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Editorial Boards
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2007-08-14
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By:Editorial Board
Posted: 4/17/07
On Monday April 16, 32 Virginia Tech students were killed in a tragic shooting incident. The Miami Student editorial board is shocked and deeply saddened by this abhorrent act, and our thoughts and prayers go out to the friends and family members of those affected. While law enforcement and rescue personnel responded quickly to the scene, the random, senseless nature of this act can leave students with a sense of helplessness. Nonetheless, while it is virtually impossible to prevent all random acts of violence, universities must continue to work with local police departments in order to ensure that contingency plans are in place and that there are effective lines of communication between the administration and students during times of emergency.
Universities face a difficult challenge between maintaining safety and fostering a relaxed and open academic environment for students. This tension between security and freedom will likely be reevaluated in the months ahead as schools consider ways they can prevent catastrophes like this from happening in the future. It is important that Miami University's campus remains one that feels open, even as any potential security updates are made.
Based upon preliminary reports, there have been criticisms, warranted or not, leveled at the Virginia Tech administration for failing to adequately communicate with students as events were unfolding. On a campus the size of Miami's, such communication is a difficult task, but a rapid e-mail response and the use of a special warning siren or PA system might be feasible options for signaling a campus-wide lockdown. Even so, while contingency plans can and should be implemented, no amount of preparedness can avert all disasters. Local law enforcement must be familiar with their operating procedures and able to coordinate their efforts with surrounding forces. Moreover, they must be adequately equipped to stabilize a situation until larger, more specialized law enforcement units arrive.
The events at Virginia Tech were especially painful because of the vulnerability of the victims and the similarities between their lives and the lives of Miami students. A measure of trust in life's daily routine was lost Monday, and this tragedy should serve to remind each of us to consciously embrace and cherish the time we have and too often overlook.
--
Original Source:<a href=http://media.www.miamistudent.net/media/storage/paper776/news/2007/04/17/Editorials/Sympathy.Resounds.In.Wake.Of.Vt.Tragedy-2845773.shtml> The Miami Student - April 17, 2007</a>
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"Skotzko, Stacey Nicole" <skotzksn@muohio.edu>
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Sympathy resounds in wake of VT tragedy
campus safety
miami university
sympathy
tragedy
university response
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Elizabeth Miller
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2007-08-14
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By: Elizabeth Miller
Posted: 4/20/07
I am rarely at a loss for words. But now, as I approach this column after a week of tragedy - both at Miami University and nationwide - I can hardly form a rational thought. Somehow a 500-word column needs to be written on a topic that I cannot find one suitable word for.
I don't need to recall the events of Saturday night at Miami, or Monday afternoon at Virginia Polytechnic Institute. Nothing that I say can express the individual grief, confusion and frustration that we feel. Like you, I've been watching the news and discussing it in class. Sometimes the facts are accurate. Sometimes they're just pieces of rumor that patch together some semblance of truth. I guess when you're desperate for answers, almost anything helps.
But as I'm flipping through the channels of repeated footage, I'm shocked to hear how quickly the actual disaster has been swept aside. The news is flooded with debate about Virginia gun sales and the failure of campus crisis communication. Somehow CNN and ABC find it appropriate to spark these debates right now. Gun control. University communication policy. The horror of this tragedy cannot be simplified into a policy debate. Not yet, anyways. This is about people. People were murdered, first and foremost. The aftermath should be filled with reverence and condolences for the victims. The focus should be for the families left behind, the campus that will be shaken forever and the lives that were taken.
We have to let ourselves grieve. We have to take time to hurt, to sympathize, to feel, to pray. This isn't a time to blame. Yes, there will be a time to discuss methods of prevention. That time is not now.
It is simply disrespectful to ignite any heated policy debate that supersedes the mourning for the lost lives. Of course, it's natural to seek blame and explanation when such an event happens. So, yes, we can point fingers. We can assume things about the school, the policies, the killer, the situation at-large. It's a natural reaction to assign blame at a time like this. But assigning blame won't bring those students and faculty back.
Like I said, I'm at a loss for eloquent words that can articulate the disaster. Words alone will not solve the confusion, they won't mend the grief. I'm at a loss for words, but I'm not at a loss for feeling. And perhaps that's all we can do for now. We can feel. We have to let ourselves grieve. This isn't a time to blame the state of Virginia for gun control policies. This isn't a time to question the administrative communication of the university. We will have months, maybe years, ahead for that. This tragedy isn't about policy. It's about lives. And for now, the respect for those who died and the sympathy for the families left behind should be the forefront of our concern.
--
Original Source:<a href=http://media.www.miamistudent.net/media/storage/paper776/news/2007/04/20/OpedPage/Mourning.Of.Va.Tech.Loss.Not.Over-2870733.shtml>The Miami Student - April 20, 2007</a>
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"Skotzko, Stacey Nicole" <skotzksn@muohio.edu>
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Mourning of Va. Tech loss not over
grief
miami university
policy debate
reflection
tragedy
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John Tuzcu
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2007-08-14
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By: John Tuzcu
Posted: 4/24/07
In the week leading up to the Virginia Tech massacre where 32 people were senselessly killed, there also happened to be Iraqi people being massacred in the bloodbath of Iraq. Five hundred Iraqi men women and children that had nothing to do with the war were found dead in what is a "usual" seven days in the Iraq. These two narratives that both deeply implicate Americans leads us to ponder whose lives we choose to remember and of whose we are completely ignorant.
Monday, April 9, 45 innocent Iraqis were killed, many of them found tortured and decapitated. Tuesday, 85 were found dead, half from U.S. attacks. Wednesday a teacher was found shot in the head, a mother and a son were killed on the way to school and a pile of unidentifiable bodies were discovered to make 42 in all.
Thursday killed 50, including an explosion inside the "heavily-fortified" Green Zone. Friday, April 13, civilians were killed walking to mosque and a kid was blown up ... 70 more people, people just like you and me. Saturday brought 110 civilian deaths, 16 being blown up by a car bomb. Finally, Sunday, April 15, 100 civilians were murdered in and around Baghdad.
This one week of tragedy in Iraq is sadly not an exception. There have been 600,000 civilian deaths since 2003, and 3,323 U.S. deaths (and counting). Despite this, when was the last time we saw a picture of an Iraqi kid on television or read their story in the newspaper? When was the last time we were forced to remember that Iraqis too have rich and important lives or were forced to come face to face with the carnage taking place at the hands of the U.S. occupation?
Can you imagine invaders coming into the United States and precipitating massacres that kill 500 Americans a week? This bloody occupation has passed into its fifth year and it's getting increasingly bloodier.
Almost half of all the civilian deaths have occurred in the last year of the war, as mortar attacks have quadrupled and bombs killing more than 50 people at once have doubled in occurrence. Suicide bombs, car bombs and roadside bombs have doubled as well in the fourth year.
There are also many reports exposing the drastic conditions that living Iraqis are facing. Eleven percent of Iraqi babies are now born underweight, compared to 4 percent before the U.S. invasion, malnutrition has risen to 28 percent and Iraqi civilians are citing stress and anxiety levels that are untenable. The United States has permanently destroyed and ended the lives of millions of Iraqis, though they remain numbers to most of us.
Of course we must mourn and remember the loss of life in Blacksburg, Va., but we should also compare the endless coverage that tragedy has received in place of others - killings going on everyday in our name. The memorials accorded to the victims of the Virginia Tech shootings were moving, if only we reserved a fraction of that space in our hearts for innocent Iraqis as well. If we put human faces on those tragedies we might find the continued U.S. occupation to be unbearable. We might feel something again. Or maybe those days are over.
--
Original Source:<a href=http://media.www.miamistudent.net/media/storage/paper776/news/2007/04/24/OpedPage/Iraq-Victims.Must.Not.Be.Forgotten-2876305.shtml>The Miami Student - April 24, 2007</a>
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"Skotzko, Stacey Nicole" <skotzksn@muohio.edu>
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Iraq victims must not be forgotten
death
miami university
tragedy
war in iraq
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Barbara Rodriguez
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2007-08-14
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<b>BU assessing safety, mental health concerns</b>
By: Barbara Rodriguez
Posted: 4/18/07
Boston University officials are still assessing how Monday's deadly shootings at Virginia Tech will prompt any changes in BU's security and mental health services.
Officials will be monitoring the campus "climate" during the next few days, speaking with the Office of Residence Life and other departments that work with students, said Dean of Students Kenneth Elmore.
More than 100 BU community members gathered on Marsh Plaza yesterday afternoon at a candlelight vigil to remember the victims, many of whom were Virginia Tech students and a few professors.
Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old Virginia Tech senior from South Korea, shot and killed 30 people in an academic building around 9:15 a.m., two hours after he killed two students in a residence hall Monday morning on the Blacksburg, Va. campus. Cho injured more than 15 others and shot and killed himself following the second shooting, police say.
Marsh Chapel officials have been talking with students in person and through email, said Marsh Chapel dean Robert Hill. Representatives from the Florence & Chafetz Hillel House and the Newman House, which houses the university's Catholic Center, were also available at the vigil.
"I was surprised by the number [of people at the vigil]," Hill said.
Elmore and BU Police Department Chief Thomas Robbins attended a city safety meeting at the Boston Police Department headquarters yesterday afternoon where representatives from 19 area schools discussed ways to improve safety protocols and communication among city and local agencies, Elmore said.
"We will be in a continual assessment," addressing BU's training response, how departments communicate with each other and the various city and state agencies they work with, he said.
"We know we've got a network of public safety," Elmore said. "It is still important to assess [BU's] crisis response."
BU officials are continuing to offer chaplain and counseling services. Marsh Chapel officials are inviting students to gather at 11 a.m. today at the chapel for another moment of prayer, Hill said.
"Our hearts really go out to the people in Virginia," he said. "We know what it means to grieve."
Many faculty members, parents, students and staff contacted the Dean of Students Office yesterday with suggestions and concerns about how BU could handle a campus shooting, Elmore said.
Elmore, who hosts weekly conversations with students in the Howard Thurman Center, will focus the first portion of Friday's discussion on the shooting, while a behavioral medicine representative will be present for counseling.
"There's lots of issues about violence and people's personal safety," Elmore said.
The Albert and Jesse Danielson Institute, one of BU's psychological facilities, is also offering students counseling services despite an extensive waiting list to be treated, said Clinical Director Dr. Jorge Stavros.
Stavros said if students contact the Institute with an "acute reaction" to the shootings, the office will make an appointment for them immediately. As of last night, no students had contacted the Institute in regard to the shootings.
Elmore is encouraging BU community members of the BU community to reach out to others and alert officials if they suspect someone behaving suspiciously.
"If it doesn't feel right to us, we have to report it," he said. "I'm always encouraging students to be mindful about their own personal safety."
--
Original Source:<a href=http://media.www.dailyfreepress.com/media/storage/paper87/news/2007/04/18/News/Grieving.Nation.Copes.With.Tragedy-2849522.shtml> The Daily Free Press - April 18, 2007</a>
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Matt Negrin <editor@dailyfreepress.com>
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Grieving nation copes with tragedy
boston university
coping
grief
tragedy
vigil
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Sara Hood
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Uwe E. Reinhardt
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2007-06-22
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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.
<i>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.</i>
--
Original Source: <a href=http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2007/04/23/opinion/18202.shtml> Daily Princetonian - April 23, 2007</a>
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Kavita Saini <ksaini@Princeton.EDU>
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The narrow reach of 'community'
community
princeton
response
tragedy
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Sara Hood
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Brandon McGinley
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2007-06-22
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By Brandon McGinley
Princetonian Columnist
As the epigraph for "The Brothers Karamazov," Fyodor Dostoevsky presented John 12:24:
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit."
At first glance, the verse is difficult to decipher due to the vexing translation. The novel that follows, however, allows for a better understanding of this significant statement, which is particularly powerful in this time of national mourning.
Faced with such senseless suffering, it is natural to recoil from any faith in divine harmony, for no amount of retribution, whether in this life or the next, can return the smiling faces of the lost to their friends and family. It is precisely at this moment, though, when that faith is being fired in the crucible of anger, grief and doubt, when it proves to be most comforting and, perhaps, most true.
One of the most profound truths presented by Dostoevsky in his last novel is often simply accepted in contemporary society, without exploring its ramifications: We are all connected. It is a statement short on words but long on meaning. In "The Brothers Karamazov," the reader is blessed with the omniscience to understand that the entire cast of characters is hurtling toward tragedy, while each individual within the plot, particularly the three brothers, do not conceive the ultimate consequences of their actions or inactions.
Though we strive, and rightfully so, for that connectedness in our lives — through friendships, community service, religious services, etc. — it is too often convenient to think of oneself as insulated from the rest of the community. At times of moral crisis, it is so much easier to disregard, either through true ignorance or active self-delusion, the propagation of ramifications throughout this tightly woven human network. When one decides to have sex without protection, proceed with an abortion procedure or take the life (or allow the taking of the life) of another human being, the consequences are never simply personal.
When we either temporarily overlook that connectedness or are so selfish that we ignore the implications for countless others of our own flawed decision-making, we commit a transgression against the entire human network and, if you wish, against the God who lovingly created each of us equally in his image. And so, in this manner, we can see the killer in Blacksburg, Va., often described as an outsider or loner, as someone who, feeling disconnected from the community by cultural issues or other mental strife, could claim no stake in the community and felt no moral obligation to it.
It is interesting, but ultimately unrewarding to examine in hindsight the psychology of the killer. What is most important to those affected by this tragedy is a fuller understanding of the meaning of their monumental loss. For if all of humanity is connected through this interwoven web, certainly the impact of death can be felt far beyond the individual.
This brings us to the Biblical verse which opened this column and to the powerful conclusion of "The Brothers Karamazov." A clearer translation of it is as follows: "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." But what is the "fruit" that results from the tragic loss of innocent life?
In "The Brothers Karamazov," the answer is memories — fond remembrances of times spent together, of goodness, of love. Near the end of the plot, the young boy Ilyushechka, after several days of visits from his school friends, dies from a painful disease. After the funeral, the young monk Alyosha gathers the children together in the center of their somber Russian village.
He says to them, "You must know that there is nothing higher and stronger and more wholesome and good for life in the future than some good memory, especially a memory of childhood, of home." But how can we compare the death of a young character in a nineteenth century Russian novel to the loss of 32 innocent lives on the campus of Virginia Tech?
To use the old adage, no man is an island. Each lost individual leaves behind hundreds if not thousands of others who have been touched by his or her life, and now untimely death. And those thousands of souls have been blessed with millions of memories of goodness and love. Across this nation and this globe, the tragedy has affected millions more who have no personal attachment to Virginia Tech, but who cannot help but reexamine their own values and priorities in the face of such destruction and who cannot help but be encouraged about the state of the human condition after viewing the solidarity of the Virginia Tech community.
This is not to glorify death, but to grasp meaning from the flames of despair, for no man dies in vain.
As the book ends, the boys come together to say, "We will remember, we will remember!"
At the Cassell Coliseum on the campus of Virginia Tech, the students raised their voiced to the rafters and exclaimed, through the grief, the mourning and the sadness that "We are Virginia Tech!"
<i>Brandon McGinley is a freshman from Pittsburgh, Pa. He may be reached at bmcginle@princeton.edu. </i>
--
Original Source: <a href=http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2007/04/19/opinion/18137.shtml> Daily Princetonian - April 19, 2007</a>
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Kavita Saini <ksaini@Princeton.EDU>
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Finding meaning in tragedy
grief
literature
loss
princeton
tragedy
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Sara Hood
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Editorial Board
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2007-06-13
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April 27, 2007
By Editorial Board
It is a tough line to walk: simultaneously respecting those affected by tragedy and reassuring the community in a time of crisis. This year has seen numerous examples of the administration's sincere efforts to negotiate that line with the handful of student suicides and most recently with its response to Stanford students on the Virginia Tech shootings.
But in each of those cases, we wish the administration would have spoken directly to all of us, or in instances in which they did, perhaps spoken sooner. An unknown number of classmates have taken their lives this year with no acknowledgement at all by the administration. Last week, it was more than 24 hours until we received an official response to the Virginia Tech tragedy.
Undoubtedly, many factors go into the process for announcing a death in the community or responding to a tragedy at another school. In phone and email conversations, Director of University Communications Alan Acosta and Vice Provost for Student Affairs Greg Boardman said that the issue of family privacy rights should not be overlooked.
While Acosta acknowledged that "there are a number of things you have to do right away" when dealing with tragedy, we don't understand entirely how the University's support network of Counseling and Psychological Services, the Bridge Peer Counseling Center or the Office of Religious Life assists students who are merely trying to determine if the rumor of their classmate's death is true or not. This year alone, rumors of numerous suicides plagued the student body, and in those times it was hard to find a student who really knew the truth of what was happening at Stanford.
Boardman's email to the student body the day after the Virginia Tech shooting was appreciated. Students needed to hear his support — we just wish it had come a little earlier. Those who live and work here expect Stanford to be there for them. The student body was never notified after some suicides. We do not expect a front-page story in the Stanford Report from the administration, but we do hope for a brief message to acknowledge a friend has passed away.
<b>Comments on this article:</b>
<b>Stupid editorial</b> - 4/27/07
What exactly is the editorial board asking for? The administration to send out mass e-mails detailing every aspect of a community member's death? The Stanford News Service already acknowledges (in a tasteful way!) Stanford community members who pass away. Maybe it was a slow news day today, but the Stanford Daily needs to realize that a student death is a rare occurrence, but if one does occur, the utmost sensitivity is required and respect for the families should be a top priority. This is obvious to everyone but those intrepid Daily writers? We need to remember that these are very private, delicate matters and families might not wish to broadcast all kinds of details to the world. That is perfectly understandable and, absent any danger to campus safety or any other issue that might require the immediate attention of the campus at large, there is no reason why the widespread dissemination of all details surrounding a particular death ought to be required for Stanford News Service. The following line from the editorial is particularly ridiculous: "This year alone, rumors of numerous suicides plagued the student body, and in those times it was hard to find a student who really knew the truth of what was happening at Stanford." So the paper is basing this whole editorial on rumors? What evidence does the paper have that a particular death was never acknowledged by the administration? Sometimes it seems like the Stanford Daily editorials are written hastily and with little regard for common sense.
<b>Re: Stupid editorial</b> - 4/27/07
I totally agree that this is a stupid editorial. The Stanford Daily was recently criticized for a long delay before they reported the death of Mo Morsette. And even when they did report it, it was not the top story of the day. It looks like, after some soul searching, the editorial board has decided that Stanford Administration is to blame, because the administration doesn't acknowledge student deaths quickly enough. After all, if someone doesn't tell the Stanford Daily that there's a death on campus, then how are they supposed to know? It's not like they're a NEWSPAPER with JOURNALISTS who are supposed to so FOOTWORK before they print stories.
<b>Daily is grasping at straws </b>- 4/27/07
The Daily's editorials have been going downhill for quite a while now. This one is perhaps one of their worst ever. What exactly is the benefit of criticizing the administration's response to the VT massacre?
<b>Brave Editorial</b> - 4/27/07
Stupid Editorial, it's your kind of overly sensitive, well-meaning but ultimately silly thinking that lets Bush get away with banning the media from soldier's funerals. I can understand respecting the family's privacy, but Mo Morsette was also a fellow member of this community - I would expect a complete investigation into what led him to take his own life, not in the interest of airing dirty laundry, but in the interest of helping other people who feel the same emotions that plagued him. This school is an intense psychological environment filled people whose incredible intelligence often dovetails with complete social maladjustment - it does not reflect well on Stanford to sweep things like this under the rug in the interest of "privacy."
--
Original Source: <a href="http://daily.stanford.edu/article/2007/4/27/editorialAddressCampusTragedies">
Stanford Daily - April 27, 2007</a>
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Editor-in-Chief
The Stanford Daily
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Editorial: Address campus tragedies
stanford
suicide
tragedy
university response
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Sara Hood
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Jack Salisbury
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2007-06-13
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April 20, 2007
By Jack Salisbury
The last two weeks have been rough on the world of sports. Meat-headed Don Imus, thinking he was being clever and funny, showed us that race and racism is still a paramount issue in today's America with his description of the Rutgers women's basketball team as "nappy-headed hos."
Then, NBA superstar and supposed role model Tim Duncan was challenged to a fight by veteran referee Joey Crawford. The scene had its comic elements to it, but it was still fairly disgusting with the raw angst and hate between the old Crawford and the robust Duncan.
In a time when nuclear weapons programs abound, people are killed over the outcomes of Little League games and enormously wealthy NBA players' demand salary hikes citing the "need to feed their family," you sometimes have to wonder where our neurotic society is going.
And then Virginia Tech happened.
Virginia Tech.
The Hokies have been a mainstay of college athletics for years. Head football coach Frank Beamer built his program based on hard work and excellent special teams play.
By the time a kid named Michael Vick stepped onto the Blacksburg campus in the fall of 1998, Beamer's program had reached the status of national power.
Since then, Virginia Tech has always been a mainstay of college football, competing in the national championship and appearing at numerous New Year's Day bowl games.
Under Seth Greenberg, Tech's basketball program has also risen, beating both Duke and North Carolina this year in ACC play and making the NCAA Tournament as a five seed.
It has never been hard to root for the Hokies; they have up-and-coming programs. And after all, who can resist rooting for a Hokie?
Part of the allure in rooting for the Hokies was that you often didn't know what a Hokie was. For the record, Hokie is a fictional mascot masquerading itself as a maroon bird.
But there's even more reason to root for the Hokies now.
We all know about the tragedy that took place this Monday. I can't imagine what it's like to be a student at Virginia Tech right now, to know someone who was shot or injured, to be around the university or to even be an alumnus. The inexplicable tragedy has moved our nation, brought people together, but most of all, it's left us asking: Why?
There isn't an answer, though. That's the hardest part.
It's times like these when sports are therapeutic, taking people away from the harsh reality of the world we live in. A touchdown, last-second shot or an interception can make people forget, for just a moment, what has happened.
What I'm saying is: Sports can be trivial, but for the most part, they're not.
A 45-yard touchdown run or a 50-yard field goal? Sure, they're pretty meaningless in the long run, but when you realize who they're affecting and how they're affecting them, they suddenly take on a whole new meaning.
After the city of New Orleans experienced the devastating disaster of Hurricane Katrina, it rallied around the hometown Saints. The Saints received coverage around the country for their heart-warming story; and unlike a lot of things dramatized in sports, the Saints' story was truly heartwarming.
Drew Brees, Reggie Bush and Marques Colston rejuvenated a city, a region and a country by bringing the Saints to the doorstep of the Super Bowl. They understood the responsibility on their shoulders and acted accordingly, being active in their communities and setting new standards for what it meant to be role models.
And in the process, they showed that sports aren't just sports. Sports bring people together. They may not seem to have that same effect in a place like California, but trust me: If you go to Tuscaloosa, Chapel Hill, or even Blacksburg, sports are a huge thing. They're more than just a game.
I'll be rooting for the Hokies every chance I get next year. I can only hope that the city of Blacksburg, the state of Virginia and the whole country will rally around Virginia Tech and its athletic program in moving on from this senseless tragedy.
It was hard to not root for the Hokies before. Now? It's impossible.
Jack Salisbury is a freshman. Contact him at jack24@stanford.edu.
--
Original Source: <a href="http://daily.stanford.edu/article/2007/4/20/salisburyHopeForTheHokies"> Stanford Daily - April 20, 2007</a>
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Salisbury: Hope for the Hokies
sports
stanford
tragedy
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Sara Hood
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Jackie Bernstein
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2007-06-13
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April 20, 2007
Opinion article
By Jackie Bernstein
It's time for a game of Funny/Not Funny. First: A joke overheard in the CoHo on Monday referencing the Virginia Tech massacre. Not Funny. No one laughed, and someone said, "Too soon, too soon." Next: An off-hand comment made at the gym on Wednesday, poking fun at the ethnicity of the Korean shooter responsible for the assault, Cho Seung-Hui. Funny? At least, I heard people laugh in response. "Oh, man... that's so wrong. Hahahahaha."
How soon is too soon to use a tragedy as fodder for comedy? "Homer loves Flanders," a Simpsons episode in season five, parodies Charles Whitman, the University of Texas tower-sniper: Ned Flanders guns down multiple Homers from atop a bell tower. About 25 years after the massacre, FOX executives found the scene funny enough to air. How long will it take for South Park to run an episode satirizing the events at Virginia Tech?
I think that the amount of time it takes for someone to find humor in tragedy is directly related to his connection to the incident. It is unlikely that the man who sold Sueng-Hui his gun will ever find anything humorous about the shooting. The student in the CoHo who made his joke last Monday probably doesn't know anyone at Virginia Tech. I doubt that he feels any kind of personal connection to the event.
However, we as Stanford students are actually deeply connected to the Virginia Tech massacre. Seung-Hui exploded at Virginia Tech. Maurice "Mo" Morsette imploded at Stanford. Both students' lives ended in tragedy.
Maurice Moisette's suicide is one of at least three reported at Stanford this academic year. Ranked in 2005 by The Princeton Review as the university with the "Happiest Students Overall" in the country, Stanford doesn't seem to be living up to its reputation any longer.
The Virginia Tech tragedy will undoubtedly lead the Stanford administration and various support groups on campus to reexamine how issues of mental health are handled on campus. This response seems to deal with only part of a greater problem.
No matter how many aggressive programs a school funds, no matter how many 24-hour hotlines they provide or psychologists they hire, nothing can change without a change in the student culture itself.
Unfortunately, the type of student elite universities admit is not going to change anytime soon. We are a nation obsessed with getting into college. And the most obsessed end up here. As a result, we are a campus full of top-heavy people. We are world-class debaters, writers and chemists, fully actualizing our intellectual potential. But these skills have come at the loss of developing more basic skills. By the end of winter quarter of my freshman year, 40 percent of my all-frosh dorm had never been kissed. Throwing these types of kids into the collegiate world is bound to result in extreme feelings of alienation, confusion and anger. College is a place where many get their first taste of freedom, but learning how to handle independence isn't part of any AP Physics textbook.
I know that this article goes to print during Admit Weekend, and, as such, I was reluctant to write this week about our collective failings as members of the academic world. As a tour guide who couldn't imagine having gone anywhere else (and who enthusiastically tells this to hoards of high school juniors on a regular basis), I want to make sure that I am very clear: I have had a remarkable experience at Stanford, and I know that I made the right choice in coming here. Quite a few of my friends feel the same way. The problems of socially handicapped hyper-achievers are not unique to a few schools. Rather, this situation is endemic across the country.
I decided to write this article after I watched a mother and her ProFro daughter walk through the activities fair yesterday. The daughter was texting on her cell phone, and her mom kept on taking papers from the student tables, asking the students working the booths a slew of questions: "How many hours a week do you volunteer? How many other activities do you do? Do you put your activities on your resume? How many activities should my daughter do?" The mother was so involved in her daughter's life that I wondered if she had opened her daughter's acceptance letter for her.
My hope is that the mother I overheard reads this week's column. I hope that she realizes that her daughter is probably exhausted from pushing herself through four incredibly difficult years and almost certainly will need guidance on how to be a well-adjusted citizen, not how to build a resume, as she enters adulthood. My hope is that ProFros read this column and realize that coming to college is not going to be easy, wherever they choose to go. Part of growing up is facing failure and difficulty, and there is no shame in asking for help, even if it seems as though everyone else is doing fine. They aren't.
Our complete inability to cope with the pressures of today may eventually be funny. But for now, it's definitely too soon to turn the tragedy of our extreme emphasis on academic intelligence and achievement into a quick one-liner glibly delivered at the Manzanita brunch table.
Jackie Bernstein can be reached at jaber@stanford.edu.
--
<a href="http://daily.stanford.edu/article/2007/4/20/sickSadWorldALessonFromVirginiaTech"> Stanford Daily - April 20, 2007 </a>
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Sick Sad World: A lesson from Virginia Tech
humor
stanford
suicide
tragedy
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Brent Jesiek
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Floyd Rudmin
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2007-06-05
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<i>Published on Wednesday, April 18, 2007 by <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/">CommonDreams.org</a></i>
<b>by Floyd Rudmin</b>
The tragedy at Virginia Tech tears at the heart of everyone. Thirty-two innocent students and teachers, in the normal activities of their lives, are suddenly shot dead. Each one of them has a mother, a father, friends, classmates, siblings, and others who held them dear. And all of these have had their hearts torn, or torn out. There is now emptiness and grief where once there was a person.
Americans in their sharing of this sadness should consider how others in the world have similar feelings when facing similar loss and tragedy. These 32 senseless deaths are a chance for empathy with other communities who have also lost 32 loved persons to sudden death.
A search of Google using the search expression: <i>"Iraq AND ("32 killed" OR "32 died" OR "killing 32")"</i> finds the following news headlines and news text (in brackets):
3 March 2004:
Bremer: U.S. to bolster Iraq border security ("killing 32 people")
24 April 2004:
At least 32 killed, nearly 60 injured in another day of violence in Iraq
1 June 2004:
3rd of detainees who died were assaulted ("32 died in Iraq over 12 months")
16 July 2004:
32 killed as attacks rock Iraq
17 September 2004:
32 killed as US Forces continued their relentless strikes in Baghdad
15 October 2004:
At least 32 killed in Iraq violence
28 December 2004:
32 killed in attacks in Tikrit
23 June 2005:
32 killed in coordinated attacks
14 November 2005:
On American attacks in Iraq ("American navy announced killing 32 gunmen")
9 December 2005:
Suicide bomber on Iraqi bus kills 32
6 January 2006:
Scores killed on Iraq's bloodiest day ("32 killed by a suicide bomber at a Shiite funeral")
2 March 2006:
Iraqi parties want Jaafari out of Prime Minister race ("more violence struck Iraq, killing 32 people")
24 March 2006:
32 killed in attacks across Iraq
14 May 2006:
32 killed in violence
27 June 2006:
Seven Sunni groups seek truce in Iraq ("32 killed in violence")
28 July 2006: IRAQ:
32 killed in Baghdad blasts
8 December 2006:
At least 32 killed in attack on two families in Iraq
10 January 2007:
Weather blamed for plane crash near Baghdad ("killing 32")
30 January 2007:
At least 32 killed in Iraq holy day violence
15 March 2007:
Suicide bomber apparently targeting senior city official devastates busy square in Baghdad ("killing 32 people")
10 April 2007:
Bombings kill 32 in Iraq; U.S. raids hit civilians
15 April 2007:
Dozens killed in Iraqi holy city ("killing at least 32 people")
In each of these tragic events, each one of the 32 people also had a mother, a father, friends, classmates, siblings, and others who held them dear. And all of these also have had their hearts torn, or torn out, to be filled with emptiness and grief.
The tragedy at Virginia Tech was caused by lone gunman, probably deranged. It was a one-time event. It is finished. The tragedy in Iraq was caused by the US government, with the over-whelming support of the US Congress, most of the US media, and much of the US population. This war was planned and executed by rational men and women, none of them deranged.
The US decided to start the war against Iraq.
The US decided to destroy the infrastructure of Iraq.
The US decided to destroy the Iraqi government and to disband its police and army.
The US decided to send too few soldiers to secure the nation after doing these destructive deeds.
And the tragedy of Iraq is not a one-time event. It is not finished. It continues, apparently without end.
By many reports, the US is now preparing to start another war, this time against Iran.
Americans feeling the shock and grief of the tragedy at Virginia Tech should look into their hearts and realize that they through their government are bringing this same tragedy again, and again, and again, and again, and again, endlessly and needlessly, to other people in the world who also have hearts that can be torn out, who also feel grief and loss when family and friends are suddenly killed when doing ordinary things of life, like going to school.
Tragic deaths force us to feel our humanity and to see we are similar to others in the world. The tragic deaths in Virginia might serve to motivate Americans to curb their militarism and to minimize the tragedies of sudden death that they have been bringing to other families in the world.
<i><a href="frudmin@psyk.uit.no">Floyd Rudmin</a> is a professor of psychology at the University of Tromsø¸ in Norway. He is also affiliated with the Centre for Peace Studies and is a member of Science for Peace.</i>
--
Original Source: <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/18/593/">http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/18/593/</a>
Essay provided courtesy of Floyd Rudmin.
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Floyd Webster Rudmin (frudmin@psyk.uit.no)
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32 Senseless Deaths: A Chance for Empathy, Change of Heart, and Change of Course
iraq
tragedy
war
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Kimberly Clemons
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Kimberly Clemons
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2007-05-01
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Tragedy enters our world
so much when it is least expected
How do we endure
The heartache after the catastrophe has occurred
We cling to our loved ones
If we are the blessed ones to survive
Yet we still are questioning
And are seeking to understand why we are left and why not me
Whether the catastrophe is far away in a big city
Or close to home in a place we would never imagine
The fact remains the world is changing
The world is not as it once was and it never will be again
We can sit and stare at news coverage seeing the events unfold
Over and over again yet the dark cloud looms
The solace and reality remain in our minds
Our nation has yet again suffered setback that again we must prevail
Let us not forget our freedom, Old Glory,
the infamous red, white, & blue
While we have been robbed, ripped and reminded of tragedy
Let us yet again remember our renewed fight for America
Kimberly B. Clemons
April 17, 2007
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eng
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Tragedy Enters Our World
april 16
tragedy
virginia tech
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https://april16archive.org/files/original/LPic-VirginiaTech_c17f621477.jpg
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2007-04-25
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2007-04-25 15:35:59
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Sara Shaffer
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Johnson City Press, Ron Campbell and Sam Watson
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2007-04-25
Description
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For the Hokies - ETSU event held in support of Virginia Tech
(Picture Caption)- Bernadette Cash and Sara Shaffer sign a sheet that will be made into a quilt during the ETSU gathering in memory of the victims at Virginia Tech. (Ron Campbell / Johnson City Press)
By Sam Watson
Press Education Writer
swatson@johnsoncitypress.com
Buccaneer blue and gold gave way to Hokie maroon and orange Tuesday as East Tennessee State University sent messages of support to Virginia Tech in the wake of last week's massacre.
Hundreds of students and employees gathered on ETSU's Borchuck Plaza for a noon service, many donning maroon and orange ribbons and signing banners in a show of solidarity for their peers in Blacksburg, Va.
"We're just really reaching our hearts out to everyone over there at Virginia Tech," said Justin Mitchell, an ETSU junior from Memphis. "It's a really good healing exercise for us, as well, and all American college students across the United States."
On April 16, Virginia Tech student Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 students and faculty members and injured several others in a rampage that sent a chill through college campuses across the country. The tragedy hit particularly close to home at ETSU, an institution located just 150 miles away from Blacksburg.
Many students on the Johnson City campus have friends at Virginia Tech or other ties there, and ETSU employs several Virginia Tech alumni, including Mark Musick, holder of ETSU's Quillen Chair of Excellence in Teaching and Learning, who led Tuesday's service alongside ETSU President Paul Stanton.
Also on the plaza Tuesday was Virginia Tech graduate Dr. Sally Lee, ETSU associate vice president for student affairs.
"As an alum, I am appreciative of the response on behalf of my institution," Lee said as Virginia Tech symbols dangled from her ears. "The outpouring for Virginia Tech from other institutions has been amazing."
As a student at Virginia Tech, Lee was a resident adviser in West Ambler Johnston Hall, the site where Cho began his attack by killing students Ryan Clark and Emily Hilscher. Last week's events forever changed Lee's perspective about her old dorm.
"I can tell you pretty much exactly where that young lady and that RA were murdered because of the way that building is configured uniquely," she said. "That has an impact."
The massacre also changed perspectives for some ETSU students.
"For our students here, there's a lot of sorrow and a lot of understanding of the lost innocence and the impact it will have on that school," Lee said. "So, I think it's good for our students to have an outlet for their own emotions."
To Mitchell, knowing that students his own age were killed doing the same things he does every day - attending classes - was scary.
"It hurts. We really feel that," he said. "Maybe we can create more awareness so that everybody can lend a helping hand to those who feel alone, so they don't feel they have to kill."
As ETSU students signed a sheet that will form part of a memorial quilt for Virginia Tech, Mitchell wrote just three words: "Cho was wrong."
"I believe that they (Virginia Tech students) feel just as strongly as we do that people who are loners and outsiders should not feel as pressed against," Mitchell said. "Maybe if you are ostracized and feel that you are alone, you won't lash out against society."
ETSU sophomore Deanna Stamper, an elementary education major from Kingsport, brought the sheet to campus as part of a national project organized by Alpha Phi Omega, a community service organization.
"I really wanted to do it, because I have two very special friends there (at Virginia Tech) in the engineering program. Luckily, they were away at the time on a competition," Stamper said. "I know that many students want to find a way to send love to them, and this to me is a great way to do it.
"I think it gives great faith back to our nation to see how strong these young people can be through this."
Wearing Virginia Tech athletic jerseys, ETSU senior Sara Shaffer and her sister in law, Bernadette Cash, signed the sheet to send messages to a campus Shaffer has known since childhood via athletic events.
"It's awfully close to home," Shaffer said. "My dad went to Virginia Tech. Our whole family has been going to Blacksburg since before I was even born. We're all Hokies."
<a href="http://johnsoncitypress.com/Detail.php?Cat=LOCALNEWS&ID=59244">http://johnsoncitypress.com/Detail.php?Cat=LOCALNEWS&ID=59244</a>
Language
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eng
Title
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For the Hokies - ETSU event held in support of Virginia Tech
etsu
hokies
tragedy
virginia tech