Virginia Tech thoughts... two days later
Link to CNN page about Victims - with links to profiles for each.
I spent all of Monday flipping from news channel to news channel, scouring the Internet for updates, and looking for any source of new information I could find about what happened at Virginia Tech. I stayed up way too late and woke up early to see if there were any new stories, any new information. I wanted to find out who the killer was and if there was any easy explanation for what happened. I was really hoping it wasn't an American citizen. The one story I saw about it possibly being a Chinese National and was an act of terrorism would have been.. well- I was going to say it would have been better than if it were an American that did.. but maybe not.. anyways, that's not the point. I really am glad that the killer has a name that most Americans won't remember past next week. That is the only good thing I've heard. So, anyways- I went to class on Tuesday and nobody was talking about it. I felt a little weird walking on campus because everyone suddenly seemed suspicious. I wonder if that person could do something like that... what about that guy, I've never seen him... there is an Asian student, I wonder if they are hating this and if they feel like everyone is now looking at them funny... is this campus safe... what would happen here if something like that started... I spoke to a friend later in the day who said they hadn't heard anyone speak about it, either. We decided that it probably has something to do with feeling vulnerable. Is the next guy going to try to shoot more people... there's nothing here to prevent something like that from happening.. are there guns in the armory.. how many police does Purdue have... these are things I eventually heard in discussions that I initiated. Of course, everyone feels so horrible for everyone at VaTech, everyone of their relatives and loved ones, etc- that goes without saying. But, vulnerability makes people think about themselves and their well-being. If it happened here, what would my parents be thinking while they were waiting to hear from me... what would I be thinking while I was waiting to hear from all of my friends... if I were in the building, would I do something, what could I do.. do the doors in the classrooms lock... doesn't that door on room (...) in (...) open to the outside... what could we do... would it have helped to have guns on campus... I quickly caught up on all of the news of the day when I got home late last evening and had to get a project done- well, I should say, I had to start a project and then get it done, because it was due today. I watched some more news last night. That poet/professor was pretty good in her speech. I don't ever want to hear that guy's name. I hope his poems and stories are burned. I think we (the experts) know enough about killers that we could stand to lose the killer's writings. Otherwise, someone is going to become a fan or repeat what he did- why do people become fans of mass murderers... I can't believe the story about the professor, Liviu Librescu, that was a survivor of the Holocaust who was trying to hold the door shut while his students jumped out the window... that Facebook group has 220,000 people on it, so far.
I haven't had too much time to look at any info today. I was looking for stories about the victims because I would hope that they would become the famous ones out of this not the killer... oh yah, now there's a video from the freak.. don't play it.. play profiles of the victims!
So, this all has me thinking back to thoughts I previously had. This society is so screwed up. It is too fast paced. News stories are for entertainment. Lives mean nothing. People work too much. People have too much stress. Big business and big government are working too hard to stretch the divide between the richest 1% and the other 99% of us (poor). We are working too hard for them and they already have enough money. Society needs to change. Society needs to slow down. People need to appreciate simpler things like nature and other people. Sports, music and other forms of entertainment need to quit being so important because they are taking people's attention away from each other, their faith, their lives. (It won't happen until we have no other choice, if we are lucky enough to have the choice).
I saw this post on Sean's Russia Blog where he looks at what Russian's are saying about Virginia Tech and it reaffirmed my thoughts because it says people in America are too stressed. I'd say that it applies to more than just America but we are probably the most stressed. And, it shows.
Liviu Librescu .... Liviu Librescu .... Liviu Librescu - that is one of the names that need to be remembered.
I bet he had a lot of great things to teach......
I spent all of Monday flipping from news channel to news channel, scouring the Internet for updates, and looking for any source of new information I could find about what happened at Virginia Tech. I stayed up way too late and woke up early to see if there were any new stories, any new information. I wanted to find out who the killer was and if there was any easy explanation for what happened. I was really hoping it wasn't an American citizen. The one story I saw about it possibly being a Chinese National and was an act of terrorism would have been.. well- I was going to say it would have been better than if it were an American that did.. but maybe not.. anyways, that's not the point. I really am glad that the killer has a name that most Americans won't remember past next week. That is the only good thing I've heard. So, anyways- I went to class on Tuesday and nobody was talking about it. I felt a little weird walking on campus because everyone suddenly seemed suspicious. I wonder if that person could do something like that... what about that guy, I've never seen him... there is an Asian student, I wonder if they are hating this and if they feel like everyone is now looking at them funny... is this campus safe... what would happen here if something like that started... I spoke to a friend later in the day who said they hadn't heard anyone speak about it, either. We decided that it probably has something to do with feeling vulnerable. Is the next guy going to try to shoot more people... there's nothing here to prevent something like that from happening.. are there guns in the armory.. how many police does Purdue have... these are things I eventually heard in discussions that I initiated. Of course, everyone feels so horrible for everyone at VaTech, everyone of their relatives and loved ones, etc- that goes without saying. But, vulnerability makes people think about themselves and their well-being. If it happened here, what would my parents be thinking while they were waiting to hear from me... what would I be thinking while I was waiting to hear from all of my friends... if I were in the building, would I do something, what could I do.. do the doors in the classrooms lock... doesn't that door on room (...) in (...) open to the outside... what could we do... would it have helped to have guns on campus... I quickly caught up on all of the news of the day when I got home late last evening and had to get a project done- well, I should say, I had to start a project and then get it done, because it was due today. I watched some more news last night. That poet/professor was pretty good in her speech. I don't ever want to hear that guy's name. I hope his poems and stories are burned. I think we (the experts) know enough about killers that we could stand to lose the killer's writings. Otherwise, someone is going to become a fan or repeat what he did- why do people become fans of mass murderers... I can't believe the story about the professor, Liviu Librescu, that was a survivor of the Holocaust who was trying to hold the door shut while his students jumped out the window... that Facebook group has 220,000 people on it, so far.
I haven't had too much time to look at any info today. I was looking for stories about the victims because I would hope that they would become the famous ones out of this not the killer... oh yah, now there's a video from the freak.. don't play it.. play profiles of the victims!
So, this all has me thinking back to thoughts I previously had. This society is so screwed up. It is too fast paced. News stories are for entertainment. Lives mean nothing. People work too much. People have too much stress. Big business and big government are working too hard to stretch the divide between the richest 1% and the other 99% of us (poor). We are working too hard for them and they already have enough money. Society needs to change. Society needs to slow down. People need to appreciate simpler things like nature and other people. Sports, music and other forms of entertainment need to quit being so important because they are taking people's attention away from each other, their faith, their lives. (It won't happen until we have no other choice, if we are lucky enough to have the choice).
I saw this post on Sean's Russia Blog where he looks at what Russian's are saying about Virginia Tech and it reaffirmed my thoughts because it says people in America are too stressed. I'd say that it applies to more than just America but we are probably the most stressed. And, it shows.
Liviu Librescu .... Liviu Librescu .... Liviu Librescu - that is one of the names that need to be remembered.
I bet he had a lot of great things to teach......
Labels: Va Tech, Va. Tech, Virginia Tech
posted by Anonymous at 4/18/2007 08:01:00 PM
1 Comments:
As much as I think there should be attention paid to the victims, I think there also needs to be attention to the killer. The media is out there- anyone who wants to idolize the shooter has access to plenty of material about him, so it's not like us not looking is going to do anything about that.
I think it's important to pay attention to the killer, not because he should be remembered more than the victims, but so that we can try to figure out why this happened. If we can find patterns in the people that do these kinds of things, it may be possible to prevent things like this from happening in the future.
Plus, I know some people that absolutely must know everything about a tragedy to deal with it. In some cases, the information helps them to make sense of something senseless. So while I see your point about not paying too much attention to the shooter... I don't know if I agree. The victims should be remembered, but the killer shouldn't be ignored.
One of my professors initiated a discussion about the shootings, and it was interesting to hear some of the perspectives- especially from a classmate who was from South Korea. She worried that Koreans would get a bad reputation from this man who has spent most of his life in the United States, and that it would be difficult for Korean students to come here for education. She, personally, had decided not to go home over the summer as originally planned for fear of not being allowed back in the fall. She also said that many of her Korean and Korean-American friends were sticking together and not spending much time in public for fear of retaliation, especially in the midwest where Asians are not as plentiful as they might be in other areas of the U.S. It makes me sad that they even have to worry about it, and it brought up aspects of this thing I'd never even thought about.
I probably should've just made my own post, but maybe later (when I'm not procrastinating).
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