Howdy Pardner!

This is my little boy all dressed up for Halloween last night. It was all we could do to keep that hat on his head for a couple of pics. He wanted to peel the straw out of it.

All in all, Halloween was a pretty good time. I got my pumpkin carved late but it came out really nicely and I'm a proud carving monkey.

The boys got out for a little trick or treating before the rain started up. Grady was a fireman and Sully was a cowboy. I didn't really dress up but I did throw on some surgical scrubs.

And then there was the awful story this morning about the 12 year old boy who was shot to death while trick or treating with his family. Some nutter fired something like 30 shots through the door with an assault rifle, hitting him, his brother and his father. He appears to have thought he was being robbed which, had it been true, he still went completely overboard in his response and would have been arrested anyway.

Pretty freaky when you think about it. But nothing bad happened out here and both boys were out cold pretty early given all the candy they were able to consume and all the generalized craziness of the evening.

It was a good Halloween. Even if it didn't really feel like Halloween at all.

VT Copycats? WTF?

It seems that Cho Seung-Hui has hit a chord with introverted, loner, stalker losers all over the country with numerous threats made by teens and young folks all across the nation.

So far they are just threats of violence and braggadacio (as an aside, I absolutely love that word). But it may progress to the point that somebody does try to open up their own can of whoop ass somewhere and take "revenge" or try to fulfill their holy mission of cleansing or whatever twisted jibber-jabber they use to rationalize their attack.

It is a pretty scary idea though, isn't it, a nation beset by random rampages on college and high school campuses? Who needs terrorism when we're raising our own here at home?

Also, I have actively started avoiding the news channels. I tapped out on insights into his life and the mashed up reality he existed in. He was quiet to a fault but it would appear that there was a raging storm of emotion and thought behind his intractable stoneface.

The saturation of the news with this story almost helped to drown out the angry and ugly beating Slimy Al Gonzales got by the Senators. Another GOP Senator has called for his resignation. He is much beleaugured but has outlasted my prediction of two weeks back in March 21st. Oh well, I don't mind being off by a week or two.

Tragedy's Aftermath

I happened to click onto CNN last night when they were interviewing two of Cho Seung Hui's previous roommates. The stories they related, the additional evidence presented and excerpts from his plays paint a pretty sad and lonely picture. Until you remember that this guy murdered 32 people.

And yet I still have a tinge of sympathy for him. He had no ability to make friends or didn't want them, he wanted to be with women but had no skills to interact with them so he stalked them. He had alot of problems and never knew that he could and should seek help.

The extreme nature of the murders and the anger evidenced illustrates just how isolated and alone someone can be with their demons. He shot each and every victim three times to do as much damage as he could. And when he'd spent his fury, he killed himself because he knew there was nothing but prison walls or the death penalty (does Virginia have capital punishment? I think so but its hard to remember).

Time will tell if his plays were glimpses inside his own history or whether he was just an angry, bitter kid. If his plays are his reality then he had a pretty awful upbringing that included beatings and sexual abuse. But that's neither here nor there and it doesn't, on any level, justify his murderous actions. Nothing can justify his murders. Nothing can justify his snuffing of 32 lives.

And for that he will very rightly be remembered as a monster.

Also, as an aside, people screaming for gun control reforms are trying to capitalize on this tragedy for their own ends. Gun control would have done nothing to prevent this tragedy, the guns were purchased legally and without incident. Also, rushing to legislate in the wake of tragedies is a stupid idea. Just look at the Patriot Act.

What a Waste

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How terribly sad and completely avoidable.

[Update: We've seen the gunman (maybe gunboy is more appropriate?) but there is still very little to go on. I will go out on a limb and suggest that part of his rampage stems from anger or frustration over a girl. I could be wrong but that's my hunch here.

Update #2: Va. Tech Gunman Writings Raised Concerns

The gunman in the Virginia Tech massacre was a sullen loner who alarmed professors and classmates with his twisted, blood-drenched creative writing and left a rambling note in his dorm room raging against women and rich kids.

The Chicago Tribune reported on its Web site that the note railed against "rich kids,""debauchery" and "deceitful charlatans" on campus. ABC, citing law enforcement sources, said that the note, several pages long, explains Cho's actions and says, "You caused me to do this."

The article later points out that he went to Westfield High School in Chantilly, Va and that two of the women he killed went there as well. And all of the warning signs were there, he'd even been referred for counseling because of his nightmarish stories in creative writing.]