[Society] Virginia Tech Students Get It, So Why Doesn't the Media?

Yesterday, an ABC News article describing how the Virginia Tech Students, in the aftermath of the worse mass shooting in our nation's history, have begun to forgive Seung-Hui Cho, the lone gunman in the incident, completey floored me in a way that made me proud to be part of this generation.

Among a semicircle of stone memorials for each of the victims in the shootings on the Virginia Tech campus stands sits a stone for Cho, a stone which was removed earlier this week only to be replaced by another student much to the approval of classmates. Many "experts" and "officials" have added their opinion as to why the students have displayed such an early sign of forgiveness. One suggested that the strong Christian base of the area preaches forgiveness and the students heard that call. And if for certain individuals that can be said to be the cause, then more power to them. But, in my opinion, what these students are demonstrating is a generational understanding of such a tragedy that the older crowd running the media have no ability to comprehend.

In a generation that has grown up with a regularity of school shootings, people are finally beginning to understand that as abhorrent as Cho's actions were, as much as none of the victims deserved to die, it is not just the system that failed those victims (as so many in the media have suggested), it is us that failed Cho.

The day after the shooting MSNBC's Chris Matthews interviewed one of Cho's suitmates. Watching the interview, I was personally apalled by the way Matthews treated the the student. It seemed to me that Matthews' entire objective in that interview was to paint Cho as a demon, (and likewise, most of the rest of the media had the same goal). But the suitemate did not take his bait. At every turn, while Matthews only seemed interested in this kid telling him how obvious it was that Cho was a brutally disturbed young man, Cho's suitemate only demonstrated how they all saw him as human. The fact that he was quiet simply meant at the time that he was shy or that maybe he did not know English too well. The fact that he did not seem to have a lot of friends could've simply meant that his friends were on a different part of campus. In other words, instead of pretending to be the genius in hindsight, the young man who was bold enough to appear on Matthews' show wanted to emphasize how much of a human he and his roomates saw in Cho.

Abc News wrote about one student's feelings:

Caroline Merrey, 22, jumped to safety out a classroom window in the building where Cho killed 30 people and himself. She said she was angry at Cho, but also feels sorry for him. "I don't know how I can be feeling both of those things at the same time, but I do," she said.

Merrey's reaction, for today's youth, is perfectly sound. In the time between Columbine and Virginia Tech, we have learned to feel sorry for the shooters. To Bill O'Reilly, and most of the rest of the media, I'm sure this is probably a horrific sentiment, but the difference between the generation growing up today and the blathering pundits in the media is that we are not interested in painting these shooters as demons. Their anger is just too real for us to shrug off as some unsuspecting infilitration from the devil beyond. Bewteen Columbine and Virginia Tech, this generation has learned that society brings about these demons, and as such we are often reaping what we sow.

When they started releasing reports about Cho's experiences in America, one anecdote struck me so chillingly I nearly cried. It was reported that during one of his high school classes a very quiet and unspoken Cho was called upon for a response. When he opened his mouth with broken English the class laughed at him and said, "Go back to China."

What this generation realizes, in the day-and-age of school shootings, is that a man like Cho was not a demon that was walking among us. He was a human being. And, one fact about human beings is that we are all capable of what Cho did. As I like to say, we all have the devil and Jesus Christ within us. We are all capable of the greatest good and the worst evil. I think that only "the Columbine generation" realizes this. Only we understand that comments like "Go back to China" serve to foster that demon and nothing more.

To a shy Asian immigrant like Cho, a comment like "Go back to China," yelled at you when you open your mouth for the first time to a classroom of peers, means "You do not belong here. You do not deserve the life here." "Go back to China" is a veiled way of saying "you are not worthy of freedom or opportunity, you belong in a totalitarian regime built on oppression." If Cho had gone on a rampage in the moment during which those comments were uttered, I don't think anyone would blame him. It certainly would not have made him a demon if he had acted out then. That, you see, would have been a human response.

From what I remember, a similar situation occured with the Columbine shooting. After the fact, the press was sure to demonize Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, making sure to mention how they called a black athlete "nigger" before they shot him. This guaranteed that we would see nothing more than a racist demon behind these acts. What only one source mentioned, however, was that the student, who was vastly more popular than either Harris or Klebold, had, on more than one occasion, pushed Harris or Klebold into lockers and called them names. In other words, Harris and Klebold, whether or not they were racist, did not shoot the kid because he was black, but because he had targetted the two of them for oppression. But since it would be human to lash out at someone that picks on you, the media was sure to gloss over that fact and instead chose to portray them as racist demons without cause.

The more in which we paint the school shooters as demons, the more we are able to dismiss them and their actions as some moral or genetic anomaly, all so that we can feel better about ourselves. This only allows these types of events to continue. The Virginia Tech students, however, have made a very courageous display in that they are recognizing that Cho was human, and that to some extent we all failed him because we failed to recognize what a human pushed to the limits is capable of.

Cho considered himself a victim, and we can debate over the merits of his claims to vicitmization, but one thing I am sure of, is that in his final moments, he was empowered. If the Virginia Tech shooting teaches us one thing we should have realized a long time ago, it is that, eventually, those that perceive themselves as victims will make some move toward empowerment, and that often that move will be violent. The human will moves inexorably and unstoppably toward feelings of freedom, and to certain people that feeling can only be achieved through violence.

We can continue to see the Seung-Hui Cho's of the world as nothing more than demons, but their actions are ultimately the result of the most basic human desires. When we see such criminals as humans then we see within ourselves our own fragile psyches, and, maybe more importantly, we see a greater responsibility to do the right thing: not to make a man fight alone, not to hang him out to dry when he is being picked on for not speaking English well or for wearing a black trenchcoat.

The sick irony of it all is that if we begin to do that then Seung-Hui Cho will have achieved what he set out to do: stand up for the "weak and defenseless."

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[Politics] The Loyalty Vacuum in Bush's Post-Presidency

I know that George W. Bush is very concerned about how history will view him, so I hope he is preparing for what we have only gotten a brief glimpse of so far: his post-presidency backlash. On Monday, former CIA Director George Tenet will release a book in which he faults the Bush administration, specifically Vice President Dick Cheney, for rushing to war with Iraq without a serious debate on how to contain Saddam Hussein. ABC News has a report.

I imagine that Tenet will be one of the first few, among many former officials working under the Bush administration, that have bitten their lip until the Bush White House was at least of the lame duck status. Come 2009, who knows how many people from inside the administration will voice their true opinion.

Such is the nature of politics that value loyalty to an individual over loyalty to principal. When you ignore alternative perspectives and force everyone into the same close-minded discourse, you inevitably end up with a group of people who will humor you for the time being. Well, Bush's time is going, and once it is gone, the represed voices within his White House and the remainder of the bureaucracy will look for the first bullhorn they can find.

Once the gags are removed, the silent ones will be louder than ever. Once the yes-men have no one to yes, you will see what a veil their loyalty was. If you are concerned with how history will judge you Mr. President, then you should have realized, before you took office, that loyalty is something our government should have to all 300 million Americans, and not just to the one that sits behind the Oval Office desk.

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Man-Animal War: Rats Takeover Peru

If you are still not taking the war between humans and animals seriously, just be glad you don't live in Peru. Reuter's is reporting that six regions of Peru, including the capital city Lima, are experiencing an epidemic of rat invasions because of what they call "warm weather." I call it a thirst for human flesh.

My reaction may seem hasty, but you must remember that rats are merely the animal minions of the war. They have been assigned with a very specific assignment, attacking the food supply. They do this by eating and destroying our valuable resources (as has already been done to 32,000 acres of Peruvian crops) and by infecting other parts of the food supply with disease.

What this does mean is that if you see a rat then you should not be afraid to squash it like a bug. It would wish the same upon you.

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Man-Animal War: German Cow Destroys City for Unborn Child

Seeking a world free from human oppression, a pregnant cow from Hanover, Germany escaped from his farm and went on a three-hour rampage through the streets causing over $33,000 in damage. The farmer, news media crews and 30 police and fire fighters chased Uschi, the cow, through the streets, destroying cars, fences, benches and numerous other properties in what amounted to a five kilometer chase. Uschi was finally brought down by tranquilizer darts without risk to the unborn calf. Reuters reports.

As no one was hurt, it is clear that the cow's main objective was to destroy the infrastructure of civilization to make way for a true attack on humans. This is how wars are fought in the new millenium. The animals consider the objectives of the man-animal war to be urgent for future gnerations and, as such, they are looking to make an extreme impact on the machinations of human existence and war profiteering to leave a better world for their offspring. Uschi is now being hailed as the Samuel Adams of animal revolt. Beware.

And, for future reference, you, Germans: tranquilizers don't win wars.

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Obvious Study Report: Obese People Come with a Heavy Price Tag

I would think that this is about as obvious as a pie in the face, but researchers at Duke University published a report Monday in the Archives of Internal Medicine which concludes that obese individuals put a strain on the economy and the companies they work for. The shocking revelation unveiled in the report is that the obese have more health problems than their slimmer counterparts, and that this has an effect on the economy of the work place. The San Francisco Chronicle reports.

Well, duh! What was I suppose to think? That because of their affinity for sitting obese people are ideal employees? Sorry, but I wasn't giving them the benefit of the doubt.

That's right, obese individuals take far more sick days and file far more worker's compensation claims than their slimmer counterparts. (Plus, they move more slowly and take longer lunches, as is required by a second trip to the all-you-can-eat buffet).

In all seriousness though, the statistical data provided by the report is rather astuonding, though I am not sure exactly what parameters the researchers used to distinguish the obese from (healthy-looking) others. According to the report, the average worker's compensation claims per 100 employees were a whopping $51,019 per obese employee, compared to $7,503 per non-obese worker. Additionally, obese workers missed an average of 183.63 days of work per 100 employees, almost 13 times the average 14.19 missed by the non-obese employees.

My only question now is how many soda and corndog manufacturers actually profit from the obese despite the losses incured by their own hefty employees?

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[Economics] Capitalism at Work: The Firing of Don Imus

The weeklong sabbatical at The Rudy Word left a void in the coverage of the Don Imus controversy and his eventual firing from NBC Radio. I’ll pick it up here:

The bulk of the questions surrounding the incident focused on whether or not Imus’s comments were inappropriate enough to earn him the boot.

Let me first say two things. One, calling the Rutgers women’s basketball team a bunch of “nappy-headed hoes” is in-and-of-itself worthy of getting thrown out on your ass no matter how popular you are. And two, the shock jock style of radio is such an old joke, a format stuck so far in the past, that kicking one of its perpetuators off the air is a blessing to all forms of media. [The only thing shocking about shock jocks is how moronically they can shoot their mouths off and in a matter of five syllables cause their entire careers to implode while otherwise just hoping that tasteless humor is still funny, which it is not. Check out this Advertising Age commentary from Donny Deutsch on why “nice is the new black.”]

But beyond those two points, the firing of Don Imus was completely appropriate. Why? Because the market said so. His termination was not (and should never be considered) a step toward a better cultural understanding of racial commentary in the media (any serious discussion on this will come with Imus only as a footnote). It was, however, a beautiful display of capitalist forces at work. Advertising Age has in interesting report about it here.

Earlier this week I caught a few minutes of Sean Hannity discussing the incident, and, not surprisingly, Hannity took the position that the Imus firing represented a double-standard, a form of “selective” punishment, comparing what Imus said to what hundreds of rap artists record. There is just one little difference Sean: Rappers calling women “hoes” makes money; Don Imus calling the Rutgers women’s basketball team “hoes” loses money.

I am not defending the moral vacuum of mainstream rap. In fact, I find it deplorable, which is why I won’t buy it (that is my form of pro-active, capitalist protest…not that it stops millions of other white suburbanites from buying it). I am defending the system of capitalism.

Two days after Imus made his offensive, and ultimately suicidal, remark (and still days before Al Sharpton came onto the scene, before the controversy had hit every major media outlet) Procter & Gamble, the nation’s largest advertiser, pulled its ad dollars from Imus’s show. Commenting in the Advertising Age article, a P&G spokeswoman said, “We think we're accountable first to our consumers. This particular venue where our ad appeared was offensive to our target audience. And so that's not acceptable to us.”

Days later American Express, General Motors and GlaxoSmithKline walked away from Imus as well, a good sign that capitalism stills has a few strong and healthy muscles. And the beauty of that muscle is that it came from the ground up.

I don’t think Procter & Gamble even had to wait for the fallout to realize that Imus’s comments were unacceptable to its consumers, and the company took immediate action. Other advertisers, hearing how offended their audiences were, and particularly after hearing the heartfelt comments from the Rutgers coach and team members, abandoned Imus for greener media pastures.

In my opinion, there is no better reason for firing someone than the fact that they are losing money for your company, and Imus had become a money-bleeding wound on NBC radio.

The beauty of all of this is also the spotlight that it puts back onto consumers and the new forms of media that are challenging the status-quo of old channels (and yes, shock jocks are the status quo). Consumers are spread amongst several media platforms today and advertisers spread out to reach those consumers. Meanwhile, big media pays the price and loses its stranglehold on the American public. In the dawning new age of media, consumers have become increasingly empowered, and when it comes to facing big media, they find an ally in the advertiser, through whom they can appeal their media woes and force change.

This is one reason that shock radio is completely irrelevant in the new age of media. Consumers are no longer interested in “inside jokes” and the “us versus them,” “me versus you” style of content. In this day, inside jokes are YouTube postings viewed by tens of thousands and blogs commented on by individuals from every area of society. Comedy today is not about attacking your nemesis, or getting an easy rise out of people, it is about bringing everyone to the table and exploiting the gray area in between us all for a good laugh. Simply put, it is Stephen Colbert, not Howard Stern.

So, today, the joke (and a beautifully democratic one at that) is on Don Imus, and everyone, maybe even Imus himself (though probably not Sean Hannity), gets it (or at least, if they've read my blog, is beginning to).

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[Media] 9/11, The VT Shooting and America's Selective Sense of Fatalism

When violent tragedy strikes in America, it often seems that the first question to come out of the clearing smoke is, "How could this have been prevented?" And in hindsight, yes, we are all geniuses, but the real reason we continually obsess over this question in certain cases is that, it seems to me, we have a selective (and often backwards) understanding of fatalism.

As authorities try to sort out exactly what happened yesterday on the Virginia Tech campus – reports indicate that two students were murdered in their dormitory two hours before one student, identified as Cho Seung-hui from South Korea, killed 30 more people, and then himself, in a rampage through a classroom building in what is the most deadly massacre in U.S. history – certain media outlets are already reporting that the incident could have been prevented . The New York Daily News front page headline for today is "They Didn't Have To Die," and the New York Post, along with many others I imagine, is running a story titled "School Delay Proves Deadly." And so, in our selective sense of fatalism, we are already asking what "could've" been done.

I call this our "selective sense of fatalism" because the media seems to determine when we should and should not see events as preventable based on some sort of matrix of sensationalism. This act of terrorism at Virginia Tech (and yes it was terrorism) and the question of prevention is in stark contrast to the most infamous event in our recent history: 9/11. What questions did we ask on September 12th, 2001 about what could've been done? What officials did we blame? None. We accepted the attacks of 9/11 as fact almost immediately, as something that was destined to happen.

And yet at Virginia Tech we only see what could've been done, never understanding that the very nature of a lone gunman makes him one step ahead of police. The irony is that, as we watched the VT massacre and asked why the police had not locked down the entire campus after what appeared to be an isolated domestic incidence two hours before, a report detailing a French Intelligence officials warning to the CIA about an al-Qaeda airline-hijacking plot nine months before the September 11th attacks is released with little attention.

How is that we expect campus cops to prevent the rampage of an unknown lone gunman on a sprawling suburban campus in the span of two hours, and yet accept that our government, with the best trained military in the world behind it, cannot prevent an attack involving a group of terrorists using commercial airliners as their weapons in a nine month span? It is our selective sense of fatalism at play.

The Virginia Tech shooting deserves at least as much of our sense of fatalism, if not more (and, in my opinion, definitely more), than the attacks of 9/11. It is a scary thought, but it is the truth, when I say massacres by lone gunmen often cannot be stopped until it is too late. The two killings that took place in the dormitory two hours prior to the rampage left no indication of an impending massacre, and police had no reason to be searching for a man on that quest. They had no reason to send a wave of panic through the school halls by locking down the entire campus until it was too late. And they had no reason to indiscriminately impede the movement and freedom of thousands because one might be a suspect. It is a simple fact that you cannot prevent what you do not know will happen. The campus police at Virginia Tech were not sitting around reading copies of "My Pet Goat." They were trying to catch up with a gunman who was one step ahead of them with concealed plans and concealed weapons.

Welcome to the world. It is a scary place. Everyday we step out into it we run the risk of a madman we do not know killing us. Simply based on the fact that it is a very rare occurence in this country does not mean that it is always preventable. If anything, the opposite is true.

Freedom is not a perfect ideal. Freedom of thought, in this case, led one man to massacre 32 others. That is a reality, a reality that makes us vulnerable to lone gunmen everyday. But I realized something about vulnerability a long time ago: it is one of the foundations for a stable relationship. Our love of freedom in this country is strong because we run the aforementioned risks everyday. In a facist state of thought police and martial law, the Virginia Tech massacre would not have happened. So it is because I love my freedom that I say, in a two hour window with little information to go on, this massacre could not have been prevented (as for 9/11, that is for another blog at another time).

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[Environment] What Happened to Pollution?

During all the discussion and debate about the causes and effects of global warming, our environment does not seem to be the beneficiary of any of that talk. In fact, it is suffering more and more as we debate a problem we can't fix, global warming, and ignore one we can fix, pollution.

In the past two days there have been a few developments that are reinvigorating my frustration with this transposition of the problem. On Monday, the Supreme Court handed down a 5-4 decision in a suit against the Environmental Protection Agency from a coalition of states , cities and environmental organizations (Massachusetts et al vs. The Environmental Protection Agency), in which the majority opinion wrote that the EPA has the authority and responsibility to regulate emissions, such as carbon dioxide, and cannot ignore reports on the effects of such greenhouse gases and sidestep its responsibilities unless it can prove that such gases do not contribute to climate change. The New York Times reports.

The Supreme Court here is at least hedging closer to the reality of the situation than any politician or organization has so far. It seems very ironic that of all the elected officials and special interests concerned with the environment, it took a body of political appointees to even come close to pointing out the real problem, though, still, the majority decision in the court still gave credence to pollutants as causes of climate change. I have a problem with this.

Pollutants harm the environment. Carbon dioxide emissions damage our air quality. Mercury contamination damages the quality of our seafood, and pesticides can damage the natural ecosystem that is dependent upon a cycle of animal and plant interaction to continue. I could go on, but the point is that, whether or not greenhouses gases are responsible for global warming, they are still damaging to our environment. This is what everyone seems to forget. They talk about global warming as the problem, but the problem is the quality of air, water, land and the state of the natural ecosystems that exist in each. The irony is that while we talk about global warming as the problem, the solution to our environmental woes, whether or not emissions are causing climate change, is still regulating pollution.

Regulating pollution is the responsibility of the EPA, plain and simple. And yet the administration (and the minority opinion on the court) believe that because global warming has not been proved to be a man-made problem, they can ignore their responsibility. And worse yet, the focus on global warming as the issue (at the expense of discussing the real culprit, pollution) only legitimizes the EPA's position that it is overreaching its authority by regulating emissions.

I'm sorry, but if our government is going to regulate cigarette prices and forbid smoking in certain places (such as bars or airplanes) then they cannot ignore emissions and act as though regulating them is beyond their authority. What you breathe in from a cigarette is not very different than what comes out of the exhaust pipe of an automobile, and as such, if you consider the health of the people important enough to put regulations or penalties on smoking, you must do the same for emissions. Again, it is not about global warming it is about pollution.

This is why I consider global warming a political red herring. Anyway you slice it, pollution is still the problem. And yet, by making global warming the problem, you only give anti-environmentalists reason to ignore that problem, and, furthermore, you get staunch environmentalists sensationalizing pollution into the catalyst for Armageddon.

A Reuters report from today makes note of this latter point. In any event, making global warming out to be a catastrophe before it happens is hasty and irresponsible. For all we know, global warming will have a noticable yet still manageable effect, as was the case with the period of global cooling that existed between the Middle Ages and the late 19th century. Whatever the effects of global warming, the effects of pollution will continue to wreak havoc on plant and animal populations and air and water quality, and that is where the real problem lies.

The way I see it, global warming is the absolute worst problem to have. It is basically something you cannot reverse (I mean, we can't artificially cool the planet, or, if nothing else, we shouldn't try to), and it is only a problem that you can likely, though not with any certainty, lessen or prevent. On the other hand, pollution is the best problem you can have. There are very clear measures we can take to combat pollution, measures that could actually reverse the problem. Furthermore, the measures that we do take can have the very real effect of producing the most innovative technologies and of boosting our economy to make this country the leader in making life as convenient and prosperous as it always has been without damaging our environment.

That is why I say, forget global warming, forget trying to make everyone think that they are going to be swallowed by a amassive hurricane, and make pollution the issue again. Make everyone enthusiastic to improve their environment, their air quality and the stability of their economy all at the same time. That is at least a positive message.

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The Passover Word

Tonight at sundown begins the Jewish holiday of Passover, Pesach, the Festival of Unleavened Bread. It celebrates the Israelites liberation from Egypt and the Covenant delivered to Moses on Mount Sinai. And even though Jews are forbidden from eating leavened breads during the 8-day holiday, it is a joyous occasion (and my weekly frustrations will only be expressed through the phrase, "Boy, is it hot in this desert!").

Here I have compiled a few of the interesting Passover stories from around the world for those interested. For whatever reason, Passover always seems to come coupled with some interesting news stories. Enjoy:

LA Daily News: Read about Yaakov Horowitz, the chief rabbi at Manishewitz, the worlwide leader in matzo production for the holiday. The article focuses a bit on the history of the company too, as it prepares to move its ovens from a historic location in Jersey City, NJ, to a state-of-the-art facility in Newark. Yes, rabbis can do things described as state-of-the-art.

New York Post: Here's something even non-Jews can enjoy! Read about the production of kosher for Passover Coca-Cola. Since Coke started using corn syrup instead of sugar in the 1980s, only the kosher for Passover Coke is made from the true original recipe. If you are looking for bottles, the kosher for Passover Coke has a special yellow cap.

Miami Herald: Read about the history of Jewish wine and get a list of recommended wines that are kosher for Passover and taste much less like Welch's grape juice than Manishewitz.

Jewish Press: Find out about all the promotional Passover specials at Parrot Jungle Island in Miami and Boomers amusement park in Dania, FL, including free-play arcade games!

Chicago Tribune: This column from the Chicago Tribune talks about how strict Jews manage the start of the baseball season, the NCAA finals and Passover, all on the same night!

Boston Globe: The Green Leaf party, an Israeli pro-marijuana group, has declared that pot is not kosher for Passover, much to the dismay of Israeli potheads. Sorry, but I guess you'll just have to save your matzo-meal bong for another day.

NY Journal News: A rabbi in Spring Valley, NY has been baking matzo out of an oven-converted bus in his back yard. Authorities have told him he must shut down his operation because he illegally attached a gas line to fuel the ovens. In this article from today, it sounds as though he will be baking off despite the ban.

The Post Chronicle: This piece has some religious background on a planned lamb sacrifice a group of modern Sanhedrin's are planning to perform on the Temple in Jerusalem and the controversy surrounding it (though an Israeli court has already put the kaybash on the plan). Ha'aretz has more of the legal background on the case.

Cleveland Plain Dealer: If you are interested in knowing what Passover is like for Jewish prisoners in America, the Cleveland Plain Dealer has the scoop. Or if you are just shocked that Jewish prisoners are so sentimental...

Sydney Morning Herald: This story follows the vandalism of several tombstones in Jewish areas of northern France on the eve of Passover.

Israel National News: Here is a letter from the mother of Ehud Goldwasser, the Israeli soldier still being held by Hezbollah militants, on the eve of Passover. It is a very touching exchange from a mother to her son, and an insightful deliberation on the meaning of the holiday.

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