There are always a trio of TVs running next to the information desk in Squires, tuned to three different news channels. All three were reporting on Virginia Tech. Original source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/waldoj/463568953/in/set-72157600088262276/ Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0
Permission: Waldo Jaquith http://www.flickr.com/photos/waldoj/463568953/in/set-72157600088262276/ Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0
This photo was captured on the football field at the Virginia Tech convocation. Original source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/spector1/463353657/ Photo Courtesy of Roger Gupta
Permission: Roger Gupta http://www.flickr.com/photos/spector1/463353657/
Editor's Journal: Virginia Tech Shooting Hits Close To Home; The True Character Of A Generation Is Revealed
BY RICHARD McCORMACK richard@manufacturingnews.com On Thursday afternoon April 19, three days after the shootings at Virginia Tech, my wife and I put our dog in the car and headed south to visit our son, a senior engineering major at the university. As we drove four hours from Washington, D.C., through the Shenandoah Valley, I imagined what it must have been like for the parents of the slain children taking that same drive just a few days earlier, calling repeatedly to their children's cell phones, silently ringing: leaving messages you'd never want to hear. So thankful was I to the Lord that it wasn't me having to take that drive in a state of panic and delirium. As we approached Blacksburg, I missed the exit for Main Street, a quicker road to my son's apartment. It bothered me. I was tired and anxious to get there and I had added another five minutes to the trip. I sighed and continued for another couple of miles to the main entrance to Tech. I had not expected to be on campus -- anticipating a route that bypassed the school to my son's townhouse. We took a right turn onto campus, drove a quarter mile past the visitor's center and approached the big "VT" letters on the left of the road. And I shuddered. Here we were, suddenly at the site of calamitous pain and bloodshed, the uninterrupted focal point of the global media for the past three days. It knocked the air out of my lungs. I struggled to take a breath. My chest constricted; speechless, dizzied. These events -- Columbine, Waco, Jonesboro, Oklahoma City, 9/11, the Washington sniper, the Amish elementary school, the Iraq war and now Virginia Tech -- are no longer an aberration but are defining the new American culture: one of unfathomable loss of innocents at the hands of suicidal maniacs. What nightmare awaits us next? We drove slowly through the quiet campus, feeling beat up from the week's events. We arrived and hugged our son and his roommates. They are all incredible people; struggling with the incomprehensible, but maintaining a sense of humor, one of them hilariously mocking the killer's idiotic video performance. Thank God for the youth of today. Our politicians, business leaders and academicians should stop castigating them for being indolent or ill equipped for the future, because they are neither. In the days following the tragedy, the students at Virginia Tech defended themselves with the utmost rectitude from a second wave of snipers -- this time the press corps -- and they gallantly rallied around their beloved university, around each other and around their embattled leaders. In the face of despair and in a state of shock, they showed us the future of our nation: one of hope, inspiration and tolerance. I have three children, ages 23, 22 and 18. For 23 years, I have resented criticism about the deplorable state of our youth and our educational system. There are an incalculable number of extremely bright, energetic and infinitely talented, motivated children and young adults, none of whom have ever been "left behind." Need evidence? Only 12 percent of the applicants to MIT were accepted for the 2007 school year, or 1,533 out of 12,433. "It was very, very hard to select such a small number of students in such a large and stellar applicant pool," said former MIT dean of admissions Marilee Jones. Or how about Stanford, which sent letters of acceptance to 1,715 of the 23,956 applicants, 7 percent. Even a huge school like Virginia Tech received 19,000 applications for a freshman class of 5,000. Read the obituaries of the fallen Virginia Tech students and you know how much worse off the world will be without them, and that is only 32 students in a school of 26,000. Our children have been flailed by politicians and armchair critics and pundits, self-fashioned smarter-than-anybody-else people, none of whom were in my house as my children stayed up until 1:30 a.m. on weeknights completing their AP history papers, studying for tests in calculus, physics and chemistry, writing stories on deadline for the high-school newspaper or -- this very night -- reading "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley. And it wasn't me pushing them, either. They did it on their own. It is time for the critics to shush up. We have put a lot on our children: the real-life specter of a calamitous death at the hands of madmen; a seemingly terrorized future with regards to a "generational" global war on terror; the specter of an ecological catastrophe; and enormous budget and trade deficits that they will have to pay off someday, somehow. And dare not mention the cost and sacrifice involved in providing and getting an education today. Our society has pulled the rug out from under them. They're on their own, yet they exude a collective and refreshing sense of optimism and confidence. The burden of the war in Iraq is also falling squarely on their shoulders. Our young soldiers are courageous and heroic. Their entire generation will be carrying the scars from this conflict for the remainder of their lives together. No other generation is currently carrying such a heavy load. Yet do you hear them complain? Ever? If you need to experience the future of this country, to gauge the character of our youth and the inspiration and hope that they provide for mankind, then log onto the Virginia Tech Web site and watch the convocation that was held the day after more than 170 bullets were shot in four classrooms. President Bush's benediction was among his finest showings in six years. Watch the event through to the end, for the final minutes capture for eternity one of the great moments in American history. When the Earth is waste and void, when the darkness is upon the face of the deep, the human spirit does prevail. At the end of the convocation, after the grieving students have listened to the adults, they get to have their collective say -- in a cathartic, unplanned and exhilarating 30-second burst of energy; a release of unfathomable tension and grief; a redemptive moment that burns itself to memory. As my wife observed, it is as if they were opening the gates of heaven to their fallen peers. Thank you young Hokies for showing us the true character of your generation. We needed that. You will prevail. http://www.hokiesports.com/convocation.html -- Archived with permission of the author. Original Source: Manufacturing and Technology News, April 27, 2007, Volume 14, No. 8 http://www.manufacturingnews.com/news/07/0427/art1.html
Richard McCormack (editor@manufacturingnews.com)
Editorial The Lancet Available online 26 April 2007. The blood had not yet dried in the lecture rooms of Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, before polarised camps claimed that the slaughter of 32 students and teachers vindicated their particular stance on gun control. So shrill was the debate about whether the tragedy would have been better prevented by reducing firearms through stronger gun laws or by increasing availability through liberalising right-to-carry legislation, that the more important issue of gun violence as a public-health menace has been neglected. Until the debate widens to address violence as a preventable social problem, rather than solely a legal concern, mass shootings will continue. To pretend that the Blacksburg tragedy is unique ignores the legacy of school shootings in Dunblane, Columbine, and elsewhere, and deprives people of an opportunity to reduce future risks. Violence is a broad problem that involves communities, not just criminals, and populations around the world, not just the USA. In 2003, 1·6 million people were killed by violence worldwide, more than by road traffic crashes or malaria. One-third died as a result of homicide. The incidence is rising, fuelled by inequalities, victimisation, and lack of social trust, so that gunshot wounds are a major cause of death for young men. Because the USA has the highest homicide and gun-homicide rates of any industrialised democracy, the country is a natural focus for attempts to learn more about violence. But despite many Federally funded programmes, objective research on interventions to reduce violence is lacking. Nor has the Campbell Collaboration, established to synthesise evidence for the social sciences, provided guidance. In 2004, the US National Research Council critically reviewed gun violence and concluded that there was little quality science to inform decision making. The reason is that most studies are based on associations or on before-and-after series. A 2004 survey from Harvard estimated that 38% of households and 26% of individuals had at least one of the 283 million private firearms in the USA. Even teenagers report ready access to guns. Several studies in the USA and elsewhere cite protection as the main reason for having a gun, despite the fact that guns are far more likely to be used offensively, including suicide, than for self-defence. The association of firearms and their use in homicide between populations (four shooting deaths per 100 000 in the USA vs 0·15 per 100 000 in Cameroon where private guns are banned) is complex and obviously involves cultural factors as well. Yet, interventions within populations that remove guns do seem to reduce gun crime in a reproducible manner. In 2003, more than half the guns retrieved from crimes were traced to 1% of dealers. When such a dealer in Milwaukee stopped selling inexpensive handguns, local gun crime was reduced by 96% and the transfer of new weapons to criminals decreased by 44%. In Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, and Kansas City, policing to remove illegal firearms from the street reduced gun crime as well. Multiple interventions combining social networks with stronger enforcement can also be successful, such as the 63% drop in homicides after Operation Ceasefire in Boston. Tougher gun laws in Brazil in 2003, allied with a buy-back programme of 450 000 guns, reduced the gun-homicide rate by 8% and hospitalisation for gunshots by 4·6%. How can such findings inform sensible policy decisions? The National Research Council concludes that individual-level data are needed. Characteristics of victims can be enhanced with WHO's International Classification of External Causes of Injuries, which by introducing standard reporting criteria, enables comparisons between studies. But there are few details about perpetrators, since criminal background checks for sales by gun dealers are destroyed within 24 h and private second-hand sales, which constitute 40% of gun transfers in the USA, are not recorded. To understand assailants' risk factors requires records of gun ownership or ballistic fingerprinting, to which the powerful US National Rifle Association is opposed. The events in Blacksburg on April 16 demand a more mature evaluation of gun violence, based on the right to health instead of the right to bear arms, and which places public welfare above self-interest. The National Research Council's call for accurate, individual-level data from rigorous studies is essential, in order to provide robust information on which sound interventions can be based. But until such data are available, the best current evidence clearly supports an immediate reduction in the availability of firearms as a public-health priority. -- Reprinted with permission from Elsevier (The Lancet, 2007, Vol 369, Issue 9571, p 1403)
Clare Truter, Rights Manager, S&T, Elsevier (permissions@elsevier.com)
Fastest Presidential answer to a citizen request
[May 17] Fastest Presidential answer to a citizen request Miami, FL, US / (Press Release) The record for the World's "Fastest Presidential answer to a citizen request" has just been accepted by the World Records Academy. The new record holder is President Traian Basescu (Romania), who promptly answered to an emergency citizen request on April 18 and has issued in less than two hours a Presidential Decree conferring of the National Order „The Star of Romania" to Mr. Professor Liviu Librescu. Also as requested, two days later, in Israel, a special envoy of the Romanian president presented to his widow and two sons the Star of Romania medal in recognition of his courage and contribution to science. Romanian born Professor Liviu Librescu is the hero "who, at the cost of his own life, saved the lives of his students during the massacre at Virginia Tech." -according to Jewish War veterans of the USA. The Certificate for this new world record will reach President Basescu during the next days and his record will be listed in the 2008 edition of the World Records Book, the official publication of the World Records Academy. "The main point of this story which convinced us to recognize this somehow unusual (but very human-appealling) world record was that a President which knew he has only few hours left before being suspended by the Parliament, a President which has to approve and sign tons of documents during his last few hours as President, left everything behind -as requested by an ordinary citizen (a 23 years old girl, a marketing student!)- and did what a President always has to do in the first instance: served his Country, above anything else, even above his own personal political problems", said Tom Howard, Head of Records for World Records Academy. He also added "We all have dreamed about changing the World in better, some still hopes, aren't we? If the young generation still has this dream, it's encouraging, especially when somebody like...a President, does fulfill their dreams." "It's kind of 'It could happen to you' story, but this time it wasn't anything material involved, only the noble desire to pay respects to a Hero, and pay them on time! In that movie, during the evening before loosing their restaurant, the goodhearted couple still have the patience and heart to open their cafe and handle a last bowl of soup to a street man (an undercover journalist). This time, possibly being just a-step-to-his-career's end, a President left everything behind and did a notable gesture." "No wonder why this President has become so popular among regular citizens in his country, Romania, and why the younger generation widely supports him: if you write a message (in a matter of National Interest) to a President and he do what he was asked to do, simply because the request was right, that's the President I think anybody would LOVE to have!" -- Original Source: http://www.worldrecordsacademy.org/amazing/fastest_presidential_answer_to_a_citizen_request_70180.htm
Memorials are a positive force after tragedy
Published: Thursday, May 3, 2007 Opinion articles Danielle Tumminio Guest Column 4/17/07. When students from Virginia Tech struggled to make sense of the horror that struck their campus last week, they erected a banner on their student center with the date of the massacre. It provided a reminder of a time and a place, a way to express a trauma through white lettering on black canvas. It was an attempt to remember. Theirs is not the first — nor, unfortunately, will it be the last — commemoration of a tragedy. This desire to remember seems built into us. We sing, sculpt, hold one another, dance, write poems and pray in order to find solace in our most tumultuous moments. Using these forms, we try to incorporate trauma into our lives so that we can give meaning to events that feel meaningless. If we're going to move forward from the horrors we experience, this process seems essential. Otherwise, evil becomes something like a dangling participle not properly integrated into a sentence. It hangs there, and it has, quite literally, the last word. There's no hope in a worldview like that. So through our memorials, we try to find meaning. Perhaps that's why our nation's capital is peppered with commemorations of wars and those who represented our country in them. Through carved stone, we remember our history. Likewise, after the Columbine shootings, students draped flowers over Rachel Scott's car and sat on its hood, sobbing in grief. Leaning against red Acuras, we remember our loves. Or following Hurricane Katrina, memorial services were held in worship spaces across the country. In our religious homes, we remember the possibility of hope. But if there are right ways to remember, there are certainly wrong ways to remember as well. "Just move on" and "It's time to get over it" are common phrases in our culture, and they imply that the only way to recover from a traumatic event is to forget it. The trouble with these cliches is that they conflate remembering with reliving. Reliving traps us in the past, keeps us from existing in the present and building hope for the future. But remembering is different: It is the means by which, again and again, we try to defeat pointless horrors by giving them some perspective. That's the transformation that must occur if we are to prevent the dangling-participle problem. This power of memorializing is something I've experienced in my own life. I was a junior at Yale on Sept. 11, 2001. I remember that the phone lines were down, and I couldn't call my family. When the trains were running again, I returned to the New York suburb in which I grew up. I felt isolated and frightened. When the Amtrak drew near Manhattan, the train slowed and passengers huddled near the windows, gazing upon a skyline that had changed forever. It looked tilted — just like my reality — even though rising grey smoke held the place where the towers once stood. Then the conductor asked us to keep a moment of silence, and it became our memorial, our remembrance of a horror that shaped our lives. They were strangers on that train, but they shared something with me — they were mourning, too — and they became my community at a time when I felt profoundly protected. In that memorial, I was offered a sign of hope that I was not alone. I will never forget that, nor should I. In the aftermath of Sept. 11, I, and so many others, observed endless memorials. Some were noble, some bittersweet and some gut-wrenching: signs for missing people in Grand Central Terminal, military planes that kept watch over Manhattan with their deafening drones, chaplains for the cleanup crews and the putrid stench from the pyre of the Twin Towers. Those memorials challenged and changed our understanding of a horror. The same goes for the students at Virginia Tech. As they wear their school colors and attend candlelight vigils and invite a nation to mourn with them, they bear witness to nightmare. That experience will transform them, in their grieving and their remembering, in their hope and their search to make sense of the insensible. To forget the tragedy would be to forget who they were, who they are and whom they will become. But how they remember is their choice. 9/11/2001. 4/20/1999. 8/23/2005. 4/16/2007. These are the dates that form us. These are the dates that are seared into our memories. These are the dates we cannot — and should not — forget. Danielle Elizabeth Tumminio is a 2003 graduate of Yale College and a fourth-year student at the Yale Divinity School. -- Original Source: Yale Daily News - May 3, 2007
Yale Daily News, Editor-in-chief - Sarah Mishkin <sarah.mishkin@gmail.com>
Pychoanalysis won't fully explain VT killer
Published: Friday, April 27, 2007 Opinion articles By: Carol Duh My parents immigrated into this country in 1982. My parents told me a Taiwanese parable while I attended the same schools as Mike Pohle, one of the 32 victims of last week's massacre. In the story, a teacher took his class on a field trip to the mountains of Taiwan. On the way home, they encountered a swarm of killer bees. The teacher removed his clothing to attract the bees away from the children to his flesh. I heard the echoes of this parable while reading about Liviu Librescu, the professor who blocked the classroom door with his body while the gunman demanded entry. While he did this, students escaped through the windows. No doubt that being stung by bullets was agonizing. There was little dignity in these painful deaths, only in their sacrifice. And what of the bee? The bee who stings out of cowardice dies soon after, so we cannot ask. Panicked, we call in the world-class bee experts to explain the situation. This response, though gratifying, is in vain. Like Wall Street analysts who offer their best predictions after the fact, the analysis will not provide us with the protection we need. The bee and Seung Cho perceived threats that were not real; their behavior escapes appreciation. Let's try anyway. His parents were South Korean immigrants who sent a daughter to Princeton and a son to Virginia Tech — a feat worthy to boast of across many oceans. College is the frame upon which immigrants hang their hopes, but sometimes it comes at a price. The drive that steers us toward hard work is often frustrated by the apparent frivolity that pervades American campus culture. Fraternity keggers, society taps — these seem to be the cornerstones of the American college student's anxiety. To the ethic of a different culture, they are laughable. Seung Cho's complaints, through lunacy, tap the drumbeat of this disappointment. Seung Cho's two defining characteristics continue to be his mental health and his immigration status. Experts dissect the belongings strewn about his dorm room, scrambling for a diagnosis. Depression. Paranoia. Obviously. It is insulting to the millions of positive mental illness survivors to dwell on this. On the other hand, we could further probe the reality of cultural disparity and the specific causes he cited for his intense dissatisfaction with his experience in the United States. Yet to draw conclusions about immigration from his story is an enormous disservice to the core of the nation's foundation and strength. Both of the gunman's prominent characteristics lead to a dead end. I know a man who spent 17 years in prison. He told me that the scariest inmates are the ones who are there for life. The lifers languish in hopelessness, and claim this as license to be brutal and sadistic toward everyone else. Another man I know was born deaf and contracted AIDS in his late teens. A few years ago, Michigan tried to prosecute him for sexual predation when he, with a willful heart, transmitted the virus to 13 different people within the span of six weeks. He remains unrepentant. Why do people sink into despair? The painful simplicity of the answer escapes psychoanalysis: laziness. Seung Cho chose bitterness as his permanent sanctuary, allowing himself to drown. Yes, he was unwanted and weak, and he elicits a kind of sympathy. Perhaps the shore seemed distant and we all know that without constant encouragement, the race is long. But we do it. We brush ourselves off after devastating exams, awkward dates, even outright evidence of human unkindness. As every first-generation student will tell you, we are too lucky to be given so much. As Seung Cho embraced his victimhood, we should embrace this explanation and free ourselves from this futile search into his psyche. How should we, the children in the parable, react to this event? When confronted with people who churn bitterness into poison, the natural reaction is fear. We buy bigger guns, go to college closer to home and dead-bolt our doors. Such malevolence seems intolerable to tempt with risk. Fear is the pulse of Seung Cho's madness, and this is the lesson he expected to teach. Yet Seung forgot his role in the parable — the bee was never a teacher. We see the families of Virginia Tech. Grief is agony, but it will not kill us. Seung Cho underestimated the goodness his psychosis would beget. Enduring traits of the human spirit enable the sacrifice of the Taiwanese schoolteacher and the Virginia Tech professor to transcend cultural borders to show that no matter where you are, the broken heart continues to beat. This country may not always safeguard us, but retreat will not protect us. The teacher's pain was apparent, his message clearer still. Seek comfort not in bitterness, but in courage and hope. We are always safe in their arms. Carol Duh is a senior in Trumbull College. -- Original Source: Yale Daily News - April 27th, 2007
Editor-in-Chief, Yale Daily News - Sarah Mishkin <sarah.mishkin@gmail.com>
Published: Friday, April 27, 2007 Maggie Reid Staff Reporter In her sophomore year at Yale, Naasiha Siddiqui '07 found herself facing more problems than just the sophomore slump. Siddiqui was severely depressed, and when she checked into the Mental Hygiene Department at University Health Services, she was forced to leave school on medical withdrawal. Ever since, she has struggled to balance manic depression with a college career — taking three forced withdrawals and one voluntary leave of absence, and applying for readmission five times. "I was really frustrated," she said, referring to her first forced withdrawal in the fall of 2001. "Their attitude was, 'She's unstable, we don't want her at school right now.' In one respect, it seemed like discrimination because I was doing all I could to try to stay in school. But on the other hand, the administration should have some say over when students aren't fit to go to school." Mental illness has long been a hot-button issue on college campuses, but in the wake of this month's shootings at Virginia Tech, even greater scrutiny has been placed on university support systems for students with psychological illnesses. At Yale, the Mental Hygiene Department specializes in counseling and crisis intervention for suicide and depression cases. But in seeking to protect the psychological health of its students, Yale's mental health services must walk the fine line between enabling students to receive treatment while remaining in school and protecting the student's health and safety — or the health and safety of others — by sending seriously depressed students off campus. For the most part, universities across the country find themselves in a sticky situation with regard to mentally ill students. Universities may be found liable if they fail to detect and respond to cases that result in suicide or murder. But privacy and anti-discrimination laws limit the amount of information about students' mental health to which administrators have access, and the laws may prevent administrators from forcing students to take involuntary medical leaves. In general, the laws forbid universities from disclosing information about a student's health records to parents or administrators, including residential college deans and masters, without the student's consent. The exception comes when health officials believe that the health and safety of the student or of others are at risk. But Yale administrators said the definition of such an emergency is often blurry. Because of the subjectivity of such cases, the decision whether or not to force a student to withdraw is made on a case-by-case basis, YUHS Chief Psychiatrist Lorraine Siggins said. "Most students who take a medical withdrawal ask for it themselves," Siggins said. "However, occasionally a student who had attempted suicide and is considered to be a danger to self and others is asked to take time away from school for treatment and to get their mental health issues stabilized." According to University policy, if a student is forced to withdraw for mental health reasons, he or she may not reapply until two semesters have passed, including the one during which he or she left. With such serious consequences, administrators said, withdrawal cannot be forced simply based on strange behavior or a possible diagnosis of mental illness, Siggins said. Yale officials said the forced withdrawal policy serves the best interests of vulnerable and potentially reckless students. When students are severely mentally unstable, Siggins said, they can lack the presence of mind to voluntarily seek the medical help and time away from campus that they need to resolve health issues. But Siggins said students are expected, as dictated by University regulations, to return to school as soon as doctors confirm that they have recovered. The YUHS Mental Hygiene Department seeks to address mental health problems before they reach the point of necessitating a forced withdrawal. It offers mental health and counseling services to all enrolled students throughout the year, Siggins said, and because mental health issues can be dangerous and pressing, the department makes a concerted effort to be easily accessible, providing an on-duty psychiatrist 24 hours a day. "In the course of an academic year, we see between 16 percent and 20 percent of the student body," Siggins said. "For students who have continuing mental health problems, we can provide treatment throughout the year." But although officials say Yale's mental health counseling program focuses on reaching students before they reach a crisis point, Yalies who have gone through counseling at the Mental Hygiene Department said that Yale could do a better job of removing barriers to getting help. Susan* voluntarily entered the counseling program at YUHS during the first semester of her sophomore year. Although she told them she needed immediate attention for urgent anxiety and depression, she had to wait over a week before she was allowed to see a therapist, instead meeting first with a clinical social worker. "Unless you are suicidal, they make it very difficult to see someone," Susan said. "This is particularly scary when it comes to mental hygiene problems." Susan said the narrow-minded focus on suicide detection to the exclusion of other problems deterred her from using campus psychiatrists and led her to consult a therapist in a different state whom she can only visit once a month. But she added that though it can be difficult to get an initial appointment, once a student has made an first visit to the YUHS clinic, it becomes easy to get further appointments with a therapist. Siddiqui said the prospect of being forced to withdraw can also prevent students from going to seek help. "Mental hygiene can be very alienating," Siddiqui said. "Since I had my experience, a lot of my friends have been afraid to go to mental hygiene because they don't want to get kicked out of school. It's not a very welcoming place." Some students said the mental health department is too quick to act in cases of suspected depression. One student who had been referred to a YUHS psychiatrist said that fear of liability in the event of a suicide or murder makes Yale administrators move too swiftly to hospitalize or force the withdrawal of a student. During a psychiatry session, Ryan,* a junior at Yale who has withdrawn because of his bipolar disorder, said the therapist kept asking him if he ever had suicidal thoughts, and specifically if he was drawn to sharp objects or tempted to hurt himself. Ryan said that though he ultimately was given a choice whether to withdraw, officials pressured him to do so. While the attention to suicide might be helpful in preventing crisis situations, Ryan said, the manner in which it was addressed was unhelpful. "I might have been suicidal, but I wasn't looking to withdraw," Ryan said. Ryan said that he has seen private psychiatrists who never mentioned hospitalization, but that college doctors are more ready to hospitalize their patients because of the fear of liability in the case of a suicide. Outside the examining rooms of health services departments, universities often find it difficult to determine when psychiatric help is warranted, since it is difficult to know when a student's erratic behavior stems from mental illness rather than the vagaries of ordinary college life. Though Yale prides itself on providing many levels of supervision, from peers and professors to the residential college system, some students worry that this method of observation and personal counseling is not necessarily effective. "I talked to my master and dean about my problems, but they didn't even notice anything was wrong before I brought it up," Susan said. In the wake of the Virginia Tech massacre, deans and freshman counselors have discussed the protocols already in place to deal with students who may seem to have psychological problems. Freshman counselors in Branford and Silliman said they discussed mental health risks at their weekly meetings with their deans last Monday. But their rules about watchfulness or guidance did not change in the aftermath of the shootings, counselors said. "We talked about the incident, but we did not get any official instructions," freshman counselor Amy Broadbent '07 said. Although there is no specific protocol for the freshmen counselors to follow if they become aware of a possible mental health issue, they said they are trained to talk to students who come to them with problems and to take them to see professionals at YUHS. Counselors said they deal with mental health issues on a case-by-case basis, and have confronted problems ranging from severe depression to slight anxiety over classes or relationships. "We have liaisons in the mental health department if we have any questions or to help us navigate the bureaucracy," said Howard Locker '07, a freshman counselor in Silliman. "The dean did not specifically tell us to be more on the lookout [after Virginia Tech], it's something I think most counselors are innately attuned to do in the wake of such a tragedy." Siggins said that although 90 percent of the students who come in for therapy do so on their own, the rest usually come to the clinic at the suggestion of their deans, coaches or friends. But she said there is no difference in the amount of attention paid to students based on how they were referred. "We always take student peer concerns very seriously," Siggins said. "We treat each student on an individual basis." *The names of some students have been changed to protect their medical information. -- Original Source: Yale Daily News - April 27, 2007
Editor-in-chief, Yale Daily News - Sarah Mishkin <sarah.mishkin@gmail.com>
Published: Friday, April 20, 2007 Courtney Long Staff Reporter and Copy Editor In the wake of Monday's massacre at Virginia Tech in which a student killed 32 people, Dean of Student Affairs Betty Trachtenberg has limited the use of stage weapons in theatrical productions. Students involved in this weekend's production of "Red Noses" said they first learned of the new rules on Thursday morning, the same day the show was slated to open. They were subsequently forced to alter many of the scenes by swapping more realistic-looking stage swords for wooden ones, a change that many students said was neither a necessary nor a useful response to the tragedy at Virginia Tech. According to students involved in the production, Trachtenberg has banned the use of some stage weapons in all of the University's theatrical productions. While shows will be permitted to use obviously fake plastic weapons, students said, those that hoped to stage more realistic scenes of stage violence have had to make changes to their props. Trachtenberg could not be reached for comment Thursday night. "Red Noses" director Sarah Holdren '08 said she first heard about the changes in a phone call from a friend as she arrived at the Off-Broadway Theater on Thursday morning. At the theater, technical director Jim Brewczynski told her about the new regulations. The pair then met with Trachtenberg, who initially wanted no stage weapons to be used in the show, Holdren said, though she later agreed to permit the use of obviously fake weapons. In a speech made before last night's opening show of "Red Noses," Holdren said that Trachtenberg's decision to force the production to use wooden swords instead of metal swords will do little to stem violence in the world. "Calling for an end to violence onstage does not solve the world's suffering: It merely sweeps it under the rug, turning theater — in the words of this very play — into 'creamy bon-bons' instead of 'solid fare' for a thinking, feeling audience," she said. "Here at Yale, sensitivity and political correctness have become censorship in this time of vital need for serious artistic expression." Holdren said she is primarily worried about the University's decision to place limitations on art, rather than the specific inconvenience to her production. "I completely understand that the University needs to respond to the tragedy, but I think it is wrong to conflate sensitivity and censorship," she said in an interview. "It is wrong to assume that any theater that deals with tragic matter is sort of on the side of those things or out to get people; they're not — they're out to help people through things like this. I want my show and all shows to be uplifting to people. That's why I'm upset about this — it's not because my props were taken — it's about imposing petty restrictions on art as the right way to solve the problems in the world." Brandon Berger '10, who plays a swordsman in the show, said the switch to an obviously fake wooden sword has changed the nature of his part from an "evil, errant knight to a petulant child." "They're trying to make an appropriate gesture, but they did it in an inappropriate way — they've neutered the play," he said. "The violence is important to what it actually means. What these types of actions do is very central — it is not gratuitous." Susie Kemple '08, an actress in the show, said Trachtenberg's way of dealing with the Virginia Tech massacre was not beneficial to the students' own mourning process. "It is problematic because all of us were incredibly shocked by the events at Virginia Tech," Kemple said. "We turn to extracurriculars in our grief [and] the Yale administration makes the healing more difficult. None of the shows are about massive gun violence — this show is about showing and explaining the human experience." Berger also said he finds the ruling inconsistent because forms of stage violence that do not involve weapons — such as hangings — are still permitted. "Red Noses" will end its run Saturday night. -- Original Source: Yale Daily News - April 20, 2007
Published: Monday, April 23, 2007 Cullen Macbeth Staff Reporter Members of Yale's undergraduate theater community reacted with anger over the weekend to Dean of Student Affairs Betty Trachtenberg's decision to bar performance groups — at least temporarily — from using life-like weapons in their productions. The new rule is meant to protect audience members who may have connections to last week's deadly gun massacre at Virginia Tech University or who may react adversely to violence on stage because of personal experiences, Trachtenberg said. But many students said the new restrictions represent inappropriate censorship of student artwork and that Trachtenberg should not have implemented them without soliciting student input beforehand. The new restrictions were put in place to protect people in the Yale and New Haven communities who live or have friends who live in Virginia, or who have seen people die by gun violence, Trachtenberg said. She said the outcry from students upset with her decision has been exaggerated. "I think people should start thinking about other people rather than trying to feel sorry for themselves and thinking that the administration is trying to thwart their creativity," Trachtenberg said. "They're not using their own intelligence. ... We have to think of the people who might be affected by seeing real-life weapons." The new restrictions do not ban all types of stage weapons, Trachtenberg said. She said she did not prevent an instructor in theater studies who talked to her on Friday from using a dulled knife to cut a cabbage head in a production, for example. This weekend's productions of "Red Noses" and "Orpheus in the Underworld" were affected by the rule change. "Red Noses" had to substitute wooden swords for more realistic-looking ones after learning of the rule from Trachtenberg on Thursday. The University overstepped its bounds by prohibiting the ways in which students can express themselves on stage, said Dara Lind '09, who has managed and produced several campus performances. "Personally, I am very strongly anti-censorship as far as the arts are concerned," she said. "I don't understand what gives the college the right to try to circumscribe artistic expression like that." Lind is a staff columnist for the News. Students should be left to decide for themselves what is appropriate to include in their productions and should be able to use theater to realistically portray a range of topics, including those relating to gun violence, Yale Drama Coalition Vice President Mike Leibenluft '10 said. While he was in high school, Leibenluft said, he worked on a show about the Columbine High School shootings that documented witnesses' reactions to the violence. "I think the fact that it assumes that we first of all can't deal with these issues in a dramatic setting and also we can't take responsibility for the theater that is produced and the reaction it has from Yale students is pretty shocking," he said. "I was incredibly surprised by it. I think it's totally inappropriate." Leibenluft said Trachtenberg should have consulted with students before implementing the new regulation. But Yale Dramatic Association President Emmett Zackheim '08 said he is not concerned by the ban because he thinks the normal rules governing the use of weapons in theatrical productions will be reinstated before long. "I don't think it's a disaster for everyone involved in theater," he said. "It essentially doesn't concern me. I probably wouldn't have done the same thing necessarily, but I'm not really concerned by it." Trachtenberg has not yet decided whether the new restrictions will be in place permanently and will review the decision as "things settle down," she said. She said she consulted with representatives from the Theater Studies Program and did not make a "unilateral decision" about the rule. Lind and several other students formed a "FEAR NO ART" Facebook group over the weekend to protest Trachtenberg's decision and discussed ways to try to get the rule reversed. The groups have not yet decided on a definite plan, she said, but they may stage a rally on Beinecke Plaza or attempt to set up a meeting with Trachtenberg to discuss the rule. "As far as collaboration is concerned, it will probably just be easiest to take public action," Lind said. "The best way to prove that art gives much more to the student body than it takes away is to have public art and demonstrate to people what the benefit is of having unrestricted artistic expression." The continuation of the new restrictions could hamper the theater community's willingness and ability to put on a wide variety of shows, YDC founder Eyad Houssami '07 said. He said he would have "strong reservations" about agreeing to produce a show that requires stage weapons — such as the one he put on for his senior project, which required a shotgun — if the ban on realistic props remains in place. "When you're using realistic props, it doesn't make sense to substitute them with children's toys, because you are making a mockery of the play and of the character," Houssami said. "I feel like by banning weapons from the stage at Yale, we are kind of silencing a potentially fruitful debate on violence and the nature of violence in America today." The University had rules in place before last week that limited the kinds of weapons students could use in productions, Trachtenberg said, but she does not know the exact provisions. -- Original Source: Yale Daily News - April 23, 2007
Published: Wednesday, April 25, 2007 Tyler Hill Staff Reporter After a weekend of national media coverage and student outcry, administrators decided Monday to rescind the ban on stage weapons that was enacted in the wake of the Virginia Tech massacre. Last week, Dean of Student Affairs Betty Trachtenberg told several students that realistic-looking stage weapons would no longer be permitted in Yale theatrical productions. Amid concerns that the restriction was inhibiting free speech, a group of administrators decided Monday to overturn the policy, Yale spokeswoman Helaine Klasky said. In the future, Yale will require that audiences be warned before performances that include scenes with fake weapons, she said. Trachtenberg had originally intended to ban all stage weapons, but was persuaded that obviously fake weapons should be permitted, Sarah Holdren '08 told the News last Thursday. Holdren directed this weekend's production of "Red Noses," which was forced to use wooden swords instead of more realistic props. The restriction also affected the opera "Orpheus in the Underworld," which used balloon swords in place of its real-looking stage weapons. News of the University's reversal was only released when a reporter from the Associated Press called Klasky on Monday evening to ask about the original restriction. Students have not yet been officially informed of the change in policy, Klasky said. Administrators, including Yale President Richard Levin, weighed in on the decision to overturn the ban after it became apparent that it concerned issues of free speech, Levin said. Although the administration will not censor future shows, he said, the Dean of Student Affairs still has the authority to regulate student productions. "The fundamental consideration was trading off artistic freedom of expression against concern about the potential emotional precariousness of audiences during the week of a mass murder," he said. "There was a different approach which hadn't been considered at the time, and the approach would be not to censor the show but warn the audience." But Holdren said she asked Trachtenberg on Thursday to consider allowing the use of realistic-looking weapons if the staff included a warning before each show. At the time, Trachtenberg found that alternative unacceptable, Holdren said. She said that although the change comes too late to affect her show, which ended its run on Saturday, she is glad the administration has considered the issue more carefully. "Obviously professional theater companies do shows with weapons all of the time and it's up to the audience's discretion whether or not to watch," she said. Trachtenberg declined to comment Tuesday night about the reversal of her decision, but over the weekend she told the News that student criticism of the stage weapons ban had been exaggerated. "I think people should start thinking about other people rather than trying to feel sorry for themselves and thinking that the administration is trying to thwart their creativity," Trachtenberg said. "They're not using their own intelligence. ... We have to think of the people who might be affected by seeing real-life weapons." Dustin Cho '08, chair of the Yale chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said "knee jerk" reactions are common after national tragedies, but that such limitations on free speech inhibit any meaningful dialogue. Generally Yale is very good at protecting free speech, he said. "It's quite a stretch to say that substituting realistic-looking prop swords with wooden ones showed more sensitivity to the shooting victims," he said. "This was a grave mistake, but I'm glad they took care of it immediately." Trachtenberg, who has served as Dean of Student Affairs for 20 years, announced in November that she is stepping down at the end of the academic year. -- Original Source: Yale Daily News - April 25, 2007
A community in tears said its goodbye on Thursday from one of its members, professor Liviu Librescu, killed in the Virginia Tech massacre, helping his students flee to safety in an act of heroism. A moving service was held for Librescu in New York, before his body left for Israel. Hours after receiving Romania's highest distinction, Librescu was also honored by president George W. Bush. Liviu Librescu sacrificed himself blocking the door in the way of the shooter, so that students may escape through the classroom windows. Librescu, a Holocaust survivor and a teacher for 20 years at the Virginia Tech university, remains known in the media as "the hero in room 204". HotNews.ro, Apr 19, 2007 -- Original Source: http://english.hotnews.ro/Liviu-Librescu-honored-in-New-York-articol_44763.htm
Hero Librescu's son addresses Hotnews.ro readers
Joseph (Joe) Librescu, the son of Liviu Librescu, the teacher who protected his students at the cost of his own life in the Virgina Tech killing spree yesterday, sent a heart-felt message to all Hotnews.ro readers. "I am professor Librescu's son and I want to thank all those who wrote such beautiful notes about him", the letter reads. "Even though he left the country for a long time, he never forgot its beauty. We were supposed to meet in Predeal this summer, for a family reunion. Once again I want to thank you for all the beautiful things you wrote about him". Professor Liviu Librescu's gesture was widely commented on in the Romanian and international media. First announced on the Virginia Tech official site, the story soon reached the HotNews.ro English version, and was quoted by the blogs at the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statemanship and Political Philosphy. An Associated Press article was almost instantly quoted by all international media. CNN, The Times, The New York Times and Haaretz are just a few of the TV stations and newspapers that brought an hommage to the lost professor. Romanian media ware just as present as the international ones: "Romanian hero in mourning America", Evenimentul Zilei reads on the first page; "The Hero", is the simple and powerful title in Jurnalul National. "Romanian hero at Virginia Tech", reads Cotidianul. "Romania origin hero", is the headline in Romania Libera and so on. HotNews.ro, Apr 18, 2007 -- Original Source: http://english.hotnews.ro/Hero-Librescu%27s-son-addresses-Hotnews.ro-readers-articol_44751.htm
Cristian Pantazi (cristian.pantazi@hotnews.ro)
April 17th, 2007 by Dan Gillmor (Note: This will appear tomorrow as an op-ed piece in the Washington Examiner newspaper.) Once again, horror has given us a glimpse of our media future: simultaneously conversational and distributed, mass and personal. The killings Monday at Virginia Tech brought to the forefront the remarkable evolution in media over the past few years. And as we move into a time in which we will be saturated with data, we need to be clear on some of the implications of democratized media. We've had any number of glimpses already in this new century. On Sept. 11, 2001, we read blog postings and watched citizen videos of planes smashing into the World Trade Center towers. During the Asian tsunami, tourist videos showed waves smashing onto shores. A man in the London underground, wielding a mobile phone camera, took the image we all remember best from that day. The scope of the media shift was clearer again on Monday. Some of the most widely viewed images came from a mobile phone camera aimed at the police response by a student, Jamal Albaughouti. His video made its way to CNN and other media, and was seen by millions. But others on and off the Blacksburg, Va., campus were also using conversational media in highly visible ways. Social network communications, blog postings, email and a host of other technologies were brought to bear by people who were directly and indirectly part of this huge event. The students' words were achingly poignant. They were straight from the source, not pushed through a traditional-media funnel as they'd have been in the not-so-distant past. They brought to mind a blog post I spotted after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks by a young man in Brooklyn, N.Y., across the river from the World Trade Center. He wrote, "Now I know what a burning city smells like." The democratization of media is not just about creation, though that has been the most notable aspect so far. Putting the tools into everyone's hands has produced an explosion of media creation, as blogs and sharing sites such as YouTube and Flickr show us. Traditional media think of distribution: making journalism or movies or programs and sending them out to consumers. This is inverted in a democratized media world, where we all have access to what we want, as well as when and where. I didn't turn on my TV yesterday except in the evening, to watch a national network's news report. I wanted to see a summary of what a serious journalism organization had to say about what it knew so far. Instead, during the day, I used the online media — including the major news sites — to get the latest information, sifting it, making judgments about credibility and reliability as I read and watched and listened. That, too, is the future in many cases. It's also worth noting that the citizen media component of this terrible event is not a new to the digital era. When President John F. Kennedy was gunned down in Dallas back in 1963, Abraham Zapruder caught the gruesome killing on a home movie camera — footage that became an essential part of the historical record. But the difference between then and tomorrow is this: In 1963, one man with a camera captured the event on film. In a very few years, a similar situation would be captured by thousands of people — all holding high-resolution video cameras — and all of those cameras would be connected to high-speed digital networks. That is different. Remember, too, that the passengers aboard the airplanes on Sept. 11, 2001, were making voice calls to loved ones and colleagues with mobile phones. What if they'd been sending videos to the world of what was happening inside those doomed aircraft? We will still need journalists to help sort things out. But the "burning city" words from 2001 revealed something. We used to say that journalists write the first draft of history. Not so, not any longer. The people on the ground at these events write the first draft. This is not a worrisome change, not if we are appropriately skeptical and to find sources we trust. We will need to retool media literacy for the new age, too. This entry was posted on April 17th, 2007 at 1:12 pm and is filed under Citizen Journalism -- General, News. -- Original Source: Center for Citizen Media Blog http://citmedia.org/blog/2007/04/17/virginia-tech-how-media-are-evolving/ Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0.
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Un gînd pentru studenţii şi profesorii din Virginia
32 de colegi ai noştri, studenţi şi profesori, au fost ucişi într-o tragedie fără sens care a zguduit America şi lumea întreagă. Noi, cei 37.000 de studenţi şi profesori ai Universităţii „Alexandru Ioan Cuza" din Iaşi, împărtăşim durerea şi revolta în faţa unui act de neînţeles. Este dificil să reacţionezi în faţa provocărilor absurde ale violenţei, mai ales atunci cînd universitatea ştie să lupte doar pentru cunoaştere şi o viaţă mai bună în comunitate. Îi plângem şi noi pe cei care acum şi-au pierdut viaţa în campusul Universităţii Virginia Tech, printre care şi pe profesorul de origine română, Liviu Librescu. Cu gândul la ei şi la tinerii de pretutindeni, nu putem decât să ne continuăm misiunea de a lumina minţile omeneşti prin ştiinţă, pentru că sîntem convişi că acesta este singurul mod în care putem inventa împreună un viitor mai bun. 32 of our colleagues, students and teachers, were killed in a senseless tragedy that horrified America and the entire world. Here, at Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iaşi, the 37.000 students and teachers share the grief and anger in front of such irrational and unfair act. It is difficult to find the right reaction to the absurd challenges of violence, especially since the university's only fight is for knowledge ad a better life for the community. We too mourn the lives lost in the campus of Viriginia Tech University, among which that of the Romanian professor Liviu Librescu. Thinking of them and the students everywhere, we can only carry on our mission of sheding light upon human minds through science, for we are convinced that this is the only way to invent a better future. -- Sursa Originala/Original Source: http://www.uaic.ro/uaic/bin/view/Main/N0704191142
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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Va. Tech victims remembered by candlelight
Students and community members gather at MemChu to reflect, pray April 19, 2007 By Rahul Kanakia Several hundred Stanford community members gathered yesterday evening at a Memorial Church service for the 32 Virginia Tech students and faculty who were slain Monday by a gunman. Deans of Religious Life Rev. Scotty McLennan and Rabbi Patricia Karlin-Neumann presided over the service. "We come together as religious and non-religious people. As faculty, staff, students, alumni and friends, we are all part of one community here at Stanford University," McLennan said. "Many of us have been overcome with feelings of shock, sorrow, fear, incomprehension, anger and hopelessness since Monday, all mixed up together. We come here to offer all of that up in prayer and contemplation and thoughtful reflection." As Karlin-Neumann read the names of the dead, McLennan rang a bell. The tone hung in the air after each name, fading almost to silence before Karlin-Neumann read the next name. Some attendees looked upwards, some stared at the floor, while others fixed their eyes on the front of the church. Alyssa Battistoni '08 said she lost a good friend from high school, Daniel O'Neil, who was an environmental engineering graduate student at the Blacksburg, Va. university. "I don't know," she said. "I wasn't really there, to tell you the truth. I was just thinking about how much it all sucks. He just got married, my friend Dan." After the service, Takeo Rivera '08 drew parallels between the victims' lives at Virginia Tech and student life at Stanford. "Their lives were cut tragically short," he said. "And that all sounds cliche and such. But the fact that it happened on a college campus makes it all so real. For instance, one of the victims was an RA, and I'm an RA. It was one of those things where you kind of reflect on your own mortality." Calley Means '08, a Washington, D.C. resident who was at the service because many of his friends at Virginia Tech lost friends in the attack, said he was surprised that the events resonated so strongly 3,000 miles away. "There were so many people wearing Virginia Tech sweatshirts and crying," he said. "People who had gone to lecture in Norris Hall. People who had taken classes with those professors. It just shows the ripple effects of those 32 people. This event really showed me the magnitude of what had happened." McLennan told The Daily that the Office of Religious Life has been flooded with phone calls and emails requesting an organized gathering. "The scope of [the massacre] is unprecedented," he said. "This kind of thing usually does not happen in a college and university. And there is identification with the other students, faculty and staff and their friends. This touches pretty close to home; it could have been us." After Karlin-Neumann read a selection of prayers, attendees were given the opportunity to light candles in remembrance of the victims. Half of the mourners lined up and down the center of the church as the other half looked on. For more than 15 minutes the silence of the procession was broken only by a few people who delivered short messages after lighting their candles. One man, a graduate of both Virginia Tech and Stanford, read a statement taken from Virginia Tech Prof. Nikki Giovanni's speech at Tuesday's memorial service in Blacksburg. "We are sad today and we will be sad for quite awhile," he quoted from the speech. "We are not moving on. We are embracing our mourning. We are Virginia Tech. We are strong enough to stand tall tearlessly. We are brave enough to bend to cry, and sad enough to know that we must laugh again." -- Original Source: Stanford Daily - April 19, 2007
Permissions granted by James Hohmann Editor-in-Chief The Stanford Daily <jhohmann@stanford.edu>
Mesajul transmis de fiul profesorului Librescu pentru cititorii HotNews.ro
Joseph (Joe) Librescu, fiul profesorului care si-a aparat studentii cu pretul vietii in timpul masacrului din SUA, a transmis un mesaj emotionant pentru cititorii HotNews.ro. "Sint baiatul profesorului Librescu si vreau sa multumesc tuturor celor care au scris note asa de frumoase despre el. Chiar daca a plecat din tara demult, niciodata nu i-a uitat frumusetea, si la vara trebuia sa ne intalnim toate familia la Predeal pentru o reuniune. Inca o data va mulzumesc pentru cuvintele frumoase scrise aici". • Liviu Librescu, profesorul de eroism • Profesorul Librescu, decorat post-mortem de Traian Basescu • Universitatile din SUA - in stare de alerta. Ieri s-a inregistrat inca o amenintare Chiar daca a plecat din tara demult, niciodata nu i-a uitat frumusetea, si la vara trebuia sa ne intalnim toate familia la Predeal pentru o reuniune. Inca o data va mulzumesc pentru cuvintele frumoase scrise aici".Reamintim ca profesorul de origine romana Liviu Librescu a murit luni, in timpul masacrului de la Universitatea Tehnica din Virginia, studentii sai povestind ca si-a sacrificat propria viata pentru a-i face scapati din fata asasinului. HotNews.ro, 19 apr 2007 -- Sursa Originala: http://www.hotnews.ro/articol_70234-Mesajul-transmis-de-fiul-profesorului-Librescu-pentru-cititorii-HotNews-ro.htm
Recorded Thursday, April 19 (24 MB MP3) We've decided to scrap tonight's planned show (about language post-Imus) in favor of a show about the visual reverberations of the Virginia Tech shooting. Our central prod came from the trusty barthjg, who wrote: I'll pitch a show about Instant Symbols and Icons, based on the Virgina Tech killings. The image of Cho Seung-Hui brazenly holding two handguns, arms outstretched will soon reach iconic status, to be mashed up and shared in all sorts of ways-just like the Abu gharib photos and Che' and everything else that has appeared on t-shirts and ads. How many You Tube videos created in the wake of the shootings? music tributes. every incident enters the mosh pit of creative repurposing. Who is going to write the music, the movie...track every 6 months how pieces of this tragedy filter thru global culture. Watch someone stage the two crazy plays this guy wrote for the drama class he is in. (you can find them on aol.com...i read them last night) barthjg, in a show suggestion to Open Source, April 19, 2007 We're following his lead, and asking: Is there anything to learn about the way we use new technologies in this first mass-murder made, as it were, for YouTube? Are mashups and tributes a form of digital catharsis, a sort of artistic safety valve? Is there a cross-over point where they become pure exploitation, or worse? And what, exactly, is new here? Besides the zeros and the ones, and the ease of dissemination and reconfiguration, is there a difference between a 19th-century suicide note and a 21st-century QuickTime movie? Siva Vaidhyanathan Assistant Professor of Culture and Communication, NYU Blogger, SABEROCRACY.NET Keith Jenkins Picture Editor, The Washington Post Flickr blogger, Burnt Pixel Blogger, Good Reputation Sleeping Founder of the Post's Blog City feature James Der Derian Director of the Global Security and Global Media Project at The Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University Author of Virtuous War: Mapping the Military-Industrial-Media-Entertainment Network Extra Credit Reading Excerpts from the original footage sent by Cho Seung-Hui to NBC on the day of the shootings (via YouTube): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbDl5_qAj04 anditgoeslike, 2007-4-19, anditgoeslike's LiveJournal: "These pictures of Cho failed to evoke the kind of emotional reaction that a real villain should. I'm sure it would be different if he were actually holding that gun to my head and not to a digital camera with the self-timer innocuously ticking away. I don't know, though. I just imagined him going in front of the mirror and experimenting with various outfits and poses." ntcoolfool, Update, Bryce's Journal, April 16, 2007: "I cannot decide if I should join and get the most up to date information or not. I think when I do, it will then hit me. I must avoid it at all costs. The list still awaits- and several friends have remained silent on facebook updates. Could it be them?" Scottish Right, Old Media Tries To Tarnish New Media With Virginia Tech Massacre, Scottish Right, April 19, 2007: "A madman campus killer making a video and shipping it to a media outlet has absolutely nothing to do with "citizen journalism" or "new media." A sicko video made with a camcorder and sent to NBC is hardly any different than an elaborate suicide note being written and mailed to a media outlet." Momus, The problem lays a floral wreath at the grave of the problem, Click Opera, April 17, 2007: "There, visually represented, is the same horror we heard on the cell phone video footage students recorded. The grim exterior of the building, and that seemingly endless banging. Horror beyond all the platitudes. Horror intimately tied to the braying donkey of the Absurd, the pragmatic, the routine, the logistical — what Hannah Arendt called the banality of evil." nikolrb, in a comment on Open Source, April 19, 2007: "It seems part of this discussion is not about if the images are more prevalent, I don't think they are especially, but how quickly we are digesting and regurgitating and socially processing them. Think of all the movies, plays, songs, etc. made referring to Jeffrey Dahmer, the Zodiac Killer, Son of Sam killings, Jack the Ripper, etc. The entertainment/news cycle seems to be converging (in more arenas than just this.)" Dan Gilmor, Virginia Tech: How Media Are Evolving, Center for Citizen Media Blog, April 17, 2007: "Once again, horror has given us a glimpse of our media future: simultaneously conversational and distributed, mass and personal." Sky News, Copycat: Killer Re-Enacted Violent Film, Sky News, April 19, 2007: "Officers believe he repeatedly watched Oldboy as part of his preparation for the killing spree." -- Archived with permission of the producers. Original Source: http://www.radioopensource.org/re-imaging-violence/
David Miller Senior Producer, Open Source www.radioopensource.org 617.497.8096 david@radioopensource.org
Sick Sad World: A lesson from Virginia Tech
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. -- Stanford Daily - April 20, 2007