The Va Tech Shootings and the Local News. What Does It Say About Us?
by MooheadApril 24, 2007 8:45 am
The local news wants to pile on the Va Tech shooting bandwagon, so they bring in a “psychologist” who has never examined Cho. His opinions are based on what he read. His comments:
“Based on my reading, I’d say he’s not schizophrenic because he was functioning day to day. I’d say he was a bit more than neurotic.”
A BIT??? He killed 32 people. Neurotic people don’t kill. They ruminate. Eric Wedge is neurotic.
And so it goes. Every Dr Phil wannabe gets his mug on local tv. Here’s what it looks like
One guy kills 32. He becomes a celebrity. He’s the 24 hour news channel. He’s a ratings generator. He gets people to boo Shin Soo Choo in the minors (seriously…we’ll talk about it on the show today). He gets people kicked out of school out of sheer paranoia. He gets the gun nuts out to support guns. He gets the gun control nuts out to support no guns. He scares the shit out of the guy who’s got a semi automatic rifle with teflon bullets for hunting.
In America, tragedies become political footballs. Terry Schiavo couldn’t just die. She created a “cause”. How many of the whackos who used her death as a morality play still check in with the family? Now that Katrina is gone, how have the levies been rebuilt? How much easier is it to evacuate New Orleans? Where would a hundred thousand homeless people stay now?
Where are the sift boat veterans now that we’re STILL losing men in Iraq? Did they support the war, or were they a manufactured group of right wing nutjobs hell bent on campaining against Kerry? I bet we hear from them again about Hillary.
Why? Because we’re no longer about making things better in America. We’re interested in gathering attention to ourselves. We YOUTUBE beheadings and executions. We update death counts every 20 minutes. We drag cameras to gutted neighborhoods for the quick reaction shots. We ban the Dixie Chicks from touring, then give them 7 music awards a few years later. We call African Americans “nappy headed”, then we get on the bandwagon to fire a guy being led by a guy who perpetrated a bigger fraud on the country (Tawana Brawley). We drink Anna Nicole’s blood, and need to know who the father of her kid is. The story is now the story. We don’t analyze. We react.
That’s why I try to stay away from Terrell Owens, Barry Bonds, Ron Artest and others like them. I like to analyze the “whys”. Like why Cho’s Mom and Dad felt that he was college material in the first place.
