my alma mater is UVa -- Tech's "rival" school

i just keep thinking of all the good-natured rivalry, all the jokes and fake competition

to me ... it's like it's us

like it's our bratty little brother

that's how it feels to me. i'm so shocked and sad.

Nez:

It is so completely fucked up. You are right about the pols reactions, of that I'm sure. I was at a McDonald's (everything they serve is crap, but some is less crappy than other) and, of course, Fox News was dipping their handkerchiefs in the blood of the murdered. There will be a massive outpouring of compassionguiltfingerpointing from the far right and the far left; the vast middle will be sucking in their cheeks, going, "Ooooooh, that's terrible, was the killer Al Queda or some crazy brown person?" for about the next three days and then it will be time to move on to some other big news items like the lack of interest in the Anna Nicole diaries.

I posed a question over at JG's blog, just the other day: Why is it that all of these hyper violent acts seem to occur in milieus that are largely middle-class schools and predominantly feature actors who are middle class and white? One answer was that perhaps this doesn' happen so much in urban (read "lower class") schools or feature sortabrown shooters is because of the day-to-day violence in the 'hood'. I'm not saying that might not be a factor, but I don't think that explains it.

Years ago I had someone railing at me about the moral laxity of my generation. My reply (heated, I will admit) was that he needed only to look to our corrupt leaders who treated the rule of law as a "quaint" notion. I told him that we were teaching our youth that honesty, fairness & compassion are outmoded behaviors and that they were, in turn, demonstrating how well they had learned the lesson.

Incidents like these shootings are not inexplicable, they are explained, unfortunately, all too easily. We have become a society of individuals who are convinced that their wants and needs supersede the rights and liberties of others. And a half century of malfeasance and misconduct by our supposed leaders and public servants has inculcated three generations with the notion that if you want something that someone else has you should simply take it from them if you can. It's a sick ethos.

A cousin of mine went there as an exchange student. That was years ago, still he must be shaken by this. Horrible, just horrible, but will the "usual suspects" be blame or will the deeper causes be explored?

"To everyone else, let's enjoy to the fullest, this gift of life that some have lost today."

Good point. And: what do people expect, with the kind of society that has been created ... (thinking along the lines of democommie, with what passes for values, and what passes for 'acceptable' violence, why should we be surprised?) ?

and of course, now it appears to be an extension of domestic violence.

Nez:

Not that it matters to anyone in the NRA or Bushjunta but the 9mm semi-auto that was used by the gunman in the VaTech shootings was purchased 36 days ago.

The seller said he sold it because the young man was a clean-cut college kid who had a green card. It has been widely reported that this particular young man was sullen and uncommunicative to all who approached him at school. It was also reported that he might have been on anti-depression meds. He must have put on his smiley face for nice, Mr. Gunshop guy.

My niece's husband runs one of five pawnshops owned by his family. I stopped in to visit him a few months back, while on vacation. He was busy with a guy who wanted to find a 4 Carat diamond at a "resonable price" so I was looking through the rack of guitars that was hanging on one wall. A few minutes after I arrived a couple of "trench coat mafia" types came in. Buzz cuts, pimples, deeply untanned and very garrulous (high?). They went right for the guns. They wanted to see the AK's, 9's, and any other, big bore, high-powered guns that were handy. They were not scary, which is probably why they wanted guns--isn't that the usual reason, for those idiots? Anyway, since they had little money and were not 19 they were shooed away. After they left, my niece's husband, who had finished the business he was doing, came over to say, "Hi". I mentioned the scene I had just witnessed and said, "Those two probably have posters of Dylan Kleebold on their bedroom walls". He agreed and said he would try not to sell weapons to people like that. That scared me.

If the government would put 1/10 of the

Premature postulization: my bad.

...if the government would 1/10 of the resources it has put into the "War on Drugs" into stopping the traffic of illegal firearms in this country more people might die of drug overdoses (that is debatable), but, almost certainly, fewer would die in the senseless sort of attacks as that which happened yesterday.

it's so sad.
i know quite a few people in virginia and i hate to say my first reaction after i found out which school it was, was relief that i didn't know anyone at that school. makes me feel horrible when so many people lost loved ones.

Hit the proverbial nail on the head.