April 18th, 2007 by Ben The tragic massacre this week at Virginia Tech will be one of those events that you will remember how you first heard the news, where you were when you heard it, and what you were doing at the time. Like September 11, 2001, it will stick to the national memory for the rest of our lives. The shooting was the most violent act perpetrated on American soil since September 11. Coming almost eight years to the day after the Columbine shootings, the VT murders are the latest and most violent example of the psychotic, suicidal student rampage. Like Columbine, the VT shooter, now identified as senior English major Cho Seung-hui, was calculated and cunning. He chained potential exits shut to prevent possible escape routes. He was carrying multiple clips of ammo. He lined up students and shot them execution-style. On the Monday night newscasts, the networks went all-out, providing coverage with limited commercial interruption, and many reported directly from the campus. If you listened carefully you probably heard the most repeated phrase of the night: "This is the worst incident of gun violence in American history." This is true. But the story really has very little to do with guns. Did the anchors get hung up on "the worst incident of airplane hijacking" angle when covering September 11? The story has everything to do with a psychotic "loner" who decided it would be better to take as many innocent people with him when he ended his own worthless life. Acts of mass murder always follow a predictable pattern. First, there is the period of shock. Depending on the magnitude of the incident, this phase can last for days, even weeks. Then there is the healing process: the dead are mourned and remembered, moments of silence are observed around the country. Finally, there is the "let's-not-let this-happen-again" phase. With September 11, this phase was complex and expensive. More airport security. "No-fly" lists. Federal air marshals. All of these steps have doubtless made our skies safer and have helped prevent a repeat attack. With shooting sprees, like Columbine and Virginia Tech, the final phase revives the gun-control advocates from their slumber. "See," they say, "look what guns do. They kill people. Guns are bad." Do guns kill people? Or, maybe, is it actually people that kill people? We could prevent another September 11 by banning all airplanes. That would solve the problem, right? We would all just have to drive cars or ride riverboats everywhere. Maybe bring back the horse and buggy. No biggie. Already the gun control lobby is licking their lips. Senator Diane Feinstein (D-Cal.) said in a statement that she believed the killings at Virginia Tech would “re-ignite the dormant effort to pass commonsense gun regulations in this nation.” Of course they will. It's the preventative instinct. We could try to prevent another Virginia Tech by banning all handguns, but it's a lot easier to keep an airplane out of the air than it is to keep a gun out of someone's hand. Let's start with those evil airplanes first. Just as we learned on September 11, the issue is the attacker (in that case, radical Muslims, who we now know want to kill us all), not the weapon. If Cho Seung-hui didn't have access to a handgun, would that have stopped his homicidal plans? Doubtful. He would have just found another way to kill peopleÃƒÂ¢Ã¯Â¿Â½Ã¯Â¿Â½a homemade bomb, perhaps. Tragic as they are, school shootings will never disappear. We can't wage war on psychotic students like we can on radical Islam. The best way to stop future campus rampages is to allow students to carry handguns. If just one student or professor had had a gun in one of those classrooms, there might be a lot more Virginia Tech students alive today. -- Original Source: http://joneckert.eckertservices.com/wordpress/?p=61 Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5
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Hubo actos heroicos en medio de la masacre de la universidad
Publicado por Patricia Zengerle 18.04.2007 - 08:05h BLACKSBURG, EEUU (Reuters) - En medio del horror vivido en la Universidad TecnolÃ³gica de Virginia tambiÃ©n se registraron momentos de heroÃ­smo, como el protagonizado por un anciano profesor superviviente del Holocausto que dio su vida para proteger a los estudiantes. Liviu Librescu, de doble nacionalidad israelÃ­ y estadounidense y que naciÃ³ en Rumania, se mudÃ³ hace dos dÃ©cadas a Estados Unidos, donde daba clases en el Departamento de IngenierÃ­a CientÃ­fica y MecÃ¡nica en el Instituto PolitÃ©cnico de Virginia y en la Universidad del Estado. Aunque tenÃ­a 76 aÃ±os y habÃ­a superado hace mucho tiempo la edad para jubilarse, todavÃ­a daba clases en la Universidad TecnolÃ³gica cuando el lunes surgiÃ³ el caos en Norris Hall, el edificio del campus donde un hombre armado identificado como Cho Seung-Hui, de 23 aÃ±os, abriÃ³ fuego y matÃ³ a 32 personas antes de suicidarse. Los estudiantes describieron cÃ³mo Librescu usÃ³ su cuerpo para bloquear una puerta frente a Cho para que ellos pudieran escapar saltando por la ventana de la clase, que se encontraba en un segundo piso. Algunos se rompieron la pierna al caer, pero sobrevivieron. Librescu muriÃ³ tiroteado durante el asalto. Se ha creado un santuario improvisado para el fallecido profesor en el campus, con flores y una fotografÃ­a suya. 'Era un hombre excepcionalmente tolerante que fue el mentor para acadÃ©micos de todo nuestro convulsionado mundo', afirmÃ³ Ishwar Puri, jefe de su departamento, en una declaraciÃ³n escrita que fue enviada a la prensa. Estudiantes que sobrevivieron a la masacre en Norris Hall hablaron sobre conserjes de la universidad que, mientras Cho abrÃ­a fuego en el segundo piso, corrieron a ayudar a otros en lugar de salvarse. 'Los conserjes llegaron corriendo y les dijeron a todos que salieran', dijo Nick Vozza, de 20 aÃ±os, quien estaba en el sÃ³tano del edificio cuando Cho iniciÃ³ el tiroteo dos pisos mÃ¡s arriba. En una clase de alemÃ¡n, unos pocos alumnos intentaron bloquear la puerta contra la embestida de las balas y luego trataron de echar una mano a sus compaÃ±eros heridos mientras esperaban la ayuda, dijo Trey Perkins a Fox News. De los 15 estudiantes que estaban en su clase, sÃ³lo unos seis salieron con vida, declarÃ³ Perkins. Numerosos estudiantes vistieron el martes de granate y naranja, los colores de la universidad, en una muestra de solidaridad por la tragedia -- Fuente Original: 20minutos.es - EspaÃ±a http://www.20minutos.es/noticia/224441/0/EEUU/TIROTEO/HEROISMO/ Licencia de uso: Creative Commons Reconocimiento 2.1 EspaÃ±a.
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Hundreds attend Salem State vigil for Virginia Tech
By Meghan Griffin/salem@cnc.com GateHouse Media Wed Apr 25, 2007, 09:36 PM EDT SALEM - The vigil held at Salem State College on Monday began with the most important thing, the reason some 300 students and faculty had assembled: the 32-plus victims of the Virginia Tech shooting. Michael Mitchell, president of the Student Government Association, started the vigil by reading each of the victims' names. "We will keep them in our hearts forever," said Mitchell. The students and staff who congregated on the lawn of Salem State's Central Campus were there to show their compassion and support in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech University massacre. The hundreds who gathered at Salem State held candles, and they were all outfitted in custom made T-shirts displaying the Virginia Tech logo on the front and the phrase, "Today We Are All Hokies," on the back in honor of the university's mascot. Candles lined the walkway leading to Central Campus, and empathetic students stood in groups as they tried to make sense of the tragedy. The disaster unfolded April 16, at Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg, Va. The nation was shocked to hear that a student open fired and claimed the lives of 32 innocent victims, including 20-year-old Ross Alameddine of Saugus, before turning the gun on himself. Salem State's commemoration began at 7 p.m., one week after the massacre. Mitchell, who played a large role in organizing the event, extended thanks to all those who helped organize the vigil, and to the Residence Hall Association for producing the T-shirts. President Nancy Harrington, who will retire at the end of the school year, addressed the situation and called the mayhem at Virginia Tech, "immeasurable." It is important for students to remain united in order to stay strong, she told the crowd. The vigil brought forward the realization that a disaster could strike unexpectedly at any time, and that no one is fully protected. "We hope and we pray that this is a safe campus," Harrington said, noting that there is no guarantee that such a tragedy will not occur in this violent world. "There is no real way to prevent something like this," Mitchell added. A recurring theme of the evening was the need for students to recognize those they may be alienating. Cho Seung-Hui, the student killer who went on the rampage at Virginia Tech, was reportedly a loner and outcast. "People shouldn't feel alone in this world," said Salem State junior David Overton, who addressed the crowd when the organizers asked if anyone wanted to come up and say a few words. Dressed in all black, Overton told the Gazette the shooting had a personal effect on him. After the 1999 high school shooting in Columbine, he said, he was questioned by teachers and others at his school. Overton, a resident adviser at Salem State, said there should have been parts of the community to help Cho Seung-Hui, and that all schools need to be prepared for such an act before it is too late. A few people, like Overton, chose to share their personal thoughts with the crowd. Jay Carey, a Salem resident and employee at the college's Center for Adult Learning, received an overwhelming applause after reading a poem he wrote about the incident. "It's a shame," he read, "that we only pull together in the rain." Students wrapped up the vigil by shaping a huge Virginia Tech logo on the lawn. Photographers captured the moment with aerial shots taken from the roof. Salem State plans to send the photo, along with five signed banners and two signed wooden Virginia Tech logos, to the Blacksburg school to show support. Harrington was impressed with the turnout. She credited Mitchell for spearheading the event, which was entirely student organized. "The tragedy at Virginia Tech touched everybody," she told the Gazette. Mitchell said they had to act quickly to pull together the vigil. "The purpose," he said after speaking to the crowd, "is to give people a chance to reflect." -- Original source: http://www.townonline.com/salem/homepage/x109703597 Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5
I have a daughter who on April 16 was freshman at Virginia Tech and she was safely in her dorm when the terrible events at A-J and Norris Hall took place. She had been on the road Sunday night and I called her to check up on her. Even though I had been on the phone with my daughter as early as 9:50 am (before we both knew what was going on, she has a noon class on Mondays and was just waking up for the day) and knew she was safe in her dorm, the entire day was difficult for me because of all the uncertainty of events. During the rest of the morning, she kept me posted by email and once text messaged her and said "stay away from the windows!" ...but I still felt quite helpless and upset that I could not be there to protect my daughter. The Internet was my main source for information as it filtered the news through bit by bit. I wanted to know more and to know faster, I called WTOP radio station and asked them, they said they have a person on the way down. As far as I knew, maybe they arrested the gunman, but maybe there was a gunman lose somewhere on the campus, how long would it be before they solve this and find the person, or PERSONS? Then more reports came out, "there are multiple casualties." I was thinking, what is this? What is going on? How could this be, are things under control? I jumped to the websites of the Roanoke TV stations and the Ronaoke newspaper, wanting the answers to my question. Then I walked over to my company's corporate department and asked them to turn on their TV because something is going on at Virginia Tech. Still, news was only trickling out. Then the numbers were announced, first 21, then more and by the end of the day 32 plus the gunman. My daughter left that evening for home, but I would not see her until Thursday evening because of my business travels and was working in metro DC away from home. On Thursday morning I remember seeing a flag at half-mask. I had a few tears and thought, it's sinking in. When I finally got home to my front door that evening, all was okay until I opened the door and saw my daughter sitting on the couch, between the door and her I became a basket case. She looked at me and asked "what's wrong dad?" I said "Nothing, I'm happy" and gave her one big and long hug I will never ever forget. It is painful to think that other dads can no longer hug their daughters or sons. My prayers go out to each one and to their families. Some day God will wipe away our tears, but until that day, let us never forget.
My mortality, there it is, right there in my mind. I feel the fear of loss of life. How close proximity to death, to my own death, I have come. At first, as I discovered the reality of the killing that had happened at Virginia Tech, where I work and rarely teach, I wondered how is it that I'm 1700 miles away in the Dutch Antilles in the Caribbean. Why aren't I in the middle of the chaos in Blacksburg? Was it some higher power that kept me away for a reason? What might that reason be? How might I serve the purposes of that higher power? Is this a sign that I am to leave Blacksburg for some new life, somehow directed by this force now taking root in the separation between me and the horror happening in Blacksburg? Or am I the person who is to watch from afar the early trauma at VT, to return to be some help as the witness? Is this somehow directing me to strengthen my commitment to a mission of creating a world of connection by empowering acceptance and authenticity in myself and others? What can be my purpose from this point on? Then I felt a pull. What am I doing here in the Caribbean when I'm losing my connection with the people I care about and love in Blacksburg? Might I stop my vacation now and return to be of some support? And I felt confused by the countering push back. No, who am I to think I can be of any help to those I don't even know. And what about my own sense of sanity and well-being, wouldn't that suffer if I cut off my vacation to respond to something I can not even begin to grasp? When confronted with people offering sympathies because they discovered we were from "there", I tried to empathize with their need to express their horror at what being from that place must be like, and their wish that they could be of some help. I wonder if it might have been clear had I said, "I appreciate your disgust and sadness, because I get that you want this to have never happened and wish you could somehow be of help to those who are suffering, and maybe you're afraid that it could have been you or your children or loved ones?" Coming back - one week after the tragedy, the horror, and the constant media coverage pointing fingers, honoring the dead with stories of their lives and their heroism, and showing the color in the lives of those who survived, while making decisions that stimulated feelings ranging from pain to elation, refusing to respect the needs of those experiencing loss and creating opportunities for a sense of community and connection to others who may share similar experiences - I wanted so badly to connect to my friends and colleagues who had a more direct experience with the pain. I wanted to be of support. I wanted to be caring and yet, I feared saying words or taking actions that would trigger disapproval from others. That's my characteristic fear, so it has been a challenge for me to accept myself and allow myself to make mistakes. Arriving in Charlotte at our car, I picked up my cell phone messages which I had not heard since the phone had been left in our car at the airport, expecting that we wouldn't be able to have much use of these phones in St. Martin. As expected there were messages from many friends and one relative I hadn't heard from in several years who said, in an apologetic fashion, that she just had to call to see how I was, of course she and the others calling didn't know that I was no where near the tragedy that unfolded that week. Immediately upon arriving in Blacksburg around 11:00 PM on Sunday my wife and I wanted to see the 24/7 visual happening at the 33 Hokie Stone memorials. We didn't stop. We just drove by without stopping. I was scared at this first encounter with the people who I didn't know but who had deep suffering as the result of the massacre. Finally when we arrived home I checked my email, glancing at the 650 messages to see what important notes might be embedded among the usual pomp and circumstance of everyday email. Sleep came quickly that night after our long journey. The next day I took my time returning to work, knowing that this was the first day back for many others as well. After only a short period of looking more closely at what became increasingly apparent to be many concerned email about my well-being from all corners of my life, as well as some brief sojourn into Myspace where I noted in my regularly frequented group, Knowledge and Wisdom, that I had returned, I walked to the memorial service happening at 9:45 AM, exactly one week after the shootings that killed 30 people in Norris Hall, a building which I frequented many times in the first seven years of my work here at VT, and where I had known many faculty who had their offices on the floor where the killings occurred. I felt some solidarity with the many other people I saw, mostly students, but faculty as well, walking towards Burruss Hall and the Hokie Stone Memorials where the service would begin. I was half-way across the Drillfield when the first bell tolled to start the service and trigger the release of the first white balloon for the first person who died. I stopped in my path. Thousands of others in the Drillfield, around Burruss Hall, and all over campus, became silent and motionless as 32 more balloons and an occasional firing of guns honored those who died. After the ceremony, I took the time to walk around each of the memorials and look at what had been left for the victims. Mostly just taking in the thought that these people were connected to hundreds of people, and those hundreds connected to hundreds more. Yes, I was beginning to feel the sadness myself, and beginning to experience a connection. The rest of the day had me responding to hundreds of email, trying to get done work that needed to be done, and talking to those with whom I wanted to connect. Today was more of the same until I connected this afternoon with a colleague who considered one of the dead a close personal friend. That brought the death so much closer, though giving me a chance to offer my support as best I could. Then I had another awakening to the pain, when I was told that a good acquaintance of mine had been shot in the arm. I remembered seeing him on the news on the 16th and thinking he had been hurt. There were at least 29 people other than the 32 dead who had been abused by the killer before he killed himself, and that was even more connection to pain and death. That's 62 people. If they each had 100 people who would consider themselves family, friends or close acquaintances, just those directly affected would amount to 6,200 people. If each of these people has another 100 people to which they are family or friends or close acquaintances, the number rises to 620,000 connections to the pain caused by that single gunman. That's a lot of pain, and then I think of the tens of thousands who have died in Iraq, and I realize the pain doesn't seem to have an end. Sometime this day a thought came to rest deeply in my awareness: I could have been one of those people who were killed. Just before sitting down to write here, this awareness brought up my fear of death. Yes, I could have been in those classrooms. I had been given a list of professors who are outstanding teachers, and in an effort to become a better teacher myself, I have been intent upon visiting the lectures of these professors. With fear of a real, direct connection to the horror of the past week, I checked that list, and none of them were those who had been killed on 4/16/07. However, the killer could have chosen a different time, a different room, a different day, a different building. In fact, another killer could chose a different time, room, day or building. I could have been in one of those classrooms. Or I could just die. That's what it's all about for me. I'm fretting my own mortality; the mortality of this body that I call myself. Yet I sense something coming from this, and maybe this is what a higher power had in mind for me: that my death is no different from the death of those who have passed with this massacre, and my life is not only no different from theirs, but it is no different from anyone's. In the deepest and most profound sense, our lives and deaths are the same, and I am deeply connected to everyone. As such, I died with and as horrifically as those who died on that fateful day at Virginia Tech. Yet I can never die, and those killed are still here with me today. I know them well.
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By Jeremy Siegman Apr 27 2007 Cosmology on the Rocks It always feels weird swallowing real-world events like the Virginia Tech massacre in the hazy cosmopolitanism of Uris Library. Cornell and its libraries, after all, are fleeing from the bustling Manhattans, from the culture of CNN and even the busy humming of our own town. It feels like fleeing from all that is extremist, religious or vulgar. And the Promised Land is the Hill, which, legend has it, is populated by a super-strong Atlas who can not only pick up the planet, but also stop it from warming too, and just foster utopia in general, all at the reasonable rate of only $40,000 a year (tax-free if you use Big Red Bucks!). This detached cosmopolitan Cornell is proud, richly endowed, but can be shaken. When an English major murders 32 people at a university, our university shakes. Finally, something has hit home; but utopianism hits back. Our president responds in the eloquent universalism we know best: "We are one; one community, one people, one planet." This is me responding, stuck in Uris Library because it's raining outside; I'm stuck, too, in this Skortonian universalism, as I consider the murderer, his condition and ours too. "Three Pro-Gun Bills Pending in Nevada Legislature!" exclaims a headline from NRA.org. You should press your senators to pass them, urges this National Rifle Association writer, so people can have the freedom to not register their handguns! Gun activists argue that Cho Seung-Hui should have been lawfully prevented from buying his .22-caliber and 9mm guns because of his mental illness. They also argue that gun-control laws should be toned down! This is utterly strange, this exaltation of the Second Amendment at a time like this. Considered in a vacuum, there's really nothing wrong with the right to bear arms. But when the bald eagle of America is made to hold rifles in its talons (the NRA logo) â€” a powerful symbol is crafted. It speaks loudly for a lot of Americans. The symbolic exaltation is poor form, with poor results: the nation that made Terminator I-III, Rambo, Quentin Tarantino and Cho too. Tarantino is not Cho â€” a talented artist, not a murderer. He doesn't shoot, he makes aesthetics. But what is his aesthetic? It is images of Cho and for Cho. Aesthetics broadcast culture, and culture affects people. What Cho most needed was probably medication. But what he needed second most was a culture that says, "don't shoot." This he did not quite have; rather, he had Kill Bill. And he had a precedent of almost 20 school shootings in America in the past 10 years. Add this to the list of things in which we lead the world; Germany is a not-so-close second, with only three. We have a cult of violence in this country. We also have a cult of hyper-individualism: the kind that cherishes individual rights like not having to register your gun. Violence could exist without this cult and so could mental illness; but I merely suggest some cultural change wouldn't be a bad thing. Diversity within Cornell works because the lack of religious and ethnic unity is compensated for: the minute you get here you are hit over the head with Freshman Orientation. You are explicitly told, that despite the diverse backgrounds and different colors â€” we are all friends. You are showered with programs and people your age, with your interests, your intelligence ... But diversity in the real America is ugly at times â€” the same diversity is extant, but there's no Freshman Orientation. There's no one really saying we are all friends. (In fact, we compete with out neighbors for almost everything.) We lack, then, a common language with which to tell the school shooters, "don't shoot." The American suicide murderer has no cause â€” unlike those who blew up themselves and 191 Iraqis in Baghdad just days after Virginia Tech. But perhaps what an American rebel with no cause needs is ... a cause. And a peaceful one to boot. In America, everyone has a different moral code â€” from the Bible to Gandhi to Oprah. The only normative force we share is our secular law: don't shoot because you'll go to jail. But Americans feel oppositional towards the law anyway: the under-21 collegiate "elite" could proudly drink most baby boomers under the table. The law is not enough. If there's anything that could work it might be Christianity; but America is no longer Christian. So why not just let each denomination speak its piece? A chorus of don't shoots in different languages and moralities? We already have this multiplicity, and Cho falls through the cracks. To add to our diversity, we a need language more common, so widely held that it can be strong enough to speak to the next Cho. If Americans are so different, it's only knowledge of each other that will bring that commonality. It's a university, or at least a good high school, that will bring that knowledge. It's getting everyone, even the poor, into those schools ... Consider, then, our Cornellian cosmopolitanism â€” "We are one; one community, one people, one planet" â€” turning around with the Hokies and the citizenry and facing reality, facing Cho, facing his Columbine counterparts Dylan and Eric. Consider gathering the psychological knowledge of their sickness, the practical knowledge of how to make society safe and the moral knowledge that murder is wrong. Consider gathering all this and broadcasting it mercilessly on TV, alongside images of eagles with no rifles in their talons. This might take a really long time â€” culture does â€” and there will always be psychological violence. But if the relative peace of this campus on a Hill is any paradigm, then let's take the reigns of the real world. Let's be powerful the way we know how. Let's create some ideology, disseminate it and brainwash everyone. If we're good enough at it, we'll even reach the next Cho: mental illness could resist even a culture of peace, but it'd be quite a bit harder. Yes, we'll pick up where the sixties left off: we'll brainwash them into thinking we are all one. Maybe, in fact, we are. Jeremy Siegman is a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be contacted at jas367@cornell.edu. Cosmology on the Rocks appears alternate Fridays. -- Original Source:Cornell Daily Sun - April 27, 2007
Jonny Lieberman <jdl46@cornell.edu>, <lieberman.jonny@gmail.com>
Message says: "With reflection we remember those we lost and who lost so much With pride we stand beside the brave With hope we stand by you as you rebuild Virginia Tech...You are in our hearts and minds" Photo taken at the April 16 Memorial on April 15, 2008. Photo by Brent Jesiek. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0
Display of support painted on front window of Imaginations Toy and Furniture Company, South Main Street, Blacksburg. The poem reads: If we had hinges in our heads There wouldn't be no sin. 'Cause we could take the bad stuff out, And leave the good stuff in. - Shel Silverstein Photo taken by Brent Jesiek on June 9, 2007. -- Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0.
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"In Loving Memory" sign at balloon memorial at GMU.