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Chrishayden
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 4175
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, April 18, 2007 - 03:54 pm: | 
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Love and Unhappiness in an Alien Culture
Virginia Tech and Cho Seung Hui
By JERRY KROTH
The biggest massacre in U.S history stuns us. Senator Kennedy immediately issues appeals about gun control. Dianne Sawyer confronts the President of Virginia Tech to ask if he should resign. Many of the rest of us wonder about violence in our culture. We've killed more than 100,000 Iraqi citizens under George Bush and wounded half a million: If one lives by the sword, does one die by it?
All sorts of thoughts cross our minds. Everyone seems to be interviewing everyone. But I've noticed no one interviews David Geffen. Geffen is one of those quiet, silent, forces in American society which manufactures and distributes "gangsta rap." His old specialty was called "murder music." How apropos if Diane Sawyer shoved a microphone in the face of this engineer of violence, misogyny, and religious defamation, to ask a few questions. But Geffen lounges in his Malibu beach house not the slightest object of any media curiosity.
But perhaps that is as it should be, because when we come upon this assassin, Chow Seung Hui, we realize it was not media violence that lured and seduced him into this massacre. That might have been true of the Columbine killers, who deeply appreciated Geffen's contribution to American culture, but not so for Hui.
Hui was motivated by something else. He was deeply unhappy. He had no friends, none in high school, none in college. No friends in his entire adult life. He struggled with being Korean in a country which never accepted him. Never, in his mind, not ever.
And, sure, he wanted to have a girlfriend, but he didn't, not one, so he created an imaginary one. And in his virtual, insular world, he had a favorite song, one that he played over and over and over. I think it is appropriate to quote and read it in its entirety. This is what an assassin who killed 32 people on Monday listened to. It wasn't David Geffen's murder music after all. It was from Collective Soul:
Give me a word
Give me a sign
Show me where to look
Tell what will I find ( will I find )
Lay me on the ground
Fly me in the sky
Show me where to look
Tell me what will I find ( will I find )
Oh, heaven let your light shine down
Love is in the water
Love is in the air
Show me where to go
Tell me will love be there ( love be there )
Teach me how to speak
Teach me how to share
Teach me where to go
Tell me will love be there ( love be there )
Oh, heaven let your light shine down
I'm going to let it shine
Heavens little light gonna shine on me
Yea yea heavens little light gonna shine on me
Its gonna shine, shine on me.
Once Cho Seung Hui was hopeful. He was waiting for love, hoping it would shine on him, but no matter how often he played it, and no matter how many imaginary girlfriends he conjured up, it never came. Two days ago, he gave up.
Perhaps instead of focusing on gun control, David Geffen, media violence, or beefing up campus security, we should look more closely at the alienation and lack of intimacy in American life. After her first visit to this country, Mother Teresa said the United States was the "loneliest" country she had ever been in. A recent Pew poll bears out her impressions by reporting that the number of Americans who have "no one to talk to about a personal issue" has more than doubled in just the last decade. We need to direct our attention to the lonely, depressed, alienated, and emotionally discarded segments of our society. There needs to be a sincere national dialogue about psychotherapy, mental health, and the absence of love in our society which gives rise to the evil that we all are trying to come to terms with today
Jerry Kroth, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Graduate Division of Counseling Psychology at Santa Clara University in California and a licensed therapist in California.
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Renata
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Renata
Post Number: 2039
Registered: 08-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, April 18, 2007 - 04:34 pm: |
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Something serious had to be wrong with the dude. He was smart enough to be accepted into college (from what I hear, a good one). He wasn't bad looking. That people avoided him to the point that he didn't even have FRIENDS, much less anyone interested in being a girlfriend would suggest to me that EVERYONE avoided him. And probably for good reason.
I've had friends with such bad language and grammar skill and such thick accents that you could barely tell they knew English when they were SPEAKING in English....men who went on dates and had to bring a TRANSLATOR because they spoke no English at all. Because behind the cultural and language differences, you could sense the friendliness in them.
I'll bet this dude didn't even have KOREAN friends. They probably sense his evil as much as anyone else. |
Renata
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Renata
Post Number: 2040
Registered: 08-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, April 18, 2007 - 04:36 pm: |
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A good place for lonely people to go: restaurants and bars. There are usually other people there just waiting for someone to talk to. |
Enchanted
Veteran Poster
Username: Enchanted
Post Number: 798
Registered: 11-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, April 18, 2007 - 05:32 pm: |
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some people are just murders just sickos |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 9258
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, April 18, 2007 - 05:37 pm: |
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I heard Cho's dorm roomate on the radio today talking about how quiet, monosylabic dudes was.
Imagine the sigh of relief THAT dude musta felt after this thing was over. |
Jackie
Veteran Poster
Username: Jackie
Post Number: 562
Registered: 04-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, April 18, 2007 - 10:49 pm: |
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The fact that Cho did a Jack Nicholson from the movie "The Shining" would be reason enough for me to get tha hell out or change room mates! He typed gibberish for hours and hours and hours EVERYDAY ! Hello ! DING ! DING ! DING ! Warning ! RED FLAG ! RED FLAG ! His dumb room mate said in an interview that Cho went to bed at 2pm and stayed in bed until 5pm the next day !!! And then had the nerve to say Cho seemed "lonely" LOOLL ! WTF ? |
Renata
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Renata
Post Number: 2046
Registered: 08-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, April 18, 2007 - 11:11 pm: |
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Well, erratic sleeping hours are normal for college students. There were times I probably slept almost 24 hours straight.....and times I was awake for 48 hours or more with no sleep at all.
A friend of mine at the time seemed to get out of bed just long enough to go to class and eat. |
Jackie
Veteran Poster
Username: Jackie
Post Number: 563
Registered: 04-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, April 18, 2007 - 11:15 pm: |
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Nawwwww...that's not normal. 2pm to 5pm the next day. |
Jackie
Veteran Poster
Username: Jackie
Post Number: 564
Registered: 04-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, April 18, 2007 - 11:17 pm: |
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Erratic sleeping hours is different from sustained sleeping. That's a sure sign of depression. |
Jackie
Veteran Poster
Username: Jackie
Post Number: 565
Registered: 04-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, April 18, 2007 - 11:21 pm: |
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and what about the nonsensical incoherent typing he was incessantly doing ? the stalking ? etc ?Now everybody is coming out of the woodwork "deconstructing Cho" 32 lives later. |
Renata
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Renata
Post Number: 2047
Registered: 08-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, April 18, 2007 - 11:36 pm: |
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Oh, the typing crap was REALLY weird. I wonder if his roommates knew that you can request a room change? |
Renata
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Renata
Post Number: 2048
Registered: 08-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, April 18, 2007 - 11:39 pm: |
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Heck...the FIRST thing foreigners do when they get here is find A BUNCH OF FRIENDS to teach them English. |
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