VA Tech shooting

Parent Cafe
841

<p>"THREE LESSONS TO LEARN FROM VIRGINIA TECH
by RABBI JACK RIEMER</p>

<p>"[T]he murderer came into the building where Liviu Lebrescu was teaching and came to the door of his classroom. … Dr. Lebrescu put his shoulder against the door, and blocked it so that the killer could not get in, and, at the same time, he yelled for his students to jump out the window of the first floor classroom and escape. They all got out, and he stayed and kept the door closed until the killer had riddled his body with bullets, and he was dead…</p>

<p>Are you prepared to call Dr. Libescu a hero…Or are you prepared to call him a collection of chemicals—who did what he did because of the way the serotonin in his blood stream functioned, or the way his brain cells worked? Are you prepared to say that he had no freewill?..</p>

<p>I believe that Professor Lebrescue was a hero, precisely because I believe that he acted with free will. And if I believe that about him, then I have to believe that about his killer too. </p>

<p>The Talmud knows the concept of mental illness. The Talmud says that sometimes people do what they do because …a foolish spirit took over their minds but on the whole, the Torah and the Talmud insist that human beings have free will, and therefore that human beings have the capacity and the courage to do as Professor Libresco did, or they have the hatefulness and the evil to do what his killer did.</p>

<p>Professor Libresco is my proof that human beings have free will. And therefore, when people in the coming weeks, tell me that we should have pity on the killer, and that we should understand that he was ill, I am going to say no. I am going to say that the killer was a human being, and therefore, even if he had evil impulses within him, he could have, and he should have, tried to overcome them, instead of giving in to them. …</p>

<p>Let the line between illness and choice not be blurred, for if it is, then none of us are responsible for what we do in our lives. …</p>

<p>Human beings can can use their free will to do enormous evil, and they can use their free will to do enormous good…</p>

<p>Therefore … may the soul of this very good man, Liviu Libresco, who lived through the Holocaust, who helped build up the State of Israel, and who died al Kiddush Hashem, in the backwoods of Virginia this week, be a source of comfort and a source of guidance and a source of inspiration to us all.</p>

<p>For as the Psalmist says: “What is man that You are mindful of him,</p>

<p>What is the son of man that you take notice of him?</p>

<p>And yet,You have made him but little less than divine,</p>

<p>And You have adorned him with glory and majesty”—by giving him free will…"</p>

842

<p>"We’ve not yet reached an era, though, when that sort of thing is deemed necessary in Blacksburg, VA. "</p>

<p>Actually, from the carnage that we’ve recently seen on some college campuses including VT, it seems that the people who put students most at risk are their fellow students, who could chose to take out their rage on people in their own dorms or classrooms.</p>

843

<p>Getting together with friends is a whole lot different now than when I was in school. Whereas we’d call (on land lines) or use a marker on the dorm door whiteboard, the kids have IM, text messaging, cell phones, … It is totally unnecessary to get into some other person’s dorm.</p>

844

<p>Paying3, thank you so very much for posting that article. I have forwarded it to several people. He stated so eloquently what I feel.</p>

845

<p>The thing is that nowhere is totally safe. People just think that urban campuses are less safe. But this was Blacksburg. There was that school murder also in a rural area this year…I can’t recall if it was Colorado or Idaho…which involved executions of teen girls. Then there was the massacre at the Amish school in a rural area in PA. It isn’t just an urban thing. I really wish there were metal detectors which of course doesn’t solve it but is one other measure that sets off security or alarms. Guns should not be so easy to get into a school building, just like they can’t be taken onto a plane. </p>

<p>As far as the whole dorm thing and signing in and out…it is not such a big deal to my kid because truly her dorm is not a place that she hangs out in and is not the center of her social life. That just isn’t the case where she goes to school (and it is also an apt. style dorm as well). Checking in with security officers with IDs and signing in also takes place in all campus buildings. Next year she will be living in an off campus apartment building where there is a 24 hour doorman. </p>

<p>Paying3tuitions: Thanks for the article as well. Even with mental illness, I still believe people have choices. Not all mentally ill people with whatever disease Cho had, choose to massacre scores of innocent peers.</p>

846

<p>“The Talmud knows the concept of mental illness. The Talmud says that sometimes people do what they do because …a foolish spirit took over their minds but on the whole, the Torah and the Talmud insist that human beings have free will, and therefore that human beings have the capacity and the courage to do as Professor Libresco did, or they have the hatefulness and the evil to do what his killer did.”</p>

<p>This is what I believe as well. Thanks paying3 because I too believe that Cho was pure evil and therefore no sympathy should be paid upon him. As a matter of fact, he had just as much hate and evil in him than the monsters who were responsible for 9/11. I seem him as the same cold-blooded killer.</p>

847

<p>I surely have no sympathy for this young man, as troubled as he was. I believe that every murderer has some sort of mental illness because anyone who is fully sane and NOT ill, would not go around gunning people down. So, the fact that this particular murderer has evidence of mental illness is a no brainer to me (no pun intended) because I think every murderer has something “wrong” with them. It still is no excuse for their choice to kill. Many people are mentally ill. True, they do not all get help. But, not all sick people choose to murder.</p>

848

<p>yeah this is so sad, my condolences go out to VTech</p>

849

<p>CNN is now focussing on the victims and the wonderful individuals that they were. A similar site was set up right after 9/11 and I know, from losing many family friends and a few relatives on that day, that it was very helpful to the families to have their loved ones ‘featured’ and their stories told. It’s very sad that the world has lost so much goodness and potential.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2007/virginiatech.shootings/victims/index.html[/url]”>http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2007/virginiatech.shootings/victims/index.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

850

<p>AlwaysAMom, earlier today, I visited that site (I think it has got to be the same one) and I am so glad that they set this up because this does need to be a focus. I must admit, that reading the bios, as well as watching clips of parents, friends and family talk about these lost loved ones, makes me cry. It is hard to read but very important. I also think that these stories with their posts by people who knew them must be very meaningful to their families. The world will know about these wonderful people and they won’t be forgotten. It is very heartbreaking…particularly when I read how special each person was and also when I see the parents speaking on TV or video clips.</p>

<p>PS…at one point today, I had to stop reading all of them as it was very upsetting. So, I just went back and read about a girl whom I had not read about before and OMG, she was on ONLY child! Even more devastating for parents.</p>

851

<p>For the first time in my life I emailed very network and told them they should take that perversion off the air. That video simply plays into his delusions and fantacies and his total disfunctional state. I believe that he could not face going into the real world so he had to leave his mark in his current world. I will never honor him with a name that will be remembered. He does not deserve remembrance. The victims do. Remember them and the good they were doing. My daughter lost a friend to the monster. Do not encourage other monsters to believe their names will live forever by repeating them.</p>

852

<p>I’ve been a Today Show viewer for many years - but I think it’s time to change the channel. They certainly took the low road this time.</p>

853

<p>I’m not sure I understand all the talk about dorm security. First of all, Cho was a residential student and he would have had access to whatever dorm he was a resident of. I don’t know if he was a resident of the specific dorm where the first two students were killed - but he lived somewhere and had legitimate access to his dorm. Dorms are probably about the most secure buildings on any campus. Secondly, the majority of the shootings were in a classroom – which could just as easily have been a basketball game, a shopping mall, or any other essentially pubic setting with a concentration of people. It’s unreasonable to expect swipe cards and cameras and security guards to protect us from maniacs. The only way you could guarantee safety would be to build a wall around the campus and install airport-style security checkpoints. That’s just not practical.</p>

854

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<p>In any case, explanation does not merit exculpation. Nonetheless, I think it’s clear that some people have more free will than others - and some with certain mental illnesses have more of it than others. Lumping all people with mental illnesses into a single category, as many people do, is a serious mistake. Some people are far more severely mentally ill than others.</p>

<p>That being said, an emphasis on personal responsibility can nonetheless improve people’s behavior (or a belief in free will), irrespective of whether free will really exists or not.</p>

<p>Cho may have had free will in the way that we define it. The criminal justice system is structured in such a way as to judge whether individuals can distinguish between “right” and “wrong” or not. But Cho was so disillusioned with society such that he no longer subscribes to society’s conceptions of “right” or “wrong”.</p>

855

<p>CNN is now focussing on the victims and the wonderful individuals that they were. </p>

<p>alwaysamom, that’s what I’ve been doing since it happened. There were some wonderful people here last week that aren’t with us this week. That’s what is important to me. I wish it was important to everybody. I appreciate the opportunity to learn more about them. Thanks for the link.</p>

856

<p>Something just occurred to me, catching the tail end of an NPR piece on a survivor - many of these kids that were shot and survived, or in the room where the shootings happened, and survived, are majors or minors in that department. How will they finish their degrees? I would think it would be hard to go back into that building, let alone the classroom. Would you suggest your child transfer? Maybe other colleges will be sympathetic and accomodating, as after Katrina.
Perhaps it is time to be in special prayer for them, as they piece back together their futures.</p>

857

<p>snorky, I think our conversation about dorm security was a more general one-- we weren’t talking specifically about this incident, but rather how different schools handle the issue and how that might be changing as security measures tighten in general. </p>

<p>Some schools have more of a dorm culture than others-- in NY, maybe, the dorm is a place to sleep, and the city is your playground. At my small suburban LAC, the dorms were the center of most people’s social lives-- even most parties were small ones that took place in someone’s room. I went into dorms other than my own at least several times a week. Most people did. The school PRIDES itself on its active dorm life. Not true of all colleges, but true of some.</p>

<p>Northstarmom, you’re right to point out that most violence on campuses is perpetrated by students. But I think that, at present, urban campuses TEND to have tighter security measures than suburban or rural ones. So it would seem that the surrounding area IS being taken into account for most schools at this point. Some of the VT survivors have expressed the attitude that “nothing like this ever happens here,” so I think there is still that element of surprise despite other rural murders. Maybe we will see this changing soon.</p>

858

<p>Today is a day to mourn the victims and show solidarity to Virginia Tech, and Soozie, everyday I have cried about this, especially as the details about the victims emerge.</p>

<p>But, in attempts to understand this horror, I present this information.</p>

<p>Perhaps, because in the small town where I grew up, one of the first times I heard about cancer, was when the owner of the local dry cleaners died of Brain Cancer.
Perhaps, because I am a fan of HOUSE.</p>

<p>Cho was the son of dry cleaners who most likely used PERC a potent neurotoxin. This chemical was found to be associated with a very high rate of schizophrenia in offspring of dry cleaners in a recent study.</p>

<p>Schizophr Res. 2007 Feb;90(1-3):251-4. Epub 2006 Nov 17. Links
Tetrachloroethylene exposure and risk of schizophrenia: offspring of dry cleaners in a population birth cohort, preliminary findings.
Tetrachloroethylene is a solvent used in dry cleaning with reported neurotoxic effects</p>

859

<p>Has anyone heard the status of the shooting victim survivors? I’d heard yesterday that a few had been released from the hospital, but then I heard on the radio that one had died, bringing the death toll to 34. However, I never heard anopther word about that last victim. Was that an error (I hope)?</p>

860

<p>I have not read or seen what you are referring to Jym. I watched the news early this AM and they mentioned that some who were injured were released from the hospital and some remain. I thought I had read last night that most are in stable condition. I believe one person was in the next level up in status, which may be called “serious”. None were said to be critical and I have heard nothing of any injured dying. I surely hope not.</p>

<p>I believe 8 remain hospitalized.</p>