It has come to my attention that I had this blog set up to accept comments only from members...
This is no longer the case.
My apologies.
No more excuses for R3 :)
Sunday, April 22, 2007
On Insensitivity: Reaction to the Virginia Tech Shooting
“Real men do not read anything other than GUNS AND AMMO, SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, or SHAVED BEAVER.”
--Dennis Leary
In light of the recent shooting on the Virginia Tech campus, I am hesitant to post this out of fear of being a hypocrite. I am afraid that my displeasure with the response of our Nation to this tragedy has gotten me to fall in step with the rest of my insensitive brothers, talk show hosts, and political figures.
On a message board that I can often be found lurking, and occasionally posting, I made a simple post on the incident that took place. I said:
“My heart goes out to the families and friends of these thirty some people.
I don’t even know what to say.”
This is entirely true. What can you say? The New York Times describes the event as “the deadliest shooting rampage in American history and came nearly eight years to the day after 13 people died at Columbine High School in Colorado at the hands of two disaffected students who then killed themselves.”
Thirty-two people lost their lives.
Thirty-two families lost children, brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, cousins, aunts, uncles...
Thirty-two families are irreversibly changed.
Thirty-two families will never be whole again.
This is how one message board responded:
“I'm not sure why a supposedly intelligent individual would resort to an action like this, but I guarantee that it will be blamed on lack of gun control.......”
“That said, I have very good control over my own gun. I don't need anyone else, particularly big brother, telling me that I can or cannot have one.”
“I have excellent gun control....I always hit what I aim at.”
Thank God for Real Men like these.
Without them to cheapen the loss of these families by yucking it up about their gun-given power, this would not be America. If this mentality ruled the nation, there would be a perfect Utopia.
Why if only everyone had guns, there would be no more violence in this Country. If only everyone had guns there would be no more poverty or hunger. There would be no more rape, no more incest, no more child abuse, no more unemployment... The only problem this many guns would be unable to solve is the epidemic of impotence that would be sure to follow in the wake of such a high power need. After all these Charlton Heston clones have to be compensating for something...
Like Stacey Keach said in his role as Ken Titus: “We dont need guns son, the men in our family have penises.”
Of course it wasn’t limited to the insensitive remarks of these Macho guys. Alan Colmes
was found discussing gun control pros and cons the following evening on his Fox radio show, as was Laura Ingram. I am sure that there was tireless banter on the subject all over The airways, but I just couldnt listen. I shouldnt be surprised. In a recent article, Charles Krauthammer said it very well: 
“What can be said about the Virginia Tech massacre? Very little. What should be said? Even less. The lives of 32 innocents, chosen randomly and without purpose, are extinguished most brutally by a deeply disturbed gunman. With an event such as this, consisting of nothing but suffering and tragedy, the only important questions are those of theodicy, of divine justice. Unfortunately, in today's supercharged political atmosphere, there is the inevitable rush to get ideological mileage out of the carnage.” For full article see http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/04/obama_turns_tragedy_into_polit.html.
It isn’t just the right side of the political fence either as I mentioned. All of the John Waynes in this country had their moment to say stupid things: “If just one or two people had been armed this Cho would have been stopped(Not taking into consideration the fact that just as many people could have been killed in a crossfire).” But even presidential hopefulls from the left were not immune to idiocy.
Barak Obama proved his mental impairment by stating “There's also another kind of violence though that we're gonna have to think about. It's not necessarily physical violence but that the violence that we perpetrate on each other in other ways. Last week, the big news, obviously, had to do with Imus and the verbal violence that was directed at young women who were role models for all of us, role models for my daughter.”
In context, these comments make a little more sense. However context or not, the fact that Obama can compare a 60 year-old shock jock calling the Rutger’s Women’s basketball team “nappy headed hos” to thirty two individuals being slaughtered like animals is astonishing. No... Idiocy and insensitivity in America knows no bounds.
To all you gun advocates; Give it a rest when you are in a venue that is discussing lives lost to gun violence. Your John Wayne mentality is charming, in a short-sighted, selfish, hammer-for-every-job lind of way. But it isn’t welcome or warranted in places where loss weighs heavier than political rhetoric. And before you jump knee deep in my sh*t about being some pinko commie scumbag, know that I am licensed to carry concealed weapons in several states. I have carried on and off the job, and am surgical with my weapon of choice—a quality 1911. There is a time and a place for everything... and pro gun talk in a forum to process or offer condolences to shooting victims is not one of them.
To all the rest of you insensitive clods who find it necessary to preach the values of no guns in our society—give this a rest too. Those of you who don’t believe that guns have a place in our country need to remember that no amount of laws or control measures will keep an unstable person from committing a horrible act. Cho would have made pipe bombs if he had been unable to obtain firearms. For chrissake he would have brought a chainsaw to class that day if he had to. Don’t delude yourselves. If someone wants to hurt you badly enough... make no mistake, he will.
Since this is my forum for putting things out there I will tell you all what I feel is more important than the pro or con side of gun control: To remember what happened, and who it happened to.
Ross Abdallah Alameddine, 20 years old.
Christopher James Bishop, 35 year old language instructor.
Brian Roy Bluhm, 25 years old.
Ryan Christopher Clark, 22 years old.
Austin Michelle Cloyd, 18 years old.
Jocelyne Couture-Nowak, adjunct foreign languages instructor. Daniel Alejandro Perez Cueva, 21 years old.
Kevin P. Granata, 45 year old engineering science professor.
Caitlin Millar Hammaren, 19 years old.
Jeremy Michael Herbstritt, 27 years old.
Rachael Elizabeth Hill, 18 years old.
Emily Jane Hilscher, 19 years old.
Jarrett Lee Lane, 22 years old.
Matthew Joseph La Porte, 20 years old.
Henry J. Lee, also known as Henh Ly, 20 years old.
Liviu Librescu, 76 year old holocaust survivor.
G.V. Loganathan, 51 year old environmental engineering professor.
Partahi Mamora Halomoan Lumbantoruan, 34, of Indonesia.
Lauren Ashley McCain, 20 years old.
Daniel Patrick O'Neil, 22 years old.
Juan Ramon Ortiz, 26 years old.
Minal Hiralal Panchal, 26 years old.
Erin Nicole Peterson, 18 years old.
Michael Steven Pohle Jr., 23 years old.
Julia Kathleen Pryde, 23 years old.
Mary Karen Read, 19 years old.
Reema Joseph Samaha, 18 years old.
Waleed Mohammed Shaalan, 32, doctoral student from Zagazig, Egypt.
Leslie Geraldine Sherman, sophomore history major and member of the honors program.
Maxine Shelly Turner, 22 years old.
Nicole White, 20 years old.
I think that these people and their families would rather have back what was taken, than pointless and insensitive discussion about what “could have happened if only...”
To those families I can honestly say I feel your pain.
My thoughts and prayers are with you.
--Dennis Leary
In light of the recent shooting on the Virginia Tech campus, I am hesitant to post this out of fear of being a hypocrite. I am afraid that my displeasure with the response of our Nation to this tragedy has gotten me to fall in step with the rest of my insensitive brothers, talk show hosts, and political figures.
On a message board that I can often be found lurking, and occasionally posting, I made a simple post on the incident that took place. I said:
“My heart goes out to the families and friends of these thirty some people.
I don’t even know what to say.”
This is entirely true. What can you say? The New York Times describes the event as “the deadliest shooting rampage in American history and came nearly eight years to the day after 13 people died at Columbine High School in Colorado at the hands of two disaffected students who then killed themselves.”
Thirty-two people lost their lives.
Thirty-two families lost children, brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, cousins, aunts, uncles...
Thirty-two families are irreversibly changed.
Thirty-two families will never be whole again.
This is how one message board responded:
“I'm not sure why a supposedly intelligent individual would resort to an action like this, but I guarantee that it will be blamed on lack of gun control.......”
“That said, I have very good control over my own gun. I don't need anyone else, particularly big brother, telling me that I can or cannot have one.”
“I have excellent gun control....I always hit what I aim at.”
Thank God for Real Men like these.
Without them to cheapen the loss of these families by yucking it up about their gun-given power, this would not be America. If this mentality ruled the nation, there would be a perfect Utopia.
Why if only everyone had guns, there would be no more violence in this Country. If only everyone had guns there would be no more poverty or hunger. There would be no more rape, no more incest, no more child abuse, no more unemployment... The only problem this many guns would be unable to solve is the epidemic of impotence that would be sure to follow in the wake of such a high power need. After all these Charlton Heston clones have to be compensating for something...
Like Stacey Keach said in his role as Ken Titus: “We dont need guns son, the men in our family have penises.”
Of course it wasn’t limited to the insensitive remarks of these Macho guys. Alan Colmes
was found discussing gun control pros and cons the following evening on his Fox radio show, as was Laura Ingram. I am sure that there was tireless banter on the subject all over The airways, but I just couldnt listen. I shouldnt be surprised. In a recent article, Charles Krauthammer said it very well: 
“What can be said about the Virginia Tech massacre? Very little. What should be said? Even less. The lives of 32 innocents, chosen randomly and without purpose, are extinguished most brutally by a deeply disturbed gunman. With an event such as this, consisting of nothing but suffering and tragedy, the only important questions are those of theodicy, of divine justice. Unfortunately, in today's supercharged political atmosphere, there is the inevitable rush to get ideological mileage out of the carnage.” For full article see http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/04/obama_turns_tragedy_into_polit.html.
It isn’t just the right side of the political fence either as I mentioned. All of the John Waynes in this country had their moment to say stupid things: “If just one or two people had been armed this Cho would have been stopped(Not taking into consideration the fact that just as many people could have been killed in a crossfire).” But even presidential hopefulls from the left were not immune to idiocy.
Barak Obama proved his mental impairment by stating “There's also another kind of violence though that we're gonna have to think about. It's not necessarily physical violence but that the violence that we perpetrate on each other in other ways. Last week, the big news, obviously, had to do with Imus and the verbal violence that was directed at young women who were role models for all of us, role models for my daughter.”
In context, these comments make a little more sense. However context or not, the fact that Obama can compare a 60 year-old shock jock calling the Rutger’s Women’s basketball team “nappy headed hos” to thirty two individuals being slaughtered like animals is astonishing. No... Idiocy and insensitivity in America knows no bounds.
To all you gun advocates; Give it a rest when you are in a venue that is discussing lives lost to gun violence. Your John Wayne mentality is charming, in a short-sighted, selfish, hammer-for-every-job lind of way. But it isn’t welcome or warranted in places where loss weighs heavier than political rhetoric. And before you jump knee deep in my sh*t about being some pinko commie scumbag, know that I am licensed to carry concealed weapons in several states. I have carried on and off the job, and am surgical with my weapon of choice—a quality 1911. There is a time and a place for everything... and pro gun talk in a forum to process or offer condolences to shooting victims is not one of them.
To all the rest of you insensitive clods who find it necessary to preach the values of no guns in our society—give this a rest too. Those of you who don’t believe that guns have a place in our country need to remember that no amount of laws or control measures will keep an unstable person from committing a horrible act. Cho would have made pipe bombs if he had been unable to obtain firearms. For chrissake he would have brought a chainsaw to class that day if he had to. Don’t delude yourselves. If someone wants to hurt you badly enough... make no mistake, he will.
Since this is my forum for putting things out there I will tell you all what I feel is more important than the pro or con side of gun control: To remember what happened, and who it happened to.
Ross Abdallah Alameddine, 20 years old.
Christopher James Bishop, 35 year old language instructor.
Brian Roy Bluhm, 25 years old.
Ryan Christopher Clark, 22 years old.
Austin Michelle Cloyd, 18 years old.
Jocelyne Couture-Nowak, adjunct foreign languages instructor. Daniel Alejandro Perez Cueva, 21 years old.
Kevin P. Granata, 45 year old engineering science professor.
Caitlin Millar Hammaren, 19 years old.
Jeremy Michael Herbstritt, 27 years old.
Rachael Elizabeth Hill, 18 years old.
Emily Jane Hilscher, 19 years old.
Jarrett Lee Lane, 22 years old.
Matthew Joseph La Porte, 20 years old.
Henry J. Lee, also known as Henh Ly, 20 years old.
Liviu Librescu, 76 year old holocaust survivor.
G.V. Loganathan, 51 year old environmental engineering professor.
Partahi Mamora Halomoan Lumbantoruan, 34, of Indonesia.
Lauren Ashley McCain, 20 years old.
Daniel Patrick O'Neil, 22 years old.
Juan Ramon Ortiz, 26 years old.
Minal Hiralal Panchal, 26 years old.
Erin Nicole Peterson, 18 years old.
Michael Steven Pohle Jr., 23 years old.
Julia Kathleen Pryde, 23 years old.
Mary Karen Read, 19 years old.
Reema Joseph Samaha, 18 years old.
Waleed Mohammed Shaalan, 32, doctoral student from Zagazig, Egypt.
Leslie Geraldine Sherman, sophomore history major and member of the honors program.
Maxine Shelly Turner, 22 years old.
Nicole White, 20 years old.
I think that these people and their families would rather have back what was taken, than pointless and insensitive discussion about what “could have happened if only...”
To those families I can honestly say I feel your pain.
My thoughts and prayers are with you.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
On Grief: Being Angry with God--WARNING MAY BE OFFENSIVE TO SOME READERS
Here I promised something soon. I also mentioned that what I provided would possibly be shocking. Thus, if you are a God-fearing Christian, whose faith or belief system is easily offended, please read no further. I do not wish to offend anyone, but at the same time I am going to express my feelings. I am angry, and there is little doubt as to whom I am angry with.
Read on at your own risk.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
“Christians by their very nature are selfish. Let’s put it this way, would Christians follow Christ if there was nothing in it for them in the end of the day? I think not. There is a reward at the end for them. How can you live for god when you are basically living to secure YOUR own fate…”
Ihategod.net
It was Easter on the 8th of this month. Easter is the Christian celebration of Christ’s victory over death (you know, when Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion?). Well I have an issue to take with this.
It has now been close to a year since my Rissa passed away. I have waited much longer that the required three days. No one has sent me a letter stating that there has been a mistake. No one has come to the door stating that Marissa is waiting patiently at the security desk to be picked up. No one has called to say “She is risen!”
What a bunch of crap.
Seriously. How stupid can people be to place their trust in something as ridiculous as this mythology. If Christ had really triumphed over death, then wouldn’t everyone be free? Wouldn’t all of our loved ones be able to be with us still? What kind of sweeping victory grants the spoils only to one?
No, I think that the early followers of Christ talked too mush sh*t. Their leader was gone, and pursued by those who hated them, they needed some kind of battle call—some hero to rally around, and since the major players had all denounced, doubted, or betrayed Jesus, they figured none of them were qualified. I’m sure that John came up with the brilliant idea that if Jesus just came back from the dead, all the enemies the twelve apostles had would simply **** out. It would be easy really. No one would have to know. After all, after Jesus rose from the dead, he only appeared to his friends and disciples.
I would think that with such a grand victory, he would have been prancing around everywhere to thumb his nose at those who killed him. Even If his resurrection was more than a hoax, it was simply a matter of who he had to bl*w to get himself out of trouble.
“Holy sh*t! I’m dead! This sucks! Hey you! Big fella with the pointy tail and horns… Whats a guy gotta do to get outa here?”
Oh yeah. Im still angry. And all the people who tell me that If I would just trust my “Lord-and-Savior” and he will bring me peace can go take a long walk off a short pier. All it does is rub all my painful sh*t in my face.
My baby is dead. Where is the comfort of their beloved Christ? Even if I still believed that the mythology of Christianity was fact, where is his hollow victory over death? When are people going to get that I am a grownup and I dont care what they think or what their religious beliefs are? I have my own method for comfort--right now it is in my ability to be angry. I have every right to be angry, and last I checked it wasn't against the law. I will be angry as long as I need to be to heal.
SO TERRIBLEY SORRY THAT MY GRIEF DOES NOT MEET YOUR ACCEPTABLE TIMETABLE!
Keep this "comfort and peace of Jesus" sh*t to yourselves people. You obviously have no idea how rude and inconsiderate this really is. Furthermore, as a recovering Christian, none of this makes any difference to me in the first place. I grow tired of having the "comfort and peace" of somone elses belief system continuously rammed down my throat by those who think they mean well, but are simply reaffirming their own beliefs to themselves out of fear. Your God is no more valid or real than what I believe...
Im not worried about what is going to happen to me after I die. If I am not... why are you?
Read on at your own risk.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
“Christians by their very nature are selfish. Let’s put it this way, would Christians follow Christ if there was nothing in it for them in the end of the day? I think not. There is a reward at the end for them. How can you live for god when you are basically living to secure YOUR own fate…”
Ihategod.net
It was Easter on the 8th of this month. Easter is the Christian celebration of Christ’s victory over death (you know, when Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion?). Well I have an issue to take with this.
It has now been close to a year since my Rissa passed away. I have waited much longer that the required three days. No one has sent me a letter stating that there has been a mistake. No one has come to the door stating that Marissa is waiting patiently at the security desk to be picked up. No one has called to say “She is risen!”
What a bunch of crap.
Seriously. How stupid can people be to place their trust in something as ridiculous as this mythology. If Christ had really triumphed over death, then wouldn’t everyone be free? Wouldn’t all of our loved ones be able to be with us still? What kind of sweeping victory grants the spoils only to one?
No, I think that the early followers of Christ talked too mush sh*t. Their leader was gone, and pursued by those who hated them, they needed some kind of battle call—some hero to rally around, and since the major players had all denounced, doubted, or betrayed Jesus, they figured none of them were qualified. I’m sure that John came up with the brilliant idea that if Jesus just came back from the dead, all the enemies the twelve apostles had would simply **** out. It would be easy really. No one would have to know. After all, after Jesus rose from the dead, he only appeared to his friends and disciples.
I would think that with such a grand victory, he would have been prancing around everywhere to thumb his nose at those who killed him. Even If his resurrection was more than a hoax, it was simply a matter of who he had to bl*w to get himself out of trouble.
“Holy sh*t! I’m dead! This sucks! Hey you! Big fella with the pointy tail and horns… Whats a guy gotta do to get outa here?”
Oh yeah. Im still angry. And all the people who tell me that If I would just trust my “Lord-and-Savior” and he will bring me peace can go take a long walk off a short pier. All it does is rub all my painful sh*t in my face.
My baby is dead. Where is the comfort of their beloved Christ? Even if I still believed that the mythology of Christianity was fact, where is his hollow victory over death? When are people going to get that I am a grownup and I dont care what they think or what their religious beliefs are? I have my own method for comfort--right now it is in my ability to be angry. I have every right to be angry, and last I checked it wasn't against the law. I will be angry as long as I need to be to heal.
SO TERRIBLEY SORRY THAT MY GRIEF DOES NOT MEET YOUR ACCEPTABLE TIMETABLE!
Keep this "comfort and peace of Jesus" sh*t to yourselves people. You obviously have no idea how rude and inconsiderate this really is. Furthermore, as a recovering Christian, none of this makes any difference to me in the first place. I grow tired of having the "comfort and peace" of somone elses belief system continuously rammed down my throat by those who think they mean well, but are simply reaffirming their own beliefs to themselves out of fear. Your God is no more valid or real than what I believe...
Im not worried about what is going to happen to me after I die. If I am not... why are you?
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
On Absence Making the Heart Grow Fonder...
Sorry folks.
My Mac is in the shop presently and I dont feel right somehow posting from my nice government job.
Be back in a week with something a little shocking perhaps.
It wasnt a very good Easter.
Shanti.
My Mac is in the shop presently and I dont feel right somehow posting from my nice government job.
Be back in a week with something a little shocking perhaps.
It wasnt a very good Easter.
Shanti.
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