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.

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.

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.

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

I don’t at all think you have a bleeding heart.

P.S. I just checked out your Steyn fanblog and it’s nice.

Jim Treacher on April 24, 2007 at 12:39 AM

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Oh – and Steyn is right, and Treacher very, very wrong.

Professor Blather on April 23, 2007 at 7:27 AM

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.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=55310

If you look up the word, you can correctly describe Cho as a victim….

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.

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:

a person who suffers from a destructive or injurious action or agency

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.

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“.

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?

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

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…

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.)

Oh – and Steyn is right, and Treacher very, very wrong.

You forgot to pound your gavel.

All of which are totally unnecessary if he simply used his own name.

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.

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

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.

MayBee on April 23, 2007 at 12:04 AM

All of which are totally unnecessary if he simply used his own name.