Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Fed up.....

Am I the only one who is absolutely sickened with the coverage of this VT tragedy?!

To me, the kid who did this was ABSOLUTELY mentally unstable, and it is unfortunate, but the way media and society responds to this almost is enough to make the way the kid snapped seem to make sense.

I turned on the TV to see his sneering roommates get interviewed by Gary Tuchman of CNN, one of them smiled throughout the entire interview as if the whole thing was a big joke, and now everyone got to understand his "hysterical" unusual roommate. They both broke out in laughter when they shared a story about the murderer's "imaginary girlfriend". This is an excellent example of the type of behavior which probably helped push the kid over the edge... and there's not a doubt in my mind that contrary to their assertion, these smiling f*cks were mentally abusive jerks with absolutely little to no care for their strange roommate. When asked point blank if they thought it was amusing the kids actually said "yes".

Then you have the knee jerk reaction of parents to kids at VT. The tragedy took place in an "Engineering" class room but you know a bunch of sobbing hysterical self involved parents must have called up the college to see if their little art student was alive. And then every kid in the school suddenly needs psychiatric treatment because our pathetic weakling society coddles them to the point to make them believe this tragedy is personally theirs. VT is like a small town, and yet when someone down the street from me gets murdered I won't get a government sanctioned personal counselor. Well... give it time.

Worst of all... the 911 syndrome is already occurring and the media and society is demanding retribution against someone else. VT security is responsible, no wait it is the police, no its the students. How about this kid's parents or sponsor in this country?... they might at least have something there. O'Reilly was railing about how VT security should be held responsible for not being able to predict the future better. Now everyone is demanding that there should have been a magical way to read this kid's mind and prevent all of this.

I haven't heard the "ban guns" call yet, but I'm sure it can't be far behind. Maybe we can get a five day waiting period on heavy chains too.

If we let the irrational loony toons have their way in dealing with problems like this, we will have a world that increasingly discriminates those who are different, we will encourage fascism, we will discourage independent thought, and we will make it increasingly more difficult to do a job right. People will not want to go into security or law enforcement because of the potential they will be scapegoated into the blame of a problem they are completely innocent of.

I'm sick of this story, and I'm sick and tired of society's emotional rather than rational response. The pathetic thing is a leader should be able to say "times are tough but this is how we are going to deal..." but in today's world that makes that person heartless and disconnected; but this is one of many reasons why the world is so screwed up and people can't cope with anything.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

George, c'mon. If you're so fed up, why keep watching? Also, you have to understand that today's world is shaped by the media - war, politics, tragedy, triumph - it's all documented and it's all shoved down your throat. It's the Age of YouTube. And what's worse is it's already cliche to say that - you catching my drift? We've begun to fold over on ourselves, and the worst part is that it's just the beginning. On a completely different note, I wish I bought stock in Google.

-John

George N. Parks said...

I'm fed up, I didn't say I was going to stop watching. I actually find it fascinating... but I'm not going to stand around light candles and pray or scream for justice, because that's exactly what we shouldn't be doing. The unhappy kid that made this mess is dead. What's broken isn't campus security, law enforcement or gun laws, those are just mere distractions from the real problem. What IS broken is morality, respect, and decency. Our society is broken, it is selfish and hedonistic... ironically the crazy kid was right. Society is proving him right by trying to find someone else to blame, some law, some inanimate tool, rather than looking in upon themselves and the world that they perpetuate.

Cho was mentally unstable, but he knew exactly what strings he was pulling. He knew that people are too irrational and simple minded to change... and that what people do respond to is fear. What he did is morally reprehensible, but I totally get why he did it. Most people probably won't because they never had to face that level of ridicule.

The education system should start by growing some testicles. They need to address bullies rather than look the other way out of fear of the parents. And teachers aren't there to be social, but too many are because it is easier than establishing dicipline. This usually translates to teachers championing the wise ass jocks and jockettes and making mockery of odd balls like Cho, which just cements in their mind that the whole world is against them. On some level unless the outcast ones can figure out a way to overcome this prejudice they aren't too far off.

If you did buy stock in Google, you'd be best to sell it NOW. There are already several big media lawsuits against Youtube for copyright infringment, and if this goes the way of Napster.... which it will, it will be baaaaad news since Google is way over valued as it is. Not that I fall for that documented crap that's shoved down our throats or anything (wink).