The Media and the Issues of the Day

[readwriteblue.livejournal.com]

Couch Patatoes


American Idle

"Lazy people are always wanting to do something." Marquis De Vauvenargues.

In the Trenches


American Idle II
I have never watched American Idol but I am in awe of the fact that it is the most popular show on TV. Why are people so obsessed with a TV show? I am also unsure if this is something I should be opposed to. Would life be worth living if there isn't any fun? On the other hand it does seem that this fun may have a darker side, the hunger to become Famous.

Murderer


Some of you may have seen clips from the video that he sent to NBC. He definitely wanted it to be broadcasted and that is how he wanted to be remembered. I would say that it seems similar to jihadi martyrdom videos
Richard Engel
Internet Buzz
NBC recieves Package

Murder most Foul


Covering the Coverage
Questioning the Airing of this Package

Questions abound:

Are jahadi terrorists and these mass murderers linked by mental illness?
Why do seemingly normal people commit such unspeakable crimes?
Is this proof of Satan forcing people to do his bidding in the world?
Should we change the way we report on these crimes?
Can we save lives by keeping silent?
What does it mean?

Comments

Satan?

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

Re: Satan?

[welcome-to-1984.livejournal.com]

Shaun!

Re: Satan?

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

Hey Cho, where you going with that gun in your hand?
Hey Cho, where you going with that gun in your hand?
Well, I'm off to get my face on every station in the land.
Well, I'm off to get my face on every station in the land.

Re: Satan?

[temujin9.livejournal.com]

Here I go responding seriously to a troll (again):

He'd probably have given him a hug, which might have stopped this whole fucking thing from happening in the first place. But this is America: why bother trying to help the mentally ill, when there's clinical and distant professionals to do that for us.

Hell is empty, all the devils are here. - Shakespear

Re: Satan?

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

Well, of course the true idea of Jesus would have done that. But that has absolutely no connection to the current incarnation of Jesus in American society. What about the popular idea? The idea in this whacko's head?

But all I really meant this to say with this silly macro was that all the Christian blowhards who have been blaming violence on atheism/non-Christianism for decades suddenly have a mass-murderer who directly compares himself to their messiah, Jesus Christ. To me, it's all voices in peoples' heads, but at least now we can point at something and say "Hey, WTF!?".

Re: Satan?

[temujin9.livejournal.com]

Good old Charlie's been doing the "Jesus" shtick for years, and the fan club just ignored him as a raving lunatic. Which is exactly what they'll do here, and I can't say they'd be wrong: one sentence in a homicidal/suicidal rant does not a believer make.

For that matter, little things like cannibalism during the first Crusade (http://www.crusades-encyclopedia.com/cannibalism.html) (or hell, the Crusades as a whole) manage to completely fall of their radar. The armor of faith is intentional ignorance: when faced with something that conflicts with dogma, assume the source is tainted by the Devil, and ignore it. Against that, all arguments rail in vain.

Re: Satan?

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

I didn't say it would work, just that I'd try.

Re: Satan?

[readwriteblue.livejournal.com]

Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. Matthew 5:38-40 (King James Version)

Re: Satan?

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

Cho and dozens of others have misquoted and misinterpreted the writings of Jesus, and I don't see how all of them are not in the same moral boat.

[ygrii-blop.livejournal.com]

Submitted for your consideration, my $0.02USD worth, and free of charge!

Whether we like it or not, Cho's videos are newsworthy. I say air them, get them out into the open and let people see them for what they are. If we ban them, that gives them desirability by forcing them into the underground, whatever that is. It's a sad, sick, pathetic spectacle, to be sure, but it's good that we recognize it as such. If we didn't, I'd be greatly worried.

[elbowmedic.livejournal.com]

yes, lets air it. i'd like to make sure that the other mickey and malory wanna be's can make sure they get it right, he got what he wanted, to be remembered on national tv. now he's famous yet another american psycho for the kids to emulate.

[lesleykajira.livejournal.com]

It isn't the news's responsibility to censor themsleves to "protect" us from ourselves.

[leprofessional.livejournal.com]

dimwit, what about american that rape and set 14 year old girls and their parents on fire? Far far worse has happened in Iraq and Vietnam. I see you forgot to mention that... and is jihadi a new word you made up?

[temujin9.livejournal.com]

Google, motherfucker. Do you know how to use it? (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=com.ubuntu%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=a7C&q=define%3A+jihadi&btnG=Search)

[readwriteblue.livejournal.com]

Before you post, remember the LGF prayer:

Lord, grant me the serenity to ignore the trolls,
the courage to debate with honest opponents,
and the wisdom to know the difference.

dimwit, what about american that rape and set 14 year old girls and their parents on fire? Far far worse has happened in Iraq and Vietnam. I see you forgot to mention that... and is jihadi a new word you made up?

Your reply has given me pause. How should I respond?
Dimwitted-ly (Yeah! So's your mother!)
Arrogantly (Your use of grammar and ignorance of terms places you beneath contempt.)
Silently ( )
Defensively (What about Saddam's rapes and mass graves and the rape videos of his sons' and when he feed people to lions when he occupied Kuwait...)
Patiently (We are discussing crime and insanity, but the cases that you mention have no baring because of the lack of a media aspect. Perhaps you could rephrase what you wish to opine and site better examples.)

If you wish to, choose any of those options and reply.

[lloorren.livejournal.com]

Cho got what he wanted, and so will the next Cho, or the next Columbine, or whatever it's official name will be. The media feeds off of the tragedies and the tragedies feed off the media. On the flip side there is the 'awareness' of the thing. It's a double-edged sword and it's idiotic that the school didn't do anything about the obvious problem before it happened.

[petdance.livejournal.com]

What exactly should VT have done about the obvious problem?

[drivebyluna.livejournal.com]

not let him into their school after a judge ruled him unfit for society?

[petdance.livejournal.com]

Which would have achieved what? Why do you think he was interested in obeying any laws?

[drivebyluna.livejournal.com]

I thought the the judge ruled him unfit for society?

[drivebyluna.livejournal.com]

oh... my... god i love your handle. Snowcrash is one of the funniest books out there.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

You can't be rational with stuff like belief, because belief ain't predicated upon anything approaching logic. In fact, belief resembles (quite a lot) the sorts of justification that the madman Cho used himself.
I might be prepared to be nice to and hug a madman (to help with the alienation), but I'm not certain about knowingly hugging a Christian. I mean, honestly, standards have to be maintained somewhere.

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

O hay, your icon is that guy/girl that did Dragon... like forever.

I'm glad I couldn't be any more specific.

[readwriteblue.livejournal.com]

I don't think Cho went on a spree murder/suicide in the hopes that he'd get posthumously rewarded with a week of air time.
I disagree, from what I have read and seen of the "package" he absolutely wished to be a celebrity. If not, then to whom was he speaking to? He did this not only for revenge against those who offended him, but as an example to others of what sort of fate awaited you.

I don't think not airing tapes like this is in the public interest or that it encourages others.
Airing or not airing the tapes is not the question. With the internet any "package" will circuit the globe before we have a chance to even try to suppress it. The question is context. If aired with sympathy to the murderer then I do feel that it will have the effect of creating more of them. I also believe the reverse is true, that if we call the murderer a pervert, speak about how this individual was given opportunities for treatment, and how much effort was wasted on them, then maybe, just maybe, we will prevent something like this.

Spree murders predate mass media, they happen independently of people making tapes or getting caught on camera, and they'll happen either way until we have better ways of identifying and treating various types of mental illness and/or have a society less apt at producing it.
What we call spree murder has been around since (wait for it) Cain and Able. Stories of one person or a small group of people murdering a large number of "others" exist it every culture I know of. I would propose that in the good old days we just called them different names. Perhaps act of war. Previously the word alienation refer to alien nations people so different that you could be sure they were not one of us, but today it seems that there are alienated people among us than outside of us. Would you let your 11 year old daughter have a paper rout? Do you talk to the old man feeding pigeons in the park? Whom do you count as one of us?

Many people for good or ill, wish to see themselves as part of a group. Others see those groups as a privileged class and form opposition groups. The cool kids eat lunch together go to all the parties and make fun of everyone else. No good, front running, Yankees fans are ruining the sport of baseball. The XYZ make all the rules and then refuse to punish their own members who break the rules. We have heard the names of these groups turned into curses by those whom are outside or opposed to them. This also extends to the equating of insult and injury.

No one injured this murderer, he was not assaulted or battered in any of the accounts that I have read. He was different and was excluded. His exclusion became his badge of honor. It was what made him feel special. But it was not enough, he needed to go even farther outside the groups he opposed, he needed the build himself up by tearing them down. He used the media to enshrine him with the other great outsiders in infamy and it took the airing of his media "package" to do so.

Finally how come we hear so much about the murderer and so little about Liviu Librescu (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/122137)?

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Now, I rarely if ever disagree with softside however I find myself agreeing with you. I think Cho's poor twisted vision of the aftermath of all this probably did include a week of air time. Surely the video is evidence of this?
The poor warped pathetic idiot has made lots of decent people grieve. How many reruns of 'If' (the Lindsay Anderson movie) do we need in order to understand that some folk are inadequate. And that the inadequate but privileged are quite likely, for entertainment purposes, to push the inadequate non-privileged into madness. And then the media will have something vital, immediate, and dead to hang their advertising on.
Advertising revenue, Thanatos, and late capitalist social breakdown. Let us now worship our culture's highpoint.
That's why no-one's writing about some old ugly dead HERO who laid down his life for his pupils. It won't sell McBurgers or i-pods, and besides, yeuch, he's like... old.
We have the Media leaders and editors we deserve. Why complain? It is after all, an integral part of late-capitalist culture. In order to change it, you'd have to change all sorts of other things as well, and that's not going to happen.

[readwriteblue.livejournal.com]

Use of the term pervert was suggested by Dr. Michael Welner.

The Hugh Hewitt (http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/Transcript_Page.aspx?ContentGuid=3f64c273-c8e5-4aa5-aae0-213ec33c5612) interview of noted forensic psychiatrist, Dr. Michael Welner, on NBC's approach this week in the Virginia Tech shooting, and the correct approach in understanding schizophrenia.

HH: Can you talk about the effect of NBC’s decision on other borderline cases of people who have not yet gone over to violence, but are, well, where Cho was two years ago?
MW: Well, why don’t we take a look at the number of copycat incidents that have just happened this week, but they happened after this was released. They didn’t happen after this crime hit the news. They happened after he turned into a badass action hero. It’s so disappointing. And I would distinguish some of these incidents as possibly motivated by individuals just trying to get attention for themselves, because of the amount of attention, and the nature of the attention afforded this pervert. And I think pervert is the appropriate word that has to be distinguished for this kind of behavior. It’s a perversion. But what I’m particularly concerned about are those people who just with repeated exposure, their sense of perhaps compassion and understanding for him, because he’s humanized, degenerates into something that is more of an identification with him. And then, when you combine that with a person who is failing and gets to a place where he feels that he’s had enough, and has all of these other ingredients that I’ve noted, then look out next April 20th, because it is a sort of, it is a perverted anniversary that not only attaches itself to the Columbine case, but Hitler’s birthday as well.