Open Thread

I’m certainly glad that, at this particularly sorrowful and shameful moment in our country’s history, that at least Mr. Bush has his priorities in order -

“The president believes that there is a right for people to bear arms, but that all laws must be followed” - Dana Perino, White House spokeswoman, about President Bush’s response to the slaughter of students by a gunman at Virginia Tech today.

Fond as I am of you, Cooper, I’d hate to see this event used as an excuse to attack Bush, the NRA, or the Second Amendment. And I’ve no doubt our own Waterfowler will rush to the defense of all three, if that happens. At this point, it’s simply an unexplained tragedy.

I am disgusted with the rush to obtain first-person accounts of the event. MSNBC has “Student Trey Perkins describes being in a classroom where many students were shot,” and even “Soph. Derek O’Dell describes being shot.”

How is that news?? What kind of people want to read those stories? Why do the victims/witnesses succumb to the glamor of “being interviewed”? (fade out on old-coot-like grumbling noises…)

Ann, this is indeed a tragic incident and stupid beyond imagination. All of those lives pointlessly ruined and wasted. My son goes away to college next year and, believe me, I do not take this sort of thing lightly. But I was absolutely astounded to hear his spokesperson trot out that response on NPR this afternoon. I’m pretty sure that’s not what Bush said anyway. This was the thoroughly massaged, re-worked, focus-grouped, burnished and spit-shined version of what he actually said, and it still came out as the clueless and inappropriate dreck that we’ve come to expect. I was just standing out of the way and letting Bush step on his own tongue. We need leaders in times of national tragedy to somehow help us come to grips with the enormity of it all. Reagan did that for us after Challenger broke-up. At this moment, the country, and the world, needs better people leading America than we currently have.

I’m sitting in a public library, about to start one of the semi-regular meetings I have with the author of a book I’m illustrating. I’m surrounded by kids working with their tutors, and a couple of adults using the public computers. Not quite a school setting, but still that kind of vibe… learning energy. Everyone here is bettering themselves, in ways big and small. To think of random, violent death inserting itself into such a place… ugh. Words fail. I have some political thoughts, but they need not show up here.

I can only send my hopes for solace and strength to all the families and friends.

This is just horrible. I remember how terrifying it felt to be in a lockdown back when a police officer was shot on my campus in 2005, but to have fellow students gunned down? I can’t even imagine.
I still have friends in college - what if it had happened at my alma mater? What if I lost good friends that I haven’t seen in a year? My heart just hurts thinking about it.
I’m staying away from the media, and I hope that the media stays away from all the students, faculty, and families. Grief is not something so easily handled on a personal and individual level, nor is it so easily shared with others. Unfortunately respect such as that seems to be lacking in our society anymore.

I met a woman tonight who has a grand daughter going to VA Tech. She found out late this afternoon that she is OK. This woman also had very strong ties to the college, so she probably knows someone who was killed by this insane person. Seeing this woman visibly in pieces, but somehow keep it together, and lead the group that was meeting in a very heartfelt prayer really connected me to this tragedy, and the families of those struck down. I don’t have any more thoughts on this except that we all need to take a little time to think of the victims and their families. They need our love right now.

Personally, I plan to develop into a fully-formed curmudgeon; grumbling coot-hood seems a lesser goal. Still, if there’s room for four on the park bench (one of whom does not have a small dog - allergies, you know)….

On one level, though, and much as he appalls me and I disagree with him, Pres. Dubya was right. Laws must be followed. If only his administration took that advice.

And the mention of the second amendment was entirely appropriate: we have these tragedies - and Columbine, and those kids in Missouri, and the Beltway Sniper, and 101 California, and every other idiot going crazy with a gun - because we DO insist that every idiot has the right to have a gun. And as long as we insist on the right to keep and bear arms, and make NO reference to any related responsibilities, we will continue to have these appalling events. There’s a direct connection there which we need to continue to hammer on.

But I do like the suggestion of a $4,000 per bullet tax.

Or a third bench, for the fat asses Tammy and I have. We’ll be there. Just let us know.

I have to admit that because I had and still am having a strong reaction to the shootings I am reading and watching everything I can including the interviews with the students. I find that there is some value there. I see a human being having a visceral reaction. Seeing these types of interviews helps me to imagine what it might have been like to have been there, what the witness is feeling having been through it, what the perpetrator might have seen and felt, what I might have seen and felt. It helps me to get a picture of the situation which seems closer to the event than the picture I might get if it were described by a newsanchor or reporter. And the point, again, for me, is to try to understand what happened. (I should say, also, that I am not watching any tv coverage which is likely more saturated with witness interviews and presenting them with flashy graphics and music.)

I am most astounded by the number of people killed and the number wounded. That the person was able to kill and wound so many in such a short time is frightening. I don’t need to say that this person was cold, but the degree of the coldness, the intensity of the act maintained over a 25 minute period, acting alone and at close range… That someone could do this and do it in such a setting…

I recently read a book by the Japanese author Murakami about the Tokyo subway sarin gas poisoning in the nineties in which he spends a significant portion reflecting upon what it might mean that such a plot was able to take root, find nourishment, and mature in Japanese society. Is anyone familiar with a similar examination of incidents like today’s in the United States? I would be interested…

I dated a woman recently who seemed remarkable to me because she was strong and had a deeply felt caring attitude towards people. It is disturbing that it is so rare, at least in my life. I admit that though I like to believe that I have the same caring attitude somewhere within, I don’t express it enough, if at all.

I have to say that this is another time that I’m really glad I don’t have a TV.

I’d love a chance to curl up in a fetal position underneath one of those benches, if there’s room.

I have to admit I’m staying away from most of the coverage. At some point I’ll have to catch up but I prefer it to be after something is actually known. Upon hearing my much-mourned npr-that-was go in-depth on reporting of theories this morning, I nearly yanked the knob off the dashboard.

Still, it’s impossible not to think about it.

Yep. Right here under the bench; I’ll just put this newspaper over the doggie doo. I’ll come out in a few days…I think.

Amen, cooper.

Cooper–and what about all the Iraqi civilians–also many young people–who are killed in suicide attacks every day?

I in no way mean to minimize the horror of the VA shooting, or to suggest that it isn´t worthy of media coverage. I guess it is human nature to feel things more the closer they are to home.

Though death is death, the setting can certainly have a profound effect on the reaction to and perception of death. A massacre in a classroom is a much more shocking image to me than that of soldiers being killed in a war zone. I do not accept the implication that I should react to each in the same way.

To put it simply there is no expectation of death in the student setting whereas soldiers are intimately involved with death.

The death of a soldier may imply glory, vengeance, duty, and sacrifice and may be perceived as a fitting and honorable end. The death of a student implies a lost future and would most often seem odd if described in the same way as the death of a soldier.

Stripped of their roles each is in fact a person which may be what Cooper and others are getting at. I don’t think that reacting to the setting, to the role each person has chosen, and to the presence of death in the particular setting and upon the particular role is ignorant or in any way lacking in perception as seems to be implied.

Not the best time for comix, but…

I’m going to try to get a link posted, but meanwhile go to the Orlando Sentinel for Saturday, April 21 and read the “My Word” commentary on the editorial pages (page A19) by Jerome Donnelly, a retired UCF English professor entitled “Ishmael with an Automatic.”

Harold, as a matter of fact, there are systems that check to see if you are off the rails before allowing you to buy a gun. In fact, Virginia has such a system. What Virginia does not have is universal adherence to the idea that the mental health weenies should pass on the diagnosis of “a danger to himself and others” to the guys that maintain the background check database… as they did not, in the case of the late lamented Cho.

And yes, I think he should be lamented; it is lamentable that he got to this state and nobody noticed, nobody intervened. “Any man’s death diminshes me”; and what with the way things go these days, I feel pretty small sometimes.