Very, very sad university news

[Darth K'Trava]

I did this today, as did my daughter. One of my daughter's classmates also did it, and got a demerit for "showing disrespect" by being out of uniform. WTF? I swear, some teachers need to get a brain. :rollseyes:

I think some parents need to go to the teachers and explain why they were out of uniform for that one day. If they have half a heart, they'd remove the demerit. if not, then contact the principal/headmaster and tell them.

I did this at work too. Made it easier that our uniform shirt was already maroon. Just put an orange tee under that. Two ladies at the Time Warner office had orange and maroon ribbons made into VT pinned to their shirts.

 

[Gunslinger]

I think it's absurd that anyone could consider Cho Seung-Hui a victim. Every story I've read about him in the last few days has mentioned more people who offered to help him, who he rejected. The fact that he tried to encourage others to repeat his behavior makes him equitable to Osama bin Laden in my mind.

I didn't fully realize just how cold blooded everything he did was though until I read this article which pieces together the most complete retelling I've seen yet of the events of that day: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/a...ml?internalid=AOT_h_04-19-2007_darkness_falls

 

[takyris]

It's easy to see him as calculating as evil, but looking at those photos of him, I see a poor sick kid who needed help and didn't get it. Yeah, he pushed that help away, and yeah, if I had super action-movie powers and a time machine, I'd have chosen to put him in the ground before he killed three dozen innocent people, but I don't see sympathy for the victims and pity for the madman as mutually exclusive. I don't think anybody came out a winner that day.

I note that I know nobody at Virginia Tech, or even anybody personally who knows anybody there. This is a news story for me, which means it's relatively easy for me to get to that place. If I'd lost a child/spouse/friend, it'd be harder, but I don't think that means I'm wrong.

(And I apologize if that offends anyone. To reiterate what I said above, I'm not putting pity for the shooter ahead of sympathy for the victims, and I definitely wish he'd been taken down quickly by police. I think it's possible to feel pity for Old Yeller even when you have to put him down.)

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I think it's possible to feel pity for Old Yeller even when you have to put him down.

I think that's a very apt and very true statement. Everyone cries at the end of Old Yeller, even when they know it had to be done.

 

[Umbran]

The fact that he tried to encourage others to repeat his behavior makes him equitable to Osama bin Laden in my mind.

For everyone: please, no more analogies to major public figures of political import, past or present. Consider any such to be an invocation of Godwin's Law - make such analogies, and you lose. Also consider responses to such analogies as you losing the argument.