Mixup: VT Shootings and Birthday Parties
Look, I've just been wiped out with things to do for the past few weeks. I'll apologize for my failure to update.
Sorry.
My goal has been to write an article per week. An article, not really an entry. Not much has piqued my interest until just lately. Hopefully this isn't too long.
I'll start off the day with everyone's favorite subject: The Virginia Tech shootings. The media is making me more and more sick every day. It's so agendized anymore. One news reporter at the scene said "They could never have planned for what happened today." I wish he wouldn't say something so stupidly off the cuff. I can tell you right now every university in the nation is putting a plan in place to deal with just such a thing in the wake of the tragedy. Unfortunately, just like most things, it took a tragedy to create those plans. But plans they are. And that means they could have been made for exactly what happened.
My coworker immediately thought the shooter must've had an automatic weapon "like an AK." My immediate response was no, all it would take is a couple of good weapons, like two semiautomatic pistols and lots of clips. It turns out that's exactly what he had. But my coworker’s initial statement says something interesting about the mindset in America. The blame was immediately placed on a fully automatic assault rifle. It's been embedded into the American psyche. Assault rifles are the killers in America.
It can't be argued against that fully automatic weapons make killing easier. However, as long as there are kooks around, they will find a way to kill people. It's been going on much longer than the availability of assault weapons. The blame is being placed on the weapons.
Another place of blame: violent video games. I agree that as long as these violent video games are around, they will numb our brains to the violent tendencies we see on the news every day. Jack Thompson, a superhero of the anti violent video games movement, quickly took up the VT shootings as an example of what video games do to people. I'd like to know what Cho had to eat the previous evening. Was it Ramen noodles? If so, I think Ramen noodles cause you to go out and kill people. This is the kind of straw-man argument put up by these agendized folks.
I caught an online news bit about how to identify a killer in your midst. This person is quiet, doesn't talk much, feels like they don't have a voice, is a loner, etc. I think there are probably a few million of these loners around. How many have gone on shooting rampages? I can just see all the picked on people around the USA right now because they are a little different, don't conform too much, and others think they don't have any friends. Hopefully there aren't a few million reports, sightings maybe, of these 'killers in your midst'.
Want another thing to blame? How about the fact that he was Korean? Oohh that's sure to get the xenophobes riled up. Even Koreans themselves are horrified of the prospect. Not just because of possible retaliation, but because the Korean culture just doesn't process this well. For them, it's all about social product, social guilt, social punishment. The thought that some Korean went out and decided to lay all this guilt on fellow Koreans is just, well, stupefying. What most people don't get, including Koreans that feel this way, is that Cho was a "local". Local, as in he was raised in northern Virginia since the age of 8. Did you watch any of the videos? He doesn't have a Korean accent. He's an American. He has American culture. He has American values. He has America's social ills.
Conclusion: This isn't about guns, Koreans, or video games. It's about social ills. Take away the guns, the video games, and the fact that he was Korean, and you still have some sick folks out there. So what are we going to do about it?
I'll turn to my little boy's (LB for short) birthday party. Let's start early.
LB was having several kids over from his class and also his cousin, Angie. I knew they would be running around the house and in the back yard. Oh, the back yard. A minor jungle, a veritable wild grasslands. I needed to mow it but I had company over and didn't have time to attend to it. I went next door and hired Elliot, the neighbor's kid. I agreed to pay him $20 because I knew it was going to be a pain.
Elliot brought over the lawn mower and proceeded to mow. Within seconds, clunk clunk. The lawnmower died. Started again and seconds later it died again. The miniforest was was just too high. Nonetheless, Elliot chugged forward, the mower dying every few seconds. My brother went out to check on him and said he heard Elliot grumbling "this sucks." I kidded that this was a life lesson for Elliot amongst those inside in the nice air conditioning. We all got a laugh.
I felt bad though when his mower ran out of gas and he started to head off to 7-Eleven for a refill. I went ahead and gave him some gas from my own gallon gas tank. Elliot went forth again.
Finally after an hour and a half of mowing just the back yard, Elliot finished. The lawn looked like hell too. A really crappy job. But hey, it was mowed, and he must've restarted that mower AT LEAST a hundred times. No exaggeration. I felt bad again after making all the jokes. I gave him an extra $5 and thanked him.
I don't think he'll do that again for $20.
Kids started arriving for the birthday party. Cute kids all around. Smiling faces.
There was one though that was a devil. Johnathan.
Let me state also that at age 8, birthday parties are barely controlled chaos. We had a Spongebob pinata. Nothing will scare you like a blindfolded kid with a baseball bat swinging wildly while a dozen other kids are swarming for the candy. Hair-raising to say the least. The first hit split open Spongebob's butt and candy sprayed everywhere. Sprayed. From his butt. The kids couldn't help but laugh and shake with hysterics.
Back to Johnathan. As my brother and the niece Angie were leaving Johnathan decides he is a dog and starts chasing the car down the road. I yelled out to Johnathan who decided to ignore me as he is grasping the rear car door handle in an attempt to get into the car as it is moving. At this point I'm using the command voice and screaming at the kid to get out of the road and come back to the house. He finally listened. Unfortunately so were the rest of the kids who stood horrified at my screaming and yelling. A few pats on the head and it was back to controlled chaos.
Johnathan looks innocent enough. Mild complexion, dark, closely cropped hair. Big brown eyes that only an angel could have. Right...
He wouldn't listen. Tell him to stop, he wouldn't. Tell him to sit down, he'd stand up.
The birthday cake came, a chocolate iced, chocolate cake with chocolate eggs on top. After the candles were blown out, Johnathan took one of them, put it in his piece of cake then said in a very baby voice, "look at me, I'm one years old!" He then proceeded to mash his face into the cake much to the delight of all the kids.
I couldn't wait until his mother came to pick him up. I was going to tell her all about his wacky antics and his unruly behavior. I'm sure she would rip him up one side and down the other.
His mother showed up all right. She was the nicest sweetest lady you could imagine. So polite and soft-spoken you would not believe the devil-spawn came from her. I'm still not sure I believe it. She asked how Johnathan was. I gritted my teeth.
"He was fine."
And with that Johnathan left our lives.
I wish I could say that was all that could be said about the birthday party. Unfortunately, my brother called me on Tuesday, two days after the party. My niece had been diagnosed with chicken pox that day and it's contagious for 2 to 3 days prior to diagnosis. That would be birthday prime time. Time to call some parents. Sigh.
Sorry.
My goal has been to write an article per week. An article, not really an entry. Not much has piqued my interest until just lately. Hopefully this isn't too long.
I'll start off the day with everyone's favorite subject: The Virginia Tech shootings. The media is making me more and more sick every day. It's so agendized anymore. One news reporter at the scene said "They could never have planned for what happened today." I wish he wouldn't say something so stupidly off the cuff. I can tell you right now every university in the nation is putting a plan in place to deal with just such a thing in the wake of the tragedy. Unfortunately, just like most things, it took a tragedy to create those plans. But plans they are. And that means they could have been made for exactly what happened.
My coworker immediately thought the shooter must've had an automatic weapon "like an AK." My immediate response was no, all it would take is a couple of good weapons, like two semiautomatic pistols and lots of clips. It turns out that's exactly what he had. But my coworker’s initial statement says something interesting about the mindset in America. The blame was immediately placed on a fully automatic assault rifle. It's been embedded into the American psyche. Assault rifles are the killers in America.
It can't be argued against that fully automatic weapons make killing easier. However, as long as there are kooks around, they will find a way to kill people. It's been going on much longer than the availability of assault weapons. The blame is being placed on the weapons.
Another place of blame: violent video games. I agree that as long as these violent video games are around, they will numb our brains to the violent tendencies we see on the news every day. Jack Thompson, a superhero of the anti violent video games movement, quickly took up the VT shootings as an example of what video games do to people. I'd like to know what Cho had to eat the previous evening. Was it Ramen noodles? If so, I think Ramen noodles cause you to go out and kill people. This is the kind of straw-man argument put up by these agendized folks.
I caught an online news bit about how to identify a killer in your midst. This person is quiet, doesn't talk much, feels like they don't have a voice, is a loner, etc. I think there are probably a few million of these loners around. How many have gone on shooting rampages? I can just see all the picked on people around the USA right now because they are a little different, don't conform too much, and others think they don't have any friends. Hopefully there aren't a few million reports, sightings maybe, of these 'killers in your midst'.
Want another thing to blame? How about the fact that he was Korean? Oohh that's sure to get the xenophobes riled up. Even Koreans themselves are horrified of the prospect. Not just because of possible retaliation, but because the Korean culture just doesn't process this well. For them, it's all about social product, social guilt, social punishment. The thought that some Korean went out and decided to lay all this guilt on fellow Koreans is just, well, stupefying. What most people don't get, including Koreans that feel this way, is that Cho was a "local". Local, as in he was raised in northern Virginia since the age of 8. Did you watch any of the videos? He doesn't have a Korean accent. He's an American. He has American culture. He has American values. He has America's social ills.
Conclusion: This isn't about guns, Koreans, or video games. It's about social ills. Take away the guns, the video games, and the fact that he was Korean, and you still have some sick folks out there. So what are we going to do about it?
I'll turn to my little boy's (LB for short) birthday party. Let's start early.
LB was having several kids over from his class and also his cousin, Angie. I knew they would be running around the house and in the back yard. Oh, the back yard. A minor jungle, a veritable wild grasslands. I needed to mow it but I had company over and didn't have time to attend to it. I went next door and hired Elliot, the neighbor's kid. I agreed to pay him $20 because I knew it was going to be a pain.
Elliot brought over the lawn mower and proceeded to mow. Within seconds, clunk clunk. The lawnmower died. Started again and seconds later it died again. The miniforest was was just too high. Nonetheless, Elliot chugged forward, the mower dying every few seconds. My brother went out to check on him and said he heard Elliot grumbling "this sucks." I kidded that this was a life lesson for Elliot amongst those inside in the nice air conditioning. We all got a laugh.
I felt bad though when his mower ran out of gas and he started to head off to 7-Eleven for a refill. I went ahead and gave him some gas from my own gallon gas tank. Elliot went forth again.
Finally after an hour and a half of mowing just the back yard, Elliot finished. The lawn looked like hell too. A really crappy job. But hey, it was mowed, and he must've restarted that mower AT LEAST a hundred times. No exaggeration. I felt bad again after making all the jokes. I gave him an extra $5 and thanked him.
I don't think he'll do that again for $20.
Kids started arriving for the birthday party. Cute kids all around. Smiling faces.
There was one though that was a devil. Johnathan.
Let me state also that at age 8, birthday parties are barely controlled chaos. We had a Spongebob pinata. Nothing will scare you like a blindfolded kid with a baseball bat swinging wildly while a dozen other kids are swarming for the candy. Hair-raising to say the least. The first hit split open Spongebob's butt and candy sprayed everywhere. Sprayed. From his butt. The kids couldn't help but laugh and shake with hysterics.
Back to Johnathan. As my brother and the niece Angie were leaving Johnathan decides he is a dog and starts chasing the car down the road. I yelled out to Johnathan who decided to ignore me as he is grasping the rear car door handle in an attempt to get into the car as it is moving. At this point I'm using the command voice and screaming at the kid to get out of the road and come back to the house. He finally listened. Unfortunately so were the rest of the kids who stood horrified at my screaming and yelling. A few pats on the head and it was back to controlled chaos.
Johnathan looks innocent enough. Mild complexion, dark, closely cropped hair. Big brown eyes that only an angel could have. Right...
He wouldn't listen. Tell him to stop, he wouldn't. Tell him to sit down, he'd stand up.
The birthday cake came, a chocolate iced, chocolate cake with chocolate eggs on top. After the candles were blown out, Johnathan took one of them, put it in his piece of cake then said in a very baby voice, "look at me, I'm one years old!" He then proceeded to mash his face into the cake much to the delight of all the kids.
I couldn't wait until his mother came to pick him up. I was going to tell her all about his wacky antics and his unruly behavior. I'm sure she would rip him up one side and down the other.
His mother showed up all right. She was the nicest sweetest lady you could imagine. So polite and soft-spoken you would not believe the devil-spawn came from her. I'm still not sure I believe it. She asked how Johnathan was. I gritted my teeth.
"He was fine."
And with that Johnathan left our lives.
I wish I could say that was all that could be said about the birthday party. Unfortunately, my brother called me on Tuesday, two days after the party. My niece had been diagnosed with chicken pox that day and it's contagious for 2 to 3 days prior to diagnosis. That would be birthday prime time. Time to call some parents. Sigh.
posted by Tyler at 7:41 PM
1 comments
