This is probably going to draw a lot of criticism, actually, but comments are really welcome.
To follow up on Choad’s post which was a really interesting breakdown of the aftereffects of the Va Tech terror, I was just thinking about comparing it to some other disturbing things going on.

There are a lot of grief groups going on all over the country. There are quite a few at my school, and I’m sure they’re in full bloom in Madison, Urbana, New York City, San Bernardino, etc. etc. I’m starting to wonder what the hell the point is. I feel just as awful as anyone else about someone taking a gun blazing to SCHOOL and shooting kids trapped in a classroom– its awful and terrifying, but what do grief groups in Palo Alto, California accomplish? My friend said to me: “I think people try to find a reason to be sad and be a part of something”, and I actually agree. People want to show they’re concerned and grieving, but isn’t that doable in your own room?

Well, if you want something to grieve over, try what I think Lox wrote about in an email: The day Cho slaughtered a lot of his classmates, someone STRAPPED BOMBS to their OWN BODY, purposefully targeted and walked into the densest area of people, and BLEW HIMSELF UP along with everyone else, spraying blood, torn bits of flesh and bone, internal organs, arms, hands, skin, brain matter, etc. over a huge, public area. I think it was nearly 200 that died in Baghdad that day in multiple bombings. How mindbogglingly bizarre and twisted is that? And even more disgusting than taking a gun to school and shooting?

Check out McClatchey’s Iraq correspondents’ site that describes a bombing site with blood and guts all over the walls of a building. I can’t find the post but it’s still a cool blog to check out.

I haven’t experienced a school shooting or a suicide bombing, so I can’t say which one is more traumatic. But, the numbers say that nearly 200 died in one day in Baghdad and thirty some died in Blacksburg. Should we have had 7x the grief groups for Iraqi victims that day? No one even gives a damn about how many regular people die in Iraq these days. We’re numb to it. Virginia Tech is a huge fucking deal because a school shootings happen once every five years and they’re American and we might know some of the victims, but thirty EASILY die a day in Iraqi violence.

Go grieve over that.

There’s this game called Assassins that’s popular in certain circles at my school. I’ve never played myself, but it sounds pretty fun. The game involves “weapons,” “stalking,” “killing,” “dying,” and an elaborate real-life circular linked-list that shrinks until only the winner remains. Games can take weeks and often benefit from the stalker’s best friend, Facebook.

My friend runs campusassassins.com, which administers games. He and his website are in USA Today today, which is pretty exciting. But the focus of the article reduces that excitement.

Students urged to stop playing ‘Assassin’ game.

April 25, 2007 USA Today

Students are being urged not to play Assassins so that they won’t be mistaken for someone like Cho. I suppose this is a legitimate stance to take. It sure would suck if a kid with a watergun was mistaken for a kid with a gun.

But taking a step back, I ask myself “why does a fun and harmless game suffer because of the recent massacre?” Well it’s probably because the game involves “weapons,” “stalking,” “killing,” and “dying,” which are being mistaken as weapons, stalking, killing, and dying. The latter are unfortunate parts of our reality, but the former are strictly all fun and games.

Mistaking “killing” for killing reveals to me that our thinking about this issue is flawed. Telling Assassins to stop deals only with our aural experience of the bloodshed. “I don’t like to hear about violent or “violent” or whatever stuff, so please don’t do it.” Instead, the right place to look is to the oral experience of the bloodshed. Who is uttering those words and why did they pick the ones they did?

It’s understandable that the aural perspective would be mistaken for the oral one, similar as they do sound. But one is superficial and the other is substantial, and we all need to fixate on the substantial.

The New York Times is talking about bees today. Across the continent hives are being deserted, their inhabitants vanishing, and we don’t know why.

This is troubling. Why? Bees play a much larger role in our society than just honey producers. Flowering plants are pollinated by insects, and in Western agriculture, that insect is typically the honey bee. Just one species of bee pollinates on the order of $10 billion of crops in the US alone, and that is the species currently in rapid decline.

In the past, the collapse of a single bee species would be relatively inconsequential. Before the spread of European style agriculture, North American crops were pollinated by a diverse variety of thousands of different bee species. These native species have been largely pushed aside in favor of the domesticated honeybees, which are typically more efficient than their smaller native counterparts. The pursuit of higher yields in the short term has lead to a far less robust system than the one that had evolved gradually with native agriculture. Now we are seeing the consequences of our rapid erasure of biodiversity.

The bee situation may not destroy our society, but it is a manifestation of the larger environmental crisis, and it points out how ill-prepared we are to deal with it. When the costs of climate change are calculated, complex reactions such as the collapse of pollinators due to lack of biodiversity are not often taken into account, and therefore we cannot rely on the standard economic projections of the world economy. Human society is built upon agriculture, which must be part of a stable ecosystem. The ways in which we disrupt these systems through deforestation, pollution, land exploitation, and introduction of invasive species are legion and highly unpredictable. Rapid changes in climate and habitat alterations are bound to introduce countless more similar problems, and at the present, we have no clue how to deal with them.

While I have no suggestions at present, I do wish to raise awareness. Technological progress is advancing ever more rapidly, and with it grows our ability to influence the environment and climate of the earth. However, our inputs into this system produce unpredictable effects. As our hand in the environment grows stronger, the more likely our blind grasps will halt the intricate machinery of the earth.

For further information on the Bee crisis:
http://www.nrdc.org/OnEarth/06sum/bees1.asp

More posts on the similar topics to come.

-jmw

So, news of the Cho rampage engulfed America over the past week, and the media has saturated print, airwaves, and internet bandwidth with coverage dissecting the issue from every angle.

I’d really like someone to share their thoughts on two issues unfailingly labored over every time we have a school shooting — gun control and violent video games.
But for now, here is Ms. Arianna Huffington (who I can’t say I like or dislike) breaking down Tom Delay, former House Majority Leader’s comments that if we had MORE GUNS, this kind of stuff wouldn’t happen.

The Virginia Tech issue is nauseating enough as it is without all the media coverage, so here’s something else that also makes your stomach turn:

Now, entitlement mentality is indeed damaging. It is one of the most corrosive but unfortunately prevalent defensive mechanisms that is observed in the psychology of society’s underclasses. Race is the most glaring example. Some races feel entitled to receive aid and special support and consideration because the current situation is that they lie at the bottom of heap. It is destructive and must be confronted honestly and defeated if possible. This mentality is so damaging because the underpowered rest in their sense of entitlement, passively acknowledging defeat and wait for someone else to give to them while not striving to attain for themselves. If the people in society’s cellar never get up, get out, and get something, no one else could possibly do it for them.

Now let’s examine Hoenig’s psychology for a moment, just to be fair. He feels like unjustices are committed every moment our government does something to the tune of diminishing the income gap, taking care of the underpriviledged, “sacrificing the productive rich to serve the endless needs of the poor.” “It rewards failure, laziness, inactivity, irresponsibility, and stagnation,” he continues. The government should not, for the sake of greater social welfare and justice, surrender and abet this kind of entitlement mentality.
Hoenig says we’ve become great, read: WEALTHY, through rugged individualism, read: SELFISHNESS mindset. As a managing member of a hedge fund I would hope he thinks that way–I’m guessing he’s trying to do his job properly.

Is it unfair that there exist social pressures which push rich, successful people like him to be charitable? Maybe. But he shouldn’t feel pressured to be charitable and to give a little back. It shouldn’t be something forced by the government, vocal liberals. I would like to think our society today can still produce people with Hoenig-sized checkbooks who would happily be
charitable without feeling forced. You make several hundred million a year and feel FORCED to be charitable?? I understand feeling pressure to do something you don’t want to do is an uncomfortable situation to be in, but I cannot pity someone who thinks giving to charity by the rich is simply wrong. For a man who rakes in tens if not hundreds of millions of
dollars a year to think that he is being cheated because government aid programs are “sacrificing” the productive rich reveals an unbelievable depth of moral depravity. Let’s put his child–who I can only imagine is happily playing in his multi-million dollar home being watched by three babysitters who make sure he doesn’t fall into their Olympic sized pool,
God forbid–into the American inner city and let’s see if he “succeeds” and becomes “great” (read: wealthy). If he doesn’t, it’ll be surely because of failure, laziness, depravity, stagnation, and irresponsibility.

As naive and generalizing as it may sound, I truly think the “rich and successful” think a certain way, and I think I know it better than most. I am a Stanford student, surrounded by many sons and daughters of this class, supposedly the best and brightest in the world. My parents don’t belong to that class, and certainly I don’t think for a single second that I got here only because I was hard working, responsible, active. I got here mostly because of my parents’ educating and the family I grew up in, and partially because I kind of worked in high school to meet the necessary entrance requirements. Most Stanford students think they deserve to be here because of their hard work: THEY made it–bullshit. Even if they did work hard, the work ethic was most likely instilled by their parents. They grew up in a family that valued education and delayed gratification. In fact, the acceptance letter from Stanford says: “We Applaud You” in big letters. Those words would be correct if it was addressed to every admit’s parents, not the student. Is this a microcosm of the “I’m hot shit” mentality of the successful and rich–hell yea it is. So many think they are so amazing because they have made everything on their own. But that is impossible. The day you were born you were given something. No one made everything on their own. The day all of you were born you inherited your parents’ genes–and none of your parents are stupid. I have put in my share of work, but I can’t legitimately claim any of whatever success I experience as the fruit of only my own labor. There are plenty of humble, genuine people who enjoy their success and wealth, and I applaud them, but they’re rare enough.

With that said, Hoenig’s article didn’t share any profound wisdom, his stab
at trying to counter “righteousness” only cut open his well-manicured facade (he looks like a cunt) to reveal shallow and shockingly repulsive ignorance writ large. You are the victim here, Hoenig? Are you fucking serious? If all people who rake in tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars a year are disgusted by the progress we have made in public policy, then I am thorougly disgusted and disillusioned by what our society has become. To me, Hoenig, and anyone who empathizes with his undeniable greed, are detestable people who deserve no place in a society trying to better itself.

-checkmate