As Wednesday's anniversary of the Virginia Tech shooting comes round, it's good to remember each young life lost and feel sympathy for the families that loved them. But one family who lost a son that day has grieved in seclusion, unable to reach out to other families--because their son, Seung Hui Cho, was the killer. I hope they can eventually come back to the world, and learn to live again. Many people blamed them after the massacre, because there was no one else left to blame. Many more offered sympathy to them, recognising that their lives, too, had been changed irrevocably. This outpouring has, by all accounts, overwhelmed them. Let me add my sympathy to that stream of well-wishes.
A Year After Massacre, Family Lives 'in Darkness': Parents of Virginia Tech Gunman Secluded
The Washington Post has a page devoted to the Virginia Tech shootings. There you can see victim profiles, timelines, and related news.
It's got to be a difficult time for the school and for the victims' loved ones. My prayers are with them all.
Born, like other comic book characters, out of an otherwise trivial but life-changing animal bite, the Rabid Librarian seeks out strange, useless facts, raves about real and perceived injustices, and seeks to meet her greatest challenge of all--her own life.
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Showing posts with label Virginia Tech. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Virginia Tech. Show all posts
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Friday, April 27, 2007
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Today was beautiful in terms of weather
although the Virginia Tech shootings were still very much on people's minds. I noticed people at several tables talking about it at lunch; at ours we seemed to all avoid it, although I did talk a little with one co-worker when I came in this morning, and then I asked the one who went to Virginia Tech how she was doing. She seemed very subdued and stressed.
I did check the online news a couple of times over the course of the day and saw that they'd identified the gunman and some of his victims. For those Koreans who might be reading, I think it would be incredibly stupid of someone to make some racist comment against Koreans or Asians because of this tragedy. But then, one should never underestimate the stupid, I suppose. Just know that the majority of Americans would think no such thing. It sounds like he was a very troubled young man who resisted any overtures of friendship or help, and that's a shame. And in a way, I guess, he was a victim, too. A friend said it best: sometimes there is no bad guy to blame, there is only sadness (I'm paraphrasing, lord knows I'd never remember the exact words, but you get the drift). Another friend asked a question that he heard on the news: Would you feel differently to know that 30 soldiers had been killed in Baghdad rather than 30 people killed at a college campus in the States? I said, no, both were sad and tragedies, and were equally horrific. The only differences I can see are that the soldiers volunteered to go into a war zone, so there is an expectation that they might be killed, whereas those in a classroom have no such expectation and are pretty much innocently minding their own business, and the other difference is that the media will cover the latter much more than they will the former, partly due to distance and partly due to war 'fatigue' in the press and general public. But both cases are equally tragic.
Turning from the tragedy, my day went pretty well. I went to the doctor and he's going to put me on Glucophage XR (once a day), since I've been forgetting to take my nightly dose (all my other meds are in the morning, and I'm also starting a new drug, Januvia. I'm just glad he didn't put me on insulin. They checked my blood there (not with a lancet device mind you, but with the nurse coming in and just jabbing me with a lancet) and it was 177, not bad considering I'd eaten a little before. Then they took blood. The only weird thing was their scale reads 264 lbs(whereas the one I use at the hospital says 287 lbs). I haven't gained any weight since last time apparently. But that's a big difference. Dr Nesbitt says that a new drug is coming out this summer (hopefully) that works on getting your triglycerides in good shape and can cause a 12-20 lb weight loss in a year. He plans on going on it and its sounds like something that would be good for me, too. It apparently targets the 'brown' fat held around the abdomen (making for that deadly apple-shape).
Well, that's all for now. It's getting late and I should sleep.
I did check the online news a couple of times over the course of the day and saw that they'd identified the gunman and some of his victims. For those Koreans who might be reading, I think it would be incredibly stupid of someone to make some racist comment against Koreans or Asians because of this tragedy. But then, one should never underestimate the stupid, I suppose. Just know that the majority of Americans would think no such thing. It sounds like he was a very troubled young man who resisted any overtures of friendship or help, and that's a shame. And in a way, I guess, he was a victim, too. A friend said it best: sometimes there is no bad guy to blame, there is only sadness (I'm paraphrasing, lord knows I'd never remember the exact words, but you get the drift). Another friend asked a question that he heard on the news: Would you feel differently to know that 30 soldiers had been killed in Baghdad rather than 30 people killed at a college campus in the States? I said, no, both were sad and tragedies, and were equally horrific. The only differences I can see are that the soldiers volunteered to go into a war zone, so there is an expectation that they might be killed, whereas those in a classroom have no such expectation and are pretty much innocently minding their own business, and the other difference is that the media will cover the latter much more than they will the former, partly due to distance and partly due to war 'fatigue' in the press and general public. But both cases are equally tragic.
Turning from the tragedy, my day went pretty well. I went to the doctor and he's going to put me on Glucophage XR (once a day), since I've been forgetting to take my nightly dose (all my other meds are in the morning, and I'm also starting a new drug, Januvia. I'm just glad he didn't put me on insulin. They checked my blood there (not with a lancet device mind you, but with the nurse coming in and just jabbing me with a lancet) and it was 177, not bad considering I'd eaten a little before. Then they took blood. The only weird thing was their scale reads 264 lbs(whereas the one I use at the hospital says 287 lbs). I haven't gained any weight since last time apparently. But that's a big difference. Dr Nesbitt says that a new drug is coming out this summer (hopefully) that works on getting your triglycerides in good shape and can cause a 12-20 lb weight loss in a year. He plans on going on it and its sounds like something that would be good for me, too. It apparently targets the 'brown' fat held around the abdomen (making for that deadly apple-shape).
Well, that's all for now. It's getting late and I should sleep.
Labels:
Diabetes,
Glucophage,
Januvia,
Korean,
Shooting,
Virginia Tech,
War,
Weight
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
I've watched more news coverage today
than I have in months. A friend was home sick and had the news of the Virginia Tech shootings on the television. Like so many, I was shocked. I'd read online about the first shooting, and at that time they were saying one was dead. It sounded like an isolated incident--tragic, but contained.
Then I went to my friend's house and that all changed. I thought of a co-worker who went to Virginia Tech, whose parents work at the university. I thought of my own alma mater, UK, of similar size in terms of students, although I think VT's campus is larger. How could anyone hope to lockdown UK's campus? Have these reporters who are so loudly demanding why this didn't happen ever actually been to college? There are hundreds of buildings, thousands of students. And there was no indication that this massacre was about to happen, from what I've heard. I feel a certain amount of sympathy for school officials and the police, who will be under such terrible scrutiny for some time.
When I was at school a disgruntled physical plant division worker walked across campus in the early morning with a gun (I believe it was an assault rifle), walked into the building he'd worked in, and blew away his boss, then started sniping at cars and people on the street. I found out (our dorm was across the street and just a few buildings over from the building the gunman was in) when my roomate's boyfriend called to warn us. I don't remember the details well (this was in the late 80s) but I think the supervisor died, but I don't think anyone else died and I think the gunman lived and was tried. Afterwards some enterprising soul sold 'I survived the UK sniper' T-shirts. It was one way of dealing with the fear of what could have happened, I suppose, although I'm sure many people would have considered it sick humour. For most of us, though, we were removed from any real danger. We were scared by what could have happened, but didn't experience it for ourselves. And we were far enough in time that things such as the Austin sniper in the 60s (even those of us who knew about it) seemed far removed--we were babies, if even born) or the Wichita sniper in the 70s, didn't seem quite real.
This, however, is on a scope that clearly goes beyond anything we experienced and is terribly, horrifyingly real. Thirty-three lives were snuffed out--many more will be directly affected by this tragedy, and it touches those far beyond it. There will be debates over gun control, motive, and all sorts of things (one of the big discussions on the news was the supposed ethnicity of the gunman--Asian--and how Asian cultures supposedly hold individuals to much higher academic standards, for instance).
As much as I feel sadness that this happened, I have to admit I was angry at the way the media fed off it. Maybe it's because I don't have cable and don't normally see stories done to death, but it just seemed to me that a lot of 'talking heads' were speculating about matters they had no concrete facts about, often critical of things that weren't even understood as yet. I felt sorry for the law enforcement officer being grilled by the press and for the school officials who no doubt acted within policy but couldn't know the full horror that was about to befall the campus. I'm surprised they were able to notify as many people as they did. And of course they're not going to release information until they get their facts straight--not if they're smart, anyway.
Then there's the gunman. You have to be pretty disturbed to do this sort of thing. Some people would say he was evil. But he may have been sick. And if that is the case, he is a victim of his own daemons as well. I just wish he hadn't walked into that classroom building and took innocent lives today.
To the students, faculty, and staff of Virginia Tech, and to the families and friends of those slain or wounded, I give my greatest condolences. In time perhaps we will know more about this tragedy, although we will perhaps never really understand why it happened. But hopefully it will remind us to treasure each day, and make our lives meaningful, rather than paying too much attention to the unhappy details that we tend to get bogged in. Life is so much more...and it is a gift.
Then I went to my friend's house and that all changed. I thought of a co-worker who went to Virginia Tech, whose parents work at the university. I thought of my own alma mater, UK, of similar size in terms of students, although I think VT's campus is larger. How could anyone hope to lockdown UK's campus? Have these reporters who are so loudly demanding why this didn't happen ever actually been to college? There are hundreds of buildings, thousands of students. And there was no indication that this massacre was about to happen, from what I've heard. I feel a certain amount of sympathy for school officials and the police, who will be under such terrible scrutiny for some time.
When I was at school a disgruntled physical plant division worker walked across campus in the early morning with a gun (I believe it was an assault rifle), walked into the building he'd worked in, and blew away his boss, then started sniping at cars and people on the street. I found out (our dorm was across the street and just a few buildings over from the building the gunman was in) when my roomate's boyfriend called to warn us. I don't remember the details well (this was in the late 80s) but I think the supervisor died, but I don't think anyone else died and I think the gunman lived and was tried. Afterwards some enterprising soul sold 'I survived the UK sniper' T-shirts. It was one way of dealing with the fear of what could have happened, I suppose, although I'm sure many people would have considered it sick humour. For most of us, though, we were removed from any real danger. We were scared by what could have happened, but didn't experience it for ourselves. And we were far enough in time that things such as the Austin sniper in the 60s (even those of us who knew about it) seemed far removed--we were babies, if even born) or the Wichita sniper in the 70s, didn't seem quite real.
This, however, is on a scope that clearly goes beyond anything we experienced and is terribly, horrifyingly real. Thirty-three lives were snuffed out--many more will be directly affected by this tragedy, and it touches those far beyond it. There will be debates over gun control, motive, and all sorts of things (one of the big discussions on the news was the supposed ethnicity of the gunman--Asian--and how Asian cultures supposedly hold individuals to much higher academic standards, for instance).
As much as I feel sadness that this happened, I have to admit I was angry at the way the media fed off it. Maybe it's because I don't have cable and don't normally see stories done to death, but it just seemed to me that a lot of 'talking heads' were speculating about matters they had no concrete facts about, often critical of things that weren't even understood as yet. I felt sorry for the law enforcement officer being grilled by the press and for the school officials who no doubt acted within policy but couldn't know the full horror that was about to befall the campus. I'm surprised they were able to notify as many people as they did. And of course they're not going to release information until they get their facts straight--not if they're smart, anyway.
Then there's the gunman. You have to be pretty disturbed to do this sort of thing. Some people would say he was evil. But he may have been sick. And if that is the case, he is a victim of his own daemons as well. I just wish he hadn't walked into that classroom building and took innocent lives today.
To the students, faculty, and staff of Virginia Tech, and to the families and friends of those slain or wounded, I give my greatest condolences. In time perhaps we will know more about this tragedy, although we will perhaps never really understand why it happened. But hopefully it will remind us to treasure each day, and make our lives meaningful, rather than paying too much attention to the unhappy details that we tend to get bogged in. Life is so much more...and it is a gift.
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