This is the bathroom in which the CA school shooting began.

I like pictures that personalize tragedy. Thus, the TX death row images. This one does it in a way that doesn't really tell us much about the shooting, though.

I wish the school shootings would end, of course. This is not because of feeling for those who were shot, or the families of those who were shot. This is feeling that these shootings are part of something larger than all of us. People die, that's a tragedy. People die needless, that's a bigger tragedy. People die and our overreaction causes more and greater problems than the original killings: that's the worst-case scenario.

I like tw's predictions. I want to predict as well. I predict that the overreaction to the shootings is going to be far, far worse than the shootings themselves. Think of what happens to a generation that's overprotected and still lives in fear.

The past generations feared the bomb. The next generation will fear each other. The humanity that it takes to recognize problems in these adolescents will be systematically erased from them. The problems that have led up to these shooting will continue and worsen. So I predict that there will be many more shootings to come.

Even now, parochial schools aren't safe. It wasn't popularized greatly but in Williamsport, PA, one girl shot (not fatally) another with a revolver in a Catholic school.

It isn't so much steam (though it is a factor) as it is denial. The parents of these kids live in the deepest pit of denial I have ever seen, because they know that their kid is in the same situation, but they refuse to take responsibility. Instead they blame mass media. Who is it this time, Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit that's taking the shots on this one? Does anyone else find it ironic that these are the bands that released albums around the time that this whole thing had to have begun to be planned?


~Mike

To extrapolate...

What CC neighborhood are you in? I've seen top-quality city living in Center City east and west, much of South Philly, Manayunk, Roxborough, East Falls, Chestnut Hill (although that's not really city living I guess).

Apologies to out non-Philly users...

Re: 3/8: Bathroom of Williams shooting

I said, <i>"This is feeling that these shootings are part of something larger than all of us. People die, that's a tragedy. People die needless, that's a bigger tragedy. People die and our overreaction causes more and greater problems than the original killings: that's the worst-case scenario."</i>

There was a stat on TV the other day that showed that school shootings are actually down to 11, from 53 eight years ago.

53! Where was the media attention back then? Why weren't we all horrified beyond belief? Because even 53 is a ridiculously low number. One per state. Now it's 1 per every ten states.

About 1000 children die from drowning; now there's a much more meaningful number. It's just not a Springer show type of story.

On one hand, we're being fed by the media. But on the other hand, it's we who are feeding the media, with our interest or lack of interest in any particular news story. What maintains our interest is very carefully measured and worked out with great detail, every day.

As a society, we are moving from requiring a careful, journalistic approach to wanting every story to amaze us to a new level.

There was a story a couple years ago of a spring break travel agency allowing all kinds of craziness on the plane trip down to Mexico, including a wet t-shirt contest, in which high-school students were included. Now, lewdness amongst the young is not news, right? But in this case, there was VIDEO. Which meant the story was run not once, but several times, with a followup a few months later so they could run it during sweeps.

So, to me, the shootings themselves are not really as big a deal as the overreaction to them.

[Edited by Tony Shepps on 03-12-2001 at 01:22 AM]