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Only the emotionally and the spiritually weak will politicize this sad event.
Thirty Three Murders http://www.chabad.org/library/article.asp?
AID=504538
I agree- there's no explanation sometimes, it just happens. It's a shame how so many commenters on both sides of the political spectrum are trying to use this tragedy to advance their agenda.
Greg, we finally agree on something, hehe.
This is a tragedy and there is time enough for debate, now is not the time.
Maybe Mr. Cho’s reported delusions regarding his poor treatment were not as delusional as some ‘interested parties’ may have us believe. (A couple of observations from way out in left field.)
"You had a hundred billion chances and ways to have avoided today, but you decided to spill my blood. You forced me into a corner and gave me only one option. The decision was yours. Now you have blood on your hands that will never wash off". - Cho Seung-Hui. He also uses terms to describe those around him as “brats” and “snobs” and also mentions acts of “debauchery” and “hedonistic” behavior.
What follows is in no way intended to imply Mr. Cho’s unfortunate victims are necessarily the stimulus for his malicious/irrational/insane (?) act, however a number of interesting comments have been made about Mr. Cho by those ‘knew’ or where acquainted with him. It is their possible influence on Mr. Cho’s state of mind prior to (and perhaps during) the shootings that intrigues me.
So why would one be led to think he may have been more provoked than is immediately obvious? What strange media events and reported opinions have contributed to my questioning of how ‘gripped by evil’, as one person put it, was he?
The first thing I found astounding was the interview on CNN with the two ‘roommates’/“suitemates” John and Andy. I mean why would these two guys be up in a formal ‘analytical’ interview with CNN’s Truckman of AC360 virtually before the victims were even cold and I assume before they had even been interviewed by the police?
I particularly find the following exchange/s - statements a bit unnerving… “ANDY: The one [girl] down the hall, I got the girl's screen name and kind of told her -- I I.M.'d her and told her this guy, you know, he's messing around with you. Here's his name. And you shouldn't -- kind of ignore him and just stay way from him. ?Then the other time the cops responded again and Seung became upset about that and he had told me that he might as well kill himself. And so I told the cops that and they took him away to the counseling center for a night or two.”(1)
To me this guy could be seen as potentially fencing Seung in and not letting others (the girls) deal with or even perhaps develop a relationship with Seung. At best I see him a busy body and at worst… well I don’t know… to my way of thinking if he had concerns he should have reported them to the authorities and not taken the vigilante action he seems to have taken.
Some more from “ANDY: I'm trying to think of the craziest incident with him. I guess it was his face file. He had a -- called it Question Mark. And he told me that that was his brother. And he had gotten my cell phone number from when we used to invite him to dinner and stuff. So he called me on a couple instances talking and saying he was Question Mark. And I remember one night I finally just got completely tired of it [hadn’t he only called twice] and I'm like, Seung, the act's up, you know, you need
...to stop this. And he was like, this isn't Seung, this is Question Mark, being real -- insisting on that. I knew he had to be in Cochran. I went through all the lounges in Cochran and -- not that many, but I finally found him on the -- I think it was the...??TUCHMAN: Cochran, the residence hall? ??ANDY: Yes. I found him on the third floor in one of the study lounges and the lights were off. And the moment I walked in, he hung the phone up and acted like everything was normal and denied that he had been on the phone with me.”
My question is why go scouring the building, why not just hang up and address the issue when you next meet in your shared accommodation?
A bit more of the CNN Tuchman-Andy-John interview where they are discussing that after a few drinks Seung has confessed to having an imaginary super model girlfriend… “TUCHMAN: And were you guys amused by this or -- or ‘weirded out’ by it? ?ANDY: More amused. You know, you think this guy is pretty crazy. ” (2)
Amused eh… hmmm I don’t understand how this guys difficulties loneliness and apparent craziness should be amusing to another obviously ‘well adjusted’ caring human being. Maybe it’s an American cultural, macho thing of some sort.
What about the female recipients of his unwanted attentions? According to Virginia Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum as quoted in the Seattle Times Newspaper (3) “the two women that complained to campus police that they had received calls and computer messages from Cho”… “considered the messages ‘annoying’ not threatening.”
Again my question again is, if Seung was not seen as threatening why was our friend ANDY so active in warning another women about him.
And what about his teachers… The International Herald Tribune reports… “a professor of creative writing, the poet Nikki Giovanni, refused to let him stay in her class because his writing was ‘intimidating’ and he frightened other students.” The paper hardcopy version quotes Ms. Giovanni as telling him ‘that he needed to change the type of poems he was writing or drop her class’. Is this the sort of ‘arrogance’ Cho is/was complaining about?
What’s the big deal, lots of art and even regular kids video games are pretty black and violent and art reflects society so why ostracize Seung?
Also in IHT’s Asian hardcopy edition it states that Charlotte Peterson (a previous student in his British literature class) is reported as saying that when “Mr. Cho wrote a question mark as his name on a document “even the teacher laughed at him”. (4) Most of us don’t like to be laughed at particularly by powerful authority figures. This teacher if the claim is true should be disciplined severely, now, before he/she or can have a chance of possibly contributing to the delinquency of another minor.
Oh again back to Ms. Giovanni… according to ‘news.AOL.com’ Giovanni said she considered him (Mr. Cho) "mean" and "a bully." (5) This seems to conflict with the statement by one of the luckier studen
...ts that escaped who said he was physically weak and could not open a classroom door being held shut by a small female. I guess the bullying by Mr. Cho Seung-Hui must have been mental bullying, similar perhaps to what he was also perhaps receiving from those around him.
The Jakarta Post of April 19th reports that Ian MacFarlane a former classmate of Seung’s states that he thought on hearing of the carnage ‘I bet it was Sueng Cho’ and this guy has posted Seung’s dark essays online. Why would he think what he thought, apparently do nothing positive about it… and now post the plays? He does explain however the reason seems a little ‘gratuitous’ to me. (6)
In a further reveling development in this absorbing case a CNN reporter today (April 20) revealed that Sueng was ‘teased, laughed at and told to go back to China’ when he was in High school. Hmmm maybe he wasn’t as paranoid as we think and some of those “snobs” and “brats” had inflicted real mental harm on him. His family as well, according to a great aunt in Korea didn’t know how to get Seung help and she was a very ‘sympathetic’ person who just retorted “who would of thought he could have caused so much trouble, the idiot.” What an old witch she seems to be, no compassion for her sick relative at all (Asian family values?).
One more slant on the media and the rest of us….
Of course for those involved in this tragedy it is a life-changing event although not the world-shattering event that the police spokesperson keeps telling us it is. American’s need to realize that all shit that happens is revolting not just the stuff that Americans suffer.
As an example of other just as earth shattering news or ‘by the way’… on Monday April 16th forty eight Iraqis where killed including Talal al-Jalili, the Dean of the Mosul Political Science College, who was killed in a in a drive-by shooting.
From a distance and from what almost appears as casual reporting on major American networks one gets the feeling that much of the world (and particularly a large proportion of Americans) see Iraqi’s killed as just collateral damage in the war on terror. Lets be honest the unfortunate students that died could possibly be also be viewed as collateral damage to Seung’s own war on his personal terror. Why all the outrage when it is American youth that becomes a victim of life’s nasty realities and the apparent ho hum attitude when it is Iraqi’s?
To give another perspective on life’s little miseries here is a portion of an article concerning the death of an Indonesian college student from The Jakarta Post Thursday April 19th… “The investigation into the death of Institute of Public Administration student Cliff Muntu has revealed that he likely died from blows to his chest.” “A reconstruction of the crime, which involved the seven senior students alleged to be responsible for the attack, which took place on April 2 has now been completed.” “West Java Police are still investigating the possible involveme
nt of several lecturers and supervisors in the assault.” (
To my way of thinking the Indonesian story is just as tragic as the Virginia incident and also for me it highlights that our level of revulsion should not be just a numbers game or be seen as only important when it happens in or near our hometown.
Oh also, the really big story and major question we should be focusing on… how many children died in Darfur on Monday? At least 100 if past statistics are any indicator… please CNN, BBC and all the rest of you, don’t loose your focus on the really big international issues due to some morbid fascination with the ‘sick and weird’ just because its in America and don’t neglect your social responsibility to point out the bigger Darfur/Somali, Iraqi, and Palestinian insanity just because of our or your strange craving or apparent crass need for drama, drama, drama.
Then again it is a fascinating and entertaining story… isn’t it?
Life is fragile and transient and as the American lady on a current National Geographic Channel promo puts it, with an American drawl, “your life can change in the twinkling of a eye”
caliibre
www.caliibre.com
http://caliibre.blogspot.com
Refs:
1) http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIP.../17/
acd.02.html
2) http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIP.../17/
acd.01.html
3) http://
seattletimes.nwsource.com...55_shoot19.html
4) http://www.iht.com/articles/2007...ca/
19gunman.php and hardcopy for April 19 2007
5) http://news.aol.com/topnews/
arti...509990001#video
6) Jakarta Post April 19 2007
7) http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/...k/
KAM628011.htm
http://www.thejakartapost.com/
ye...id=20070418.G01
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