There’s nothing left to say. I wish someone would take a hint and simply leave these people alone to grieve and heal as best they can. I can’t remember ever being so impressed and so revolted at the same time. The media has, quite frankly, made as ass of itself from the start. It began with looping the same footage over and over again, for hours on end, of police and ambulances rushing to the scene. Then there were the incisive questions during the press conference, such as “If you knew who the gunman was after the first shooting why did you let him go so he could kill more people?” Now CNN has the dancing silhouette of crosshairs going in the background all the time. (This infuriates me in ways I’m still trying to get a handle on.) Another favorite question was why police didn’t do something after the gunman wrote the disturbing play for creative writing class. If we’re going to follow that line of stupid logic, ignoring that whole constitution thing, the police should be en route to arrest Tarantino, Rodriguez, and the staff writers at CSI, Law & Order, and Murder She Wrote.
The redemption, if there is any to be had, has been watching these kids at VT. To a person every one I’ve seen has been calm, articulate, and focused. Thus far they’ve been the embodiment of character. It’s worth remembering that these kids were all in their early teens when an entirely different crop of evil flew a pair of planes into the
1 comment:
Ares, my complaint is that a person who is clearly disturbed cannot be kept in a psychiatric facility unless they are willing to stay. "Another favorite question was why police didn’t do something after the gunman wrote the disturbing play for creative writing class." Yes, writers have written gross things before. They have written stuff that has caused copycat crimes. But my friend, when a man I know was very mentally ill, we couldn't do a thing to get him commited. I am an old woman and I remember when the shift was made to get mentally ill people out of the state hospitals. Some of the people WERE just being warehoused, but some were much better off than out on the street. I am sure you have run into some in your life. There was an assumption that the community mental health facilities would pick up the slack. No one seemed to have checked that there were mental health facilities or that they had the capacity to take care of the people who they discharged. Giving a mentally ill person drugs and then not monitoring their progress is criminal. But we have no way to force people to continue being monitored. How can we keep ourselves safe? We are none of us sages, but it wouldn't be human to ask the stupid question.
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