just so sad that world is so topsy turvy. 33 lives wasted and we'll probably not know what caused korean gunman to snap and end so many and his own life.......

I read somewhere that he was "supersmart" and it runs in his family; his sister graduated from Princeton. But intelligence doesn't always accompany morals. Some people will say he was lonely, disturbed, had problems etc. As if they are excuses for what he did. Many people have dark lives, and some choose to kill themselves but they don't take others with them. This killer intentionally and hatefully hunted innocents (even if he didn't think they were innocent). Nothing can excuse what he's done. It was a choice he made.

no excuse indeed... that was what i hope people would understand... regardless of race, citizenship, whatever... but the media has its ways of getting itself and people caught up in what seems like the irrelevant issues...

All this got me interested in how his mind worked.... read his short plays...
http://news.aol.com/virginia-tech-shootings/cho-seung-hui/_a/mr-brownstone-title-page/20070417141309990001
http://news.aol.com/virginia-tech-shootings/cho-seung-hui/_a/richard-mcbeef-cover-page/20070417134109990001
Really dark and both presented the theme of child abuse.

it's a re-occuring cry-for-help... and it seems that whatever / how the 'norm' of using violence to resolve problems came about... it is used as 'artistic license' in the plays.

one can keep saying how sad, sick and horrible it all is... but who's really willing to go to the ROOTs of the problem(s)? our society is corrupted with the "quick-and-easy" / 'prozac' symptomatic-only solutions and/or post-hoc rationalizations. e.g. rather than advocating a healthier life-style to lower medical expenses in the long-run, we are madly looking for drugs to help us keep alive.

on the same vein, security -- while important -- is something that is 'superficial' ... if the society has no sense of basic love for human-kind, or basic moral awareness, no barrier, no matter how 'secure' will be able to prevent harm from getting near. i like to believe that we don't resort to such madness as to attack another unless we feel we've been driven to the brink of insanity...

likewise, semantics of 'good' or 'evil' are NOT helpful. if we can begin to try to undestand the complexities of what makes us who we are, maybe we can appreciate that everyone of us has the capacity to do good as well as bad things, and/or the capacity to lose the clarity of sensible reasoning... etc. many things/events/experiences/influences/accessible societal norms (e.g. ammunition?!) etc. can contribute to the shaping of who we are, and might become...

grrrr =CZ