Today, I had the opportunity to attend the Penn State Blue & White football game. What an experience to be blessed with after this terrible week's happenings. It was truly inspiring to see the support for Virginia Tech. Everywhere I looked, students and alumni, friends and family were wearing Hokie orange and maroon. It's so hard to describe the pride I felt seeing this rival school sending their love, prayers and respect to VTech. It is amazing how we as a society can come together and love and pray for those who are hurting - now wouldn't it be more amazing if we could do the same every day, good or bad? The students formed the VTech logo before the start of the game. Original source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/46278893@N00/467580047/in/set-72157600158069499/ Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0
Rights Permission Contact: Lisa (http://www.flickr.com/photos/46278893@N00/467580047/in/set-72157600158069499/) Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0
Emergency-Response Communications to Reach Phones
President announces plans to improve system By: Lisa Davis Posted: 5/18/07 Boston University will be prepared to contact almost all students and staff in emergencies this fall with a mass communications system that uses text messaging, voicemail and email, President Robert Brown announced Wednesday in an email sent to the community. The "Send Word Now" system -- which uses all three message types -- was introduced to the campus this year to some extent, but it will be developed more over the summer, Brown said in the email. "In light of the deadly tragedy at Virginia Tech University, we are reviewing Boston University's emergency response plans and communication systems to ensure that they are the best available," Brown said in the email. The improved system would also notify response teams "within minutes" of an emergency, Brown said. In an email to The Daily Free Press, Brown said he expects the school would be able to contact everyone in less than 10 minutes. Students are not required to register their cellphone numbers in the school directory, which is one flaw in reaching everyone in an emergency, Brown said in an April 27 interview. However, in his email to the community, Brown said incoming students will be required to register cellphone numbers or alternative contact numbers, and he encouraged current students to do so on the Student Link website. "We will require the information for all students studying on our Boston campuses," Brown said in the email to the Free Press. "Otherwise, the system would only reach a fraction of our students." The communications system "has been in place," said BU spokesman Colin Riley. "Texting is just one avenue of reaching people. We're trying to find the most effective system possible," he added. The method was introduced about a year ago at a university meeting that addressed a possible avian flu outbreak, Riley said. "This assessment is to ensure and reinforce our view that students' safety is our highest priority," Riley said. "The best that will come out of this is that everyone is aware, and the seriousness of these systems are recognized and appreciated. We're always looking to enhance communications with students." -- Original Source:Daily Free Press - May 18, 2007
Final Week: BU to review policies for campus security
Emergency notification system a main goal By: Lisa Davis Posted: 5/2/07 After Boston University felt the impact of several tragedies that brought into question the level of campus safety, officials say they will continue to review their safety policies and procedures, including ways to better reach the community in case of an emergency. "These events are starting to highlight, not only on our campus, but on other campuses, this issue of personal safety and risky behavior in a broader context than people have thought about it before," said President Robert Brown in an April 27 interview. Methods the BU Police Department uses to communicate emergency information to the community are important, said BUPD Chief Thomas Robbins, who added his department often reviews its procedures when a problem arises. "How you communicate in different emergencies is different," Brown said. "There is not one size that fits all." Robbins, who attended a Coffee and Conversation with the dean of students after the April 16 Virginia Tech shootings, said BUPD plans to add safety information for students to its website, similar to how BU launched a fire-safety website after the two deadly fires that killed three students Feb. 24 and March 16. The day after the Virginia Tech shootings, in which senior Cho Seung-Hui killed 32 people before killing himself, BU formed a committee headed by Administration Vice President Peter Fiedler to review emergency and communication policies, Brown said. "One of the things we put on the table was a blast communication system, which we do not have," he said. "People think that you can send 20,000 emails instantly. The fact is: It takes about 30 minutes to an hour, depending on the technology you're using and how you do it." In a town hall meeting last week, Robbins said he is considering the use of email and text messaging to contact the community in an emergency. It is currently impossible to reach every community member at once because the BU registry does not require telephone numbers and email addresses, Brown said, adding the committee is considering a change to his policy changing this policy. "The reasons you would like an emergency communication system are varied, and I don't think I would couple it just directly with the Virginia Tech shooter incident," he said. After the two off-campus fires, inspectors visited residence halls and reviewed their fire-alarm procedures. Brown said although it is important for BUPD to treat BU as a community, police must be trained to "deal with violent or disruptive acts that you'd find in any urban environment." "I think the most important thing for us, which I've said many times, is that we have a truly professionally trained police force," Brown said. BUPD trains with the Boston Police Department, and BUPD officers are official Boston police officers, Robbins said. "One of the things we train on is how to deal with Columbine or Virginia Tech [incidents]," Robbins said. "I'm comfortable of our response we have." BUPD works toward having its policies and standards match those of police and fire departments across the country through state and national accreditation, said BUPD spokesman Sgt. Jack St. Hilaire. "We've always had a good relationship [with BU], and nothing has happened to change that," said BFD spokesman Steve MacDonald. "We're responsive when they bring things to our attention." Boston Emergency Medical Response Chief Richard Serino said EMS has regular exercises in which Boston officials meet to discuss their responses to certain issues and to become familiar with each other. EMS held a meeting last week to address the best ways to respond to shootings, Serino said. "I think that most colleges in Boston have well-trained, well-equipped public safety staff," Serino said. "We are on a lot of college campuses on a regular basis." MacDonald said it is easier to deal with fires on campus than in off-campus apartment buildings because BU works closely with BFD. "Usually, it works smoother from our end, dealing with the colleges and universities, because they have full-time staff who work 24 hours a day," he said. BUPD, which announced last month it will revamp its methods, for analyzing a revamp in its methods for analyzing "hot spot" crime locations and how the officer force is divided into sections, will respond to any location on the Charles River and Medical campuses in two minutes or less, Robbins said. "We have authority to stop all traffic, including trains," said Robbins, who served as the Massachusetts State Police superintendent before coming to BU in June 2006. Although most parents are concerned about their child's safety, it is difficult for BU to hold students' attention about safety resources, Brown said. "We will have changes in orientation next summer that are not reactionary," he said, "[but] that are trying to change behavior of students as they come into our community, and to make them aware of risks and choices they make." The Charles River campus, which is situated along the traffic-heavy Commonwealth Avenue, can be a safety hazard to students who are not responsible pedestrians, Brown said. "We should not have to instruct people on how to cross the street safely at the age of 18," he said. There are no plans to change academic curricula to incorporate safety information, Brown said. "The question is: What is the balance between personal responsibility and the university's responsibility?" Brown said. -- Original Source:The Daily Free Press - May 2, 2007
BUPD to increase communication for campus safety
By: Lisa Davis Posted: 4/27/07 Increasing communication in case of an emergency within the Boston University community will be a top priority for the BU Police Department for the next few months, officials said last night at a town hall meeting in the Student Village organized in response to the April 16 Virginia Tech shootings. The BUPD will also be looking into all possible means of communication to stay in close contact with staff and students by using phones, email and text messaging, said BUPD Chief Thomas Robbins at the meeting, which was attended by one Student Village Resident Assistant in addition to a reporter and photographer for The Daily Free Press. "In the case of a crisis, there would be various communications," Robbins said. "One way or another, in a crisis, we'll get the word out." The community must be able to openly discuss public safety, which was the motivation behind holding the meeting, Robbins said along with Sgt. Jack St. Hilaire and Office of Residence Life Director David Zamojski. The three BU officials stressed the importance of being aware of safety even when there is not a crisis at hand. "Sometimes it comes down to just being aware of your surroundings," Robbins said, adding that those who ever think they need help off campus should call BUPD. "In terms of safety, the avenue to bring that up is through a [Resident Assistant]," Robbins said. "It's about communication." When BU administrators inform students about safety at freshman orientation, parents tend to pay close attention while students "glaze over," Robbins said. "You should think ahead," Robbins said. "We are in the middle of a city, and that's what makes us great as a university." Students should program the BUPD phone number into their cell phones, in addition to numbers of taxi companies, to ensure further security, Zamojski said. The low turnout will not discourage the BUPD from holding more meetings on a regular basis, including one more before the semester ends, Robbins said. "From the feedback I get from students, everyone feels safe here," Robbins said. "We are a safe campus. We're in a relatively safe part of the city." Robbins said a town hall meeting format is the best way to discuss important issues with the community. "If we don't know about it, we can't take action," he said of last night's topic -- "If you see something, say something." -- Original Source: The Daily Free Press - April 27, 2007
Salem State rallies behind Virginia Tech
By Lisa Guerriero/salem@cnc.com GateHouse Media Fri Apr 20, 2007, 04:30 PM EDT SALEM - The flags at Salem State College flew at half-mast for three days this week in a show of solidarity for the 32 victims of the tragic shooting at Virginia Technical University on Monday. The gesture was perhaps the subtlest undertaken on a campus that was deeply affected by the shootings in Blacksburg, Va., the deadliest campus massacre in the nation's history. "It's sad and kind of shocking, because you don't know if it could happen here," said SSC sophomore Jenn Runyan. Police have identified the shooter as Cho Seung-Hui, a South Korea native and VT senior who went on a brutal shooting rampage and then turned the gun on himself, bringing the death toll to 33. The tragedy hit home for Salem State's faculty and students, as it did at other colleges, and even more so because one of the victims was a Saugus resident, 20-year-old Ross Alameddine, a graduate of Austin Preparatory High School in Reading. A number of SSC students have friends at Virginia Tech, and one professor taught there before coming to Salem State, said Bruce Perry, the director of the SSC campus center. "So there's ties and connections," he said. The president of the Student Government Association, Michael Mitchell, helped coordinate several events and tributes in response to the tragedy and received some 50 e-mails from students offering to help organize a memorial. "We had a meeting (of the Student Government Association) and it came up that we, as students, can't sit by and let this go unnoticed," said Mitchell. Salem State was on break for Patriots Day when the shooting happened on Monday, and when students returned Tuesday, campus was buzzing as students exchanged information and pieced together what had happened in Blacksburg. By Wednesday, the effort to support Virginia Tech was already under way. Perry received an e-mail from Julie Walters-Steele, the director of university unions at VT, asking colleges and universities across the country to send cards and messages. A spot had been cleared at VT to display the tokens of support, and Salem State is doing its part to fill that spot. "I think people were looking for something positive to do, some way to express their emotions around it," Perry said. Salem State rolled into action, setting up posters at hotspots around campus. Large posters bore the outline of the Virginia Tech logo, with ribbons decorating the inside of the letters "VT." The posters read, "4-16-07 Today We're All Hokies," in honor of the name of Virginia Tech's turkey-like mascot. That day, students in the dining hall crowded around one of the posters to write messages and pin on flowers and white ribbons. "To the Virginia Tech community - Salem State will keep you, the victims and their families in our hearts," one wrote. Students in the dining hall on Wednesday evening told the Gazette the shooting summoned feelings of sadness, sympathy and even a degree of fear. "We relate to it more. Just because we're on a campus, and it could happen here," said Emily Marte, a sophomore who will be a resident advisor next year. She noted that an RA was one of the first killed during the Virginia Tech shooting. "It makes you feel different when you look at people," added Stephanie Baez, a sophomore. Students and faculty found another outlet to express themselves and show support through Facebook, the social networking Web site used by colleges around the country. Mitchell, the Student Government Association president at SSC, had seen a Facebook group created after the 1997 high school shooting in Bowling Green, Ky. Mitchell took the lead from them and created a Facebook group called "Salem State Remembers Virginia Tech." The image for the group is a hybrid of the Salem State and Virginia Tech logos. Mitchell sent out a message to about 300 people affiliated with his Facebook, who in turn passed the information along to their friends and peers. Within a day, 700 Salem State students had joined the group, posting messages of sympathy for the VT community and making suggestions for how Salem State could contribute. "It's really powerful to see in one day, one-fifth of the campus come to stand behind Virginia Tech," Mitchell said. SSC student Pat Reidy said many Salem State students changed the images on their Facebook profiles from their own photos to the VT logo. "It got around really quick," Reidy said. One of the most important messages shared was a call for the college to organize a vigil. Just as quickly as the posters were created and the Facebook group formed, faculty and students at SSC organized the vigil, which is scheduled for Monday, April 23 at 7 p.m. outside the Central Campus residence hall. Organizers made the decision to open the vigil to the public, to anyone who wants to show support and reflect on the tragedy. "It's a time for the community to come together to express their emotion in regard to the tragedy that happened," Perry said. The student government and the college pooled some money to purchase 1,100 white T-shirts that say the VT logo and the phrase "4-16-07 Today We're All Hokies," as well as 1,000 white ribbons for participants to pin on their shirts or bags. The college plans to line up participants to spell out the VT that is the Virginia Tech logo, and take an aerial photo to send to the university. SSC President Nancy Harrington will attend, and several student leaders will offer brief remarks. Mitchell hopes one of the deans, who is also a pastor, will lend his services. Perry said his office teamed with the Residence Hall Association, faculty members and the Student Government Association to coordinate the events, but students were the driving force. "The whole idea has sprung from the students," Perry said. Mitchell said he hasn't seen the student community so collectively moved since the terrorists attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He sees a few core reasons for the outpouring of support. It hits home that a victim was from a neighboring town and that students and a professor have ties there. "That, coupled with the fact that the victims are all their age," Mitchell said, "and it happened on a campus - it could have happened here. It really could have." The public is invited to a vigil for the victims of the Virginia Tech shooting and their families, hosted by Salem State College. The vigil will be held Monday, April 23 at 7 p.m. outside the Central Campus residence hall. A memorial fund has been established to remember and honor the victims of the Virginia Tech shooting. The fund will pay for counseling, memorials and other expenses. To contribute, visit www.vt.edu/tragedy/memorial_fund.php. -- Original Source: http://www.townonline.com/salem/homepage/x1160276354 Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5.
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5
Country mourns and questions campus killings
By Lisa Kunkel Statesman Staff Reporter Horrific school shootings such as the Virginia Tech massacre leave people wondering what can possibly drive an individual to such extreme measures. Seung-Hui Cho took the lives of 33 people including himself at Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg, Va. Initially, "investigators offered no motive for the attack," read the article on Yahoo! News the day of the shooting, titled "Gunman kills 32 in Virginia Tech rampage." Witnesses said Cho shamelessly opened fire as if he had no victims in mind, leaving the event to appear to be a random act of violence. "It's hard to say what was random and what wasn't," said professor Emily Gaarder, of UMD's Department of Sociology/Anthropology. Monday's shooting reminds us of another tragic event that occurred eight years ago in Littleton, Col., where two students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, killed 12 classmates and a teacher before taking their own lives at Columbine High School. Prior to Virginia Tech, the deadliest campus shooting in U.S. history took place in 1966 in Austin at the University of Texas, where Charles Whitman climbed to the 28th floor observation deck killing 16 people before he was gunned down by police, according to MSNBC. These tragic events, along with many others, leave many boggled with one main question: What brings young people like Cho, Harris, Klebold and Whitman to commit such horrendous acts of violence? Cho chose to tell the world his motive in a shocking yet disturbing videotape mailed to NBC news network the day of the shooting. "You had a 100 billion chances and ways to have avoided today," Cho said in the footage. "But you decided to spill my blood. You forced me into a corner and gave me only one option. The decision was yours. Now you have blood on your hands that will never wash off." Though there is no motive that could ever make such a horrendous act acceptable, Cho's disturbing message does help to clarify what was going through his mind. In the case of Columbine, investigators worked to find the killers' drive for a long time. After years of research on the case, the FBI and its team have come to the conclusion that "the school served as means to a grander end, to terrorize the entire nation by attacking a symbol of American life," according to an article at slate.msn.com. AP PHOTO Student Gatane Gallagher, 19, cries at a memorial on Virginia Tech's drill field. Gaarder noticed that the cases at Columbine and other schools often followed a stereotypical trend where the perpetrator was an outcast who was bullied. However, these mass murderers can often be clinically labeled "psychopaths." "Because of their inability to appreciate the feeling of others, some psychopaths are capable of behavior that normal people find not only horrific but baffling," wrote Dr. Robert Hare, in "Without Conscious," a book about the disorder. "For example, they can torture and mutilate their victims with about the same sense of concern that we feel when we carve a turkey for Thanksgiving dinner." Gaarder also noted that it is typically men who are involved in these situations. Statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice note that "males represent 77 percent of homicide victims and nearly 90 percent of offenders," and "approximately one-third of murder victims and almost half the offenders are under the age of 25." AP PHOTO Student Gatane Gallagher, 19, cries at a memorial on Virginia Tech's drill field Gaarder said random acts of violence happen everyday to and from all sorts of people and that there might be ways to help prevent these acts. "Maybe one thing we could do is teach the emotional skills as well as intellectual skills to students," Gaarder said. Gaarder felt that people should come together to discuss what can be done to keep UMD safe aside from gun control and increased security. "It would be a good conversation for students and faculty to have together," Gaarder said. "Students are at the frontline of people who could help bring attention to this." Sociology/Anthropology Professor Robert Weidner teaches his students daily about crime and the media. "From a criminology standpoint, you can't study it," Weidner said. "The hindsight of it is 20:20." Weidner said that high school shootings are very rare events and college are even more rare. "School is the safest place to be," Weidner said. Less than 7 percent of all crimes occur in school, according to statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice. "Violent victimization is 20 percent lower among college students compared to non-college 18-24 year olds," Weidner said. -- Original source:<a href=
Statesman Editor-in-Chief Desk - Suraj Rambhia <eic@sbstatesman.org>
My thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends of those lost in this tragedy. Words are not enough to heal wounds or to make up for the great losses of these beautiful lives. As I watched this story unfold on the news, I couldn't get all of yall in Blacksburg off of my mind and heart. I believe God gave me this song to bring a message of hope to all the Hokies at Virginia Tech and to encourage everyone to march on as one. The power of the human spirit is truly amazing. I hope that there is a Hokie among yall who will discover a melody to go with these words so that a beautiful tribute will arise. We March On So many deaths In such a short time The grief and the heartache Is burning inside Beautiful life Has been taken away We stand here in shock In utter dismay We march on as Hokies We march on as one Though this great tragedy Won't soon be undone We cling to each other United we stand Hokies move forward Hand in hand The sun has gone down On many young lives And ended the stories That were filled with good times Their memories we honor For their families we pray And march on as Hokies To brave a new day We march on as Hokies We march on as one Though this great tragedy Won't soon be undone We cling to each other United we stand Hokies move forward Hand in hand We cling to each other United we stand Hokies move forward Hand in hand In memory of all those lost on April 16, 2007 Lisa Merryman Texas A&M Class of 2005
Op-Ed: An open letter to President Hennessy
May 14, 2007 By Lisette Rimer Dear Dr. Hennessy, Thank you for your op-ed piece May 4th on preventing future tragedies such as Virginia Tech. It was forwarded to me byone of your students who suffered the loss of a friend, my son Patrick Wood. Patrick graduated from Stanford in 2005 with distinction in math. He loved the school, had many friends there, and was even treated for depression there. In January before he graduated, he was hospitalized for, as he explained to me, "having thoughts of suicide." He was committed to the Stanford hospital for five days, but proclaimed that he was OK, mostly bored, and didn't belong there. The psychiatrist in charge at the hospital agreed that Pat was OK and should be permitted to return to school as long as he continued therapy. He saw a therapist and a psychiatrist on campus and renewed his medication. His mood was up and down, but he continued an active social life and good communication with us. He was excited about an internship at Siemens in Berlin, Germany, which he began after graduation. He had applied for the internship through the Stanford Center in Berlin. He suspended his therapy for the summer with plans to return in September for the computer science co-term program, but he loved Berlin too much to leave just yet. Another friend from Stanford was arriving to work in the American Embassy there, and so Patrick obtained a leave of absence and continued to work at Siemens through the fall. All the while, he made many friends, spoke and wrote fluent German, went to concerts with colleagues at Siemens, and maintained close contact with the Stanford Center. He could often be heard playing the piano there just as he had done at Haus Mitt. He wrote about a "mini-depression" before he came home to Connecticut for Christmas vacation. We thought a medication refill would be the answer. His twin sister and older brother were home, along with cousins, aunts, and uncles. It was the usual busy but fun time. Pat later told friends it was "relaxing" and that it was good to get away from the city for a while. On December 27th, he went to New York City to see another good friend from Stanford. He returned to Berlin on the 28th. In January he wrote about a "mini-breakdown." We had many emails. I called, but could not contact him by telephone. His last email to me was on January 26th. Humboldt University had requested additional information on his application as a grad student there. He took it as rejection, told me he might be returning to Stanford, and asked me to wish him luck. He answered no more emails after that. He saw friends on the weekend of the 28th and 29th. He did not return phone calls after Tuesday the 31st. His friend, who worked at the American Embassy and who lived a block away, became worried. He called and went to Pat's apartment several times the following weekend. He called the Stanford Center on Monday morning. They called the police to break into the apartment. By that evening, the police found Pat. He had died of carbon monoxide poisoning on Tuesday, January 31st. Patrick was one of many graduates that June. He was one of many more who were going on to graduate school. The school cannot be responsible for every student on campus or every new graduate. I am under no illusions about who was responsible for his treatment and for what he did. It was Patrick alone who decided to stay in Germany, who decided to suspend treatment, and ultimately who decided that suicide would relieve his depression. I have tried to retrace his steps continuously in my mind ever since we were notified on February 6, 2006. On that day, his friend and others from the Stanford Center identified him. They called a Stanford residential housing director in Palo Alto, and he called us. Both the Stanford School in Berlin and Palo Alto had memorial services for him in February and March of last year. As you can see, the school was very much involved in both the life and in the death of my son. Please do not mistake my comments for blame. Maybe no one could have prevented his loss, but I have learned that it is the very nature of his disease, and of Cho's at Virginia Tech, that should cause us to be hyper-vigilant. Students who are depressed, even brilliant and loving students like Pat, cannot function reliably because the source of their decision-making process is under attack. They are making flawed decisions because the very same mechanism used to make these decisions is malfunctioning. There is an anatomical difference between a healthy brain and a depressed brain. It is a detectable, visible difference, and yet it is only a part of the brain, for many decisions appear "normal." It is those normalities which lulled me into thinking that Pat would get help, that he would take care of himself, that he would certainly see how magnificent he was, that he had just graduated from Stanford with a 3.9 average and a major in math, that his friends loved him, that he had had the best childhood we could provide, that he had the brightest future of anyone. How could he not be happy? The answer is because depression does not operate on the same assumptions. I have had to change my own notions of well-being because they failed Pat. He did not get help in Germany because he could not. The decisions he needed to make were not possible with the oppression and pain he was feeling. Although he was physically able to get to a doctor or call a therapist, just as he had done at Stanford, those functions needed motivation, and it was his motivation which had been destroyed. All the drive, the talent, the brilliance that had won him a full scholarship to Pomfret School, that had gotten him perfect SAT's, that had made him a valedictorian, that had made him a merit scholar, that had gotten him into Stanford, that won him a scholarship there, that had gotten him into the Krupp Internship program in Germany and then into Siemens—all the motivation he needed to achieve academic and social success was no match for this disease. He had sought treatment, and it had not worked, so he turned inward until he isolated his thoughts, his wants, and his pain, until he was feeling nothing but the sense of control which suicide brings. I think your comments about psychological services are a welcome response. Pat's life was saved the first time he had major depression and was hospitalized by one of the counselors on campus, and I am deeply grateful. But I would hope, in the wake of Pat's agonizing loss and the frightening possibility of another Virginia Tech, that we come away with a few additional realizations. I have spent every day trying to do the same thing. Mainly I hope that we understand that suicide victims are not insane. They function as well as they need to function. Almost everything about Pat was normal on the outside, even the relationship problem that preceded his death. A truth I have learned too late is that we have to go to them. Pat needed someone to take him for help. Just because he did it the first time didn't mean he would do it again. As a matter of fact, there was less chance he would get help because he was weakened from the first depressive episode. Because I have learned that depression is a terminal illness, I would hope that we could change the meaning of the term from a saddened state of mind, to the dangerous, insidious threat that it is. Most people who commit suicide have been depressed and have attempted it beforehand. As I think Patrick and the Virginia Tech incident made abundantly clear, we are ill-equipped to detect the severity of the disease and, therefore, the likelihood that these victims will complete a suicide. Anatomical detection would give us empirical data that we need to make a more accurate diagnosis, certainly more accurate than relying on a patient to rate himself on a depression scale as is now commonly the case. How many other diseases have to be self-diagnosed when a patient is least able? And finally, a thought about treatment. A newspaper article last year pointed out that patients who were "cured" had to endure an average of four combinations of medication and therapy before finding one that succeeded. That means a great deal of trial and error at a time when any failure can be misconstrued as a reason for hopelessness and self-harm. The implications for a university are complex. How much do you reach out, especially if the patient does not seek treatment? How do you know the severity of the depression? If we are relying on averagely intelligent people to pick up on the cues, we will never succeed. I know because I am one of those failures. I will hate myself forever for what I did not know about depression, for what I missed, for what I did not do for my son, but I also know that there are a lot of people saying the same thing about Cho. They are all blaming themselves, just as I am, because what passes for non-threatening behavior before suicide becomes pockmarked with danger signs afterward. I should have gone to Berlin. I should have called his friends. I should have done a lot of things and so should they who knew Cho. But we don't because we don't know they are necessary. We don't know they mean life or death, and we will not know until we have reliable detection. Maybe the lesson that arises from Patrick, a favorite son of Stanford, is that students within Stanford programs should be better monitored no matter where they are. Whether they are in Palo Alto or Germany, follow-up and care (and this is most important) should be initiated by the school. Why? Because seriously depressed students are less likely to seek treatment. They consider themselves to be defective instead of legitimately sick because that's what depression does. It convinces them that there is no hope, and therefore no cure, but that is really depression talking. We have to break through that. We have to go to them, physically and mentally. If you go to the website for The American Federation for Suicide Prevention, you will see their advice for preventing suicide. The suicidal person cannot be expected to independently seek treatment. Somebody must take them. If we can come away with any insight from Patrick and Cho, it is that follow-up was woefully lacking. I shudder to mention their names in the same sentence, but similar questions in their aftermaths compel me. Why didn't the school follow up on Pat's treatment in Germany even though he was in a Stanford internship program? The answer: Stanford was relying on Pat, and so was I. That cannot continue. When students become patients, the school must monitor them as long as they are connected to the school and wherever they are connected. Depressed students — even the best, like Pat — are simply not capable. Depressed students don't seek treatment because they are, not surprisingly, depressed. This is how depression kills, and in the process, it robs functioning until there is very little on which to rely. How do we know when that functioning is gone? We don't, and that is why it is up to us to know more. It is simply in our own best interest to detect and treat more actively and accurately. If I have come away with anything from the loss of my beautiful son it is this: Depression will kill anybody, but the burden is on usto know whom. When Pat graduated in 2005, our whole family came to Stanford to wish him well: my husband and I from Connecticut, his older brother Colin and Colin's friend Julie from Washington State, his twin sister Libby from Vermont, and his grandparents Dr and Mrs. David Rimer from Los Angeles. We all came to congratulate him, and we were impressed with the beautiful ceremonies and meaningful events, but as I read your op-ed piece, the memory of meeting you at graduation stood out the most. You seemed like a caring person, even during the brief moments in which we had our photograph taken with you. We commented afterward how welcoming you and your wife had been, even though you were probably exhausted from shaking hands and posing for several hours. And now I write to ask you to bring that caring sensibility to the forefront of this issue. Suicide is the second leading cause of death for college students. It weakens parents' confidence in the safety of their children on campus — parents, who, by the way, are already feeling excluded from the well-beings of their children because of confidentiality. We cannot see grades, get psychiatric records, get tuition bills directly, or intervene on students' behalf. Everything is left up to the student, and, as we have seen with Patrick and Cho, we risk too much isolation. Again, thank you for your interest in this issue, and thank you for promoting the psychological well-being of your students. I appreciate your focusing Stanford's public attention on these avoidable catastrophes. Patrick loved Stanford dearly. He was grateful for the services you did provide, and now, in his stead, we are grateful for your continuing efforts to protect our children. I invite you to visit the memorial blog set up for Patrick by his Stanford friends at: http://patrickwood.blogspot.com/ Sincerely, Lisette Rimer, Pat's mom Pomfret Center, Connnecticut Comment on this article Jon Bell - 5/14/07 Ten day ago, a newly-admitted Freshman to Stanford went on yet another in a long-time-series of verbal abuse tirades against all the people who loved her; wished that they were all dead; that she hated all people, especially the rich--and that after Stanford she wanted a career in public relations. This person is now getting help--if she allows it. The University has been informed and has been fabulous. Ted Rudow III,MA - 5/14/07 There is no reason to doubt the generous impulse behind the work of professional psychologists and social scientists. Most of the experts who guide the psychological society have good intentions. But there may be reasons to doubt the competence of psychological helpers. A willingness to help does not guarantee a helpful result. Sometimes, as Thoreau wryly observed, the result is the opposite: "If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life." The fact that psychologists are trying to help people often keeps us from asking whether they know how to help. We think it's bad manners to ask a man who is trying to help us if he really knows what he's doing. Of course, it's not just manners that prevent us from questioning psychology. It's also faith--the kind of faith that makes us believe that school teachers are doing what is best for our children. Or the kind of faith that tells you that the man in the clerical collar won't knock you down and steal your wallet. Just the same, we ought to be asking if psychologists really do know how to help. A good deal of research suggests that psychology is ineffective. And there is evidence pointing to the conclusion that psychology is actually harmful. The first indication that psychology might be ineffective came in 1952 when Hans Eysenck of the Institute of Psychiatry, University of London, discovered that neurotic people who do not receive therapy are as likely to recover as those who do. Psychotherapy, he found, was not any more effective than the simple passage of time. Additional studies by other researchers showed similar results. Then Dr. Eugene Levitt of the Indiana University School of Medicine found that disturbed children who were not treated recovered at the same rate as disturbed children who were. A further indication of the problem was revealed in the results of the extensive Cambridge-Somerville Youth Study. The researchers found that uncounseled juvenile delinquents had a lower rate of further trouble than counseled ones. Other studies have shown that untrained lay people do as well as psychiatrists or clinical psychologists in treating patients. And the Rosenham studies indicated that mental hospital staff could not even tell normal people from genuinely disturbed ones. It is possible to go on with the list. It is quite a long one. But I hope this is sufficient to make the point that when psychologists rush in to help, they are not particularly successful. Ted Rudow III, Scientologist - 5/14/07 Hey Ted, what exactly do you mean by, "psychology is actually harmful." That's a pretty nice blanket statement there. What you're meaning to say is, clinical psychology isn't always effective. The studies you list aren't indictments of psychology as a discipline, but specific methods of treatment. And none of them conclude, "Therefore, nobody should trust any psychologists, because of what we have tried to show." Seriously. Neurosis is not as widespread or specific as depression. Psychotherapy was always hackery and has little to do with modern-day depression treatment methods. Children's developmental processes are also moot in this discussion, be they abnormal or normal or whatnot. There are lots of studies showing a lot of things. You have to look at the whole body of the discipline and then inform yourself, not take the good and pointed studies relating to specific areas and discount the entire field. Why did you even give her space? - 5/14/07 At some point, you just have to let go, lady. Get a grip. Stop projecting your woulda-coulda-shoulda parental replays to compensate for everything you didn't do, just to make yourself feel better and ignore what really did happen, most of which probably wouldn't have changed even with all the nannying you suggest. The Real BadgerNation - 5/14/07 I agree... and President Hannessy's fake smile and politically correct image are a clear sign that he cares. Same way G.W.'s visits to Iraq and shaking of those people's hands, taking pictures and putting up a big baboon smile show that he also cares... about sending America's sons to die. Why is this letter in the Daily? - 5/15/07 I agree with WDYEGHS - it's not very helpful to expect that CAPS could be able to 'follow-up' on GRADUATES (who aren't eligible for their services any more, anyway...*ahem*), not to mention when they are 9 time zones away. Aside from the logistical (think personnel, funding, time and money spent tracking down Stanford students abroad) impossibility of this operation, how would that be funded? A third of Stanford undergrads go to CAPS at some time in their career here - keeping tabs on them to follow up is just not feasible with the way the service is set up at the moment. Also, when would treatment end? If we were to promote a regime of following up on everybody after every psychological event had been resolved (something that closely resembles nannying...which health services can't do to people once they are of age without their consent) then it risks wasting the time of professionals who are already over-stretched and underpaid. Finally, CAPS psychologists are not permitted to practice in Germany because they are licensed in the state of California. This guy's story is really tragic and it makes me really sad to have read this piece, but the answer, if there was one, would not have lay at Stanford no matter what obligations the mother wants to impose on the university. A more sympathetic response... - 5/15/07 I think the three posts above me are not giving this well thought out article enough credit. I don't think she's advocating for a CAPS conselour to commute to Germany to make sure a graduate is doing ok, but some sort of follow up with the family or student to make sure they are getting some sort of help. Yes, a third of the student body may go to CAPS, but a much smaller fraction of the student body would require this follow up - - those who attempted suicide, were committed to the hospital against their will, etc. While this article does suggest that Stanford should have remained involved in Pat's mental rehabilitation, I think the more important thing to take away is the author's useful view into the life of a mentally depressed student, and hopefully raises awareness of what our peers are going through - peers who you see next to you at dinner, walk by in white plaza, sit next to in class. while pat did not take his life while at stanford, many others have, and that fact needs a lot more attention from ALL OF US at stanford. Alyssa O'Brien, PWR Instructor - 5/16/07 As a Stanford instructor who knew Pat as a student years ago in PWR "Comic Rhetoric," I am deeply saddened to hear of his death. My heart goes out to Lisette and to all Pat's friends and family members. I still remember his gentle smile and quick wit. I hope anyone reading this realizes that suicide is a lonely and terrible solution -- there are people who will grieve and miss you with a deep ache. May 17 is the first annual Stanford Wellness day. Make a pact on this day to reach out to others and not give in or give up. Grateful - 5/17/07 Thank you for sharing your painful and most personal experience. Your letter points out the difference between sadness and depression. Don't ever let go of your search for meaning and your determination to help others. Even if some miss the point (as evidenced by a few of the responses), to me and to others your words are precious. No man is an island. Thank you. Lisette Rimer - 5/20/07 Dear Mr. Hohmann, Thank you for being so generous with space in the Daily for Pat's picture and story. You gave prominence to an issue which has apparently troubled Stanford both on and off campus and, judging by the responses to Pat's story, drawn the full range of reaction. I found it interesting that I shared all views at different times in my life. Before Pat died, I agreed completely that schools cannot be traipsing all over the globe to protect students from themselves, that we could not make students live if they didn't want to. As a matter of fact, it is probably that kind of thinking that put me in this situation today. Now that he's gone, I can only say from experience that the nature of the disease demands more from us. There is no better proof than Pat that depression is a terminal disease and that it operates outside the realm of logic. How do we know when a student has crossed that line? We don't, and so it stands to reason that we should take a conservative approach. As my doctor has told me many times since Pat's death, depression is like cancer, only worse in the sense that it attacks the very decision-making ability that students need to seek help. If you can't depend on the students, and the parents are three thousand miles away and getting the "I'm OK" side of the story, who is left? It is only the professionals who know that depression does not "heal" after the first "episode" Even on medication, it takes longer to recover with each setback. Severely depressed patients do not "learn" from past failures. They get worse. They become more vulnerable. They are chronically ill, and even if they sought hospitalization once, as Pat did, they may be less likely to do it again because they will think they are beyond hope. My therapist tells me we can assume one thing about suicide: the person is in so much pain that death is a mandate. It's not like they went to a psychological shopping mall and unexplainably picked that choice. I have learned that it is a severe, agonizing, psychological torture, which constricts them internally but allows enough external composure to carry out their plan. Pick up any book on the subject and then think about it as I have done every day for fifteen months. If the school is sincere in improving its psychological services, follow-up after hospitalization is essential. Nobody else is equipped to do it, and the consequences may be fatal. I am not removing blame from myself or from Pat, and I appreciate those who wrote and understood that. My letter is not about finding fault. It is simply stating a fact: the school must be proactive. The psychiatric services are excellent on campus. As a friend once told Pat, "Stanford is one of the best places to have a breakdown." Extending those services is simply a matter of a phone call, in Pat's case, to the Stanford Center in Berlin. Most importantly, thank you to "A more sympathetic response," "Alyssa O'Brien," and "Grateful." You knew Pat (Was it you, Mrs. O'Brien, who nominated him for a writing prize for his paper on Juvenal? He was touched that you liked it.), and you knew how depression works. It's a thief, and it robs you blind. You cannot see your prospects unless professionals pry your eyes open. Thank you, Stanford, for the wonderful care you did give, and thank you again for continually working to improve those resources. Lisette Rimer, Pat's mom Pomfret Center, CT 06259 -- Original Source: Stanford Daily - May 14, 2007
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I woke up today This mirror doesn't reflect me No one that I know of Has time passed so quickly? Did you give the final shove? Save us from evil Save us from evil Is this what I've become? A heart left untouched My wounds have come undone I hold your lives in a clutch ((Save us from evil)) And all I have to say ((Save us from evil)) Is that I never walked that way ((Save us from evil)) Can the night save the day? ((Save us from evil)) I woke up today Is this the end of me? And all I'd hoped to be? I can only save myself Through the blood of someone else ((Save us from evil) I cannot walk this way ((Save us from evil)) I will not live to say ((Save us from evil)) That I walked that way ((Save us from evil)) I can't wake up today And all this pain I see Reflects right back at me I've been where you were before But I ignored that door ((Save us from evil)) I'm proud to say ((Save us from evil)) I never walked that way ((Save us from evil)) I've finally found my day ((Save us from evil)) My eyes are open today Save us from evil I woke up today -- Author's Comments Inspired by the events at Virginia Tech. Rest in peace :heart: MayB -- Original submitted to deviantart.com on April 18, 2007: http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/53516419/ Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 License.
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 License
G-AHS students reach out to survivors of the the massacre at Virginia Tech
By Liz Vargo The Record Herald Published: Monday, May 21, 2007 10:08 AM CDT GREENCASTLE - When Greencastle-Antrim High School sophomore Kristin Reihart saw the massacre unfold at Virginia Tech in April, a chilling realization hit her - it could happen anywhere. "Virginia Tech was one of the colleges I considered going to," Kristin said. "If it happened two to three years in the future, I could be one of the students affected." So Kristin and three of her sophomore friends, Samantha Benson, Ashley Alleman and Tyler Sheeley, took it upon themselves to help. The four developed a plan for donations and presented it to high school administrators. During lunch periods last Friday, today and on Tuesday, the group will collect donations and sell T-shirts to raise money for the victims and relatives affected by the Virginia Tech massacre. "I can't imagine what they're going through," said Samantha. Making donations Any donations will go toward the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund. Donations will fund grief counseling and communication with victims of the shootings and their families. Those who donate a minimum of $1 will receive a white, orange and maroon ribbon in memory of the lives lost at Virginia Tech. The students plan to make all the ribbons. The group also designed the T-shirts, which can be purchased for $10 apiece. The maroon shirt has orange lettering with the date of the shooting, April 16, 2007, and "Remember Virginia Tech" on the back. Shirts come in small through extra large. Kristin said it will take about a week to get the shirts made. Those who ordered T-shirts and received ribbons will wear them on the same day to honor Virginia Tech students and show support. Creating awareness Several local schools dealt with serious threats following the Virginia Tech shootings on April 16. Kristin and Samantha said it's scary to think about what could happen at home. "We're trying to bring awareness. We share in the pain of that community," Kristin said. "It's scary (when there's a threat) because kids don't know if it's really a threat or not," said Samantha. The students who threaten others or carry out terrifying events, like that at Virginia Tech, often feel they have no way out, Samantha said. Peer pressure and bullying make them look for another way to cope. Although G-AHS has not dealt with threats, students said they have seen bullying in the schools. "It's nothing major, but we want people to realize what happened and how people from that area feel," added Tyler. "We should feel for them." The students said other organizations raised money for victims, but they noticed nothing had been done at G-ASHS, so they started a fund-raiser themselves. "It's an amazing thing with the heart of these students," said assistant principal Ed Rife. "They pulled this together themselves. It's not for a class, it's all about making a difference." By showing their respect, Rife said the students created a way for the Greencastle "family" to help another family in need, he said. The project The fund-raising event took about three weeks to plan. Students met with the guidance counselor, then presented the idea to administrators. Samantha said many teachers commented they were proud the students organized the project on their own. No one used it as class or extra-curricular credit. T-shirts can be ordered at the high school office, 500 E. H St., or by calling 597-2186. To donate directly to the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund, call 1-800-533-1144. -- Original source: http://www.therecordherald.com/articles/2007/05/21/local_news/news03.txt Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5
Threats to Civil Liberties arising from the fallout of the Virginia Tech Forcible-disarmament Frenzy
May 1, 2007 4:51 pm An article from a new contributor: Loren Bliss THERE ARE TWO EXCEPTIONALLY grave dangers to American liberty arising from the present, post-Virginia-Tech forcible-disarmament frenzy. These are: (1)-The criminalization of even the mildest forms of mental illness, as proposed by Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY), in HR 297. (2)-The criminalization of political protest and dissent, as proposed by Sen. Frank Lautenberg, (D-NJ), in S 1237. Each of these measures is enthusiastically supported by the Bush Regime. The Lautenberg bill was written at White House/Justice Department request — a leading Democratic senator serving as the mouthpiece for a despised Republican administration — an unprecedented act of collaboration with the most corrupt regime in U.S. history. Once again, opposition to the Second Amendment is being used as a diversion behind which to conceal an all-out, bipartisan attack on the entire Bill of Rights- including, via S 1237, repeal of the presumption of innocence that is the cornerstone of all English-language jurisprudence. Meanwhile, welcome to the New American Reich, where (if McCarthy, Lautenberg and Bush have their way), anybody deemed a mental case, an effective labor activist or a disruptive political nonconformist will soon be forcibly disarmed, denied all rational means of self defense and thereby condemned to perpetual victimhood. ********* Modern efforts to criminalize mental dysfunction have a long history dating back to Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany and are typically part of a broader right-wing agenda of oppression and euthanasia. But in the United States, the primary advocates of criminalization are the forcible disarmament cult and the Communitarian movement, members of which universally (and often vehemently) claim to be leftists and/or "progressives." The Communitarians have argued for at least two decades that diagnosis of mental illness should instantly terminate not only all one's civil rights but also strip one of all privileges as well, driver's licenses included, after which the victim of such determination could then theoretically earn back the abolished rights and privileges in carefully supervised increments. Toward this end the Communitarians — who despite their leftist disguise and innocuous-sounding name are radical Skinnerian fascists of the harshest sort — are demanding creation of a national registry of mental patients. Deliberately established and maintained as a powerfully oppressive tool of social control, this roster of official pariahdom would include the names of anyone now or ever in any form of mental health treatment, regardless of the relative mildness or severity of the condition for which they are being treated. (Google "communitarians" and scroll at will for additional information.) Despite its huge contempt for the Constitution, the Communitarian faction is but one small portion of the forcible disarmament cult, but it is probably disproportionately powerful. Its intellectual prowess is considerable, and it often assumes a behind-the-scenes leadership role, focusing on the development of strategy, tactics and ideology. Another venue of profound Communitarian influence is the Hillary Clinton wing of the Democratic Party. It was the Communitarians who provided the Clintons and their cronies with the ideological justification for the Democratic Party's abandonment of New Deal principles and its subsequent wholesale betrayal of the working class. The Communitarians' grasp of Orwellian principles is also very evident in the present-day effort to redefine forcible disarmament as "gun safety" and the present tactic of concealing disarmament schemes behind apparently friendly but patently false gestures toward firearms owners. All this dovetails neatly with the broader forcible-disarmament-cult agenda of reducing legal firearms ownership by any means possible. Since it is credibly estimated as many as 50 percent of all U.S. citizens will at some time require some form of mental health treatment ("treatment" defined in the broadest sense, to include grief counseling, post-divorce therapy and even self-esteem classes or remedial reading for dyslexics), a favorite ploy of forcible disarmament fanatics is to demand closure of "the mental health loophole" in such a way that participation in any treatment process is penalized by automatic forcible disarmament: either turn in your guns before you see the professional caregiver, or the police will soon be there to kick in your front door, shoot your dogs, wreck the interior of your house by violent search and terrorize your spouse and children into lifelong bouts of shivering catatonia. Typically — and the forcible disarmament advocates make no secret of the fact they are obscenely aroused by the prospect of unleashing such police brutality against firearms owners — this means criminalizing all forms of mental illness or mental dysfunction and thereby forcibly disarming anyone who is or ever has been in any sort of therapy or formalized healing, permanently abolishing their gun rights, no appeal allowed. This is already the law in New York City — if you consult a mental health professional even once in NYC (no matter the nature of your problem), your name is reported to the police and you lose your gun rights forever. Indeed, the Democrats attempted to impose a similar restriction on Washington state residents in 1994, but it was vigorously resisted there by a coalition of mental health professionals, who recognize in such criminalization a huge disincentive to voluntary treatment. Which brings us to the present "mental health loophole" bill pending in Congress. As originally written, it was called the "Our Lady of Peace Act" (Google for details), and it would have permanently denied firearms ownership to anyone "adjudicated as a mental defective or committed to a mental institution," which is further defined as occurring whenever "a court, board, commission, or other lawful authority determines that an individual is mentally retarded or of marked subnormal intelligence, mentally ill, or mentally incompetent" (HR 4757, 2002, Sec. 103 and 103:c). By including the phrase "other lawful authority," the measure would have empowered any psychiatrist, psychologist or even guidance counselor to deny someone their gun rights forever, merely by declaring that person "mentally ill" — a designation that covers everything from definitively murderous Andrea Yates/Cho Seung Hui psychosis to the mildest cases of neurotic nail-biting and low-self-esteem fidgets. The generic designation "mentally ill" would also have allowed the forcible disarmament of anyone ever found to be "mentally disabled" — never mind that "mental disability" is a very specifically focused evaluation of one's employability or lack thereof, typically for purposes of granting welfare stipends or Social Security disability payments. Thus a finding of "mental disability" has absolutely nothing to do with one's suitability to own firearms, vote or exercise any other Constitutional right. But the Our Lady of Peace Act, which McCarthy has introduced in every Congress since 2002, would nevertheless require the Social Security Administration and every state welfare agency to add to the federal government's computerized catalogue of criminals the name and dossier of every individual who had ever been found to be even temporarily "mentally disabled" — resulting in a permanent loss of Second Amendment rights against which there would be no possibility of defense or appeal. Thus criminalizing "mental disability" (or any other mental disorder in even the mildest forms) would clearly further the forcible disarmament cult's long range objective of making the requirements for legal firearms ownership increasingly prohibitive — ultimately reducing the number of legal firearms owners by the aforementioned 50 percent. The cult's triumph would be all the greater for the fact the imposition of "prohibited person" status would allow disarmament by outright seizure, thereby exempting government from any compensatory (buy-back) costs. Under extreme pressure from mental health professionals, McCarthy has slightly modified her present proposal, HR 297, so that those denied their Second Amendment rights on the basis of mental health considerations would be specifically limited to persons who have been "adjudicated as mentally defective or...committed to mental institutions." Alas, the term "mental defective" remains undefined — leaving unanswered whether it includes those who have been found to be "mentally disabled." It also leaves a number of other questions as to its scope, such as whether a child diagnosed as suffering from attention deficit disorder is to be branded "mentally defective" and therefore — after reaching adulthood — denied firearms ownership for life. Apparently — though this is not clear either — McCarthy has meanwhile broadened the term "committed" to make it as prohibitive as possible: that is, to permanently deny gun rights to anyone formally committed to a mental institution of any kind (including out-patient clinics) regardless of whether the commitment was mandatory (court ordered) or voluntary. (Present federal law allows those who undergo voluntary commitment to retain their Second Amendment rights unless other specific prohibitions apply.) Furthermore, McCarthy — who formerly made no secret of her froth-at-the-mouth hatred of firearms and firearms owners but now (in service to the Democrats' new deception policy) speaks much more softly — recently told ABC News that in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings, she would amend the bill back to its original, criminalize-all-mental-disorder wording except for the fact "the NRA...is holding everybody hostage." Given that the National Rifle Association has supported the Our Lady of Peace Act from the very beginning, HR 297 included, McCarthy's accusation is not only false but is an especially misleading, hypocritical and even malicious claim: no surprise given the infinite maliciousness that is the forcible disarmament hysteric's most notorious characteristic. But on the HR 297 issue, the NRA (to which I have belonged since 1951) is equally treacherous and hypocritical, especially given its demonstrably false claim to be a defender of the entire Bill of Rights. Indeed the NRA's opposition to the civil rights of mental patients reveals the frustrating extent to which the organization has deteriorated into nothing more than an instrument of the Republican Party. (And the Republican Party — especially since Big Business America's 1930s alliance with Hitler, Mussolini and Franco — is itself the U.S. equivalent of the fascist parties that formerly dominated Europe.) Thus the NRA implicitly embraces the right wing position that "mental defectives" should be savagely oppressed if not actually euthanized. Not that the NRA is out of step with American opinion: most U.S. citizens — though they are loathe to admit it — emphatically agree that "mental defectives" deserve the harshest treatment possible. As a consequence, the U.S. has long been infamous for the industrial world's most superstitiously ignorant fear of mental affliction and its most violent rejection of anyone so afflicted, attitudes that have been credibly traced to the enduring influence of Abrahamic religion and the grave extent to which our society remains a defacto theocracy. (Anyone who doubts this assessment of our national values need look no further than our officially murderous hatred of those who are homeless.) Meanwhile other Second Amendment advocacy groups remain stonily silent on the patient-rights implications of forcible disarmament,* understandably (given these selfsame U.S. attitudes) terrified they will be accused of supporting "guns for crazies." Never mind that study after study proves mental patients are statistically no more dangerous than any other group of Americans — and far less dangerous than some. _________ *Gun Owners of America has vehemently opposed the Our Lady of Peace Act and HR 297, and it has done so for the very best of reasons: these measures could "bar mentally stable people from buying guns" merely because they had sought mental health treatment, and it is "morally and constitutionally wrong to require law-abiding citizens to first prove their innocence to the government before they can exercise their rights — whether it's Second Amendment rights, First Amendment rights, or any other right." Alas, GOA — which based on its rhetoric seems to be very closely tied to the Christian Theocracy faction of the Republican Party — also opposes such legislation for the very worst of reasons: it echoes the traditional Jewish/Christian/Islamic stance that the husband is god's representative in the household and, as god's enforcer, has unlimited god-given right to beat his wife and children. Thus GOA protests that denying guns to family patriarchs convicted of domestic violence is inflicting punishment for "very minor offenses that include pushing, shoving or...merely yelling at a family member" — never mind the bloody testimony of Crystal Brame's death and far too many other murders just as bad or worse. ********* The criminalization of labor activism, political agitation and effective dissent is not the stated purpose of Lautenberg's newly introduced S 1237, which was dropped in the Senate hopper very late Friday 27 April 2007, the introduction obviously timed to minimize public disclosure and avoid press scrutiny. But given that the Republicans now and for a long while have condemned anyone who opposes Führer George Bush and his New American Reich, denouncing each opponent as a "terrorist" or "terrorist sympathizer," the impact of the measure is made obvious by its stated purpose: "to increase public safety by permitting the Attorney General to deny the transfer of firearms or the issuance of firearms and explosives licenses to known or suspected dangerous terrorists." Predictably, Bush himself has already demanded S 1237's immediate enactment. Just as predictably, Lautenberg — perhaps even more fanatical a forcible disarmament advocate than McCarthy — lauds its unprecedented subversion of the Constitutionally implied principle of presumed innocence as "too long" overdue. Absolute proof of the calculated political malevolence embodied in the Lautenberg proposal — proof too of how the Democrats have finally abandoned any pretense of being civil libertarians and now (in the name of forcible disarmament) fully and even gleefully embrace the Bush Regime's agenda of totally nullifying the Bill of Rights — is found in the federal government's post-9/11 redefinition of the term "terrorism" to include any form of political protest that is genuinely disruptive. Participants in a legitimate strike or a protest that blocks or even slows vehicular traffic could thus be persecuted as "terrorists." Quoth the American Civil Liberties Union in an analysis disseminated on 6 December 2002: "The definition of domestic terrorism is broad enough to encompass the activities of several prominent activist campaigns and organizations. Greenpeace, Operation Rescue, Vieques Island and World Trade Organization protesters and the Environmental Liberation Front have all recently engaged in activities that could subject them to being investigated as engaging in domestic terrorism." Meanwhile Reason magazine, the official journal of the Libertarian Party, has repeatedly noted that in the eyes of the Bush Regime, "terrorist" and "enemy combatant" are synonymous In other words, any member of any labor union that participated in the Seattle WTO protests could be labeled a "terrorist" merely based on the union's presence there and — under Lautenberg's S 1237 — he or she could be forcibly disarmed forever. But the reality is far more chilling: given the criteria of disruptiveness, the participants in any effective strike or job action can now be subjugated as "terrorists." And given the Third Reich cloak of secrecy that now hides all U.S. security matters from judicial scrutiny, such subjugation could never be appealed. Indeed it is conceivable a labor activist (or any other opponent of the status quo) could be disappeared forever into the gulag of Guantanamo merely on the basis of the spurious argument that the (denied) attempt to purchase a firearm is absolute proof of "enemy combatant" intent. The law that would enable such outrages should more properly be labeled the Lautenberg/Bush/Alberto Gonzales Bill of Rights Nullification Act of 2007 because it would not only subject all future U.S. firearms ownership to the tyrannical whims of the modern-day incarnation of the dread Reich Security Service (RSHA), but it would but it would repeal the presumption of innocence that is the great wellspring of the American legal system. Thus, with active Democratic party collaboration, at the very least the Bush Regime is laying the groundwork to forcibly disarm every labor activist in the United States — and anyone else it chooses to put on its (secret) enemies list. Thus too another advance for the modern-day variant of fascism — not marching forward on hobnailed jackboots but sneaking past us on politically correct rubber soles. Note also how McCarthy's HR 297 undeniably anticipates enactment of S 1237: "The Secretary of Homeland Security shall make available to the Attorney General...records, updated not less than quarterly, which are relevant to a determination of whether a person is disqualified from possessing or receiving a firearm..."(Sec. 101:b.1.A). Now the relationship between the two measures comes into sharp focus: Lautenberg abolishes the presumption of innocence and grants the government the unprecedented power to rule on our political reliability while McCarthy provides the infrastructure to make sure the secret police get every possible scrap of information. Suddenly I wonder if closing the alleged "mental health loophole" — though no doubt an egregious blow to our freedom — isn't maybe just another red herring to distract us from the genuinely fatal wound that would be dealt our liberty by Lautenberg's coup-de-grace against due process. ********* Predictions past and future: as some of you may remember, before I was booted off Progressive Independent for speaking tactless truth to tacky tyranny, I predicted that the Democrats would take back Congress in 2006, would founder pathetically in their efforts to accomplish any meaningful socioeconomic change, and would then cut a win-win deal with the Bush Regime to impose forcible disarmament and further subvert the Bill of Rights in general, thereby enabling each side to claim accomplishments dearest to its ideologues' alleged hearts. Though the onslaught is not developing exactly the way I imagined it would, there is no doubt such an offensive is underway. But just as I foresaw the betrayal of our electoral hopes for Medicare reform and the restoration of labor rights, I can no longer doubt this new Democrat/Republican collaboration to abolish the presumption of innocence and grant the Homeland Security apparatus the ultimate power of approval or disapproval over all individual civilian firearms purchases is (A) the beginning of the final assault on the Constitution by representatives of the corporate ruling class and (B) the beginning of a Bush Regime effort to co-opt public reaction to the Virginia Tech massacre and thus rehabilitate its public image by launching its own forcible disarmament campaign — not out of the craven hoplophobia that so agitates the Democrats and alienates so many voters, but in the name of the same self-proclaimed robust patriotism that seduced us into cheering the (failed) conquest of Iraq. I can hear it now: "if y'all love your country, you'll give us the common-sense power to determine who's politically reliable enough to have a gun." The last time the politicians said something like that, the language was German. ********* NOTES: The text of HR 297 and the unfolding details of S 1237 are available through the excellent and superbly useful Thomas legislative search engine: http://thomas.loc.gov/ I am posting this same essay on my blog, Wolfgang von Skeptik, http://wolfgangvonskeptik.mu.nu/ -- Original Source: http://www.midwest-populistamerica.com/articles/threats-to-civil-liberties-arising-from-virginia-tech/ Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.5.
Cho Seung-Hui: lecciones para la educación
Creado por Luis Guerrero Ortiz Lima, 22 de Abril de 2007 3:00 PM Los hechos son por todos conocidos. Cho Seung-Hui, un estudiante sudcoreano de 23 años, entró el lunes 16 de abril en los dormitorios de la Universidad Virginia Tech, en Estados Unidos, y mató a 32 personas antes de suicidarse. En el Perú, los escolares y aún los jóvenes que continúan estudios no tienen el fácil acceso a armas de fuego que sí poseen sus pares en Norteamérica. Ese acceso libre y legalizado es considerado hoy como una de las causas principales de la masacre. ¿Lo es en verdad? En una reciente encuesta, casi la mitad de los estadounidenses cree que las leyes sobre armas deberían ser más estrictas y el 87% afirma que la violencia asociada a su uso es un problema muy serio para su país. Un tercio de ellos admite tener una en casa. También se culpa a las autoridades por no haber hecho lo necesario para detectar y reprimir a tiempo a quien consideran un desquiciado, un anormal, un loco, más aún cuando ha salido a luz su paso por un hospital psiquiátrico y su probable consumo de antidepresivos. Por eso las soluciones que hoy se promueven pasan por la restricción legal a la venta de armas, el fortalecimiento de los servicios psicológicos en los centros de estudios y, probablemente, por una mayor severidad en la selección de los postulantes, lo que podría significar barreras especiales para el ingreso de inmigrantes, como Cho. Es posible que Cho Seung-Hui, en el extremo de sus perturbaciones, haya difuminado los límites de la realidad, derribando las mínimas inhibiciones que suelen impedir a cualquier mortal pasar del odio o el rechazo -por muy justificado que fuese su origen- al acto criminal. Pero Cho era, ante todo, un inmigrante pobre. Se sabe que llegó con su familia de Corea del Sur en 1992, procedente de una zona muy pobre de Seúl, para habitar en los suburbios de Washington. Hasta entonces, no parece haber mostrado señales de locura. «Nunca podría haberme imaginado que él fuera capaz de tanta violencia -dijo uno de sus familiares. El fue alguien con quien crecí y a quien amé. Ahora me siento como si no hubiera conocido a esta persona». En otras palabras, si acaso habitaba un Mr. Hyde en el joven Cho, parece haberse despertado en Norteamérica. Cabe preguntarse entonces, de Seúl a Washington ¿Qué cambió en la vida de este joven para haber oscurecido su mente de ese modo y haber llenado de tanto odio su corazón? Sus compañeros ponen el problema en él y lo definen como un sujeto extraño, callado, solitario y perturbado, que casi no hablaba con ellos ni los miraba a los ojos. Pero Cho, desde la otra orilla, ha dejado un testimonio distinto. «Me han acorralado en una esquina y me han dejado sólo una opción, la decisión fue de ustedes» dijo en un video póstumo, para preguntarse después «¿Saben lo que se siente ser humillado y crucificado?». Más allá de cualquier hecho objetivo -la decisión de apretar el gatillo fue solo suya en sentido estricto- este joven, que le gustaba firmar documentos e identificarse con un signo de interrogación, se percibía a sí mismo como un excluido. ¿Qué tiene que ocurrir para que un estudiante solitario, atrapado en su soledad, su angustia y su depresión, pase a ser algo más que un alumno o, en el peor de los casos, un raro, en las impersonales rutinas académicas de su centro de estudios? Si la pregunta fuese hecha en los Estados Unidos, la respuesta sería casi obvia: asesinar a sus profesores y a sus compañeros. Pero si nos lo preguntáramos desde aquí, donde el acceso a armas de fuego está más restringido y la banalización de la muerte relativamente menos instalada en la cultura ¿cuáles podrían ser sus opciones? Si Cho Seung-Hui hubiese sido alumno de una universidad peruana o de algún Instituto Superior Pedagógico o quizás, con menor edad, de algún colegio secundario, pudo haber abandonado los estudios a mitad de camino y perderse en la bruma de los desocupados sin instrucción o a lo mejor terminarlos sin pena ni gloria. Pudiera ser que con calificaciones aceptables, pero con todo su dolor, su confusión y su rabia a cuestas, para integrarse a la enorme masa de anónimos desempleados con certificación académica y dudosas cualidades para desempeñarse con un mínimo de competencia y de salud mental en su vida de pareja, en la crianza de sus propios hijos o en su actividad laboral. Ocurre que los sistemas educativos están diseñados en principio para hacerse cargo del alumno, no de la persona. En el caso del nuestro y a juzgar por los resultados, lo primero lo hace muy mal, pero no lo puede eludir. Lo segundo, simplemente lo ignora o lo delega a algún tutor, cuando éste existe. Hace siete años, una joven y carismática maestra de primaria, en su primer año de ejercicio profesional, abrumada por la confianza de sus pequeños alumnos, que no dejaban de buscarla en el recreo para compartir con ella un sinnúmero de problemas de orden familiar, decidió prohibirles que le hablen de temas ajenos a la clase. «Yo me preparé para ser maestra, no psicóloga, no tengo por qué hacerme cargo de sus asuntos personales», admitió con escalofriante honestidad. Como ella, más allá de las cualidades que exhiban en la enseñanza, son muchos los docentes que no se sienten en condiciones de atender ni de entender la subjetividad de sus estudiantes ni, finalmente, en la obligación de hacerlo. De este modo, la idea de que educar es más que instruir y que supone principalmente la formación humana, como consta en el célebre Informe de Jacques Delors, en los acuerdos internacionales sobre educación, en el currículo oficial y hasta en las propias leyes nacionales, termina siendo en los hechos una extravagancia, una penosa humorada. Pero hay algo más. El sistema también está diseñado para que los aprendizajes constituyan un asunto estrictamente individual, basado en un contrato personal de la familia o del alumno con la institución educativa. Lo que significa, en la mejor tradición liberal, que el éxito o el fracaso de cada estudiante son el problema o el mérito de cada uno, donde los demás no tienen absolutamente nada que ver. De este modo y con mayor razón, los síntomas del sufrimiento de un joven como Cho Seung-Hui, evidentes antes que se produjeran los hechos, eran estrictamente un asunto suyo, a lo más de su familia, pero no una convocación a la solidaridad de sus profesores ni de sus propios compañeros de clase. Todo indica que tales señales no pasaron desapercibidas, pero todos eligieron continuar con sus vidas. Hasta que él, decidió terminar con ellas. En nuestro medio, la exclusión no tiene que ver sólo con el no acceso a un centro de estudios, sino con el prejuicio y la discriminación que se vive a su interior con insólita naturalidad. Excluidos son los estudiantes censurados y estigmatizados a diario, abierta o solapadamente, por ser pobres, por tener padres que no fueron al colegio, por pertenecer a una familia campesina, por ser los últimos de varios hermanos o hijos únicos de madres sin cónyuge, por ser además tímidos y callados o susceptibles y asertivos, por tomarse su tiempo para entender y para terminar la tarea, por haber repetido de grado, por tener su propio criterio de orden, por hablar de un modo distinto o en un idioma diferente, por haber nacido en una provincia alejada y «extraña», por expresar su desagrado cada vez que se sienten agredidos por un adulto o, simplemente, por razonar con una lógica a veces opuesta a la de sus mayores y llegar a conclusiones distintas. La experiencia de la discriminación los convierte en objeto de sospechas, rechazos y atribuciones antojadizas, de vacíos y murmuraciones, de aislamientos y desaires, de indiferencia y segregación, sea por sus compañeros o por sus propios maestros. ¿Qué hacen todos ellos con el dolor, la ira, la tristeza, el desconcierto o la impotencia que esta situación les provoca? Algunos constituyen pandillas y reaccionan con violencia, pero muchos se limitan a callarse y a expresar la frustración de otra manera, convirtiéndose en saboteadores crónicos, en nihilistas irreductibles o en durísimos jueces de sí mismos. No compran armas ni disparan contra nadie, pero sí les retiran la fe, a la gente, al sistema y hasta a la imagen que les devuelve el espejo. Como Cho, sin embargo, son vistos como anormales y tratados, por lo general, como amenazas. Los malos aprendizajes que exhiben nuestras escuelas nos han llevado a la necesidad de exigir mayor efectividad en la enseñanza, mejor calidad en la docencia, controles más sistemáticos de los resultados del servicio educativo y de las políticas diseñadas para mejorarlo. La pobreza de nuestras escuelas nos han llevado a exigir, además, mayor inversión educativa, una distribución mas justa del gasto y una compensación más efectiva y sostenida de las evidentes desigualdades. Todo eso está bien, pero... ¿Cuánto pesa en los bajos rendimientos que exhibe nuestro sistema la escasísima confianza que deposita en las posibilidades de éxito de sus estudiantes? ¿Cuánto pesa el prejuicio, la subestimación, el menosprecio? ¿Cuánto pesa la incapacidad de las instituciones educativas para hacer sentir incluidos a los que se van quedando atrás y para comprometerse con seriedad a no dejar fracasar a ninguno? ¿Cuánto pesa en la desmoralización de muchos la impersonalidad del ambiente en que se estudia a diario, el anonimato implacable, la rigidez de las normas o la desvergonzada ley del embudo aplicada con impunidad cada vez que conviene? La tragedia de Virginia Tech nos recuerda que los usuarios de los sistemas educativos son seres humanos, susceptibles de hacer «corto circuito» cuando las condiciones en que estudian los colocan en situaciones límite. Si las políticas dirigidas a mejorar la educación no son pensadas como una oportunidad para humanizar la enseñanza y no sólo para elevar los rendimientos, las sensibilidades se van a seguir desbordando y erosionándose la confianza en sí mismos de toda una generación. -- Fuente Original: El río de Parménides -Sitio en linea http://educhevere.blogspot.com/2007/04/cho-seung-hui-lecciones-para-la.html Derechos Reservados: Creative Commons Reconocimiento-NoComercial-CompartirIgual 2.5 Perú.
Creative Commons Reconocimiento-NoComercial-CompartirIgual 2.5 Perú
LUV CNU was formed in April of this year especially to record the song "Children of April", which is a tribute to the victims lost at Virginia Tech on 4/16/07. Based at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, where three of the vocalists go, LUV CNU offers this song as a gift to the VT community. A "no vocals" version has been added in case anyone wants to use the song to pay their own tribute. It is our hope that this song will bring some comfort to those who need it, and honor all of the victims who so richly deserve it. LUV CNU is: Emily Bettendorf, freshman, CNU - vocals. Joe Fitzpatrick, freshman, CNU - vocals and bass guitar. Frank Jordan, songwriter - vocals and guitar. Jason Kronstain, senior, Denbigh High - drums. Geyo Maganis, senior, Bruton High - keyboards. Will Smith, freshman, CNU - vocals. Tommy Fisher recorded and mixed Frank Jordan's tracks. Woody Bradfield of Independent Recording Services (I.R.S.) arranged the strings and recorded the remaining tracks, then mixed and mastered them all. Original Source: http://www.myspace.com/childrenofapril
Outside of Charlotte, NC, a billboard stands with the VT ribbon/logo. Photo Courtesy of Lynita Newswander
Memorial Stones in front of Burruss during the first week after the tragedy.
Hokies Thank The World message to be recorded from outer space
By Lynn Davis BLACKSBURG, Va., November 14, 2007 -- A "Hokies Thank The World" event will take place Saturday, Nov. 17, from 10:35 to 11:12 a.m. at the Virginia Tech Drillfield in Blacksburg., rain or shine. The event will bring together thousands of students, faculty, staff, and friends to spell out a message of thanks to the world for the global outpouring of support for the Virginia Tech community following the events of April 16. The message of thanks will be recorded by ground, aerial, and satellite imagery and will be shared with the world at Hokies Thank the World website. The community-wide effort to thank the world is open to all who wish to participate. In the event of cloud cover, the satellite imagery may not be collected, but aerial imagery will be collected as scheduled. Participants are asked to wear orange or maroon (not required), arrive by 10:35 a.m., and visit the check-in tent on the Virginia Tech Drillfield. The Hokies Thank The World event takes place on the Saturday morning of the Virginia Tech vs. Miami football game in Blacksburg. The Hokies and Hurricanes kick-of at 3:30 p.m., in a game that will be televised by ABC. Aerial imagery from the event will be premiered in Lane Stadium during the football game. "The world came together for the Virginia Tech community and the Hokies Thank The World event provides a way to send out a message of thanks and love to all of the world," said Peter Sforza, VirginiaView coordinator and coordinator of the event and faculty member in the Department of Geography in the College of Natural Resources at Virginia Tech. VirginiaView is a statewide remote sensing consortium that promotes innovative applications of satellite imagery. A diverse and talented team of students, faculty, staff, community members, and non-profit and commercial organizations have volunteered time and resources to assist in the planning and production of the event. The Virginia Tech Student Government Association is sponsoring a media campaign on campus during the week of the event, including posters, flyers, table cards, a display in Squire Student Center, and a Facebook event. The pilots for the aerial operations include a Virginia Tech professor using his personal helicopter and a Virginia Tech alumnus in a Hokie Flying Club airplane. A bucket truck for field level photography will be provided by Mills Associated Arborists, a Blacksburg-based tree care company. Videography and post-production assistance is being provided by HorseArcher Productions, the Blacksburg-based company best known for their production of Hokie Nation. Event photography is being provided by Ivan "Russian Hokie" Morozov, Ty Brady, 16 Blocks Magazine, and Michael Kiernan from Virginia Tech's University Relations. Virginia Tech's Center for Geospatial Information Technology (CGIT) has volunteered time and technology to help make this event a success. CGIT researchers have assisted with determining the accurate geospatial coordinates of the "VT Thanks You"' message on the Drillfield. "It is such a wonderful initiative that we felt compelled to help in any way we could," said Randy Dymond, CGIT co-director and associate professor of civil and environmental engineering. The Department of Geography is the university sponsor for the event and will provide expertise and resources for the processing of the aerial and satellite imagery. A geospatial team made up of geographers, foresters, and engineers will work immediately following the event to process and release the imagery to the public. The processing of the helicopter and airplane photos includes georectification, which assigns spatial coordinates to the imagery and allows use with mapping and geographical information systems (GIS). The geospatial team will release the finished aerial imagery to the public as Google Earth KML files along with standard image formats. The IKONOS satellite is operated by GeoEye, a Dulles, Va., based remote sensing company. The imagery will not be immediately available, but will be released as soon as it is transmitted back to earth and processed by GeoEye and then the Virginia Tech geospatial team. The exact timing of the satellite imagery release depends on the downlink location for the IKONOS imagery and is expected to be available by Thanksgiving day. For information regarding the event, contact Peter Sforza at (540) 231-1867. Contact Lynn Davis at davisl@vt.edu or (540) 231-6157. ##07642## -- Original Source: http://www.vtnews.vt.edu/story.php?relyear=2007&itemno=667
Desensitization, Detachment and Virginia Tech
Apr 23 2007 Written by Lynn Kindler To all family, friends, and people affected by the horrific and sad shootings at Virginia Tech, please accept my heartfelt sympathy. I know that I am joined by many others who are keeping you in their thoughts and prayers. With that said, I've been putting off writing about how the shootings affected me because I did not want to add to all the hype and gander that is already going on about it and because my initial reaction was NOT what I had expected to feel. Being an extremely intuitive person, I'm used to "getting" insights and a heightened sense of awareness before incidents like the one at VT occurs—often weeks before. This time not only did I not intuit anything but as the events unfolded I had no feelings about it. I'm a very caring person and since my initial non-feeling bubble, have had many insights but the initial non-feeling sensation really caught me off guard. I checked with many of my friends to find out how they reacted and found out that there were many very caring, spiritual people who had the same initial reaction as I did which was the absence of intense emotion. After listening and reading some of the news about VT, what was revealed to me was the seemingly collective response of not wanting to fan the fire of the media. The way that many of the people from Blacksburg handled this event, showed a majority of caring and thinking people who wanted to respect the event and all its complexities without the media circus. I am inspired by the people who have been writing and communicating under the mass media radar through www.facebook.com At first glance, I wondered if what "we" were experiencing en-mass was desensitization towards violence. How many of us wake up to NPR in the morning with the latest recount of a suicide bomber event? But someone very close to me noted that as listened to me she could hear anger under my numbness and upon closer inspection I realized that I was angry about our ignorance of mental illness and how to handle it fairly and successfully. I was angry about gun control (a rifle I can see, an automatic weapon—why?) and last but not least watching the story unfold in the media bit by bit as every one tried to become THE source for facts about the VT shootings. In many of my spiritual teachings I have learned that it is important to be able to detach with love. It seems that in order for me (and you) to be effective, we've got to be able to get our personal spin out of the mix so that we can detach from the intense reaction in order to respond thoughtfully. It's about being able to feel and yet not getting run over by our feelings. I am very hopeful about the kind of ideas and actions that will come out of this horrific event. I heard one student interviewed who responded, "What can we learn from the Amish shootings". One thing that we can do right now is to have difficult conversations such as what I'm admitting to you here and be willing to talk with each other about what is really going on. As the great Coaching guru Thomas Leonard used to say, "Be real be human". -- Original Source: http://www.smallbusinessgurus.com/content/view/460/60/ Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5.
Second Life Memorial to the slain at Virginia Tech. Original source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mack46/491590859/ Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-ShareAlike 2.0
Mack Lundy http://www.flickr.com/photos/mack46/491590859/ Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-ShareAlike 2.0
A participant in Monday night's vigil ceremony, sporting a Virginia Tech hat, signs a giant card in Collis Cafe. It will be sent to the university Wednesday. Photo: Maggie Goldstein/The Dartmouth Staff Reprinted with the permission of The Dartmouth
"Edward D. Kalletta III" <publisher@thedartmouth.com>
06/08/07 Manny Frishberg • JTNews Correspondent On the morning of April 16, Dr. Liviu Librescu, a 76-year-old Holocaust survivor and aeronautical engineering professor, blocked the door of his classroom in Norris Hall at Virginia Tech so that his students could escape through the windows. One month later, on the shloshim of his death, the University of Washington Chabad brought Rabbi Shlomo Yaffe to the UW campus for a memorial lecture in Librescu's honor that looked at, among other things, how his actions should be viewed through a Jewish lens. Shlomo Yaffe serves as rabbi at Congregation Agudas Achim in West Hartford, Conn. and the founding director of the Institute for Jewish Literacy and the founder of the Connecticut Symposium on Contemporary Legal Issues and Jewish Law in Hartford. He is well known for his ability to make Jewish mysticism accessible to people to make use of it in daily life. After studying rocket science and WWII history, Yaffe turned to Talmudic law and Hassidic philosophy. He has written and lectured on the Judaic perspective of contemporary, legal, scientific and social issues. Rabbi Yaffe is also an expert on secular law and legal ethics who serves as a legal consultant and lecturer for the New York Legal Assistance Group. Rabbi Yaffe began his talk with the question: "From the standpoint of Jewish ethics and law, did [Prof. Librescu] do the right thing? He put himself against the door, which someone could, and did ultimately, shoot through and kill him. Was he really supposed to give his life for others? "This is not such a simple question," Yaffe explained, "because if someone's life is no less valuable than your own, then it's certainly no more valuable than your own." He promised to answer that question, but first took an hour-long digression that began with the question of how German society, with its long traditions of scientific and philosophical leadership, could emerge in the 1930s as the author of the Holocaust, one of the most horrific moments in modern human history. "How did a very large group of people from a highly developed society...engage in and justify such a pervasive, long term abuse of ethics? The Holocaust was not the passionate, vicious bloodletting of the mob that ultimately runs itself out," he said. "It was a cold and calculated societal choice devoted to the extermination, destruction and utter and complete cruelty and disregard, first of all to Jews, but also many others." His answer was that the people making those choices believed that they had evidence that the Jews, the Gypsies, the handicapped, homosexuals and other outcast groups were a blight on the society and, that by removing them, they were improving the world as a whole. Then, like the teacher that he is, he led the dozen or so people that had come to hear him on a journey of exploration into the essential question of what makes a human life inherently worth preserving. "There's this premise that we have that people have a fundamental right to live, that people have a fundamental right to express themselves, that people have a fundamental right to equal opportunities," he said. "The question is: is there really any quantifiable truth to them — can they be proved logically, or should we say scientifically? "Scientifically, differences between human beings on a racial or national level are far less than their similarities. But that doesn't mean anything because someone else might have a different way of looking at things and, like the German scientists of the '20s and '30s, come to the conclusion that the shapes of skulls and the colors of skin and the like may be terribly important," Yaffe said. "And who's to say that it couldn't happen again?" Once an idea becomes entrenched in the scientific or popular beliefs, he explained, the data tend to be read in a way that support that belief. Making a case analogous to the anti-Semitism of Nazi Germany, he said, "I could identify any one of five racial groups that have a much higher rate of indictment, convictions and incarcerations for murder. There are certain minorities that commit crimes and get convicted for them at a much higher rate than other minorities. It probably has nothing to do with race and a lot to do with history....These statistics do exist. "Put yourself in the shoes of these German scientists," Yaffe said. "Once you believe that this group contains a greater percentage of social pathologies and that once you get rid of them you get rid of the social pathologies ... I ask all of you, is there any reason why we should not exterminate this group?" His comments counter the ethical calculus in Jewish tradition that the fundamental belief that human beings are made in the image of God and, as such, each and every one of us is imbued with an inherent value that cannot be reduced by the "greater good" for society as a whole. "We can argue from today to tomorrow about God and religion and everything, but if you do not bring in a being that is the source of everything whose purest expression is in a human being, a being that assigns a special value to the human being, a being that says its most profound and indivisible irreducible expression is in a human being, then you can never, ever find a reason why I should not do something wrong to another person," Rabbi Yaffe said. "The only thing that would seem to guarantee such a thing is that there is a sensibility that assigns an absolute value as part of itself to the human being. That value says there's nothing more precious than a human life, so I need to do everything I can to protect it and preserve it unless that other person forfeits its life by seeking my destruction." Under that precept, he said, one person cannot, under Jewish law, sacrifice his own life for another person's, no matter how much better or more deserving they believe that other person to be. "On the other hand," he said, drawing back to where he began, with the sacrifice made by Prof. Librescu, "can someone risk [his] life to save someone else's life? Yes, as long as it's not a definite one-on-one sort of thing. Can someone risk [his] life to save many? It would seem the answer is yes — that answers the original question that we started with." -- Archived with permission of JTNews. Original Source: http://www.jtnews.net/index.php?/news/item/2808/
Joel Magalnick - JTNews (editor@jtnews.net)