American Cliche #94
This was a tough show to prepare. It is a constant struggle to walk the line between respect for what happened at Virginia Tech, and also offer you 30 minutes of escapism from the barrage of death on CNN. I did my best.
- Thoughts on the Tragedy
- One Man’s Opinion
- Listener Feedback From Anita
- Check out Greg’s New Site: http://projectgreenplanet.blogspot.com
- Dentist Guilty of Peeing in His Surgical Sink
- Mighty Minute
- Passenger Found Dead in Airplane Restroom
- Suing for Too Much Sex?
- Check out what Mobil 1 Can Do for Your Car
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April 18th, 2007 at 9:11 am
Scott,
Working in the dental industry I can’t see how this dentist will end up keeping his license, and if, by chance, this dentist does retain his licenses, I don’t believe he’ll be having the same intake of patients. I have a feeling he’ll probably be retiring soon. Cause seriously, that’s just disgusting. How is it that someone can get so lazy that you can’t use your own office bathroom, and even then, how come this guy can’t bring his own tools to clean your nails/teeth/whatever? Or maybe I should be asking, how can this guy be so comfortable that he can just whip it out, piss in his sink knowing that he’s got staff and patients walking around the office. Does he think they can’t see him? Or is it more of a game for him?
That’s just sick.
April 18th, 2007 at 9:12 am
Hey Scott,
The tragedy in Blacksburg is horrible, we all mourn for the victims & their families. After listening to your show this morning, I went to check out the news on Yahoo. As I scanned through the headlines there were numerous stories about the VA Tech shootings. As I was about to click on one of those stories I realized something that really bothered me. I had completely skipped over a headline about four bombs going off in Baghdad & killing 160 people. How could I miss that? How is it possible that 160 lives becomes just another headline that doesn’t even get noticed? Is it possible that we as a country have such a short attention span that if the media is not pushing the issue directly down our throats non-stop we forget about the issue. Or maybe after it’s pushed down our throat for a week, we’re so self engaged that we learn just to block the issue out. I’m not trying to make lite of the horrid events that took place in Blacksburg, but we all know by the end of next week the media & the country will have moved on to something else & and the VA Tech shootings will quickly become a hazy memory to all those that were’nt directly affected. 160 lives were lost today in a bombing that most of us probably won’t even know happened. 32 Lives were lost yesterday in a shooting that will fade from peoples minds all too quickly. It’s kind of amazing & very sad what humans as a race can adjust to, and consider normal isn’t it?
April 18th, 2007 at 10:02 am
Hey Scott,
My only question is why? I mean we always say hind sight is 20/20 but seriously why haven’t we learned out lesson yet? Look at columbine, honestly i can’t remember how many students died but one life in a school shooting to much. Why are school shottings happening at all? I mean if that was a terrorist within a short period of time the school would have been closed and the national guard would have arrived! Two hours pass and how many dead before he took his own life, Unbelievable! This was preventable is the bottom line, it could have been stopped before it happened. I think with a society that has cameras everywhere we have become blind to the world around us! We don’t pay attention to detail and we are obviously blinded my media and our own lives to important to help or pay attention to other people. Bottom line this needs to stop! Plain and simple it needs to stop! We need to gain out sense of sight back and by then and only then will we see again!
Be nice to one another, who knows what you’ll get in return.
April 18th, 2007 at 1:20 pm
In response to Bryce, I think there is just way too much going on in the world today that it is near impossible to keep up with every single story. There’s just too many of them to cover. You could sit and read articles all day and create a list of all that you read, continue each day following up on those subjects, adding new ones to your list as they come. You’ll find within a few days or so, your list has become so long that it is very difficult to follow up on every single one. It’s not that people have short attention spans per se (though that’s very possible), it’s just that there is so much out there to digest.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:12 pm
I think Bryce is absolutely right in that in two weeks we will have moved on. And I think there are some positives to that. But it’s how much we can learn in that short time span based on how we feel now that makes the difference. I don’t think we should dwell on things like these forever by any stretch, but I think we should dwell on them long enough to learn and adequately deal with the emotional side of it. And as far as the war goes, I think war demands its own level of desensitization that is above and beyond most anything we as coddled americans encounter. I’m not saying that’s a good thing, but that’s why a bomb that kills 160 in Iraq gets 2nd chair to 33 college kids killed right here on our own soil. I just wish we weren’t so quick to move on then maybe some of these types of incididents are wars would be prevented. Thanks for listening.
-J
opinionated.jason@gmail.com
April 18th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
Virginia is my home state, I grew up there, and I love that place. It’s a beautiful, quiet land that gave this country George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, it’s the place where the first settlement was established in Jamestown in 1607, exactly 400 years ago. We don’t deserve this, the good, decent Virginians don’t deserve this…As shock and sad as I am, I’m puzzled. What’s wrong with this kid? What kind of hatred could he possibly have? What motivated him to carry out such a horrible act? I wish the NBC news can release the Multi-media manifesto soon, so that we could learn why has this country’s great tradition of melting pot failed? Who is responsible? And most importantly, how can we be more responsible in the future? I don’t think this thing will slip out of my mind in just two or three weeks, it will stay there for a very long time, if not forever. And it’s not just because I’m from Virginia, I think, as long as this kind of tragedy keeps happening, we, every living American, has a share in the failure. We failed them, we failed protecting the victims, we failed educating the perpetrators, we failed to be a shining city on a shining hill, we let our founding fathers down. Well, at least I feel this way. Thank you, Scott, Jason, and all the people who took a moment out and mourn, in a moment like this, a little prayer means the world.
April 19th, 2007 at 6:21 am
I feel like I should respond to Christina. I think it’s natural for us to want to point the finger and say “The Virginia police are responsible for not reacting quickly enough; the shooter’s teachers are responsible for not doing something about his abnormal behavior.” Even Barry said “we failed” at least four times. Now, while I dont disagree that there are many improvements we could make in our country, I dont think finger pointing at others and ourselves is the right answer. Actually, I point the finger 100% at the shooter. People need to stop blaming video games, parents, teachers, movies, music, and whatever and need to start owning up to personal responsibility. While the aforementioned influences may affect our thinking to some extent, every individual is very well aware of what is RIGHT and what is WRONG. If we lived our lives planning for any possible mass shooting, we would never leave our houses. The fact is, you can’t plan for things like what happened at Virginia Tech. We need to give every human the benefit of the doubt that they will behave in sane, normal ways. It sucks that every once in a while someone’s going to fuck it up for us. But I guess all I’m trying to say is let’s focus on what we can do to change the hearts of those sad individuals. We can’t stand in the mirror wondering what we could’ve done differently. That’s a game we just can’t play.
April 19th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
Jim,
You missed the point, there was two hours in between shottings, why did the second shotting happen? Why wasn’t he stopped? That is what i don’t get. I agree i blame the shooter 100% but did so many people have to die. All i am saying is that the police should have stopped i mean, he went to the post office in between shottings. They had ample opportunity to stop him but two hours was to long, to bad nobody screamed terrorist attack and then maybe more lives would have saved.
April 19th, 2007 at 8:54 pm
jason is absolutely right on his thoughts about violence and the fact that it will happen with or without guns. back in the day, people used to punch each other and then go get a beer. now, they can’t do that because people are so afraid of what will happen if they get caught, that they bottle it up until they kill someone. first we make spankings illegal, then we wonder why the kids we can never explain “anger” to end up going on a rampage. it’s the same formula that causes priests to rape because they fight the smaller urges for so long, that they just burst and hurt far more people in the end.
April 20th, 2007 at 9:00 am
Christina,
Honestly, no one could have known what this kid was planning on doing. Articles have mentioned that at first the police thought it was a homicide, not the start of a shooting, because only two people had been shot. Police were looking into that, while this kid was making his manifesto, and then finishing what he started. Yes, I’ll agree with you, this was a tragedy, but no one is at fault for this happening. No one, except for this kid who felt he needed to do what he did. Why this happened? Well, the kid’s no longer around to tell us. Probably something wrong upstairs with this kid. But blaming the police doesn’t make things better, nor does it provide any comfort to the families who lost. If you were a cop, and you discover that 2 people had been murdered, would you have instantly thought, ‘oh, whoever did this is going to cause a massive shooting in 2 hours!’. You would’ve been just like them, not knowing who could murder 2 lives, still unaware that so many more would be lost soon after. Just something to think about.
April 23rd, 2007 at 3:57 pm
Jason & Scott,
Your segment was great. I had a problem with NBC showing the video and pictures. I mean thats like playing a video of of terrorist after he killed a couple thousand people. I wish I could play your segment for my U.S. History class, but since school rules are “no language that may be offensive” we can’t.
April 23rd, 2007 at 8:54 pm
Ryan,
What bothers me is this, is it ordinary for two people to be murdered on the daily basis where you go to school or to work? All i am saying is if the cops and the facility took the murders more seriously which to me they didn’t, in my opinion, 30 people would still be alive. I mean all classes would have be canceled. I mean news travels fast, so why didn’t the students get off campus for a few hours? All i am saying is that more could have been done to prevent this tragedy. I do believe his poetry professor was scared to death of him so why wasn’t more done at that time. More could have been done to stop this, i just think as a society we are numb to things like this. It is becoming who we are and the system is screwed up. Honestly, with the way we treat each other as Americans I am surprised that more shottings don’t occur more often.