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[trabb]

spork, this person edoss is really out of line.

Edoss, I was horribly teased and bullied during my junior high years and most of high school.  Guess what?  I love people.  I could never imagine hurting anybody.  I don't think I've ever even struck a person intentionally.

There is no excuse.  Shoo.

Despite the fact that edoss tries to hide behind the "this is just my opinion card," an argumentative strategy that I regularly try to beat out of my students, I think s/he has a pretty valid point.

Every day on my campus I see dozens of thoughtless acts that demonstrate a lack of compassion towards some students.  Those thoughtless acts add up over time, though as anxiousdee points out, in most people those thoughtless acts end up causing little damage (or more likely causing the kind of damage that needs to be worked out in counseling).  In a very few people, for whatever reason, the memory of these acts simmers until they explode creating a big mess. 

I'm not saying this excuses him, and I don't really take that to be the point of edoss's post either.  The point isn't to support violent bullies like Cho Seung-Hui; the point is to support people before they become Cho Seung-Huis.

Finally, I think that we also have to recognize at least the possibility that for some people there is nothing that anyone can do to prevent them from exploding (short of institutionalizing them). 

[ladygrey]

I was an Instructor in a university in the far north of Michigan.  I had a troubled, disruptive, student with a history of mental illness, a then current prblem with his medication and an affinity for guns.  I removed him from my class after repeated disruptions.  The administration put him back in. 

I'm really sorry about your experience, expatprof.

I had a very disruptive, agitated, ex-military student in my class last summer. He refused all my efforts to meet to discuss his behavior outside of class or with his adviser. Other students, including other ex-military, came to me privately to express their concerns.  I got nowhere with the administration. Eventually, he filed a complaint against me. It took three rounds of hearings, even though witnesses had  come forward and made statements (unbeknownst to me) and his own writings, before I was let off the hook. He was allowed to continue his schooling with no discipline at all. I'm all for accommodating a wide range of people, but there have to be some limits and the administration has to offer more support to the faculty in these matters.

[rodentmind]

here in the UK, everyone's most interested in the american love affair with guns...especially the blurbs from NRA types who use the shootings as an example of why america allegedly needs more guns...

[rowan1]

In some thread someone asked when the fundies were going to step in and offer their view, so it begins:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,266860,00.html

Did the Devil Make him do it?
By Lauren Green Fox News
When unexplained violence takes center stage, we tend to turn to modern psychology to explain it.
But there is an alternative explanation, one that has been played out in film, stage and writings since the beginning of history.
Was Cho Seung-Hui schizophrenic … psychotic … manic-depressive? Or were the shooting deaths of 32 people, including Cho himself, at Virginia Tech University part of the ongoing struggle between God and Satan … good against evil … lightness and darkness?
Could Cho have been possessed by the Devil? Could that explain the massacre at Virginia Tech?
Dr. Richard Roberts, president of Oral Roberts University, shouts an unequivocal “Yes!”
“Based on what I’ve seen in the news," Roberts said in an interview, "there’s no doubt that this act was Satanic in origin."
Roberts added that he doesn’t know if it was Satanic “possession” or “oppression.” Possession, he said, occurs when Satan takes over a person’s life, and the person’s actions are dictated by demonic possession within. Roberts says he’s seen this type and has seen the Devil cast out of a person.
Satanic “oppression," on the other hand, is "that which comes against." "It’s not in a person, but is coming against them, trying to put evil thoughts in their minds,” Roberts said.
He said that the evil thoughts in Satanic oppression can be fairly innocuous, or they can be harmful. And the oppression can be in the form of fear, depression or discouragement, he said, because “Satan comes to kill, steal and destroy.”
Roberts says we’ll never know whether Cho was "possessed" or "oppressed," because the killer has died. But he did leave a note blasting everyone around him, calling them “rich kids,” and “deceitful charlatans,” and then blaming them, saying “you made me do this.”


The nice thing about blaming Satan - we don't have to be responsible for anything.

[dark_globe]

The nice thing about blaming Satan - we don't have to be responsible for anything.

Who blamed Dick Cheney for this?

[rodentmind]

Someone blamed Cheney? Please. We all know Cheney has terrible aim, so it can't be his fault.

[rowan1]

lol!

[prytania3]

Someone blamed Cheney? Please. We all know Cheney has terrible aim, so it can't be his fault.

Cheney=Satan, Rodent.

[rodentmind]

Ah!

[onion]

Please excuse me if this has been said somewhere in the preceding 29 pages, but I just haven't been able to bear reading any of this stuff (I am geographically very close to the school, many of my students were affected, etc.).  BUT I wanted to chime in that Fred Phelps and his daughter are blaming the gays for Tech shooting.  Yes, that's right, the gays.  Because gay people have made God angry with America, God sent this very troubled young man to "send a message" to America.  Phelps et al have even made plans to come and protest many of the funerals.  Sick, huh?

[dark_globe]

Please excuse me if this has been said somewhere in the preceding 29 pages, but I just haven't been able to bear reading any of this stuff (I am geographically very close to the school, many of my students were affected, etc.).  BUT I wanted to chime in that Fred Phelps and his daughter are blaming the gays for Tech shooting.  Yes, that's right, the gays.  Because gay people have made God angry with America, God sent this very troubled young man to "send a message" to America.  Phelps et al have even made plans to come and protest many of the funerals.  Sick, huh?

Yes, someone mentioned that in a different thread, Onion. It's beyond sick, it's inhuman. The other poster mentioned that this creep and his "flock" plan to show up at the funerals of the victims to taunt them. Did you hear about that too?

[onion]

Please excuse me if this has been said somewhere in the preceding 29 pages, but I just haven't been able to bear reading any of this stuff (I am geographically very close to the school, many of my students were affected, etc.).  BUT I wanted to chime in that Fred Phelps and his daughter are blaming the gays for Tech shooting.  Yes, that's right, the gays.  Because gay people have made God angry with America, God sent this very troubled young man to "send a message" to America.  Phelps et al have even made plans to come and protest many of the funerals.  Sick, huh?

Yes, someone mentioned that in a different thread, Onion. It's beyond sick, it's inhuman. The other poster mentioned that this creep and his "flock" plan to show up at the funerals of the victims to taunt them. Did you hear about that too?

Yes, and the local news reports it's true, in at least one case.  So, so sad!

[gesualdo]

Please excuse me if this has been said somewhere in the preceding 29 pages, but I just haven't been able to bear reading any of this stuff (I am geographically very close to the school, many of my students were affected, etc.).  BUT I wanted to chime in that Fred Phelps and his daughter are blaming the gays for Tech shooting.  Yes, that's right, the gays.  Because gay people have made God angry with America, God sent this very troubled young man to "send a message" to America.  Phelps et al have even made plans to come and protest many of the funerals.  Sick, huh?

Fred Phelps is a sick man, and he does not speak for God.  He's as good at blaming things on gays as the general public is at blaming everything on the president.

[gesualdo]

Has anyone else heard that Cho Seung-Hui was diagnosed with autism?
I don't have a good cite.

I did read an article by a psychiatrist who thought Mr. Cho exhibited signs of Schizophrenia, based on what he saw in the video and in his writings.  I can't remember where I saw the article.  I also saw an article that demonstrated how nearly all mass murderers have brain damage, possibly (memory fails me) in the same approximate spot in the brain.  I think they ran a test of death row inmates, so I'm sure there's some wiggle room on that data.

Based on my experience working with autistic children, I think there is a possibility he may have had mild autism or perhaps Asperger's as well.  Autism makes it difficult for the person to communicate with the world.  The appearance of ignoring others' attempts at conversation is common.  They simply live in their own world.  Autism alone does not push a person to violence, however.  But coupled with Schizophrenia or brain damage, it could happen.  It would be interesting to follow the psychiatric community's opinions regarding Mr. Cho.

[kaysixteen]

Let's take a pass on post-mortem psychoanalyzing Cho.  He is obviously a 'disturbed' character, but beyond the fact that he was known to be taking anti-depressant meds we can venture little in terms of analyzing what if any was the nature of his mental illness, brain damage, etc., and to do so is probably worthless and even potentially dangerous an exercise.