Below, I tried to examine how the international nature of the shooter helped me see the incident not as an American tragedy but as a global one. This was because I presumed he was a fairly recent immigrant and not subject to a lifetime of American culture, and thus represented a pathology more universal.
I may have been wrong. He had been here since he was eight, and in many particulars fit what we've come to see as the typical profile of such a person. As I say, I don't scour the news. This adjustment comes by way of a blog entry.
If I start thinking about the victims, as I tried not to do below, I will get all sad, and it won't do them any good, nor me, so I'm going to go out into the sunshine awhile. After all it's within an hour of lunchtime. Be safe, everyone, and alert, and smile at someone who looks lonely.
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Don
I'm too serious
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13 comments:
smile at someone who looks lonely
Good advice.
None of it makes sense. It just doesn't.
The whole loner thing is dumb. I was a loner, yet never felt the urge to shoot up the school. Maybe it's only boy loners. Boy loners who write dark plays. Whatever. We're never going to know what causes this, and we're not going to be able to prevent them all. But I guess it makes people feel better to think they understand and go on to rant about their cause. Porn! Videogames! Bottle feeding!
I would like to think that someday someone will work out just what tips people like this over the edge, because if they don't then this will occur again and again.
Like Paula, I was a loner as well, and never thought about a shooting spree.
Then again, if I'd been telekinetic lik CARRIE, there would have been hell to pay.
Anyone read Brooks Brown's book about Columbine (No Easy Answers)? I had a review of it on my blog one time, but my blog's gone, ha! Anyhow Brooks gets around to blaming pretty much everyone except the shooters. The same will happen here; over the next few weeks the professors, fellow students, police, etc. who "failed to prevent" this will all get blamed. It's easier I suppose. But it seems clear to me that such killers are made from a combination of nurture, bad wiring, and opportunity. It takes all three. Opportunity may be the easiest part of the equation for us to control, but it's only one piece. In certain circumstances we can help control the nurture aspect too - minimizing child abuse, bullying, etc., introducing some cultural change in schools would sure be a good start but of course that'll be slow. But bad wiring of course is completely beyond our control, so we don't talk about that part. Too scary.
Sorry. Babbling.
Don, I thought your masturbatory piece about the shooting was really unpleasant. Like most rightists, you saw "Asian" and thought "not one of us". Which would make it okay.
It's a terrible blow for you gun nuts. The kid walked into a shop and bought an arsenal. The sales assistant didn't care that he was fucked up. He just rang up the sale. Welcome to America.
Zen, your reaches are approaching pathetic in scope. My point, as everyone but you clearly sees, had nothing to do with him being Asian, but was about him not being raised an American. I corrected this error in the second post. The remaining message highlights absolutely none of the sickening externalized racism with which you color the world.
Dude, I don't what's going on with you but lately you've been sliding into some real idiocy.
Boo hoo hoo. Everyone's an idiot who doesn't agree with gun nuts. You should read what some of them have been writing. You're tame by comparison.
Hey, if Joe the Troll stops by, pass him this:
http://washingtonbureau.typepad.com/iraq/2007/04/um_noor.html
It's very interesting reading for anyone who thinks that the factionalism ripping Iraq apart has deep roots.
You know where my blog is. Why not deliver it yourself, fucktart?
Besides, I already told you that you're too egotistical and too biased to be able to offer anything of value to anyone who actually thinks. That, and the fact that it is finals week, means that I have neither the time or inclination to follow your red herrings.
Everyone's an idiot who doesn't agree with gun nuts.
No, but who doesn't get it and then tries to redirect the discussion.
You should read what some of them have been writing.
Why bother?
You're tame by comparison.
That's good.
"Everyone's an idiot who doesn't agree with gun nuts."
The same applies, I guess, to anyone who doesn't agree that guns ALONE are the cause of these situations. I guess the milions of gun owners who aren't murderous psychopaths are an aberration, and should be ignored. Then, we can do something EASY, and pat ourselves on the backs for having "done something about it", even if it ends up not solving the problem.
Wow, Don. I'm glad I didn't write anything on the shooting. Maybe my friends would have twisted my words and tried to crucify me too.
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