There's been another school shooting. This time it's Northern Illinois University, a school I know a little about - I did a summer course up there, I know (slightly) a few people in the Biology department. I have a basic familiarity with the campus (But cannot remember which building Cole Hall was - what department).
This kind of thing makes me sad. While I guess I understand on an intellectual level someone being messed up enough that they want to do a "Top 'o' the World, Ma!" type exit, emotionally....emotionally I just have a certain revulsion, a sense of "what a giant effing waste."
I don't know what's screwed up in people - or if we're just hearing it more because it makes for sexy news. (Kind of necrophiliac-sexy news, when you think of it). Maybe people always did this. I don't know.
I do know I'd like for it to stop. For the people who are depressed or angry or upset or desperate or whatever to go and get meds, get counseling, get religion, whatever it takes, so they don't do these things. Or if they're bent on taking themselves out, that they do it solo. Even that's a bad solution (speaking as someone who is a relative of a suicide).
But my main feeling now is for the families. I hope all the kids who were in that vicinity and are OK (well, physically OK. It will probably take a while for them to be emotionally OK after that) called their families or friends right away to check in. And I hope no one else dies, that the folks in hospital get better and are able to go back to school.
I can't even really work up a lot of anger towards the kid who did this. I'm mostly kind of sad - sad that someone thought that was the only solution to the problems in their life.
One thing I can say about getting older - it may suck in certain ways (more aches and pains, gray hair, can't eat the way I used to) - you do gain the benefit of perspective, and come to realize that almost anything that looks life-changingly horrible one evening will look not quite so horrible the next morning. And less horrible the day after that. And even if it doesn't look less horrible, there are people out there who can help you do what can be done to fix it.
(Update: oh shit, it was a geology course. I wonder if my dad knew the prof involved (I guess the prof is OK?). Makes me shudder to think of the situation.)
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Thoughts and prayers
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4 comments:
The instructor was a graduate student, and was shot. No idea if he was killed or just hurt.
They don't frigging get paid enough to get SHOT.
1) The breakdown of the nuclear family -- Not married with 11 kids? Fiiiine...
2) Smut everywhere -- Even commercials aren't safe anymore
3) The "culture of death" mentality -- Abortion, assisted suicide, Euthanasia (Terri Schiavo, anyone?)
4) The perversion of justice -- Laws that protect fish instead of unborn babies
Those might have something to do with the rise in school shootings. S*ex is cheap. Life is cheaper. How are the two linked?
Society at large says you don't have to get pregnant. Because there's new and innovative forms of birth control coming out all the time (I hate Y*az for ruining Twisted Sister for me). If you do get pregnant, you're free to kill the inconvenience at any time up until it's born. You're encouraged to sleep with as many people as you'd like. There are vaccines and medications to help you if you catch something. Ubiquitous ads for things like V*iagra, G*ardisil and V*altrex are proof enough of that.
I include G*ardisil because the leading cause of cervical cancer is "HPV", which is caught via promiscuity. It's the same thing a Gyn screens for when they do a pap. Almost all Gyns do not require a yearly pap for women not "active". A pap every three years then becomes the recommendation. And even then, it's just a precautionary measure for those with a family history of cervical cancer. Interestingly, the vaccine is "innocently" targeted at women ages 9-26 as a "preventative measure". If you're not having s-e-x, the incidence rate of cervical cancer drops staggeringly. But that's never mentioned in the commercials.
I'm not anti- s-e-x -- OMG, far from it. What I'm arguing is that it's a bad thing that the ACT of reproduction somehow got divorced from, and elevated above, its intended outcome (or consequence, depending on your POV). Something that was supposed to be regenerative, celebrated and sacred got dragged through the mud and made into something like cocaine.
Along with the "s-e-x as cocaine" mentality comes an ingrained hatred for its entanglements and outcomes -- tenderness, love, monogamy and most inmportantly, children. All get tossed by the wayside; along with them wisdom, diligence, prudence, patience and calmness. But those who shun them find out how empty the "flash" is and want something more. They've been so well trained to hate "good" that they don't think there is an alternative. They haven't had a stable environment to teach them the virtues (see #1) so they pursue vice.
And no one discourages them. Because we're all too afraid we'll violate their rights, get sued, wound their self-esteem or keep them from being the "special snowflake" they were meant to be.
[shrug] Just a guess.
BTW, serial killers have pretty much always existed. But the first "campus shooter" I know of was a guy in Texas who took out a dozen or so people from the top of a belltower in the late '60's.
The University of Texas shooter, in the summer of '66, was Charles Whitman. The fact that I still remember his name gives him, I suppose, the kind of notoriety he may have been seeking.
Wordgirl's analysis is brilliant and right on target, and I'm not being sarcastic. I'm glad she can say those things. As a white male, if I say them I'm just being, in some minds, a would-be oppressor of women.
Thanks, Dave! You've vindicated my embarrassing long-windedness. Sorry, ricki. I talk too much sometimes. [red face]
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