79
20
1884
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Brent Jesiek
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The Lancet
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2007-06-11
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<b>Editorial</b>
<a href="http://www.lancet.com/">The Lancet</a>
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 <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=RedirectURL&_method=externObjLink&_locator=url&_plusSign=%2B&_targetURL=http%253A%252F%252Fwww.nap.edu%252Fcatalog%252F10881.html">US National Research Council</a> 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 <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=RedirectURL&_method=externObjLink&_locator=url&_plusSign=%2B&_targetURL=http%253A%252F%252Fwww.who.int%252Fclassifications%252Ficd%252Fadaptations%252Ficeci%252Fen%252Findex.html">International Classification of External Causes of Injuries</a>, 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)
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eng
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Clare Truter, Rights Manager, S&T, Elsevier (permissions@elsevier.com)
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Gun violence and public health
editorial
gun violence
public health
risk
-
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Brent Jesiek
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Richard McCormack
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2007-06-11
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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.
<a href="http://www.hokiesports.com/convocation.html">http://www.hokiesports.com/convocation.html</a>
--
Archived with permission of the author.
Original Source: Manufacturing and Technology News, April 27, 2007, Volume 14, No. 8
<a href="http://www.manufacturingnews.com/news/07/0427/art1.html">http://www.manufacturingnews.com/news/07/0427/art1.html</a>
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Richard McCormack (editor@manufacturingnews.com)
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Editor's Journal: Virginia Tech Shooting Hits Close To Home; The True Character Of A Generation Is Revealed
editorial
parent
students
youth
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https://april16archive.org/files/original/Convocation II_a405a8e546.jpg
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2007-06-11
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2007-06-11 15:50:50
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Chad Newswander
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Roger Gupta
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2007-06-11
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This photo was captured on the football field at the Virginia Tech convocation.
Original source: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/spector1/463353657/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/spector1/463353657/</a>
Photo Courtesy of Roger Gupta
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/spector1/463353657/
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Virginia Tech Convocation 4/17/07
convocation
lane stadium
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https://april16archive.org/files/original/IMG_9135_79d456a483.JPG
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2007-06-08
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2007-06-08 15:12:37
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Adriana Seagle
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Laura Copcea
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2007-06-08
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Moment de comemorare a studentilor de la universitatea Alexandru Ioan Cuza, Iasi pentru studentii de la Virginia Tech - vineri, 20 aprilie 2007
Moment of commemoration from the students and faculty of Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Iasi, Romania for Virginia Tech- Friday, April 20th, 2007.
--
Sursa Originala: <a href="
http://www.uaic.ro/uaic/bin/view/Photos/RememberVirginiaTech">http://www.uaic.ro/uaic/bin/view/Photos/RememberVirginiaTech</a>
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ron
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Laura Copcea (promovare@uaic.ro)
alexandru ioan cuza
librescu
omagiu
-
https://april16archive.org/files/original/IMG_9133_280816c203.JPG
null
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2007-06-11
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2007-06-11 11:23:09
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Adriana Seagle
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Alexandru Ioan Cuza University
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2007-06-11
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Moment de comemorare a studentilor de la universitatea Alexandru Ioan Cuza, Iasi pentru studentii de la Virginia Tech - vineri, 20 aprilie 2007
Moment of commemoration from the students and faculty of Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Iasi, Romania for Virginia Tech- Friday, April 20th, 2007.
--
Sursa Originala: <a href="
http://www.uaic.ro/uaic/bin/view/Photos/RememberVirginiaTech">http://www.uaic.ro/uaic/bin/view/Photos/RememberVirginiaTech</a>
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ron
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Laura Copcea(promovare@uaic.ro)
alexandru ioan cuza
librescu
omagiu
-
https://april16archive.org/files/original/IMG_9144_7e07777bbe.JPG
null
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2007-06-11
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2007-06-11 11:31:57
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Adriana Seagle
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Alexandru Ioan Cuza University
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2007-06-11
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Moment de comemorare a studentilor de la universitatea Alexandru Ioan Cuza, Iasi pentru studentii de la Virginia Tech - vineri, 20 aprilie 2007
Moment of commemoration from the students and faculty of Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Iasi, Romania for Virginia Tech- Friday, April 20th, 2007.
--
Sursa Originala: <a href=" http://www.uaic.ro/uaic/bin/view/Photos/RememberVirginiaTech">http://www.uaic.ro/uaic/bin/view/Photos/RememberVirginiaTech</a>
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ron
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Laura Copcea (promovare@uaic.ro)
alexandru ioan cuza
librescu
omagiu
-
https://april16archive.org/files/original/IMG_9146_88c46579e0.JPG
null
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2007-06-11
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2007-06-11 11:36:24
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Adriana Seagle
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Alexandru Ioan Cuza University
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2007-06-11
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Moment de comemorare a studentilor de la universitatea Alexandru Ioan Cuza, Iasi pentru studentii de la Virginia Tech - vineri, 20 aprilie 2007
Moment of commemoration from the students and faculty of Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Iasi, Romania for Virginia Tech- Friday, April 20th, 2007.
--
Sursa Originala: <a href="
http://www.uaic.ro/uaic/bin/view/Photos/RememberVirginiaTech">http://www.uaic.ro/uaic/bin/view/Photos/RememberVirginiaTech</a>
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ron
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Laura Copcea (promovare@uaic.ro)
alexandru ioan cuza
librescu
omagiu
-
https://april16archive.org/files/original/IMG_9161_2c8552ca88.JPG
null
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2007-06-11
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2007-06-11 11:44:39
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Adriana Seagle
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Alexandru Ioan Cuza University
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2007-06-11
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Moment de comemorare a studentilor de la universitatea Alexandru Ioan Cuza, Iasi pentru studentii de la Virginia Tech - vineri, 20 aprilie 2007
Moment of commemoration from the students and faculty of Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Iasi, Romania for Virginia Tech- Friday, April 20th, 2007.
--
Sursa Originala: <a href="
http://www.uaic.ro/uaic/bin/view/Photos/RememberVirginiaTech">http://www.uaic.ro/uaic/bin/view/Photos/RememberVirginiaTech</a>
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ron
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Laura Copcea (promovare@uaic.ro)
alexandru ioan cuza
librescu
omagiu
-
https://april16archive.org/files/original/IMG_9174_fd731d158d.JPG
null
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2007-06-11
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2007-06-11 11:48:56
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Adriana Seagle
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Alexandru Ioan Cuza University
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2007-06-11
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Moment de comemorare a studentilor de la universitatea Alexandru Ioan Cuza, Iasi pentru studentii de la Virginia Tech - vineri, 20 aprilie 2007
Moment of commemoration from the students and faculty of Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Iasi, Romania for Virginia Tech- Friday, April 20th, 2007.
--
Sursa Originala:
<a href="http://www.uaic.ro/uaic/bin/view/Photos/RememberVirginiaTech">http://www.uaic.ro/uaic/bin/view/Photos/RememberVirginiaTech</a>
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ron
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Laura Copcea (promovare@uaic.ro)
alexandru ioan cuza
librescu
omagiu
-
https://april16archive.org/files/original/IMG_9180_bd3e966978.JPG
null
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2007-06-11
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2007-06-11 11:52:30
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Adriana Seagle
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Alexandru Ioan Cuza University
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2007-06-11
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Moment de comemorare a studentilor de la universitatea Alexandru Ioan Cuza, Iasi pentru studentii de la Virginia Tech - vineri, 20 aprilie 2007
Moment of commemoration from the students and faculty of Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Iasi, Romania for Virginia Tech- Friday, April 20th, 2007.
--
Sursa Originala:
<a href="http://www.uaic.ro/uaic/bin/view/Photos/RememberVirginiaTech">http://www.uaic.ro/uaic/bin/view/Photos/RememberVirginiaTech</a>
Language
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ron
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Laura Copcea (promovare@uaic.ro)
alexandru ioan cuza
librescu
omagiu
-
https://april16archive.org/files/original/IMG_9186_44956beaea.JPG
null
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2007-06-11
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Capture Date
2007-06-11 11:57:18
Still Image
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Adriana Seagle
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Alexandru Ioan Cuza University
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2007-06-11
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Moment de comemorare a studentilor de la universitatea Alexandru Ioan Cuza, Iasi pentru studentii de la Virginia Tech - vineri, 20 aprilie 2007
Moment of commemoration from the students and faculty of Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Iasi, Romania for Virginia Tech- Friday, April 20th, 2007.
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<a href="http://www.uaic.ro/uaic/bin/view/Photos/RememberVirginiaTech">http://www.uaic.ro/uaic/bin/view/Photos/RememberVirginiaTech</a>
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Laura Copcea (promovare@uaic.ro)
alexandru ioan cuza
librescu
omagiu
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https://april16archive.org/files/original/IMG_9170_4a9d093c5d.JPG
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2007-06-11
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Adriana Seagle
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Alexandru Ioan Cuza University
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2007-06-11
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Moment de comemorare a studentilor de la universitatea Alexandru Ioan Cuza, Iasi pentru studentii de la Virginia Tech - vineri, 20 aprilie 2007
Moment of commemoration from the students and faculty of Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Iasi, Romania for Virginia Tech- Friday, April 20th, 2007.
--
Sursa Originala:
<a href="http://www.uaic.ro/uaic/bin/view/Photos/RememberVirginiaTech">http://www.uaic.ro/uaic/bin/view/Photos/RememberVirginiaTech</a>
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ron
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Laura Copcea (promovare@uaic.ro)
alexandru ioan cuza
librescu
omagiu
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https://april16archive.org/files/original/IMG_9127_9752391bd2.JPG
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2007-06-08
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Adriana Seagle
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Universitatea Alexandru Ioan Cuza
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2007-06-08
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Moment de comemorare a studentilor de la universitatea Alexandru Ioan Cuza, Iasi pentru studentii de la Virginia Tech - vineri, 20 aprilie 2007
Moment of commemoration from the students and faculty of Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Iasi, Romania for Virginia Tech- Friday, April 20th, 2007.
--
Sursa Originala: <a href="
http://www.uaic.ro/uaic/bin/view/Photos/RememberVirginiaTech">http://www.uaic.ro/uaic/bin/view/Photos/RememberVirginiaTech</a>
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Laura Copcea (promovare@uaic.ro)
alexandru ioan cuza university
librescu
omagiu
-
https://april16archive.org/files/original/IMG_9132_ee77e3c63c.JPG
null
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2007-06-08
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Adriana Seagle
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Laura Copcea
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2007-06-08
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Moment de comemorare a studentilor de la universitatea Alexandru Ioan Cuza, Iasi pentru studentii de la Virginia Tech - vineri, 20 aprilie 2007
Moment of commemoration from the students and faculty of Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Iasi, Romania for Virginia Tech- Friday, April 20th, 2007.
--
Sursa Originala: <a href="
http://www.uaic.ro/uaic/bin/view/Photos/RememberVirginiaTech">http://www.uaic.ro/uaic/bin/view/Photos/RememberVirginiaTech</a>
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ron
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Laura Copcea (promovare@uaic.ro)
alexandru ioan cuza
librescu
omagiu
-
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Brent Jesiek
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Ekklesia Staff Writers
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2007-06-10
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News Brief
By staff writers
17 Apr 2007
Expressing the sorrow of many Christians in the US at yesterday's killings in Virginia, the General Secretary of the National Council of Churches USA (NCC USA) has also renewed the NCC's call for 'meaningful' legislation to prevent gun violence.
"My pastor's heart breaks for the families of those who died today," said the Rev Dr Bob Edgar following the fatal shooting at Virginia Tech University.
"Faith leaders have spoken up continually about the epidemic of gun violence in our country," Dr Edgar said in a statement. "Despite repeated calls from faith and community leaders to Congress and presidents nothing ever seems to get done to stem the tide."
Dr Edgar, himself a former Member of Congress, lamented that the issue of gun violence seems to get such little attention from those who have the power to do something about it.
"How many more will have to die before we say enough is enough? How many more senseless deaths will have to be counted before we enact meaningful firearms control in this country? How many more of our pastors, rabbis and imams will have to preside over caskets of innocent victims of gun violence because a nation refused to stop the proliferation of these small weapons of mass destruction?," said Dr Edgar.
Edgar pointed to the NCC USA's 1967 policy calling for firearms control and a March 2000 interfaith campaign calling for an end to the epidemic of gun violence in the nation.
"The escalation of gun violence compels us to call for an end to the manufacture and easy distribution of such instruments of destruction," Edgar said in 2000 and reiterated that statement today.
Edgar invited people of faith and goodwill to send messages of support to a weblog set up by the Virginia Interfaith Center.
The NCC USA is an ecumenical voice of America's Orthodox, Protestant, Anglican, historic African American and traditional peace churches. These 35 communions have 45 million members in 100,000 congregations in all 50 states.
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Original Source: Ekklesia
<a href="http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/5059">http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/5059</a>
This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/uk/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 England & Wales License</a>.
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US churches call for gun control following university shootings
churches
gun control
national council of churches
ncc
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Brent Jesiek
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Salah Obeid
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2007-06-10
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By Salah Obeid
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Jun 8, 2007, 00:27
There isn't room enough on the calendar to honor every American hero, but Aug. 16, the birthday of one such hero, is a day teachers and others who cherish education should make a point of celebrating.
No one knows what drove Liviu Librescu, four months short of his 77th birthday, to martyr himself to the cause of education. But that is what Librescu, a Romanian-born Holocaust survivor and mechanical engineering professor, did when he blocked a gunman from entering his Virginia Tech University classroom on April 16 -- earning him five bullets, one of them to the head -- so that most of his students could escape through the windows.
Because he was slain in a public learning institution, public schools are where he should be celebrated. And because Librescu (the root of whose name, "libre," is Latin for "free") came to America searching for freedom, those who teach subjects like U.S. history and government should make honoring him a lesson on where his adopted country truly stands on freedom.
By the time they enter college, many students in this country can't think critically about history and politics, having rarely been encouraged in school to think creatively outside of art and music class. Yet wolfing down hot dogs and soaking up sun on a field trip to celebrate Librescu Day could amount to more than just indigestion and sunburn, if the day were also an occasion for students to reflect on how their country, a magnet for immigrants seeking freedom, too often deprives people in other countries of the very freedoms Americans enjoy.
Throughout its history, the United States has -- in places like Latin America, Haiti, the Philippines and elsewhere -- picked fights at the drop of a dime whenever dollars were to be made, a fact that is largely ignored in classrooms around the country. The result is that, as the country gets bogged down in Afghanistan and Iraq, many students don't know any better than to think thousands of their fellow citizens, most only slightly older than them, are killing and being killed in those countries in the name of spreading freedom.
But freedom can mean many things. Librescu, born on Aug. 16, 1930, on the outskirts of Bucharest, was barely nine when World War II broke out and could only watch as his government, also in the name of freedom, helped the Nazis annihilate hundreds of thousands of Romania's Jewish citizens. Luckily he survived, became an accomplished scientist and, in 1986, after living several years in Israel, left for Virginia on a sabbatical and never looked back. Little did he know that years later a frustrated, mentally-ill college student would alone succeed where the focused efforts of the entire Nazi Party had failed.
Still, Librescu's death will have been partly in vain if teachers ignore the dedication symbolized by a colleague's choosing to die so that his students might live to see another classroom. Ignorance that isn't necessarily willful but rather the result of intimidation.
How else to explain that so many U.S. history and government teachers go out of their way to avoid discussing the context in which President Bush, in his second inaugural address, for example, used words like "freedom" and "liberty" some dozen odd times? Or in which Vice President Dick Cheney, during remarks to Westminster College in Missouri a few years ago, paraphrased Winston Churchill's assessment of the struggle against Soviet communism, in order to paint a picture of the chaos in U.S.-occupied Iraq as a contest between "those who served an aggressive, power-hungry ideology and those who believed in human liberty, freedom of conscience and the dignity of every life"?
Words like "liberty" and expressions like "freedom of conscience" are easily said; the challenge is living up to the ideals they represent. But often politicians aren't so challenged to begin with, and worse, sometimes rely on such words, as George Orwell wrote, "in a consciously dishonest way."
Dignity of life, after all, means little coming from someone like Cheney, whose central pursuit over the past few years has been to enrich his friends at Enron and Halliburton over the dead bodies of an estimated million or so Iraqi civilians -- people who might have lived in fear under Saddam Hussein, but who at least could've expected to live with far more certainty than can Iraqis today.
Propaganda and censorship is something that, growing up in communist Romania, Librescu knew all too well. The same can be said of another Jewish hero to whom he is often compared.
On Aug. 5, 1942, German soldiers stormed an orphanage for Jewish children in Warsaw, instructing the man who ran it, Janusz Korczak, that he was free to go, but that his 200 or so orphans and several staff members were slated for extermination. Unlike Librescu, Korczak couldn't save his charges from death. Instead, he followed them to the gas chamber, his final gesture to children who'd had so little and died so young.
A renowned children's author and pediatrician, Korczak was also a teacher, and instructed hundreds at his Dom Sierot (Polish for "house for orphans") with little regard for convention. Those who survived the war recount being allowed to form a "kind of a republic for children, with its own small parliament, court and newspaper," according to an entry on <a href="http://wikipedia.org/">Wikipedia.org</a>. By contrast, a half-century later, American public schools appear intent on turning students into automatons.
And even that they're getting wrong.
Students in the United States, in subjects like math and science, which require learning mostly by mind-numbing rote, lag behind their counterparts in miserably poor countries like Bangladesh, Burundi, El Salvador and Nepal. Generally, though, American students also read less for pleasure, visit fewer museums and attend schools with mediocre teachers, all easily gleaned from comparing how flippant and addicted to pop culture many young Americans are next to kids in less fortunate parts of the world.
Maybe that is because, as one credit card company likes to say, there are some things money can't buy. China, where teachers get paid a pittance by a government that looks with scorn at individual rights and free speech, generally has a more well-read, independent-minded, smarter population than ours. Which is what outright censorship does: breed rebellion.
Censorship, though, shouldn't be allowed any wiggle room in a country billing itself as the "land of the free." Yet the United States has become fertile ground for it, an indication of which is that mainstream media, not satisfied with just obscuring the "who," "what" and "where" in its news coverage, goes to great lengths to avoid the "why" altogether. It may be just as well, then, that many kids come home from school in the afternoon only to get super glued to MTV, video games or websites like <a href="http://myspace.com/">Myspace.com</a>, since much of what's in the news would sooner confuse than educate them.
Were that not sad enough, the education that does manage to seep into the minds of these would-be torchbearers of democracy is watered down to the point of irrelevancy. Not because teachers are stupid, evil or lazy but because most are simply too afraid to rock the boat.
Many teachers understand they swim in murky water. Water that has swallowed teachers like Deb Mayer at Clear Creek Elementary in Monroe County, Indiana, near Bloomington (home, ironically, to liberal arts-dominated Indiana University). Mayer was fired in 2003 after she dared discuss the subject of peace movements during a general class discussion about the build-up to the war in Iraq.
Similarly, a school in Wilton, Conn., recently banned a play about the conflict in that country.
"In Wilton, most kids only care about Britney Spears shaving her head or Tyra Banks gaining weight," 16-year-old Devon Fontaine, a cast member, told The New York Times. "What we wanted was to show kids what was going on overseas."
The school administration's reply: "You can't always get what you want."
Censorship is well documented in schools throughout the country. Schools like Columbine High School in Colorado, where Alfred Wilder was fired in 1996 for showing Bernardo Bertolucci's film, "1900," which explores fascism, to a senior class studying logic and debate. That instance of censorship may even have cost 13 students and a teacher their lives.
A video depicting students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold rehearsing for the massacre they'd go on to carry out at the school three years later wasn't allowed to be shown on school grounds because of the controversy surrounding the Bertolucci film.
"If the video had indeed been shown," Al Hidell wrote in "The New Conspiracy Reader," "perhaps somebody would have realized the serious threat it represented, which may have prevented the tragedy from occurring."
Rarely, of course, is censorship so dramatic in its outcome that it becomes a matter of life and death. But there is such a thing as a slow death. Appalled by the stifling of his film, Bertolucci wrote that it was no less than a prelude to totalitarianism when classrooms become a place "in which the voice of established authority denounced criticism or debate, and used the high school classroom to silence other voices."
Voices that hold that "children are the future. Teach them well and let them lead the way."
Before letting cocaine lead the way for her instead, Whitney Huston knew what she was singing about. The minute students are fit to broach subjects like history, government and political affairs is the minute they should be challenged to imagine their future roles as informed, voting citizens. Citizens like Librescu, who wore many hats but probably would have been happy to be remembered as one more in a long line of educators who eschewed empty slogans, who knew that leaving no child behind meant arming students with curiosity, compassion and courage.
Courage, though, shouldn't mean that 3,500 young Americans, and counting, have to take their final breath in a country that never meant the United States any harm. Courage should mean educating the nation's youth so that they can spot a charlatan when they see one, even if he worms his way up to the presidency itself. Those who will inherit this nation need that kind of courage from those who've been here a while, so that they too can develop the courage to die if need be.
But to die in the spirit of someone like Librescu, who took one bullet after another yet refused to let go, so that others might live and learn.
And be free.
Copyright © 1998-2007 Online Journal
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Archived courtesy of <a href="http://onlinejournal.com/">Online Journal</a>.
Original Source: <a href="http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_2062.shtml">http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_2062.shtml</a>
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Bev Conover, Editor and Publisher, Online Journal
(editor_oj@yahoo.com or editor@onlinejournal.com)
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Librescu Day
censorship
commentary
education
freedom
history
librescu
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Brent Jesiek
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Workers World
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EDITORIAL
Published Apr 17, 2007 11:36 PM
Yet another rampage has occurred at a school, this time leaving 33 people dead at Virginia Tech—the worst such incident ever at a U.S. college campus.
The news media seem stunned and surprised, yet their coverage sounds so similar to the stories about Columbine eight years ago. They dwell on the personality of the young man the police say did the shooting, before killing himself. They talk about him being a "loner," depressed, perhaps angry at women.
But aren't there lonely and depressed people all over the world? Many countries have high suicide rates. Why is it that here some become mass murderers?
The U.S. is the world leader in seemingly random acts of violence by individuals. Why?
President George W. Bush rushed to Virginia to speak at a large convocation the day after the killings and tried to set the tone for what could be said about them. "It's impossible to make sense of such violence and suffering," he said.
Don't ask why, don't try to understand. It makes no sense. "Have faith" instead, was Bush's message.
But there ARE reasons these things happen here, and they are pretty clear to the rest of the world. It's just in the United States that no one is supposed to talk about the reasons.
What distinguishes this country from the rest of the world? It is neither the most affluent nor the poorest. It is neither the most secular nor the most religious. It is not the most culturally homogeneous nor is it the most diverse.
But in one area, it stands virtually alone. It has the biggest arsenal of high-tech weaponry in the world, way surpassing every other country. It has military bases spread all over; most countries have no troops outside their borders.
It is conducting two hot wars at the moment, in Iraq and Afghanistan, and has sent hundreds of thousands of troops abroad over the last few years. Every day, the public here is supposed to identify with soldiers who burst into homes in Baghdad, round up the people and take them away for "interrogation"—which everyone knows now can mean torture and indefinite detainment.
It also sends heavily armed "special ops" on secret missions to countless other countries, like the ones who just facilitated the invasion and bombing of Somalia, or the ones who have been trying to stir up opposition in Iran. This is documented in the news media.
The immense brutality of these colonial wars, as well as earlier ones, is praised from the White House on down as the best, the ONLY way to achieve what the political leaders and their influential, rich backers decide is necessary to protect their world empire. Do lots of people get killed? "Stuff happens," said former war secretary Donald Rumsfeld. "Collateral damage," says the Pentagon.
At home, the U.S. has the highest rate of incarceration in the world. Over 2 million people are locked up in the prison system each year, most of them people of color. When commercial armed security guards are also taken into consideration, the U.S. has millions of employees who use guns and other coercive paraphernalia in their jobs.
In the final analysis, the military and the police—the "armed bodies of men," as Marxists used to define them before women were added to their ranks—exist to perpetuate and protect this present unjust system of capitalist inequality, where a few can claim personal ownership over a vast economy built by the sweat and blood of hundreds of millions of workers.
And the more divided, the more polarized the society becomes, the higher the level of coercion and violence. Assault weapons are now everywhere in this society, as are Tasers, handcuffs, clubs and tear gas. They most often start out in the hands of the police, the military and other agents of the state, and can then turn up anywhere.
Violence is a big money maker in the mass culture. Television, films, pulp novels, Internet sites, video games—all dwell on "sociopaths" while glorifying the state's use of violence, often supplemented by a lone vigilante. By the time children reach their teens, they have already seen thousands of murders and killings on television. And these days even more suspense is added in countless programs that involve stalking and terror against women—and increasingly children.
As the Duke rape case and so many "escort service" ads show, women of color are particularly subject to exploitation and have little recourse to any justice. And as the murders along the border show, immigrants of color are fair game for racist killers.
The social soil of capitalism can alienate and enrage an unstable and miserable person who should be getting help but can't find it. If, as reports are saying, the young man accused of these killings was on anti-depressant medication, it is all the more evidence that, at a time when hospitals are closing and health care is unavailable for tens of millions, treating mental health problems requires more from society than just prescribing dubious chemicals.
Many liberal commentators are taking this occasion to renew the demand for tougher gun laws. Yes, assault weapons are horrible, but so are bunker buster bombs, helicopters that fire thousands of rounds a minute, and the ultimate—nuclear weapons. Disarming the people is not the answer, especially when the capitalist state is armed to the teeth and uses brutality and coercion daily.
The best antidote to these tragedies is to build a movement for profound social change, for replacing capitalism with socialism, so that people's energies can be directed at solving the great problems depressing so much of humanity today, whether they be wars or global climate change or the loneliness of the dog-eat-dog society.
--
Copyright 1995-2007 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
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Original Source: <a href="http://www.workers.org/2007/editorials/virginia-tech-0426/">http://www.workers.org/2007/editorials/virginia-tech-0426/</a>
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Copyright 1995-2007 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
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Why Virginia Tech killings happened
capitalism
editorial
violence
war
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Brent Jesiek
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Carl Davidson
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2007-06-10
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[Philosophical Musing on Media Culture]
By Carl Davidson
20 Apr 2007
The universe throws curve balls at us, now and then.
It seems to want to wake us up, and teach us lessons in impermanence and interconnectedness.
Take the killings at Virginia Tech.
A strange, quiet young Korean man, Cho Seung-Hui, writer of tortured and violent plays and screeds, makes his own solipsistic martial arts-gangsta video of himself, and sends it to the media, in the course of slaughtering 32 people, then killing himself.
The media sensationalizes it. MSNBC ratings go through the roof as its images are repeated, to millions and millions, then all the networks join in the frenzy. As expected, other troubled youth respond, in copy-cat fashion, often only with words, and scares shut down numerous classes across the country. At the same time, discussions of 'healing' get underway.
Talk show commentators are having a time of it. I hear both liberal and conservatives alike carry on about 'looking in the face of evil' and trashing the notions of illness and therapy. Rush Limbaugh and one caller on his show go on about how the Korean youth is an 'America hater,' 'suicide bomber,' and simply evil. Retired FBI guys talk about 'training' students to be able to respond better, and hiring tougher 'security.' People debate police tactics, censorship and guns.
Then a British paper goes to a tiny hut in Korea, and a reporter talks to the boy's grandparents, who say he was a bad kid and 'deserved to die' for his sins.
But the grandparents also reveal the poverty of his parents as they immigrated to the U.S. Most important, they reveal their grandson was diagnosed early with autism, but the poverty all around prevented them from doing much about it, either in Korea or here.
Autism is recently growing with unusual speed in the US. Parents, rich and poor, are desperate for help, since dealing with an autistic child is often beyond any couple, however well off.
One radio personality, Don Imus, takes up their cause. He helps grow their organization for families of Autistic children, and raises millions. His wife, an environmentalist, believes toxins, perhaps in vaccines, are partly to blame, and demands independent research. Wealthy pharmaceutical companies and the Wall Street Journal counter-attack, smearing the couple. But Imus is relentless, and blasts away at their money-grubbing and lies. Largely through his efforts, a compromise measure, offering some relief, gets through Congress, but he pushes on for more substantive solutions, and raises millions more.
Now the effort has stopped, or is at least severely reduced. Imus, as we well know, also indulged in racist, sexist and chauvinist commentary and locker-room 'jokes,' repeatedly, and finally went too far. He realized it, blamed himself and tried to make amends. He promised changes in his show, but accepted whatever he got, saying he had dished it out long enough, now it was his turn to take it.
But a groundswell wanted more. They wanted his show shut down, period, and it was. Many people declared victory over racism and sexism, and to a degree, it was. The media moguls preened about their new-found responsibility and the need for change.
At least until 32 people died at Virginia Tech.
Now we have a new wave of violence featured in the media, and Imus is old news, history.
And we have a new wave of blame, and a new staking out of moral ground against evil.
But you can make a good case that untreated autism, rooted in poverty, was the root cause of what happened at Virginia Tech, however terrible the consequences and the suffering visited on those who didn't deserve it in the least, just as the Rutgers women didn't deserve it in the least.
The whole thing reminds me of Thich Nhat Hanh's long poem, 'Call Me by My True Name.' It's about looking deeply, in the poem, about a Thai sailor, and his raping and killing Vietnamese boat people. It's too long a story to retell here, but do yourself a favor and read it, or better yet, listen to it sometime.
But given this latest curve ball, I think I'll wait a bit before declaring either Don Imus or Cho Seung-Hui, connected in this curious way, to be evil, or at least, in the case of Imus, who's still with us, beyond public redemption.
<b>Related</b>
<a href="http://carldavidson.blogspot.com/">http://carldavidson.blogspot.com</a>
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Original Source: <a href="http://chicago.indymedia.org/newswire/display/77298/index.php">http://chicago.indymedia.org/newswire/display/77298/index.php</a>
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Greg Ritter
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I'd been thinking about starting this blog up again for a few weeks now. I didn't think I'd have something so tragic to write about.
Probably it goes without saying that my thoughts and best wishes go out to the students, faculty, and staff at my alma mater, Virginia Tech, and especially to the families and friends of the victims.
I was working from home today, heads down with all my external inputs (radio, TV, email, IRC, RSS feeds, etc.) turned off, so it wasn't until mid-afternoon that I became aware of what had happened. It has shaken me up, more than I would have expected it would.
It's disconcerting to see a community that you've been part of suffer an event like this, especially when you see so many images on the news of places you're quite familiar with. When I was a student at Virginia Tech, I had friends who lived on the 4th floor Ambler-Johnston Hall, where the first shooting took place. I had classes in Norris Hall, where the second shooting occurred. I know these places. They were my places. It was my community. Even though I've been gone from Tech for a long time, it still hits close to home.
Back in '88-'89 I was one of the editors of the <a href="http://www.collegiatetimes.com"><em>Collegiate Times</em></a>, Virginia Tech's student newspaper. I've thought a lot about the students working at the <em>Collegiate Times</em> today. What was the biggest story we dealt with back in '88-'89? I think a steroids scandal on one of the sports teams. Nothing to compare to what happened today. What a time it must be for those young, aspiring journalists. How difficult it must be to cover what will probably be the biggest story of your life when you are just twenty or twenty-one. Doubly difficult since it is the slaughter of your classmates that you have to cover. As young journalists they must feel a great deal of excitement at The Big Story . . . and, at the same time, a great deal of guilt and dread for being excited while their friends lay dead. I hope they sense the importance of their role of as the student voice of the Virginia Tech campus more than ever. (<a href="http://www.collegiatetimes.com">CollegiateTimes.com</a> is down, and the server is re-directing to <a href="http://CollegeMedia.com">CollegeMedia.com</a>, the parent site for the student media outlets at Tech. And I just noticed that the <em>Collegiate Times</em> Online Editor, who has been posting to <a href="http://www.collegemedia.com">http://www.collegemedia.com</a> all afternoon is named Christopher Ritter. No relation, if you were wondering.)
Besides my former professors, I only know a couple of people still at Virginia Tech. None of them were likely to have been in either of the buildings where the shootings took place, but I've dropped them emails anyway. And I've been contacted today by former classmates who I haven't heard from in years. When something like this happens, you start thinking about the people who shared your life then and you want to reach out to them, even if you've been silent for years, because their the only ones who are going to understand your loss in the same way.
The news reports are saying that this is the worst shooting on a college campus in American history. Oddly, one of the other campus massacres that has been mentioned repeatedly was a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_Lu_Massacre">1991 shooting</a> rampage by a physics grad student (who also killed himself) at the University of Iowa, where I went to graduate school. My other alma mater. That took place just three months after I left Iowa City, and, unlike today's tragedy at VT, I knew many people who were on campus at that time.
Then a few years back, in the fall of 2000, <a href="http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101010625-130940,00.html">a student murdered one of his classmates</a> at Gallaudet University, and went un-apprehended for months until he killed again in February. I had worked at Gallaudet for three years and left just a bit more than a year before the murders there. Again, I was gone, but, again, I knew many people affected by this. It wasn't the kind of rampage like at Iowa or Virginia Tech, but it held the campus hostage to fear nonetheless.
So this is the third time I've watched a campus where I have lived, studied, or worked be victimized by a murderer.
It sucks. It sucks for me, it makes me cry to see a community -- <i>my community</i> -- ravaged, even after I've been absent from it for years
And as miserable and helpless as I feel, I can't imagine how horrible it is for those living through it.
Posted by Greg on April 16, 2007 10:48 PM
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Original Source: <a href="http://www.tenreasonswhy.com/weblog/archives/2007/04/thinking_about_1.html">http://www.tenreasonswhy.com/weblog/archives/2007/04/thinking_about_1.html</a>
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Chris Matter / Oracle Student Newspaper Staff
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The university community gathered in remembrance of the violence at Virginia Polytechnical University in a candle vigil last Thursday.
Faculty, staff and students from Hamline's various colleges were all present. Over 120 people were in attendance, including multiple university administrators.
The vigil included members of the religious community including university chaplain Theresa Mason, Rabbi Esther Adler and Bishop Rosalyn Carol. Bishop Carol said her goal is a world where no "people are dying because we do not live and love each other." Carol also said that the community at the university needed to celebrate the fact "that we are truly brothers and sisters."
Poems in Hebrew and English were read, as well as psalms from the Christian Bible, Torah and Qur'an. Communication professor Suda Ishida performed a traditional Buddhist ritual, asking all present to link arms with the person beside them as water was poured from a basin unto the base of a tree.
Adler spoke of a Virginia Tech professor and Holocaust survivor Liviu Librescu, and questioned his destiny.
"Was April 16 his appointed purpose or just a cruel irony?" she said.
CLA Sophomore Emily Hager-Garman led the choir in a version of "Oh, Jerusalem" and a faculty member from the Graduate school sang parts of the African national anthem.
President Linda Hanson was visibly moved by the display of student and staff solidarity. Many in attendance were moved to tears as the names of the departed were read aloud and a bell on loan from Hamline United Methodist Church was tolled as each name was said. In addition, the student who led the Tibetan Buddhist invocation invited the community to create Tibetan prayer flags which were to be hung up outside Bush Library. The Tibetan prayer flag is a piece of cloth with a message for the living and departed. Many of the messages included words of hope, forgiveness and mourning.
The service ended as the clock tower on Old Main ominously tolled 5 p.m.
Compiled by Chris Matter and staff reports
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Original Source: Oracle Student Newspaper, Hamline University
<a href="http://www.hamline.edu/oracle/archives/2007/04/24/index.html">http://www.hamline.edu/oracle/archives/2007/04/24/index.html</a>
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Campus mourns the lives that were lost
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