Virginia Tech

As I'm writing this, it's April 20th; eight years to the day that Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris massacred 12 classmates and teachers at Columbine High school, and only four days after Seung-Hui Cho nearly tripled the body count during his rampage on the campus of Virginia Tech. The news is running with the stories and asking the questions that are on everyone's minds: What could have been done stop it? Who was Seung-Hui Cho? Why didn't anyone see the warning signs? Pardon the cliché, but hindsight is 20/20, and it's easier now than ever to go back and put together the pieces that we didn't even know were part of the puzzle.

There are plenty solutions to curbing this kind of violence; from the pointless zero tolerance rules, which only really infringe upon students' rights and piss everyone off, to the insane, such as one Hartford Courant writer advocating for the arming teachers and faculty for protection. (That in itself deserves an entire blog devoted to it. Stay tuned). The problem here is this is not the Sci-Fi movie Minority Report. You can't look into the future to who will commit what crimes and lock them up accordingly. You can't lock up every kid who wears a black trench coat, every boy who thinks guns are cool, and every kid who feels sad or who doesn't have many friends. You can't even take away people's rights by not selling a gun to someone who doesn't look wholesome. The warning signs are there, but these tragedies keep happening and it seems like only afterwards does it become clear just how dangerous these individuals were. Hell, even Cho went to therapy and was and labeled 'an imminent danger' and declared mentally ill by a Virginia special justice.

The easy solution to end this kind of school violence, in my opinion, is not possible. I believe the solution is to just ignore the violence. As I said, it's impossible. It'd be a real disservice to the victims and their families if we as a society (media included) just glossed over the incident and moved on without analyzing why it happened, who the victims were, who the killer was and what drove him to perpetrate what is now the worst school killing in history. On the other hand, all this attention is what these kids crave. Yes, the victims deserve to be recognized and memorialized. It is necessary and comforting to the families and friends. These 32 victims were not just nameless casualties, they were human beings with their own lives, own problems, and their set of better honed tools for dealing with those problems; tools that didn't included automatic weapons. They were friends, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, girlfriends and boyfriends. Yet, ultimately these moving tributes don't do much to dissuade future school shootings. This information will probably only validate our nation's future Cho's that killing is the answer. After all, if the victims didn't matter, then what would be the point? To me, it seems like a Catch 22; damned if you do, damned if you don't. Again, pardon the clichés.

I can't help but feel like this just plays into the killer's designs. He was a coward, a weak man who obviously couldn't handle life. Perhaps he just needed help and didn't know how to ask for it. More likely, he was offered help and didn't take it. What he did take were the lives of 32 other people.

In between rampages, Cho mailed a package, a "multi-media manifesto," to NBC. It contained videos, pictures and documents all detailing his motives and reasoning behind the violence. It gave America a glimpse into his psyche; if you've seen the news lately, you'll know that this was one fucked up kid. It almost serves as a warning to potential victims. 'Hey jocks/rich kids, you better watch out who you make fun of. They could be harboring homicidal tendencies.' Perhaps by explaining himself, Cho thought he could make people see his point of view and shift some of the blame onto the victims.

Ultimately, Cho is getting what he wanted. The world, especially the families of those 32 people, will remember his name. They may curse it, but they'll be remembering it. He's getting the recognition in death that he failed to in life. All this probing of his life, especially in the few years leading up the shootings, will only serve to validate that this shit stain somehow made a difference in this world. So until someone comes along and shoots up at least 33 fellow classmates, then Cho's name will forever be synonymous with the worst school shooting this country has seen.

It's a vicious cycle. While the media has the obligation to inform the public, I really believe that they're also playing a small (or perhaps not so small) part in creating the next massacre. Somewhere out there is the next Cho, perhaps sitting down in front of the TV right now, watching the news coverage and relishing the idea of having his name up on the screen one day. If attention and infamy is what you crave, shooting some classmates is pretty much guaranteed to provide it.

Let's just hope Bush doesn't consider the attack on Virginia Tech an act of terrorism and an excuse to send more troops overseas. Ok, I had to try and lighten things up a bit.

Parent of the Year….
In England, a mother forced her two year old son and three year old daughter to fight while she videotaped them, along with three friends, and shouted gay slurs at her son. They four women were given one year suspended sentences for child cruelty, which in layman's turns, means jack fucking shit. It's sickening to think that parenting is a right, while it should be a privilege. Just because you're biologically fit to be a parent doesn't mean you have any business being one. This is utterly fucking disgusting. I really can't think of any other way to put it, except that it makes Alec Baldwin look like father of the year.