Well, I decided to come back after all. During our weekend to remember a few weeks ago, I decided to take a month off, as I did once last year as well. At one point a few weeks ago, I considered just closing up shop, having grown a little weary of this after nearly two years. That’s still a possibility at some point, but I’m going to continue on for now. My domain name expires in August or September, so maybe I’ll evaluate again at that time.

The month of April was quite busy in the national news department, and since much of this happened in the first half of the month, this is old news already. Nevertheless, here’s a few comments related to some of the bigger stories.

A Culture of Meanness

In the aftermath of the offensive comments made by Don Imus and Bernard McGuirk on Imus In The Morning, I was listening to Tony Kornheiser’s radio show. A guest on the show (and I don’t recall who it was) made a reference to a “culture of meanness” that has developed in our society. People are just not as civil to one another as they used to be, and certainly not like they should be. It’s pretty obvious if you watch some of the news or political type talk shows, or listen to just about any type of talk radio. Some people are just mean, or at least behave that way at times. Not surprisingly, Ann Coulter’s name was one of the first mentioned, and certainly the political arena produces a lot of this meanness from all sides.

But it goes beyond politics, and seems to be particularly harsh online. I frequent a number of blogs and message boards, and sometimes it’s shocking what people are willing to say to one another when they don’t have to do so face to face. When you can anonymously voice your opinion to (and about) others, all kinds of vile remarks are made. I visited a number of sports sites where this was evident during college basketball season. This is even true on one Christian message board I visit. It has various forums (theology, books, news, politics), and I sometimes visit the politics section. I’d say 90% of the people who post are conservatives, and it’s amazing some of the things they’ll say about Democrats, Muslims, and pretty much anyone who disagrees with them. I don’t mean to imply it’s unique to conservative Christians - that’s just an example I see regularly. And, of course, it’s not unique to Christians. But, as a Christian, it is more troubling to me to see so many Christians willing behave this way (and I’m not pretending that I’m above making poor choices in this area on occasion, either.)

Tolerance is often preached as a virtue, but it seems that few people (from any point of view) really have much for those they disagree with or those they see as different from themselves. And the intolerance seems to be readily displayed in speech toward others. Any difference of opinion can lead to a heated exchange, ridicule and/or name-calling. Can we not do better than that? Do we have so little respect for the opinions and beliefs of others that it’s not enough to simply disagree, but we must actually be unkind to them and attempt to belittle them? Have we really become a “mean society”?

Duke lax

The Duke lacrosse case also was in the news again, and this time, it was the news we’ve all been expecting for a very long time: the three players were declared innocent by Attorney General Roy Cooper. I hope it was worth it for Mr. Nifong. I have to think he’s now second guessing his decision to go down that path in the first place, or at least I would hope so. The election angle on Nifong’s motives has been mentioned countless times, but a couple of weeks ago, I heard John Feinstein (also on Kornheiser’s show) mention that Nifong attempted to get into Duke as a 17-year old, yet was not accepted. He followed it up with something about not wanting to imply anything about Nifong’s motives, but the point was made. He was clearly implying the possibility that Nifong had an ax to grind with Duke and that the experience of being rejected by Duke played a part in his pursuing this case so zealously despite the lack of evidence. Regardless of whether or not there’s any fact in that theory, Nifong did about as poor of a job as he could have, and it does appear that it was largely based on his personal motives more than anything else (least of all, evidence!)

In the days following the charges being dropped and the declaration of innocence, I read several good articles, but this one stuck with me, perhaps because of who wrote it.

And, after all of this, the #2 ranked Duke team won the ACC championship yesterday by defeating #3 Virginia. Good for them. They were ranked #1 last year when Nifong appeared and their season was canceled. I’d love to see them win it all this year.

Blacksburg

What is it about the third week of April? Waco, Oklahoma City, Littleton, and now Blacksburg.

The biggest story of the month, no doubt, was the shootings at Virginia Tech. The first day or two I saw a lot of talk about subjects that seemed inappropriate so soon after the event (i.e. “gun control”, administration’s handling, etc.) Those are questions that may need to be asked, but I thought they could have waited a couple of days at the least. And I very quickly grew tired of all of the titles given by the news folks to their coverage - “Massacre in Virginia”, etc. I didn’t watch a lot of the coverage, but every time I turned to a news channel, there was a banner covering up the bottom quarter of the screen. And, the same goes for “We’re all Hokies today”, which seemed to be omnipresent that first week as well.

I’m not surprised, though, that the national media made a tragic even into a circus. That’s what they do. With everything. The questioning and second guessing of the administration’s action (or inaction) was almost immediate. The day after the shooting, Diane Sawyer was interviewing the school president on GMA and badgering him about how the university handled the whole thing after the first shooting. They may have been able to do a better job in notification, but I don’t honestly believe there would have been a significantly different outcome. This wasn’t a spur of the moment decision by Cho Seung-Hui. He’d clearly put in some time planning this, and the guy was pretty determined.

Stricter laws regarding purchasing and owning firearms was the other topic the media took off with within seconds of the shootings. Now, let me first say that I don’t care for guns. I don’t have one, I don’t want one, and I don’t intend to ever have one. I wouldn’t trust myself with one, and I don’t want them near my kids. So, if there are stricter gun laws, it’s not going to bother me at all. In fact, it’s probably a good idea, and I honestly don’t understand why people oppose it. However, both sides of the issue have made a lot of wild claims in my opinion. I’ve heard or read the following:

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• Stricter gun laws could have prevented this. Possible, but far from fact. He broke laws to commit the crime he did. More laws probably wouldn’t have been a significant deterrent.
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• If not for the VTU prohibition of firearms on campus, an armed student or professor could have stopped him. Again, not a fact. Not even close. It’s an assumption, and a pretty big one at that. Even if others had been armed, there are so many variables that it’s impossible to know. If we’re going to talk hypothetical scenarios, I can imagine a number of them where other people started pulling out guns and made things worse, not better.
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• Even with stricter laws, or if guns were taken away completely, people could use knives or bombs. You can’t exactly go to a local bomb shop and pick one up, and while knives of all types are readily available, it seems unlikely that a guy would take out 32 people with a knife in this situation. That’s going to take some skill, especially since people might be more apt to rush him. rn

I’ve heard more, but not much, because, as I mentioned, I didn’t watch a lot of the perpetual coverage on the news channels. I just couldn’t do it this time. So, I’m not entirely sure how much they’ve discussed Cho. I did see a story that featured some of the video that he recorded prior to the shootings, where he rants against all types of things and blames others for “doing this to me.” I remember coming to tears a couple of times while watching the continuous coverage from Littleton in 1999, both for the victims and the two students responsible. This time, I mostly avoided it.

Regardless of what comes of an event likes this regarding campus security and the legality of acquiring and owning firearms, I’ve found myself reflecting on something far more important for me personally. Cho said “you did this to me.” I think he clearly had some issues, but how much of a part did others treatment of him at some point in his life affect his final actions? I hope that, after yet another tragedy like this, I’m more sensitive to those I come in contact with and am more aware of what it means to be a neighbor and how I deal with others. Particularly those who are different from me. How do they see me? Do they see one who claims to follow Christ, but really only follows self and has little regard for them? Or, do they see Jesus? If not, then it’s possible that I’m part of the problem.

Quote

I like this quote. I’d actually not heard it before reading it on my nephew’s Facebook page last week.

I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.

- Mohandas Gandhi

In one of his books, Philip Yancey recommended Erik Erikson’s book, Ghandi’s Truth, as a resource for learning more about Ghandi. I have a copy I found on eBay a few years ago, but still haven’t read. I need to get to that.

Other stuff

On a personal note, my daughter has developed a British accent that she uses about half the time. And along with that, a fascination with playing poker. Why? She’s discovered The Parent Trap (not the original, but rather the Quaid-Richardson-Lohan version from 1998.) It was on the Disney channel four or five weeks ago, and I recorded it for her because I thought she would like it. She did. She loved it. She’s seen it more times than I can count now.

If you’ve seen it, you’re aware that one of the twins had been raised in London, and so my daughter began imitating her accent. It was funny at first. After a few days it was moving more towards annoying. Fortunately, I think it’s about run it’s course, although it does still return temporarily on occasion.

A few days after that started, she came across a deck of cards and wanted me to teach her how to play poker (again, as they did in the movie.) Unfortunately, I haven’t the slightest idea how to play poker. I’ve never played and know absolutely nothing about how to do so. Instead, she just makes it up on her own. I guess that’s best for now.

And, finally, I celebrated my birthday on Saturday. My daughter told me in the car on that afternoon, “Daddy, you’re growing up so fast!” It was one of those birthdays where everyone asks “do you feel old??” I think it’s a silly question. You mean older than yesterday? No. It’s only been one day. When I turned 30, people were asking me that question, and I said “no”. I still felt pretty young back then. Ten years, two kids and, uh… several pounds later, I just respond that I felt old years ago, so adding one to my age doesn’t really make a difference.

Among those who share my birth date are Harper Lee (author of one of my favorite books, To Kill A Mockingbird), Jorge Garcia (Lost’s Hurley), professional golfer John Daly, and comedian/talk show host Jay Leno.

Oh, yeah… and Saddam Hussein, although he’s not doing much celebrating this year.

Okay, that’s all I’ve got (and it was way too much.) Tomorrow, I’ll wrap up my thoughts on college basketball, since I wasn’t around to do that a month ago. Yeah, it’s very late, but it must be done.