Psy-Cho, Psy-Cho man
posted at 7:57 pm on April 22, 2007 by see-dubya
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MSM sources are reconstructing Cho’s activities bit by bit. The New York times has a pretty thorough timeline of Cho’s life and the shooting here, and they even did some background reporting from Korea. The slideshow is also instructive.
The WaPo offered a creepy bit of Psy-Cho oddity via his roommate Andy Koch: remember how he pretended he had an invisible space travelling supermodel girlfriend called “Jelly”, who called him “Spanky”?
“We were like, ‘Really?’ ” he said.
“I told my parents, and I told other friends, and they kind of laughed,” he said. Then one day Koch went to Cho’s room and Cho wouldn’t open the door, saying he was with Jelly: “We’re making out,” Cho said.
Possibly more relelvant from the WaPo: Cho once scribbled a few rather obscure lines from Romeo and Juliet on one of his stalkee’s door wipe-boards. He didn’t strike me as much of a reader, but apparently he knew some stuff. Which bolsters the theory of a literary source for the “Ismael Ax” reference, possibly Moby Dick or as reader Ray F. suggested, The Prairie.
Meanwhile, Mark Steyn seems mildly chastened by the reaction to his previous comments about how the students should have fought back harder. And as for the Cornell thing I mentioned last night, the student paper reminds us that it wasn’t just President Skorton who considered Cho part of his family and one of the victims. Before the service, a campus bell tower rang 33 times, “once for each of the victims“. But a Cornell student also picked up on those weird racial dynamics of singling out the Korean community for a special mention:
Thomas Riehl ’09 said he felt “wary of how much race seems to be playing into it. Why was it even pertinent to have [a Korean religious leader] sing? Why is this even part of the issue? It just seems so wrong and out of it to bring up the kid’s race.”
Mr. Riehl obviously has not yet been indoctrinated with a proper Ivy League sense of racial guilt. Cornell needs to work harder.
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It dawned on me yesterday that Cho had written Ismail Ax on his arm specifically so that NBC would know the package they received was from him.
As for the fake girlfriend, you gotta admit Spanky and Jelly are great names.
MayBee on April 22, 2007 at 8:16 PM
>you gotta admit Spanky and Jelly are great names.
Well, I know that if I had a fake girlfriend, her name would be definitely be Jelly.
Doghouse on April 22, 2007 at 8:22 PM
Crap, it is Jelly, isn’t it? I need to fix that.
Juicy is my imaginary space-travelling supermodel girlfriend’s name.
see-dubya on April 22, 2007 at 8:25 PM
In time (looks like a short time) our media, professors, literati and PC police will turn this specimen into a fascinating, highly IQ’d, interesting victim and folk hero. The real victims and heroes, and families, be damned…
Entelechy on April 22, 2007 at 8:25 PM
I’m going to give the people that say there were 33 victims the benefit of the doubt, here, and say they aren’t making any kind of statement about Cho. It is often reported that 33 people were killed at VTech that day, and it is easy to conflate that with there being 33 victims.
MayBee on April 22, 2007 at 9:09 PM
…’cause jam don’t shake like that!!!
TBinSTL on April 22, 2007 at 9:11 PM
Any more investigation by the media at this point is stupid.
He was nuts. He slaughtered 32 innocents. What more is there to this?
And as far as the Ismail Ax thing, who cares? Do we really need to search for meaning in something that a mad man wrote on a package and his arm? I could care less if he wrote “Jolly Old Saint Nick” on his arm. He was nuts.
Is finding the meaning in the writing going to make him any less insane or his victims any less dead? Or is there a morbid fascination at work here that nobody will fess up to?
unamused on April 22, 2007 at 9:21 PM
Unamused- who has declared him “insane”?
Had he heroically saved the lives of 32 people, would you declare him insane? All we really know is that he acted outside the mainstream.
MayBee on April 22, 2007 at 9:25 PM
Was it really Autism, or was it Asperger’s Syndrome plus schizophrenia and/or some psychosis? Autistics usually aren’t capable of higher reasoning, certainly not enought to get into a college.
stonemeister on April 22, 2007 at 9:28 PM
What if “making out with Jelly” was his excuse for locking the door when he was trying to work on his guns or manifesto?
What? It doesn’t hurt anything for the cops to make sure he didn’t have help. In fact, it’s correct procedure. He was lethal enough on his own, God forbid he had enablers. It’s well worth investigating. Who wants to bet an innocent life on the assumption that he was alone, without making some effort to verify that assumption is correct?
Has anyone commented anywhere that has the opinion that NBC actually impeded an investigation by holding on to evidence created by a known mass murderer, rifling through it then braodcasting it before turning it over immediately to the police/investigators? Guess they thought it was their “property” rather than State’s Evidence. Couldn’t NBC be held liable, on criminal charges if so?
Just wondering. Despicable comes to mind when thinking about what they did – but criminal carries penalities.
naliaka on April 22, 2007 at 9:50 PM
Being the massively pathetic, scrawny loser that he was, I rather believe that he was “working” on something else.
Aided by a pair of tweezers and a magnifying glass.
Misha I on April 22, 2007 at 10:05 PM
Being a student at Cornell, I can tell you that President Skorton deserves no benefit of the doubt in this situation. He knew the exact number of victims and chose to recognize the killer as 33rd victim in attempt to appease racial guilt (as See-Dubya reasoned in an earlier post).
And I specify “in this situation” because, compared to previous Cornell presidents, he really isn’t that bad of a guy. I don’t know who wrote his speech for the vigil, but I have never heard him sound so cheesy and politically correct.
tiekitwist on April 22, 2007 at 10:09 PM
Why? You think they wouldn’t recognize his own name and return address of VT over “A. Ismail?” or eventually open the package regardless of who it was from and immediately understand its importance?
TheBigOldDog on April 22, 2007 at 10:10 PM
To promote vulnerability as a moral virtue is not merely foolish. Like the new Yale props department policy, it signals to everyone that you’re not in the real world
–MARK STEYN
TheBigOldDog on April 22, 2007 at 10:20 PM
He used A. Ismail on the return address before he shot himself. If it were reported only that Cho had shot people, how would NBC know immediately when they received a package from A. Ismail that it was from Cho? They wouldn’t. It would just be another package in the pile from some guy named Ismail. I’m sure someone would have opened the package eventually, but that wasn’t really his goal, was it?
As it was, the postal worker recognized “A. Ismail” from the inscription on Cho’s arm, and pointed it out as he hand-delivered it to NBC.
MayBee on April 22, 2007 at 10:38 PM
The New York Times are so desperate to make Cho’s family seem poor, with the “row house” bit.
Cho’s neighborhood is in wealthy Fairfax County in the upper middle class area of Centreville. If you go to http://fairfaxcounty.gov/dta I guarantee that Cho’s house will be assessed for more than 400,000.
Just a question: He went to Stone Middle School in Centreville and Westfield High School, both considered top notch schools in a school system that is considered one of the best in the nation. Cho was older for being a senior. Was he ever held back in middle school or high school?
januarius on April 22, 2007 at 10:43 PM
I live in Centreville VA. About 3 miles from the Cho’s house.
2 years ago $400,000 would be cheap for a multi-bedroom townhouse in this area.
Today $400,000 is still worth looking at (starting price 350+, however you can to better if you go more out west towards Manassas/Gainsville etc.
As you said Fairfax County public schools are considered to be one of the best in the nation. I can only assume his older age was because he came to the USA when he was 8.
F15Mech on April 22, 2007 at 11:04 PM
Making out with Jelly. I’ve never heard it called that. Were her initials KY?
smellthecoffee on April 22, 2007 at 11:45 PM
Am I the only one who thinks it’s likely that this was a cover? He was in there playing with his weapons, or making his video tapes, or making his plan, or maybe he was just giving it a tug.
Stop rationalizing! We’ve been over this. You want to diagnose him because you’re obsessed with seeing “illness” everywhere. He wasn’t nuts. He was fully in control and knew what he was doing.
We want to understand what lead to the events. You, in your “mental illness” obsession want to write it off as “unchecked illness”, while accusing US of not wanting to identify the problem… when in reality it’s the other way around.
RightWinged on April 22, 2007 at 11:53 PM
His own name was more widely known immediately after the incident, than Ismail Ax. It would be easy to miss A. Ismail since it doesn’t not even match what was reported to be written on his arm (which was Ismail Ax.) So, chances are better it would have been found and recognized quicker if he had used his own name on the package. I think it’s safe to conclude package recognition was not his motivation for using that name on his package.
TheBigOldDog on April 22, 2007 at 11:55 PM
No. Package recognition was the reason it he wrote it on his arm. I have no idea why he wrote it on the package. Sure, using his own name on the package would have gotten attention, but he didn’t do that, he wrote A. Ismail.
How to let NBC know the package from A.Ismail was from him? Write it on his arm.
MayBee on April 23, 2007 at 12:04 AM
It’ll probably turn out to be something else, but my first guess was Moby Dick. Chapter 17 involves an axe and a long discussion of religion which seems like it might fit with Cho’s viewpoint (as much as we know so far anyway). Here’s a sample:
John on April 23, 2007 at 5:16 AM
All of which are totally unnecessary if he simply used his own name.
TheBigOldDog on April 23, 2007 at 6:43 AM
I’m a little confused. Isn’t this the exact opposite of what you were saying the other day?
I agree – if we can dismiss the man as simply being evil, then who cares about his rants and writings.
But YOU insisted we not do that, that we consider the mental illness angle, and that we not dare dismiss that angle.
So if we have to explore his mental illness … doesn’t it make a great deal of sense to analyze carefully his words and actions?
Unless there are two of you posting under your name, there’s a major logical disconnect here.
Professor Blather on April 23, 2007 at 7:26 AM
Oh – and Steyn is right, and Treacher very, very wrong.
Professor Blather on April 23, 2007 at 7:27 AM
Well, I agree.
I’m just saying that since he didn’t use his own name (for whatever reason) on the package, he had to make it clear somehow what name he’d used. So he wrote it on his body.
Why he didn’t use his own name on the package is a completely different question, although there seems to be anecdotal evidence that he had some issues with his name.
MayBee on April 23, 2007 at 8:10 AM
You forgot to pound your gavel.
Jim Treacher on April 23, 2007 at 11:24 AM
I apologize if this has already been brought up on another thread, but I’d say HBO and Chase Films had to be a little uneasy about some of the content on last night’s Sopranos.
I know it’s just a coincidence, but just imagine the firestorm had last night’s episode aired last Sunday night.
(I’m reluctant to get too specific, as I hate spoilers and some folks may be catching it on the re-airing, but it was more than a little freaky.)
Readymade on April 23, 2007 at 11:32 AM
The Virginia court system had him committed; he’d been on anti-depressant medications for years; not a single person interviewed in the aftermath has described him as anything close to normal. Oh, and he killed 32 people before committing suicide. That’s insane, Maybee.
For you to minimize it as “outside the mainstream”, is also borderline…
Freelancer on April 23, 2007 at 12:17 PM
I’m confused. I know I have only had a couple of classes in logic, but can anyone logically explain to me how Cho is a victim?
Tim Burton on April 23, 2007 at 12:24 PM
If you look up the word, you can correctly describe Cho as a victim:
The word has become loaded, e.g. culture of victimhood, recently, but the usage re Cho is correct.
That goofy Glenn Beck was interviewing Camille Pagula (sp?) this AM. She maintains that this whole thing illustrates how boys are being emasculated by our education system (speaking of a culture of victimhood, oy) which no longer teaches shop and trade skills. Everyone, she opines, is being primed to an executive or lawyer or “paper pusher” because all the manly, physical jobs have been shipped offshore. Nonetheless, she feels we should be preparing our boys for those types of trade/craft/manufacturing jobs.
????? Presumably we would then send them offshore as well. Idiots.
honora on April 23, 2007 at 1:09 PM
Some little word-wonk who works for Merriam-Webster says it, and it’s so? I’d be ashamed to try to settle a point of political dispute by quoting a dictionary.
Kralizec on April 23, 2007 at 7:00 PM
Interesting read on the situation,
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=55310
Mellen on April 23, 2007 at 7:17 PM
This was the first time I’d paid any real attention to Jim Treacher in years, and I thought he was just laughable. He seems to imagine he’s incisive, but he’s just flailing around with sloppy interpretation and broad sarcasm. I ended my exchanges with him by explaining to him that he’s sloppy because he’s flippant, and flippant because it’s so easy.
When Mark Steyn has been rude in some case–and the cases, thankfully, are legion–one can argue he was wrong factually, tactically, or both, but it’s well-known that his amazing insults are always in the service of deep thoughtfulness and high politics. I couldn’t detect either deep thought or high politics in Treacher’s corny act. He seems to have some sort of ability that he could develop, if he settles down, and if he comes across the right mentors. But so far, his work is still just a waste of time.
Kralizec on April 23, 2007 at 7:47 PM
Thanks for reading!
Jim Treacher on April 24, 2007 at 12:31 AM
P.S. I just checked out your Steyn fanblog and it’s nice. Please note that I haven’t said anything about the guy personally; I just disagree with him on this issue.
Jim Treacher on April 24, 2007 at 12:39 AM
You’re funny. What you mean to say is that Cho is not to be pitied or in anyway put in the category as the kids he killed. You mean that the bleeding hearts who do so are way off base. Unfortunately for you, none of that changes the meaning of the word.
honora on April 24, 2007 at 9:35 AM
SO Cho was a victim by virtue of suffering harm or death as a result of a voluntary undertaking.
Therefore, Cho is a victim of himself. No reason anyone apart from Cho to cry over that. He has to settle that with himself. No one has any obligation in anyway to memorialize him, and in fact, shouldn’t.
The rest are the victims by virtue of Cho’s voluntary act of murder against them. They were innocent and can be memorialized.
For a bunch of people with the country’s best educations available, these university presidents sure are pretty stupid if they think they are right to diminish the innocent victims by including the guilty Cho with them.
naliaka on April 24, 2007 at 12:22 PM
honora,
I would posit, re: your online dictionary definition of victim, that self-induced “injurious action or agency” would be self-evidently exclusionary to the concept.
Freelancer on April 24, 2007 at 12:33 PM
Honora is a victim of his/her own contrarianism.
Jim Treacher on April 24, 2007 at 2:29 PM
If he had paranoid schizophrenia then he was a victim…just like someone who has cancer or brain tumor….
Mellen on April 24, 2007 at 5:41 PM
I don’t know…I feel very sorry for the Cho family right along with the victim’s families..and of course the victims. They came to the U.S. legally and worked to live the American dream. Their daughter achieved this..attended Princeton, etc.
Life throws all of us curves and some are particularly severe. The son’s abilities to cope were limited for whatever reason. We can only speculate what was going on in his mind but when coping skills are limited and coupling with some other impactors (language/speech issues, being picked on when young, etc, etc, etc,) there can be a recipe for a explosion or a controlled burn at best.
There are no good answers for this because we live in a world full of people. We can hope something like this won’t happen again but statistically speaking it will.
Lets just hope it doesn’t happen again but I defy for anyone to show me one place on this earth where people live where something like this hasn’t happened. No place is immune.
serenevalley on April 24, 2007 at 6:55 PM
As I said, “he’s sloppy because he’s flippant, and flippant because it’s so easy.” It’s easier even than holding himself back from making his reply a case in point.
Kralizec on April 24, 2007 at 9:40 PM
I don’t at all think you have a bleeding heart.
Kralizec on April 24, 2007 at 9:52 PM
Okay, I read your Steyn fanblog and it’s not nice. No pleasing some people… In any case, it’s obvious that you feel a deep personal connection with the man and are prone to lashing out at anyone who makes you feel bad about that. It’s perfectly understandable.
Jim Treacher on April 25, 2007 at 2:41 AM
Flippant and sloppy, you keep adding to the record. It seems you can overcome the characterization only by replacing the habits that sustain the character; however, replacing the habits would hurt.
Kralizec on April 25, 2007 at 4:32 AM
Interestingly put!
Jim Treacher on April 25, 2007 at 4:48 AM
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