Topic: Mysteries of Life
When the first 'breaking news' bulletin hit the cable news networks on Monday morning it was the story of two people shot in a dorm room. An almost normal level of violence that was given the dutiful frown of concern before going back to the breathtaking news of it raining in New Jersey and the East Coast in general. The ordinary crazed boyfriend kills ex girlfriend, current girlfriend or some variation of that story. They didn't know anything more about it so it was back to the rain crisis they had already spun up for. The giant story the cable outlets were in position to over dramatize complete with colorized, spinning versions of the menacing nor'easter storm. I had already been overly fed up with breathless stories of how parts of cities were being flooded, I knew the parts that were being flooded were the idiots who had built in flood plains. Pictures of bridges over water and water going under them. My personal favorite, reporters in raincoats standing out in the rain, telling you it's raining.
And then the full horror of the shooting began to emerge. It was already over by the time the cameras made their way to visual range. Talking heads talking to each other about how many dead there might be, how many shots someone could get off in a short period of time. Just stupid stuff, three days later the “Breaking News” tag is everywhere. There's no damn breaking news, crazy, mentally ill person goes into school and kills 33 people and wounds a bunch more. He's dead. Grief and funerals and memorials to follow and everyone using this to push their own agendas. Violence in movies, violence in games, gun control, no conceal and carry, identifying troubled children and warning signs thereof. I'm sure there are more people bringing up their causes, I hear that the Scientologists are even down at Virginia Tech trolling for recruits and that SOB who pickets the funerals of Iraq war casualties is going to be there to picket the funerals of those kids. And probably the bikers that stop them will be there as well. Life is a circus and all the clowns and Carnies, starting with the Network anchors, descend upon tragedy like so many junkies looking for a fix.
The particular form that Cho's madness took will be examined by idiots without clues who enjoy hearing themselves talk for days and months to come. He blamed the world for his failings, bullies created him, he was egocentric and couldn't connect with other human beings, his shield against the world became a prison, his fantasies of revenge absorbed him until he wasn't there any longer and all that existed was those revenge fantasies. Perhaps the increasingly violent nature of the world is starting to spill to the US, perhaps another of the legacies of the violent suicide bombers that continue in unending waves will be an elevated level of violence, of rage attacks by people who consider themselves unheard or unrevenged by life and by the people in their lives. You could go down the list and every single hypothesis would be correct. His shooting the girl and the advisor made sense in a way, a tragedy but it made sense since violence like that is common. The purposefully going into a school and shooting people makes no sense and therefore is more terrifying to everyone. It demands a reason and the reason or reasons will be supplied by the talking heads. Who knows.
What is known is that stories for the next few weeks will include young men being hauled away to jail for saying it was a good thing (already happened) or expelling those who make jokes of it. People will have different attitudes and different reactions about perceived threats. That quite guy will be looked at a little more closely. Perhaps bullies will bully less for a while. Perhaps those who have wronged somebody will be a little more nervous than usual and will be looking over their shoulders more often. Undoubtedly there will be a copycat within the month. But after a while lessons learned, precautions taken will fade. And it doesn't matter in any event. If someone is determined and willing to die himself, he or she will be able to kill many people. And the world is getting more violent and these sort of things will happen more often until it'll get just a frown from the talking head on the cable news network.
