" and "Insight and judgment are normal," and released him. He was supposed to have been on some treatment regimen but may not have adhered to it. In English Literature classes he wrote on haunting themes of violence and death. Moreover, from the rantings of his final macabre video, it can be inferred that he had grandiose and persecutory thoughts.

One could conceivably argue that anybody who murders <i>en masse</i> and then commit suicide must be insane. But insanity is an imprecise term that is no longer in the psychiatric lexicon. So we ask if he met criteria for a diagnosis based on Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-IV (DSM-IV) or International Classification of Disease-10 (ICD-10)? Or was he of a criminal antisocial or psychopathic mind? Unfortunately without having interviewed him or having access to his records, we cannot say for sure. We could speculate that he was depressed with delusional thoughts, and perhaps had undiagnosed Asperger&#39;s disorder (a mild variant of autism), or was taking illicit substances. But we do not have enough evidence to be certain of a definitive psychiatric condition that could account for his extremely violent behaviour.

<b>Question 2: Was it due to psychosocial developmental difficulties?</b>

Cho emigrated at the age of 8 years from South Korea and had difficulty speaking English. He was reportedly ostra-cised by his classmates and was isolated. The effects of migration on mental health are well described in the litera-ture. In the US, alienation is a problem for many Asians. Among Southeast Asians, the Hmong feel the most alien-ated, followed by Cambodians, Laotians, and Vietnamese.² Many symptoms could be due to acculturative difficulties, racism, and overwork. A migrant faces difficulties with 3 main areas; changes in social environment, changes in interpersonal relations, and cultural differences.³ Reports from those who knew Cho strongly supported the roles of these 3 factors in his maladjustment to the new country. From his video and writings, it is evident that he had tremendous envy and rage projected onto better-adjusted and well-to-do American kids.

Southeast Asian refugees have higher rates of brief reactive psychosis and paranoid psychosis compared to other Americans.^4,5 Sometimes paranoia develops among Southeast Asians when they are dealing with a new environment and experiencing "varying degrees of miscommunication, fear of rejection, and feeling mistreated, slighted or discriminated against".⁶ Psychosis among Southeast Asians can take the form found in many ethnic groups, e.g. "Aliens&#39; paranoid psychosis", a syndrome characterised by a usually short-lived xenophobia and by feelings of persecution because one belongs to an ethnic minority group.⁷

On the other hand, the overwhelming majority of immigrants and minorities are well-adjusted and functioning, despite having endured many of the same stressors that Cho endured. In particular, his sister, who shares much of his genetic substrate and environmental milieu, had apparently been doing very well. Many immigrants may have coping difficulties, but they do not usually resort to violence. The other 2 campus mass murderers were neither immigrants nor from minority groups. So, whereas difficulties relating to migration probably played a part in his violence, it would be simplistic to attribute it to primarily these stressors. Instead it would be a disservice to the large immigrant and ethnic minority communities.

<b>Question 3: What factors may have precipitated Cho&#39;s sudden outburst?</b>

There is a small literature considering situational factors and triggers that have consistently been found to be important in initiating a homicidal episode. Triggers for murder in Ressler et al&#39;s study⁸ included financial, legal, employment, marital and other conflicts. Emotional states such as frustration, anger, hostile moods, and feeling agitated and excited were reported at a lower frequency. Levin⁹ has offered a four-factor model of sudden indiscriminate mass killing. First, the potential offender has led a "life of frustration"; second, he has access to, and the ability to use, firearms; thirdly, there is a significant destabilising experience of a loss of "social controls", such as moving to a new area or the loss of an important relationship; fourth, there must be a precipitating event such as unemployment or divorce. Gresswell and Hollin¹⁰ have suggested that a more useful way of conceptualising the "firearms" component would be to consider that a fascination with weapons indicates a style of coping with stress, frustration, and low self-esteem that includes violent fantasies involving weapons. In such cases, the nature of such fantasies may be the best predictor of a homicidal response to a stressful event.

<b>Questions 4: Is there a neurological basis for aggression?</b>

Aggression refers to behaviour that is intended to cause harm, and is the behavioural manifestation of disturbances in the brain or mind. We now have some, though incomplete, appreciation of various neuroanatomical structures that may be involved in aggression. These structures include the prefrontal cortex, amygdala, hypothalamus, and temporal lobe. In particular, some evidence suggests frontal lobe dysfunction in violent and criminal behaviour, especially in the presence of focal orbitofrontal lobe injuries.¹¹ Brower and Price¹¹ proposed that clinically significant focal frontal lobe dysfunction is associated with aggressive dyscontrol. Orbitofrontal syndrome is associated with behavioural excesses, impulsivity, disinhibition and mood lability. Outbursts of rage and violent behaviour occur after damage to the inferior orbital surface.¹²

Abnormal brain concentrations of the neurotransmitters serotonin, dopamine and gamma-aminobutyric acid are implicated in impulsivity and aggression.¹³ Pharmaco-therapy with selective serotonergic reuptake antagonists, antipsychotics as well as mood stabilisers have all been used in treatment, with mixed results.

Studies of aggression in patients with brain injury suggest that their aggression tends to be (1) reactive, i.e., triggered by modest stimuli; (2) non-reflective, i.e., not premeditated or planned; (3) non-purposeful, i.e., does not serve long-term goals; (4) explosive; (5) periodic; and (6) ego-dystonic.¹² Some of these features describe Cho&#39;s aggression. But we do not know, and may never know, if a definable lesion was present in Cho&#39;s brain, or if present, whether that was severe enough to account for the violent behaviour.

With the evolving science on aggression, a discussion about "nature versus nurture" often arises, i.e. whether murderers are born or bred. Research has now demonstrated that genetic aberration per se is not the sole reason leading to violence; environmental factors such as childhood adversities play a significant part in the development of violent behaviour.¹⁴ Gene expression is influenced by environmental factors, and brain circuits are affected by life experiences.

<b>Question 5: How is dangerousness assessed?</b>

Psychiatrists are often called upon to determine how much a threat someone will pose to others and society, also known as dangerousness. Dangerousness is a subjective assessment of the element of danger attributed to a particular person and is qualitative in nature. Predicting dangerousness, particularly in an extreme form such as mass homicide, has been an elusive goal for those investigators who have attempted it. It is often said that "Hindsight is 20/20". When a person is exposed to be a murderer, we tend to focus on those warning signs in his character and biography that were previously ignored. For a category of violence such as mass homicide, however, the low base rate and consequent likelihood of finding false-positive results are overwhelming.¹⁵

Just as in Cho&#39;s instance, numerous questions were raised about the concerns of his teachers and the psychiatric assessment in November 2005. It must be emphasised that the assessment of dangerousness is not an exact science, and cannot yield a black-and-white result of "dangerous" versus "not dangerous". In our psychiatric assessments, we weigh various factors such as past history of violence, history of mental illness, personality, social background, context and state of mind in which dangerous behaviours manifest.

Past behavioural patterns provide the best insight into future behaviours. However, the accuracy of dangerousness assessments quoted in the literature is as low as 0.33.¹⁶ Mossman¹⁷ in 1994 extracted 58 datasets from 44 published studies, and revealed that mental health professionals&#39; violence predictions were better than chance. Current risk assessment tools such as the Historical/Clinical/Risk Management 20-item (HCR-20)¹⁸ and Psychopathy Checklist (revised) (PCL-R)¹⁹ offer a structured and more systematic approach to violence prediction, but none could tell with consistent (surely not 100%) accuracy that a person would re-offend.

Homicide is clearly the most serious of all crimes. Approximately two-thirds of homicides involve the killing of a victim by a partner, relative, friend or acquaintance. This may partly explain why the clear-up rate for these crimes is particularly high - the police do not need to look very far in order to solve the majority of murders.²⁰

The relation between mental illness and dangerous behaviours has been overemphasised, especially in the eyes of the public. There is a tendency to believe that murderers are mentally ill. However, a recent study among homicides in Singapore showed that 57% of murderers have no mental illness. Out of the 110 charged with murder, depressive disorders accounted for 9.1% and schizophrenia, 6.4%.²¹

The proportion of foreigners (defined here as non-citizens and non-permanent residents) who committed murder in Singapore was significantly higher compared with locals, which supports the earlier point about the stressors of migration. Also, foreigners tend to suffer from more serious psychiatric disorders, are less likely to have a known history of violence, and are more likely to be new to psychiatric services.²² This implies that the first violent outburst is usually the first presentation to psychiatric services. Cho did not have a history of overt violence prior to April 16.

<b>Question 6: What about the psychological trauma to family and friends of the victims?</b>

For those who saw their friends getting shot and killed, those who were injured and those who survived unharmed, the families and friends of the victims, it would be very difficult to collectively summarise the ordeal they went and are still going through, as each will have their own individual experience of it. Some may be at high risk of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but others will cope fairly well with milder symptoms. But it is safe to say that life will never be the same again. And we must not forget the hapless and unfortunate family of Cho, whose suffering cannot be fathomed.

There were positive measures taken by the school and public authorities in the aftermath that are worth learning. The measures included leave from school, time and ceremony to grief, and the provision of counsellors to all students of the school. School events such as examinations and convocation ceremonies continued as usual in an attempt to restore normalcy.

The telecast of Cho&#39;s video on national TV was highly controversial. Many others around the world later saw Cho&#39;s nefarious video and images of the "massacre". The national broadcast potentially traumatised viewers and re-traumatised survivors. In addition, it helped Cho achieved his aim of broadcasting his views, possibly achieving "martyrdom", and it may inadvertently encourage copycat murderers, as if a race were on to increase the body count. We would strongly urge that TV network companies and their regulating agencies revisit the guidelines and regulations on such telecasts.

<b>Question 7: Can it happen to us?</b>

Mass murder in a US school or college is a relatively rare event - three times in 40 years, despite the widespread availability of firearms and the large numbers of disenfranchised youths. Hence, it can be described as a low-probability, catastrophic-outcome event, like an earthquake occurring on a given day. The probability of its happening is very low, but once it hits, the results may be catastrophic. For countries with strict firearm and explosive control laws, the risk of a mass murder on the same scale is much lower.

With the benefit of hindsight, to discuss what the psychiatrist or the judge should have diagnosed or done is moot now. There was and always will be a balance between protection for society and infringement of the individual&#39;s civil liberties. This dilemma is all the more difficult if the assessment is made before a crime is actually committed. It would be virtually impossible for a psychiatrist to predict which of the patients would commit violence, least of all mass murder. If the decision is to commit the patients as a preventive measure, how long should the internment last, and who would set him free?

Nevertheless, for psychiatrists and all doctors, this is a timely reminder to be thorough and diligent in the assessment for dangerousness, and to acknowledge that we are far from perfect in our assessments. Under Section 34 of the Mental Disorders and Treatment Act (1973, revised in 1985), any registered physician in Singapore may refer a patient suspected to be of unsound mind or requiring psychiatric treatment to the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) for evaluation and treatment. IMH is the only gazetted mental hospital that has the statutory authority to hold patients involuntarily, should the person be deemed to be suffering from a mental illness, and detention serves the person&#39;s best interests and those of other persons.

For the majority of patients who are deemed not to need involuntary hospitalisation, there is little we can do to enforce treatment, other than relying on the family to supervise medications and appointments. If we suspect that a patient may pose a specific threat to another person, we may face an ethical dilemma with regard to confidentiality. This issue brings us back to the landmark Tarasoff case where the Californian courts found the therapist negligent for not warning the intended victim of a threat.²³ Kok et al²⁴ discussing this case with regard to the applicability of the Tarasoff ruling in Singapore, concluded that in the absence of local case law, a psychiatrist caught in this situation should consult the Singapore Medical Council prior to breaching doctor-patient confidentiality.

The Cho case also brings to mind the problems of troubled youths in Singapore - a combination of disengagement from society, low self-esteem, poor coping with rising expectations, and academic pressures. These forces predispose them to seek alternative forms of release and validation, such as using illicit substances and joining street gangs. Therefore, parents and school authorities should always be on the lookout for troubled or poorly adjusted youths. If need be, they should be referred to mental health professionals for evaluation and treatment. Another lesson in the local context would be for us, as a society, to be more tolerant and empathic to those who are less well-adjusted and successful, especially foreigners and migrants, so as to minimise resentment and wrath.

<b>Conclusion</b>

In summary, as we try to make sense of this apparently senseless violence, we find ourselves in the recurring debate of nature versus nurture. We probably will never know what Cho was really thinking when he pulled the trigger repeatedly, or nor can we be sure if he had a psychiatric condition that fulfilled DSM IV or ICD-10 criteria. Our hypothesis is that he had an underlying neurobiological or genetic vulnerability; he endured developmental psychosocial stressors in a chronic invalidating environment; and that finally some yet unknown "third-hit" triggered his rampage. Nevertheless, we highlight the need for thorough assessments of dangerousness by mental health professionals despite the limitations of our tools; the need for a system to attend to the psychological anguish of the survivors and loved ones of the victims; and the need for us collectively to adopt a more empathic stance towards our less fortunate brethren.

We also remember the 33 lives extinguished and countless more traumatised on that Spring day in 2007.

<b>REFERENCES</b>
<ol><li>Thomas E. Special Report: Making of a Massacre. Newsweek April 30, 2007:18-30.</li><li>Nicassio P. Psychosocial correlates of alienation: study of a sample of Indochinese refugees. J Cross-cultural Psychol 1983;14:337-51.</li><li>Moilanen I, Myhrman A, Ebeling H, Penninkilampi V, Vuorenkoski L. Long-term outcome of migration in childhood and adolescence. Int J Circumpolar Health 1998;57:180-7.</li><li>Nicassio P. The psychosocial adjustment of the Southeast Asian refugee: an overview of empirical findings and theoretical models. J Cross-Cultural Psychol 1985;16:153-73.</li><li>Westermeyer J. Paranoid symptoms and disorders among 100 Hmong refugees: a longitudinal study. Acta Psychiatr Scand 1989;80:47-59.</li><li>Lin KM. Psychopathology and social disruption in refugees. In: Williams C, Westermeyer J, editors. Refugee Mental Health in Resettlement Countries. Washington, DC: Hemisphere Publishing, 1986.</li><li>Tung TM. Psychiatric care for Southeast Asians: How different is different? In: Owan T, editor. Southeast Asian Mental Health: Treatment, Prevention, Services, Training, and Research. Washington, DC: US Department of Health and Human Services, 1985:5-40.</li><li>Ressler PK, Burgess AW, Douglas JE. Sexual homicide: patterns and motives. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1988.</li><li>Levin J. Why his last shot blew the truth away. The Sunday Times, London 1987, August 23, p23.</li><li>Gresswell DM, Hollin CR. Multiple murder: a review. Br J Criminology 1994;34:1-14.</li><li>Brower MC, Price BH. Neuropsychiatry of frontal lobe dysfunction in violent and criminal behaviour: a critical review. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 2001;71:720-6.</li><li>Silver JM, Yudofsky SC, Anderson KA. Aggression. In: Silver JM, McAllister TW, Yudofsky SC, editors. Textbook of Traumatic Brain Injury. Washington, DC: American Pychiatric Publishing, 2005.</li><li>Swann AC. Neuroreceptor mechanisms of aggression and its treatment. J Clin Psychiatry 2003;64 Suppl 4:25-35.</li><li>Reif A, Rosler M, Freitag CM, Schneider M, Eujen A, Kissling C, et al. Nature and nurture predispose to violent behaviours: serotonergic genes and adverse childhood environment. Neuropsychopharmacology 2007.</li><li>Fox JA, Levin J. Serial murder: myths and realities. In: Smith MD, Zahn MA, editors. Studying and Preventing Homicide: Issues and Challenges. California: Sage Publications, 1999.</li><li>Monahan J. The prediction of violent behaviour: Toward a second generation of theory and policy. Am J Psychiatry 1984;141:10-5.</li><li>Mossman D. Assessing predictions of violence: Being accurate about accuracy. J Consult Clin Psychol 1994;62:783-92.</li><li>Webster CD, Douglas KS, Eaves D, Hart SD. HCR-20: Assessing risk for violence (version 2). Burnaby, BC: Mental Health Law and Policy Institute, Simon Fraser University, 1997.</li><li>Hare RD. The Psychopathy Checklist-Revised. 2nd ed. Toronto, Canada:
Multi-Health Systems, 2003.</li><li>Ainsworth PB. Psychology and Crime: Myths and Reality. Edinburgh: Pearson Education Ltd, 2000.</li><li>Koh KG, Gwee KP, Chan YH. Psychiatric aspects of homicide in Singapore: a five-year review (1997-2001). Singapore Med J 2006;47:297-304.</li><li>Koh KG, Peng GK, Huak CY, Koh BK. Migration psychosis and homicide in Singapore: a five year study. Med Sci Law 2006;46:248-54.</li><li>Tarasoff v Regents of University of California. California Report 1976;118:129.</li><li>Kok LP, Yap HL, Cheang M. Mental disorders and public safety of the community at large - does the Tarasoff principle apply in Singapore. Ann Acad Med Singapore 2002;31:535-6.</li></ol></p><p -d="nq">--

Archived with permission of the editor.

Original Source: Annals, Academy of Medicine, Singapore, June 2007, Vol. 36 No. 6
<a href="http://annals.edu.sg/PDF/36VolNo6Jun2007/V36N6p444.pdf">http://annals.edu.sg/PDF/36VolNo6Jun2007/V36N6p444.pdf</a></p>

Jimmy Lee, Tih-Shih Lee, and Beng-Yeong Ng

2007-08-26

Brent Jesiek

Kirat Kaur (Ms)
Editorial Executive
Annals, Academy of Medicine, Singapore
annals@academyofmedicine.edu.sg

eng

The news gets worse and worse

By <a href="http://www.mpnnow.com/about/team.php?id=9">KEVIN FRISCH</a>
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&#39;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 &#39;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&#39;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&#39;t do it"? Then you&#39;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&#39;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&#39;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&#39;ve got nothing but loathing for them," he said.

Kaine&#39;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?

<i>Messenger managing editor and aspiring president Kevin Frisch&#39;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.</i>

--

Original Source: Rochester, NY - MPNnow
<a href="http://www.mpnnow.com/news/view_story.php?articleId=8158">http://www.mpnnow.com/news/view_story.php?articleId=8158</a>

Licensed under <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5</a>.

Kevin Frisch

2007-07-17

Brent Jesiek

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5

eng

Finger-pointing won’t answer problem of evil

GateHouse Media
Tue Apr 24, 2007, 10:41 AM CDT

BLACKSBURG, Va. -

A tragedy the magnitude of last week&#39;s mass murder in Blacksburg, Va., prompt most of us to ask serious questions. What compelled a student to kill 32 people on the Virginia Tech campus? How could someone so obviously disturbed gain access to the weapons he used? Why didn&#39;t anyone recognize his potential for violence and do something to prevent it?

These responses are to be expected, given the scope of the collective sorrow experienced by people across the nation. And in time, there is no doubt some individuals may be forced to address some of these questions. The answers may help school officials, counselors and legislators in crafting policies and procedures designed to more effectively deal with such problems.

But the finger-pointing masks an inescapable fact: Regardless of who missed what signs and who failed to raise security measures, Seung Hui Cho is solely responsible for all those deaths. And when someone decides to engage in such violence, there often is little that other people can do.

Some have described Cho as a loner who didn&#39;t interact with his roommates. Others have said his writings were very disturbing.

These statements are most likely true, but they don&#39;t explain why he killed so many people. How many young people across the country could be described as loners?

How many of them have a bizarre attraction to violence and write rather alarming things? Thousands, tens of thousands? Perhaps more?

So there are many others who face circumstances very similar to those Cho experienced. Yet virtually none of them make the leap from disturbed loner to mass murderer.

While he was plagued by fear, resentment and isolation, Cho had choices to deal with his problems. The difference between him and the countless others confronting the same problems is that he chose not to find alternative ways of handling his fear, resentment and isolation.

Cho opted to walk down the path of violence, and this is a mindset few others can comprehend. He took so many innocent lives because he rejected other avenues for addressing his angst.

Evil is the true imponderable in life. Yes, we may get a few answers to why this tragedy occurred and how to reduce the likelihood of another. But free choice can be a weapon controlled only by the individual who wields it.

--

Original Source: Brookfield, IL - Brookfield Suburban Life
<a href="http://www.chicagosuburbannews.com/brookfield/editorials/x1774967103">http://www.chicagosuburbannews.com/brookfield/editorials/x1774967103</a>

Licensed under <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0</a>.

GateHouse Media / Brookfield Suburban Life

2007-07-17

Brent Jesiek

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0

eng

No Shortage of Manliness

April 23, 2007

Filed under: Feminism, Minnesota Monitor, Virginia Tech — Jeff Fecke @ 12:21 pm

It is human nature to try to figure out why bad things happen. Long ago, we blamed natural disasters on the capriciousness of the gods. The flood was caused by Poseidon&#39;s wrath, the storm by Thor&#39;s fury. Gifts were given to the gods, sacrifices of fruit, of animals, even of people, in order to placate them and turn their anger into love for their human charges. Today most of us (Pat Robertson excepted) reject the notion that bad things happen because of an angry and vengeful God. And yet, when tragedy strikes, we still seek to find the pattern underlying the madness, our ultimate failing that led to our punishment by...well, we&#39;re never quite sure, but we&#39;re sure we&#39;re being punished.

After Cho Seung-hui opened fire on his classmates in Blacksburg, Va., it was only natural for us to ask why. The primary answer — that he was a deeply troubled, possibly schizophrenic and certainly psychotic man who was operating outside the bounds of normal society — is unsatisfying and seems to beg more questions than it answers. And so some writers have seized on an explanation that has a mythic history as rich and powerful as any blameworthy figure in human lore: It&#39;s the women&#39;s fault.

Not all women, of course, but specifically feminists. These horrid people have, we are told, upset the natural order. They have made women more like men, causing them to demand for themselves the same privileges and prerogatives that men alone have traditionally enjoyed. At the same time, they have demanded that men stop behaving like louts, thus feminizing them, making them more female, robbing them of their manly virtue. <em>National Review</em> columnist John Derbyshire started the drumbeat by arguing that all of the students should have been armed, the better to kill the shooter. But that wasn&#39;t his main point.

"Setting aside the ludicrous campus ban on licensed conceals," he wrote, "why didn&#39;t anyone rush the guy? It&#39;s not like this was Rambo, hosing the place down with automatic weapons. He had two handguns, for goodness&#39; sake — one of them reportedly a .22."

Nathan Blake, a writer for the weblog Human Events caught Derbyshire&#39;s meaning and amplified it. "Something is clearly wrong with the men in our culture. Among the first rules of manliness are fighting bad guys and protecting others: in a word, courage. And not a one of the healthy young fellows in the classrooms seems to have done that."

Now, you may think that blaming students for not rushing a man with two semi-automatic handguns is, to put it nicely, insane. Especially since there were more than a few examples of bravery that day, from the resident adviser who gave his life trying to protect the first victim of the shooting to the students who held the door shut with their feet while Cho fired away above them. But of course, one should never let facts get in the way of a good session of blaming women. Besides, it wasn&#39;t just the men hand-wringing about those wimpy men; there were also women hand-wringing about those tough women.

Sarah Baxter, writing for the Sunday <em>Times of London</em>, fingered female sexual promiscuity as the reason that Cho Seng-hui went on his rampage, going so far as to quote long-time scold Camile Paglia in her argument.

"The pervasive hook-up culture at college," wrote Baxter, "where girls are prepared to sleep with boys they barely know or fancy, can be a source of seething resentment and alienation for those who are left out.

"&#39;Young women now seem to want to behave like men and have sex without commitment. The signals they are giving are very confusing, and rage and humiliation build up in boys who are spurned again and again&#39; [said Paglia]."

As the Kinks once said, it&#39;s a mixed-up, muddled-up, shook-up world. And that&#39;s when the gods get angry.

The scolds, of course, never really explain why it is that "young women behaving like men" is confusing and enraging — or at least, why young women behaving like men is worse than young men behaving like men. They don&#39;t have to bother. We all know that good girls don&#39;t, and cool boys do-the message is driven into us, all of us, from the moment we become aware of what sex might be.

If anything exacerbated the insanity of Cho Seung-hui, it was this message — the message that if he was worthy, he should be having sex, and lots of it. That if he was worthy, women would and should be lining up for him — but not the pure and chaste ones. Normal people learn, at some point, that this message doesn&#39;t make a lot of sense; that sex, while entertaining, is neither the best nor the most important measure of human worth and human happiness. We learn that whether you&#39;re having sex or not is a truly meaningless measure of your worth as a human being — whether you&#39;re a good girl who is, or a cool boy who isn&#39;t.

But Cho Seung-hui wasn&#39;t equipped to deal with this message, this drumbeat that he was a failure because he wasn&#39;t successful with women. And so he turned his rage to violence, first stalking women, then ultimately attacking them. That his rage reached a violent crescendo that included men as well was unsurprising, for it wasn&#39;t women he hated, or men — it was himself.

The killer internalized the messages of what men are "supposed" to be, and when he could not measure up in his mind to that standard, he did the only thing he could think to do — he became ultra-violent, violence being another acceptable proof of manliness. It wasn&#39;t a shortage of manliness that was the problem last Monday, it was a surfeit.

And so we come to find that the fault, if there was fault that we can assigned, lay not at the feet of the women who rejected a stalker, nor at feminists who want people to have rough equality, nor at men and women who faced a horrific massacre and did not all fight back against nigh-impossible odds. If there was a fault, it was that we as a society continue to try to tell people what they&#39;re supposed to be, rather than letting them determine that for themselves. That&#39;s not as satisfying as blaming women, nor as simple as blaming victims. But it&#39;s the truth, and we do ourselves and the dead no favor by pretending otherwise.

(Cross-posted from <a target="_blank" href="http://minnesotamonitor.com/editDiary.do?diaryId=1650">MinMon</a>)

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Original Source: Blog of the Moderate Left
<a href="http://moderateleft.com/?p=3324">http://moderateleft.com/?p=3324</a>

Licensed under <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States</a>

Jeff Fecke

2007-06-19

Brent Jesiek

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States

eng

Desensitization, Detachment and Virginia Tech

Apr 23 2007

Written by Lynn Kindler

To all family, friends, and people affected by the horrific and sad shootings at Virginia Tech, please accept my heartfelt sympathy. I know that I am joined by many others who are keeping you in their thoughts and prayers.

With that said, I&#39;ve been putting off writing about how the shootings affected me because I did not want to add to all the hype and gander that is already going on about it and because my initial reaction was NOT what I had expected to feel. Being an extremely intuitive person, I&#39;m used to "getting" insights and a heightened sense of awareness before incidents like the one at VT occurs—often weeks before. This time not only did I not intuit anything but as the events unfolded I had no feelings about it. I&#39;m a very caring person and since my initial non-feeling bubble, have had many insights but the initial non-feeling sensation really caught me off guard. I checked with many of my friends to find out how they reacted and found out that there were many very caring, spiritual people who had the same initial reaction as I did which was the absence of intense emotion.

After listening and reading some of the news about VT, what was revealed to me was the seemingly collective response of not wanting to fan the fire of the media. The way that many of the people from Blacksburg handled this event, showed a majority of caring and thinking people who wanted to respect the event and all its complexities without the media circus. I am inspired by the people who have been writing and communicating under the mass media radar through <a href="http://www.facebook.com/">www.facebook.com</a>

At first glance, I wondered if what "we" were experiencing en-mass was desensitization towards violence. How many of us wake up to NPR in the morning with the latest recount of a suicide bomber event? But someone very close to me noted that as listened to me she could hear anger under my numbness and upon closer inspection I realized that I was angry about our ignorance of mental illness and how to handle it fairly and successfully. I was angry about gun control (a rifle I can see, an automatic weapon—why?) and last but not least watching the story unfold in the media bit by bit as every one tried to become THE source for facts about the VT shootings.

In many of my spiritual teachings I have learned that it is important to be able to detach with love. It seems that in order for me (and you) to be effective, we&#39;ve got to be able to get our personal spin out of the mix so that we can detach from the intense reaction in order to respond thoughtfully. It&#39;s about being able to feel and yet not getting run over by our feelings.

I am very hopeful about the kind of ideas and actions that will come out of this horrific event. I heard one student interviewed who responded, "What can we learn from the Amish shootings". One thing that we can do right now is to have difficult conversations such as what I&#39;m admitting to you here and be willing to talk with each other about what is really going on.

As the great Coaching guru Thomas Leonard used to say, "Be real be human".

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Original Source:
<a href="http://www.smallbusinessgurus.com/content/view/460/60/">http://www.smallbusinessgurus.com/content/view/460/60/</a>

Licensed under <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5</a>.

Lynn Kindler

2007-06-17

Brent Jesiek

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5

eng

Virginia Tech

<p>Thursday, April 19, 2007

I first saw Blacksburg, and what was then V.P.I., almost fifty years ago, the summer of 1960. A member of my high school&#39;s chapter of the Future Farmers of America, I was attending the FFA&#39;s Virginia state convention - a wide-eyed rising 9th grader. About 5 foot six, I weighed little more than a large sack of chicken feed. I was a member of our school&#39;s second-string crop judging team; we did surprisingly well.

Blacksburg was the "sleepy little college town" in the mountains then, home to a small agricultural and mechanical/military school and little else. You could count the traffic lights and have fingers left over. V.P.I. was essentially all-male and all-white; being a member of the corps of cadets was the norm. Foreign students and women on campus were not. The student body generally came from rural and small-town Virginia, where it was highly regarded. A turkey was the school mascot. It was so not UVA, William and Mary, or Hollins. It was not even V.M.I.

Things change and stuff happens. By the time I graduated from high school V.P.I. was beginning its remarkable transformation into a major university. My lackluster high school record and vague aspirations did not make me highly sought after college material. But V.P.I. took a chance and accepted me. They had probably seen worse. After purgatory at their Danville Branch I finally arrived in Blacksburg in the fall of 1966.

Evidence of the major commitment to transform Tech was everywhere: new buildings, overflowing dorms, expanding academic programs, a much larger and more diverse student body (though still not enough girls), and a major emphasis on athletics, mainly football. We even managed a traffic jam on some Saturday afternoons in the fall. Off-campus housing grew, a fine off-campus book store opened, along with a decent restaurant or two. Long hair and an underground newspaper appeared. The 60&#39;s arrived at Tech and Blacksburg sometime in the 70&#39;s, but it arrived.

I should have been happy at Tech and Blacksburg, but I was not. Blacksburg seemed like the end of the earth. I called it Bleaksburg, a reference to more than its weather three seasons of the year. Driving into town one Sunday I nearly ran off the road laughing at a road sign where someone had written "armpit of the nation" under the word Blacksburg.

The school&#39;s administrators - many holdover&#39;s from its days as a military school - seemed to be truly hostile to students. Their martial vision of what college life should be was not my vision. It was a conservative campus and I was, without much self consciousness, becoming quite liberal, at least by Virginia standards. I began to enjoy walking on their grass.

My first fall on campus saw the football team invited to what I believe was its first bowl game, the Liberty Bowl in Memphis. We were to play the University of Miami. I remember walking across campus one cold, cold night headed downtown for some food (I hated the food at Shanks) and seeing a student-made sign hanging in the wind. "Beat Miami" it said. Blacksburg, Miami. Blacksburg, Miami. Hunkered into the wind I had a hard time wrapping my mind around any idea that contained those words together. Yes, true to my school, I did drive what seemed like halfway across America in my Corvair to attend that game. But I wanted out.

That would not be easy. I had just changed majors, from engineering to political science. PoliSci allowed the most electives at Tech and this would give me the chance to pretend I was at a liberal arts college where, by that time, I discovered I wanted to be. My academic record at that point was not much better than my high school record, making a transfer problematic. And there was a war on and a military draft, not something to be taken lightly. I needed that 2-s deferment. And I doubt I could have convinced my parents that it was a good idea to transfer. After all they were paying for my little adventure in academia.

My salvation came from an unlikely series of events. That January a friend at UVA invited me to Charlottesville for a week-end. He said he would get us some dates from Mary Washington College and we would have a great time; might get lucky. I was all for a great time and good luck, so plans were made. That Friday came and with it a snow storm. I said what-the-hell and made for Charlottesville. The weather worsened and I was lucky to make it to campus. The train from Fredericksburg was canceled, as were the events of the week-end. What to do? He had a friend who had just returned from a semester aboard a ship that had sailed around the world. We went to see him. Still very much overwhelmed by the experience, he told stories for hours. When we left he gave us literature about the college program and said we should apply as soon as possible. Sounded good to me.

Fast forward and I returned from that Semester at Sea with a larger view of myself, my world, and Blacksburg. Virginia Tech would continue to annoy me from time to time as it seemed slow closing the gap between what I wanted of it and what it could deliver. But I finally had matured enough to begin to take advantage of what it did offer, and to appreciate that wonderful place in the Virginia mountains, Blacksburg.

I now have two degrees from Tech, having returned in the &#39;80s for a Master&#39;s in Urban and Regional Planning. My wife also has two degrees from Tech. She grew up just outside Blacksburg. Her sister in-law works in Norris Hall, second floor. I have wonderful friends in Blacksburg who worked for Tech for many years. Even though I also have a degree from UVA and have great respect for the University, I am a Hokie. I have marveled at Tech&#39;s growth, been amazed at the transformation of Blacksburg into a world-class small city. So watching the news over the past few days has been hard.

The violent death and injury of so many students and faculty at the hands of a psychopath renders words inadequate to convey the horror. One cannot look into the faces of horrified students and anxious or grieving parents without becoming one of them. Trying to make sense of it all seems overwhelming. And yet that is what each of us will try to do, needs to do. The young man with two handguns shot at us all.

As tragic as the events of last Monday morning were we have the ability to make them worse. And we will. I could feel it as I was watching the first reports on CNN. Even as the news was happening I could feel the ramp up to what was coming: the second guessing, criticizing, the self-righteous placing of blame, the spin in service to political agenda. Even before we had time to learn the fate of friends and family, grieve, or learn the name or fate of the gunman, the process was well underway.

Our TV hosts struggled to learn just where Blacksburg was and fumbled about trying to describe a university they knew little about. Tech was both a major university with 26,000 students and "insular" according to Brian Williams, who also placed it in the Smoky Mountains. While we were all trying to reconcile the image of a peaceful, semi-rural college environment with violence we usually associate with our urban areas or foreign theaters of war, the talking heads moved from conveying what little they knew about the horror unfolding on campus to asking leading questions and poking around trying to find an angle. They think they are reporters.

It bled and it led for hours on end. After asking students what they saw or heard Wolf Blitzer and the other CNN reporters (I use the term loosely) made a point of asking if they still felt safe, if they blamed the University and if the were planning to transfer. It took a while before they stopped seeming surprised when the students usually said they loved their school, the community, and had not considered leaving. I thought generally the students interviewed sounded much more thoughtful than their hosts. And without the "like, you know what I&#39;m saying." I was proud of them.

Once it appeared that the gunman was dead and there was a two hour gap in the shootings the focus shifted to finding a way to question the University&#39;s handling of the situation. Well before any of the details were to fill out the timeline our TV hosts were pouncing, safely behind the camera miles away from danger or responsibility past filling commercial-safe airtime. Without possibly having the facts with which to assess situation they began to invite questions of competency of local law enforcement and the judgment of school administrators. When will we come to understand that when someone prefaces a statement, "I don&#39;t understand why ___", they really don&#39;t. You are being set up.

Soon "experts" with little or no knowledge of the specifics began to appear and try to shape our view of the tragedy. Dr. Phil appeared early. We eventually heard from Ted Nugent (FOX?) who said this would not have happened if students were allowed to legally carry guns on campus. He did not mention bows and arrows. Can they work in Springer next? If we were not dealing with a real human tragedy, real suffering and loss, this would almost be funny. It is not funny.

Once we learned the gunman was a student and was born in South Korea the press was perplexed. Even though he had lived in the US most of his life - since he was 8 years old - he was Korean. Since South Korea is an ally of the United States it has been difficult for the press to figure out how significant that was or how to play it. Now if he had been from the Middle East...

Few bothered to remark that the killer was a young man and that young men are have almost exclusive ownership of this type of serial murder. You assumed the killer was male, didn&#39;t you? I did. I didn&#39;t expect the media to go there and they didn&#39;t.

We now know he was recognized as a loner and "troubled," and had come to the attention of the school as such. He had received at least some attention from mental health and law enforcement professionals. The NYTimes gave us this morning, "Officials Knew Troubled State of Killer in &#39;05." Well he was not a killer in &#39;05. He was just a student with problems, probably not that unlike any number of other students on campuses from coast to coast. The headline whispers that the "officials" are now partially responsible for the crime. I am sure that these professionals wish now they could have seen into the future and done something. But I doubt even Cho Seung-hui could have done that in &#39;05.

Being "troubled" and dead brings us to the possibility that the tragedy includes Mr. Cho. While I am sure many would recoil at this so soon, the compassion and forgiveness that my Christian countrymen so often trot out as a model for others, might not be misplaced for this very mentally ill young man and provoke wonder how he became so bitter and twisted. No, it is much easier and entertaining to now find fault with the living, those doing their very best to ensure safety of others when that still, unfortunately, was not sufficient.

Yes, I am sure campus police and other university officials wish they had done some things differently Monday morning. Given the contents of the package Mr. Cho sent to NBC that morning between shooting it is certainly possible only the location, names and number of future victims would have changed. What is likely however is that the number Mr. Cho&#39;s victims will continue to grow as some try to use the tragedy for their own ends.

Regarding making sense of it all, once again our dim-bulb President got it wrong. He said on campus trying to mean well,</p>
<blockquote>It&#39;s impossible to make sense of such violence and suffering. Those whose lives were taken did nothing to deserve their fate. They were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now they&#39;re gone - and they leave behind grieving families, and grieving classmates, and a grieving nation.</blockquote>
<p>Well, George, making sense of things is what what people at Universities try to do, and with some success. The question is what sense we will make of it. Don&#39;t try to suggest impossibilities at a place based on possibilities. And they were not in the "wrong place at the wrong time." A convenient cliche, but again off the mark. They were in the right place, Blacksburg, Virginia Tech.

Go Hokies.

posted by Bibb at <a href="http://bibbedwards.blogspot.com/2007/04/virginia-tech.html">5:13 AM</a>

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Original Source: <a href="http://bibbedwards.blogspot.com/2007/04/virginia-tech.html">http://bibbedwards.blogspot.com/2007/04/virginia-tech.html</a>

Licensed under <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0</a>.</p>

Bibb Edwards

2007-06-17

Brent Jesiek

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0

eng

Librescu Day

By Salah Obeid
Online Journal Contributing Writer

Jun 8, 2007, 00:27

There isn&#39;t room enough on the calendar to honor every American hero, but Aug. 16, the birthday of one such hero, is a day teachers and others who cherish education should make a point of celebrating.

No one knows what drove Liviu Librescu, four months short of his 77th birthday, to martyr himself to the cause of education. But that is what Librescu, a Romanian-born Holocaust survivor and mechanical engineering professor, did when he blocked a gunman from entering his Virginia Tech University classroom on April 16 -- earning him five bullets, one of them to the head -- so that most of his students could escape through the windows.

Because he was slain in a public learning institution, public schools are where he should be celebrated. And because Librescu (the root of whose name, "libre," is Latin for "free") came to America searching for freedom, those who teach subjects like U.S. history and government should make honoring him a lesson on where his adopted country truly stands on freedom.

By the time they enter college, many students in this country can&#39;t think critically about history and politics, having rarely been encouraged in school to think creatively outside of art and music class. Yet wolfing down hot dogs and soaking up sun on a field trip to celebrate Librescu Day could amount to more than just indigestion and sunburn, if the day were also an occasion for students to reflect on how their country, a magnet for immigrants seeking freedom, too often deprives people in other countries of the very freedoms Americans enjoy.

Throughout its history, the United States has -- in places like Latin America, Haiti, the Philippines and elsewhere -- picked fights at the drop of a dime whenever dollars were to be made, a fact that is largely ignored in classrooms around the country. The result is that, as the country gets bogged down in Afghanistan and Iraq, many students don&#39;t know any better than to think thousands of their fellow citizens, most only slightly older than them, are killing and being killed in those countries in the name of spreading freedom.

But freedom can mean many things. Librescu, born on Aug. 16, 1930, on the outskirts of Bucharest, was barely nine when World War II broke out and could only watch as his government, also in the name of freedom, helped the Nazis annihilate hundreds of thousands of Romania&#39;s Jewish citizens. Luckily he survived, became an accomplished scientist and, in 1986, after living several years in Israel, left for Virginia on a sabbatical and never looked back. Little did he know that years later a frustrated, mentally-ill college student would alone succeed where the focused efforts of the entire Nazi Party had failed.

Still, Librescu&#39;s death will have been partly in vain if teachers ignore the dedication symbolized by a colleague&#39;s choosing to die so that his students might live to see another classroom. Ignorance that isn&#39;t necessarily willful but rather the result of intimidation.

How else to explain that so many U.S. history and government teachers go out of their way to avoid discussing the context in which President Bush, in his second inaugural address, for example, used words like "freedom" and "liberty" some dozen odd times? Or in which Vice President Dick Cheney, during remarks to Westminster College in Missouri a few years ago, paraphrased Winston Churchill&#39;s assessment of the struggle against Soviet communism, in order to paint a picture of the chaos in U.S.-occupied Iraq as a contest between "those who served an aggressive, power-hungry ideology and those who believed in human liberty, freedom of conscience and the dignity of every life"?

Words like "liberty" and expressions like "freedom of conscience" are easily said; the challenge is living up to the ideals they represent. But often politicians aren&#39;t so challenged to begin with, and worse, sometimes rely on such words, as George Orwell wrote, "in a consciously dishonest way."

Dignity of life, after all, means little coming from someone like Cheney, whose central pursuit over the past few years has been to enrich his friends at Enron and Halliburton over the dead bodies of an estimated million or so Iraqi civilians -- people who might have lived in fear under Saddam Hussein, but who at least could&#39;ve expected to live with far more certainty than can Iraqis today.

Propaganda and censorship is something that, growing up in communist Romania, Librescu knew all too well. The same can be said of another Jewish hero to whom he is often compared.

On Aug. 5, 1942, German soldiers stormed an orphanage for Jewish children in Warsaw, instructing the man who ran it, Janusz Korczak, that he was free to go, but that his 200 or so orphans and several staff members were slated for extermination. Unlike Librescu, Korczak couldn&#39;t save his charges from death. Instead, he followed them to the gas chamber, his final gesture to children who&#39;d had so little and died so young.

A renowned children&#39;s author and pediatrician, Korczak was also a teacher, and instructed hundreds at his Dom Sierot (Polish for "house for orphans") with little regard for convention. Those who survived the war recount being allowed to form a "kind of a republic for children, with its own small parliament, court and newspaper," according to an entry on <a href="http://wikipedia.org/">Wikipedia.org</a>. By contrast, a half-century later, American public schools appear intent on turning students into automatons.

And even that they&#39;re getting wrong.

Students in the United States, in subjects like math and science, which require learning mostly by mind-numbing rote, lag behind their counterparts in miserably poor countries like Bangladesh, Burundi, El Salvador and Nepal. Generally, though, American students also read less for pleasure, visit fewer museums and attend schools with mediocre teachers, all easily gleaned from comparing how flippant and addicted to pop culture many young Americans are next to kids in less fortunate parts of the world.

Maybe that is because, as one credit card company likes to say, there are some things money can&#39;t buy. China, where teachers get paid a pittance by a government that looks with scorn at individual rights and free speech, generally has a more well-read, independent-minded, smarter population than ours. Which is what outright censorship does: breed rebellion.

Censorship, though, shouldn&#39;t be allowed any wiggle room in a country billing itself as the "land of the free." Yet the United States has become fertile ground for it, an indication of which is that mainstream media, not satisfied with just obscuring the "who," "what" and "where" in its news coverage, goes to great lengths to avoid the "why" altogether. It may be just as well, then, that many kids come home from school in the afternoon only to get super glued to MTV, video games or websites like <a href="http://myspace.com/">Myspace.com</a>, since much of what&#39;s in the news would sooner confuse than educate them.

Were that not sad enough, the education that does manage to seep into the minds of these would-be torchbearers of democracy is watered down to the point of irrelevancy. Not because teachers are stupid, evil or lazy but because most are simply too afraid to rock the boat.

Many teachers understand they swim in murky water. Water that has swallowed teachers like Deb Mayer at Clear Creek Elementary in Monroe County, Indiana, near Bloomington (home, ironically, to liberal arts-dominated Indiana University). Mayer was fired in 2003 after she dared discuss the subject of peace movements during a general class discussion about the build-up to the war in Iraq.

Similarly, a school in Wilton, Conn., recently banned a play about the conflict in that country.

"In Wilton, most kids only care about Britney Spears shaving her head or Tyra Banks gaining weight," 16-year-old Devon Fontaine, a cast member, told The New York Times. "What we wanted was to show kids what was going on overseas."

The school administration&#39;s reply: "You can&#39;t always get what you want."

Censorship is well documented in schools throughout the country. Schools like Columbine High School in Colorado, where Alfred Wilder was fired in 1996 for showing Bernardo Bertolucci&#39;s film, "1900," which explores fascism, to a senior class studying logic and debate. That instance of censorship may even have cost 13 students and a teacher their lives.

A video depicting students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold rehearsing for the massacre they&#39;d go on to carry out at the school three years later wasn&#39;t allowed to be shown on school grounds because of the controversy surrounding the Bertolucci film.

"If the video had indeed been shown," Al Hidell wrote in "The New Conspiracy Reader," "perhaps somebody would have realized the serious threat it represented, which may have prevented the tragedy from occurring."

Rarely, of course, is censorship so dramatic in its outcome that it becomes a matter of life and death. But there is such a thing as a slow death. Appalled by the stifling of his film, Bertolucci wrote that it was no less than a prelude to totalitarianism when classrooms become a place "in which the voice of established authority denounced criticism or debate, and used the high school classroom to silence other voices."

Voices that hold that "children are the future. Teach them well and let them lead the way."

Before letting cocaine lead the way for her instead, Whitney Huston knew what she was singing about. The minute students are fit to broach subjects like history, government and political affairs is the minute they should be challenged to imagine their future roles as informed, voting citizens. Citizens like Librescu, who wore many hats but probably would have been happy to be remembered as one more in a long line of educators who eschewed empty slogans, who knew that leaving no child behind meant arming students with curiosity, compassion and courage.

Courage, though, shouldn&#39;t mean that 3,500 young Americans, and counting, have to take their final breath in a country that never meant the United States any harm. Courage should mean educating the nation&#39;s youth so that they can spot a charlatan when they see one, even if he worms his way up to the presidency itself. Those who will inherit this nation need that kind of courage from those who&#39;ve been here a while, so that they too can develop the courage to die if need be.

But to die in the spirit of someone like Librescu, who took one bullet after another yet refused to let go, so that others might live and learn.

And be free.

Copyright © 1998-2007 Online Journal

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Archived courtesy of <a href="http://onlinejournal.com/">Online Journal</a>.

Original Source: <a href="http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_2062.shtml">http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_2062.shtml</a>

Salah Obeid

2007-06-10

Brent Jesiek

Bev Conover, Editor and Publisher, Online Journal
(editor_oj@yahoo.com or editor@onlinejournal.com)

eng

Virginia Tech: Laying The Blame

Karen Harper

22 Apr 2007

There will be a lot of blame dished out in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech massacre. But one element will be missing and that is the system itself. Capitalism and the society it nurtures will remain unscathed in the big business press.

In the aftermath of another school shooting in the US, many will be asking why and some will be trying to lay blame. The shooter&#39;s parents will be blamed for how they raised him; the school will be blamed for how it dealt with his mental illness; and his schoolmates past and present will be blamed for how they teased and ostracized him. However, the blame will mostly not be laid where it appropriately belongs; on the head of capitalism and the social values that it has nourished.

No individual can be looked at out of context of the larger society, and this young man and what he became cannot be understood without first looking at the society he came from. Unfortunately, the "angry loner" type that has done these sorts of shootings in the past is not the product of an isolated genetic mutation that happens unpredictably and that cannot be prevented. Such people are a real product of their environment and the direct result of capitalism&#39;s impact on personal development and mental health.

This society promotes individuality, self-absorption, and competition over solidarity and collective struggle. Is it any surprise that some young people are so incapable of not only identifying with the group and its larger good, but also of even, in severe cases, forming any kind of meaningful relationship with another individual? These people after years of painful experiences can come to the conclusion that they are completely unloved and unlovable. Because we are social beings, this conclusion makes life difficult to continue.

Capitalism is daily bombarding our self-esteem; we are never good enough under capitalism. There is always some drug to make us happier, some surgery to make us thinner, some car or house or job that will make us more respected. The inevitable consequence of this pressure is that some people will consider themselves failures when they judge themselves up against the values of this society. In some cases this will only further increase some individual&#39;s isolation and anger.

This terrible brutal crime is an ugly, warped but nonetheless, direct product of big business&#39;‚ value system. Capitalism will continuously attempt to encourage an obsession with money, fame and the worship of individualism. This in turn will inevitably be accompanied by what we saw at Virginia Tech this week. This will not be the last individual so void of solidarity as to massacre his classmates. The outpouring of empathy towards the victims of this crime is a sign of the enormous human and working class solidarity that exists in this society. The crime itself is a consequence of the corrupt and rotten values of those who are in control at the top.

<b>Related</b>

<a href="http://www.laborsmilitantvoice.org/">http://www.laborsmilitantvoice.org</a>

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Original Source: <a href="http://chicago.indymedia.org/newswire/display/77317/index.php">http://chicago.indymedia.org/newswire/display/77317/index.php</a>

Licensed under <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain">Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication</a>.

Karen Harper

2007-06-10

Brent Jesiek

Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication

eng

Virginia Tech, Imus and Curve Balls

[Philosophical Musing on Media Culture]

By Carl Davidson

20 Apr 2007

The universe throws curve balls at us, now and then.

It seems to want to wake us up, and teach us lessons in impermanence and interconnectedness.

Take the killings at Virginia Tech.

A strange, quiet young Korean man, Cho Seung-Hui, writer of tortured and violent plays and screeds, makes his own solipsistic martial arts-gangsta video of himself, and sends it to the media, in the course of slaughtering 32 people, then killing himself.

The media sensationalizes it. MSNBC ratings go through the roof as its images are repeated, to millions and millions, then all the networks join in the frenzy. As expected, other troubled youth respond, in copy-cat fashion, often only with words, and scares shut down numerous classes across the country. At the same time, discussions of &#39;healing&#39; get underway.

Talk show commentators are having a time of it. I hear both liberal and conservatives alike carry on about &#39;looking in the face of evil&#39; and trashing the notions of illness and therapy. Rush Limbaugh and one caller on his show go on about how the Korean youth is an &#39;America hater,&#39; &#39;suicide bomber,&#39; and simply evil. Retired FBI guys talk about &#39;training&#39; students to be able to respond better, and hiring tougher &#39;security.&#39; People debate police tactics, censorship and guns.

Then a British paper goes to a tiny hut in Korea, and a reporter talks to the boy&#39;s grandparents, who say he was a bad kid and &#39;deserved to die&#39; for his sins.

But the grandparents also reveal the poverty of his parents as they immigrated to the U.S. Most important, they reveal their grandson was diagnosed early with autism, but the poverty all around prevented them from doing much about it, either in Korea or here.

Autism is recently growing with unusual speed in the US. Parents, rich and poor, are desperate for help, since dealing with an autistic child is often beyond any couple, however well off.

One radio personality, Don Imus, takes up their cause. He helps grow their organization for families of Autistic children, and raises millions. His wife, an environmentalist, believes toxins, perhaps in vaccines, are partly to blame, and demands independent research. Wealthy pharmaceutical companies and the Wall Street Journal counter-attack, smearing the couple. But Imus is relentless, and blasts away at their money-grubbing and lies. Largely through his efforts, a compromise measure, offering some relief, gets through Congress, but he pushes on for more substantive solutions, and raises millions more.

Now the effort has stopped, or is at least severely reduced. Imus, as we well know, also indulged in racist, sexist and chauvinist commentary and locker-room &#39;jokes,&#39; repeatedly, and finally went too far. He realized it, blamed himself and tried to make amends. He promised changes in his show, but accepted whatever he got, saying he had dished it out long enough, now it was his turn to take it.

But a groundswell wanted more. They wanted his show shut down, period, and it was. Many people declared victory over racism and sexism, and to a degree, it was. The media moguls preened about their new-found responsibility and the need for change.

At least until 32 people died at Virginia Tech.

Now we have a new wave of violence featured in the media, and Imus is old news, history.

And we have a new wave of blame, and a new staking out of moral ground against evil.

But you can make a good case that untreated autism, rooted in poverty, was the root cause of what happened at Virginia Tech, however terrible the consequences and the suffering visited on those who didn&#39;t deserve it in the least, just as the Rutgers women didn&#39;t deserve it in the least.

The whole thing reminds me of Thich Nhat Hanh&#39;s long poem, &#39;Call Me by My True Name.&#39; It&#39;s about looking deeply, in the poem, about a Thai sailor, and his raping and killing Vietnamese boat people. It&#39;s too long a story to retell here, but do yourself a favor and read it, or better yet, listen to it sometime.

But given this latest curve ball, I think I&#39;ll wait a bit before declaring either Don Imus or Cho Seung-Hui, connected in this curious way, to be evil, or at least, in the case of Imus, who&#39;s still with us, beyond public redemption.

<b>Related</b>

<a href="http://carldavidson.blogspot.com/">http://carldavidson.blogspot.com</a>

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Original Source: <a href="http://chicago.indymedia.org/newswire/display/77298/index.php">http://chicago.indymedia.org/newswire/display/77298/index.php</a>

Licensed under <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain">Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication</a>.

Carl Davidson

2007-06-10

Brent Jesiek

Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication

eng

Bowing Down to Our Own Violence

<b>Media Beat (4/19/07)</b>

By <a href="http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=10&author_id=167">Norman Solomon</a>

Many days after the mass killings at Virginia Tech, grisly stories about the tragedy still dominated front pages and cable television. News of carnage on a vastly larger scale -- the war in Iraq -- ebbs and flows. The overall coverage of lethal violence, at home and far away, reflects the chronic evasions of the American media establishment.

In the world of U.S. mainline journalism, the boilerplate legitimacy of official American violence overseas is a routine assumption.

"The first task of the occupation remains the first task of government: to establish a monopoly on violence," George Will wrote on April 7, 2004, in the <b>Washington Post</b>. But three years later, his <b>Newsweek</b> column laments: "Vietnam produced an antiwar movement in America; Iraq has produced an antiwar America."

Current polls and public discourse -- in spite of media inclinations to tamp down authentic anger at the war -- do reflect an "antiwar America" of sorts. So, why is the ghastly war effort continuing unabated? A big factor is the undue respect that&#39;s reserved for American warriors in American society.

When a mentally unstable person goes on a shooting rampage in the United States, no one questions that such actions are intrinsically, fundamentally and absolutely wrong. The media condemnation is 100 percent.

However -- even after four years of a U.S. war in Iraq that has been increasingly deplored by the American public -- the standard violence directed from the Pentagon does not undergo much critical scrutiny from American journalists. The president&#39;s war policies may come under withering media fire, but the daily activities of the U.S. armed forces are subjected to scant moral condemnation. Yet, under orders from the top, they routinely continue to inflict -- or serve as a catalyst for -- violence far more extensive than the shooting sprees that turned a placid Virginia campus into a slaughterhouse.

News outlets in the United States combine the totally proper condemnation of killing at home with a notably different affect toward the methodical killing abroad that is funded by the U.S. Treasury. We often read, see and hear explicit media commendations that praise as heroic the Americans in uniform who are trying to kill, and to avoid being killed, in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In recent decades, the trends of war have been clear. A majority of the dead -- estimated at 75 to 90 percent -- are civilians. They are no less innocent than the more than 30 people who suddenly died from gunshots at Virginia Tech.

It would be inaccurate to say that the bulk of U.S. media&#39;s coverage accepts war launched from Washington. The media system of the USA does much more than accept -- it embraces the high-tech violence under the Pentagon&#39;s aegis. Key reasons are cultural, economic and political.

We grew up with -- and continue to see -- countless movies and TV programs showing how certain people with a handgun, a machine gun or missiles are able to set wrongs right with sufficiently deft and destructive violence.

The annual reports of large, medium and small companies boast that the U.S. Defense Department is a lucrative customer with more and more to spend on their wares for war.

And the scope of political discourse, reinforced by major news outlets, ordinarily remains narrow enough to dodge the huge differences between "defense spending" and "military spending." More broadly, the big media rarely explore the terrain of basic moral challenges to the warfare state.

Everyone who isn&#39;t deranged can agree that what happened on April 16, 2007, at the campus of Virginia Tech was an abomination. It came about because of an individual&#39;s madness. We must reject it without the slightest equivocation. And we do.

But the media baseline is to glorify the U.S. military -- yesterday, today and tomorrow -- bringing so much bloodshed to Iraq. The social dynamics in our own midst, fueling the war effort, are spared tough scrutiny. We&#39;re constantly encouraged to go along, avidly or passively.

Yet George Will has it wrong. The first task of government should not be "to establish a monopoly on violence." Government should work to prevent violence -- including its own.

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Original Source: Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR)
<a href="http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3088">http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3088</a>

Licensed under <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0</a>.

Norman Solomon

2007-06-09

Brent Jesiek

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0

eng