see: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/topstories/tm_headline=we-are-glad-he-is-dead-by-cho-s-family–&method=full&objectid=18931479&siteid=89520-name_page.html

Written in English “rag” paper.

Seems inadequate. Childhood schizophrenia is very difficult to diagnose…and called many other things until the symptoms clarify in adulthood.

I am reminded of the numerous times people reached out to him with little or no reply…a form of Aspergers with paranoid and narcissistic components?

It appears that mother may have had some difficulty interpersonally as well.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/printpage/?url=http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/04/heroes_in_hells_midst.html

“Why do they kill? Who cares? The explanation varies in the details, but the basic script is the same: They are men who choose murder to combat humiliation, to reign for a few ghastly moments in hell, rather than to serve in heaven.

How do some facing hell find the courage to act to stop it? That’s what I want to know.”

A start…

Overcome evil with good.

Yes, I’m being snarky. But my point is that this event was predictable, and not because of guns or video games or immigration. But because there will always be some tiny percentage of the population that lacks the ability (or will) to empathize or to see beyond their own instant emotional condition.

Every people in every time have produced individuals like this. But as our culture has become more urban and as transportation and access has become more available the ability of these people to do greater damage has become eased. And our immediate media makes such events appear closer and more dramatic.

It is a natural desire to control that which we cannot control by looking for fault and blame. Some are already gearing up to blame the school for inadequate warning. Others will blame cultural laxity. Others will blame godlessness. Others will blame gun availability or video games or even “a society that did not step in to recognize and help this poor isolated and unhappy young man”.

Ultimately, though, I doubt there is anything that can be blamed. And I doubt there is anything that can be done to stop it from happening again.

Unless, of course, we do away with the evil flouride.

I now have two kids in college…the openness and sense of safety they feel everyday makes the educational experience so powerful…safety breeds trust and allows learning to expand quickly…

My son and daughter called and we talked last night.

I still don’t feel better, because I know such good people died yestarday (students, faculty; people who love trust and learning and exploring) and nearly all the talk in the past tends to be about the perpetrator and his motives…

What if we focused on the loss and the depth of it, rather than on the psyche and motives of the perp?

in country since middle childhood.

It will be an interesting conversation when more of the facts are in.

I was a resident assistant in the dorms in college and found myself on the front line of a number of problems, including severe mental illness, for which I had no training and very little support.

My heart goes out to the responsible, but likely poorly trained Resident Assistant who first attempted to intervene with this man.

I’ve seen arguments for/against gun control, against giving Visas to Pakistanis, Chinese and now South Koreans. We’ve got evolution, atheism, the lack of God in schools, violence in the media (um, self-referential irony?), etc. And of course, Fred Phelps is now hystrionic over “teh gays” and whatever else it is he likes to picket.

Can this event, for once, not be about *us*, but about the victims, their community and yes, the horrible, broken human being who took these actions?

[end rant, stepping off of soapbox, noting that previous rant was not directed at anyone here]