in the "Re-Imaging Violence" thread, Public Records Access – Earn… […] FINA [...]

Pleasant it is, when over the great sea the winds shake the waters,
To gaze down from shore on the trials of others;
Not because seeing other people struggle is sweet to us,
But because the fact that we ourselves are free from such ills strikes us as pleasant.
Pleasant it is also to behold great armies battling on a plain,
When we ourselves have no part in their peril.
But nothing is sweeter than to occupy a lofty sanctuary of the mind,
Well fortified with the teachings of the wise,
Where we may look down on others as they stumble along,
Vainly searching for the true path of life. . . . (2. 1-10)

weird how someone from b.c. can get our modern detachment.

nother’s April 19th, 2007 at 1:37 pm

putting cho’s stuff on the air only encourages the next one..and there will be a next one..

the networks have become tabloids. where in the world is nbc’s head!

If I should nuke Jerusalem
And vaporize its trees,
And its dust were blown around the globe
Would anybody sneeze?

And, if they did, what would we cry?
“JERUSALEM!” of course-
To let them know that sneezing
Is no cause for remorse.

If I should nuke Jerusalem
I’d warn them, beforehand,
So folks could gather up their things
And scatter through the land.

I’d pray they scattered far enough,
Since I’d use a large device.
(It’d be SO disappointing
to have to nuke it TWICE.)
(anon)
^..^

I just heard this show last night on podcast — thanks a lot for it. After any such event, I can only absorb so much media and street rehash before I pretty much dissolve into the formless anxiety we all seem to want to live in. I mean, this was the first real weekend of beautiful spring up here in Toronto, and still all I heard was Virginia, Virginia, Virginia.

Way to find a context that works on the brain, not just the fluttery nerves.

cheers,

–jd

That is unlikely and speculative in the extrme. The bomb used on Hiroshima was tiny by modern standards – around 15 kilotons yield. It would have made no obvious impact on Mt Fuji except on close inspection. Furthermore, Japan had a tightly controlled press during the war so any impact of such a bombing would have leaked out only slowly.

The bottom line is that the atomic bombing of Japan worked, and in the end probably save vastly more lives than it cost. This is the exact opposite of the Iraqi situation.

Sorry if I seemed to come on too strong. I absolutely agree it came up and was addressed (in part). As must be clear by now, I just have relatively strong views on the issue. and think we collectively need to air these matters out in more detail. (For a more measured take, see my post earlier today on the Pitch a Show thread.)

..”Truman destroyed whole cities to save the lives of a million Japanese and a hundred thousand allied soldiers who would have probaby died if it was necessary to invade Japan to end the war. It worked..”-

Both of these statements hold a kernel of truth… and both hold up perspectives that we may need to examine in order to make progress in the world- both as a powerful nation and as a paradigm.
If Truman (incl his administration) had bothered to learn something about the Japanese, an atomic bomb could have been dropped on Mt. Fuji, and inspired enough awe and appreciation of the power unleashed that a peace agreement could have been negotiated.
In our latest armed conflict, at the beginning of our alleged pursuit of Osama bin Laden (before the Iraq invasion), our forces attacked with a level of firepower far beyond anything seen in that part of the world… ie we “proved we were bad.” As the Winter (a very severe one, even for that part of the world) shut down travel, we continued to hunt & attack- from the air. What if, instead of dropping cluster bombs (which will continue to maim & kill even beyond any set time of a cease of hostilities), our forces had dropped millions of loaves of bread on those same mountain villages? In the mountains of the border tribes there would be legends lasting for a thousand years of the Winter that their Enemy bombarded them with Bread- and it would have introduced another level of awareness on a people for whom violence & power struggles and invaders are “old hat”… As the children pulled frozen loaves out of snowdrifts in the early Spring, when they were near (or beyond) the end of their stores, what would this have done to their outlook about our intentions? How would they interpret our behavior? Even with a “Might makes Right” paradigm, it is possible to express that Might in countless ways. Why must it always be an expression of Violence? ^..^

Truman destroyed whole cities to save the lives of a million Japanese and a hundred thousand allied soldiers who would have probaby died if it was necessary to invade Japan to end the war. It worked.

America is violent, but not uniquely so. We used to have the highest murder rate in the world but that honor has since passed to other countries.

In other societies when someone blows himself up in a crowded marketplace to express himself there are religious and community leaders who praise him as a martyr. Here when a wacko kills 32 innocent people no one sings his praises. In other countries if a woman has the temerity to have sex on her own terms or takes a boyfriend her parents don’t approve of, someone from her own family kills her.

In some provinces in China there are 800 girls for every 1000 boys. Guess what happened to the other 200 girls?

Get some perspective. There is much to criticize about the US, including our violence, but just like software, cars, and manufacturing industries, we’re no longer number one in that category.

Then it seems like we do agree. I never said Bush alone is violent. I agree with you. Our nation has been incredibly violent for a long time. It was in the Johnson years that Martin Luther King pointed out ours is the most violent nation on Earth. Truman destroyed whole cities just to prove he could. Let us hope for the future that we become less violent.

Well, it’s certainly AN important issue!

A letter writer in the Boston Globe commented how much easier it is to get a gun than to get mental health care.

While that’s true, it’s somewhat apples-and-oranges. Buying a gun is simple – you make your selection, hand someone some money, he gives you a gun, and the gun almost always works as advertised.

Mental health is a different problem. Years ago I had the idea to pay for the treatment of a relative with a substance abuse problem. I have a strong science background and I have professional access to all major peer-reviewed medical and research journals and the skills to search and read them. And what I found shocked me. Not only are there a ZILLION different theories and treatment approaches to substance abuse, but the quality and quantity of the research comparing them is horribly bad!

Anyone who has ever sought treatment for a child with an eating disorder or other adolescent behavioral or psychiatric problems knows how frustrating it is for the same reasons. Even if money and access are no problem, getting good treatment is a crap-shoot because so little is understood.

The reality is that psychiatry, as a science, is about where chemistry was maybe in 1750. It only knows a little bit with certainty; there’s lots of conflicting models and theories, inconsistent diagnostic criteria, few objective tests for anything, and few reliable results.

As to the Bush statement. I really must disagree. Our culture has been violent long before Bush was born and it will be violent long after he is gone. but at least you gave some sort of context to your opinion.

Decision Examined: Poynter Discussion of NBC’s Use of the Killer’s Video
http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=101&aid=121760

Feedback Overload: Handling User Comments on the Shootings
http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=101&aid=121631

Newspaper Fronts: Serving History or Readers?
http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=47&aid=121610

We live in an incredibly violent culture. I think it is important to try to understand it. Cho lashed out tragically at his school. We as a nation do not set a good example of resolving difficulty through non-violent means. George W. Bush likes to take imagery from shoot um’ up western movies. He is responsible for many more violent deaths than one lone shooter. I’m not saying they are exactly the same. I’m saying we have violence all around us. There are submarines down-sound from me that are capable of blowing up the planet many times over. Violence permeates our culture. Cho’s actions were horrible and tragic yet they do happen within a context.

“Deferring to his rights” is guaranteed to him under the Constitution. You can’t take his rights to “run free” away from him without due process. And, as I said before, the science isn’t very reliable in this respect. So if a psychiatrist went to the police and they took it before a judge, Cho would have had a right to legal counsel. And his attorney would have pointed out how weak and unreliable the science is and the fact that his client had never actually hurt anyone.

NPR had a whole report on this problem on Morning Edition today. You just can’t tell who’s really dangerous; who’s really a threat. And in a free society you have to set the bar quite high to preserve all of our rights.

here here.

plnelson and jazzman: I don’t have scientific evidence of violent entertainment acting as a sieve for violent intent. I was paraphrasing something Phillip Freeman, seated in the expert chair for that show, said. It was also based on purely anecdotal evidence from level headed people I’ve met who dig “Lethal Weapon” as well as “Sandman” yet have glowing records lacking mental illness and jail time.

I used to make meals for a homeless shelter and I learned that about 1/3 of the homeless have mental problems. I’m also a poet and if you hang out with poets you meet a lot of people with mental problems – I know that sounds like a terrible stereotype but it’s well documented in the scientific literature (one landmark study – Nancy C. Andreasen Creativity and Mental Illness: Prevalence Rates in Writers and Their First-Degree Relatives. American Journal of Psychiatry 144 (10): 1288-1292 (October 1987). Here’s an anecdote about why I had looked that up: recently I was at a poetry workshop where someone read a poem about his stay at a mental hospital. When we broke for lunch he sat at my table and two other people at my table started comparing notes with him about their stays in mental hospitals! I felt grateful to be the odd man out in that conversation!

Also in college I knew several young loners who might have met that description.

My point is this – there are a lot more “crazies” out there than you might think. And they have the same rights as you and me and the science simply isn’t good enough to predict who’s a threat. Potter and I have clashed before on the question of how well versed he/she is in the science of the topics we discuss, but this is another area where a grasp of the facts and the data would help. If you started closely monitoring or restricting every young man with violent or suicidal thoughts and imagery, or who had been under psychiatric care you’d be amazed at how many young men would be in your system!

I agree that a better background check might have made it harder for him to get a gun legally, but he was a smart young man and could probably have gotten around that. But the take-away is this : hindsight is 20/20; we’re surrounded by crazies; a few of them may turn violent; science has no way to predict which ones they are.

Have you ever READ what it says below the “Leave a Reply” area. It says,As you comment, please remember that you can disagree with respect.

Plnelson says : It may be a distant land, but in many ways America is more directly responsible for the carnage in Iraq than the carnage at Virginia Tech.

And he says that it’s speculation about what could have been done to prevent the Virginia Tech massacre and not speculative that had we not invaded Iraq there would be no “hellishness” there. There was hellishness in Iraq, worse than our massacre here; and Bush made it worse.

It’s not “pure speculation” or merely hindsight either that many who encountered Cho could have done more, that some with authority passed taking responsibility, deferring to his rights: his rights to run free even after ample exposure to his serious illness. Amazing that the school therapist before cameras was quick to say that there was little that they could do because of the law. Amazing that the school admitted him in the first place, and kept him to his senior year (because of his rights or some law or fear of a lawsuit) and did not suspend him. Amazing that he was not being watched by campus security after a history of complaints. Amazing that neither his family nor his roommate, nor others, made more and louder noises about his even stranger “strangeness” of late. Amazing that one psychological exam did not catch that he was suicidal and a danger to others and another did and never the twain did meet. Amazing that he was released from involuntary mental care and had no apparent or mandatory follow-up. Amazing that he was on some medication which could have exacerbated his condition or which he might not have taken it and it could have helped. Was he was monitored by the prescribing physician?

Amazing that Cho could buy guns easily from shops on two occasions lying about his mental problems and then go buy lots of ammo from Walmart. Amazing that those guns could shoot so many rounds and be hidden on a person. Amazing that guns are not allowed on campus yet there appears that this is not monitored; there is apparently no metal detection through which students must pass. Amazing that a simple ( relatively cheap) siren system for emergencies was not in place.

It’s amazing that there are some who are saying that this would not have happened if students were allowed to carry guns to protect themselves.

The Virginia Tech massacre was more than the work of “one crazy person”.

What enabled the Virginia Tech massacre and possibly others past and future is not speculation but congressional politics (and thus laws) regarding guns. What enabled Cho was complacency about serious mental illness. There is general lack of understanding, concern/care, responsibility for those with serious mental illness in our society. We turn away and ignore those ill who are deemed harmless, many of whom are homeless, and we incarcerate others. Families lack counseling resources ( health care, insurance coverage) to deal. Some families feel stigmatized and guilt by having someone who is mentally ill.

Not speculation.

I’m sorry to say that I stopped listening to the show months ago. Various reasons; perhaps I’m fickle. But when I heard the teaser the show last night,
“the first mass murder made for YouTube” something snapped. What on earth did this tragedy have to do with YouTube, or the Internet, or emergent culture? The only videos posted to YouTube were those pilfered. It just seems like an enormous stretch. I turned on the show at 7:15pm and listened for a minute, and Chris was trying to make the killer seem like some sort of symbol straddling the line between new and old media… And then I turned it off.

Skimming some of the comments, I think I’m in agreement with nother and others calling for restraint.

I should have an essay on the Internet published later today addressing this.

Jon

There was nothing in the video that could not have been repoted verbally by the news casters. We know news outlets make decisions all the time about what types of material they wish to broadcast. The reasons NBC gave for airing the video were nothing more than a smoke screen for their real motive.

Peggysue I find your strange links between Bush, Christianity and this deranged killer somewhat sad although I’m not totally suprised. It would be nice if you could give it a rest.

You watched the video and it reminded you of a ( twisted mel gibson chrisianity/bowling for columbine way) muslim suicide bomber video.

What the hell does that mean. First off incase you have been living in a closet for the past 20 years. There is no such thing as christian suicide bombers. We do have muslim suicide bombers. They are actually in action on an almost daily basis. Your comments show a disturbing disregard for reality.

Your link of Bush to this tragedy is nothing more than childish and somewhat pathetic.

It is simple sensationalist journalism, pay your dues for airtime with murder, beheadings, terror, mass murder, that’s how to be heard.

I admit that I did want to see Cho’s visuals. I was glad I could come here instead of looking it up on U-tube myself. I don’t feel quite so morbid finding it here. After all, we are asking intelligent questions, right? I asked myself why I wanted to see this miserible suffering soul. I guess to better understand humanity by observing the far reaches of the human psyche.

I also remembered the scene from Bowling For Columbine where Micheal Moore is interviewing a man from the town of Columbine in their missile/bomb factory and the man is standing right in front of a huge weapon saying he just can’t understand why these guys would do something so violent. Cho was insane but at least he wasn’t our president.