3/8: Bathroom of Williams shooting

[Undertoad]

This is the bathroom in which the CA school shooting began.

I like pictures that personalize tragedy. Thus, the TX death row images. This one does it in a way that doesn't really tell us much about the shooting, though.

I wish the school shootings would end, of course. This is not because of feeling for those who were shot, or the families of those who were shot. This is feeling that these shootings are part of something larger than all of us. People die, that's a tragedy. People die needless, that's a bigger tragedy. People die and our overreaction causes more and greater problems than the original killings: that's the worst-case scenario.

I like tw's predictions. I want to predict as well. I predict that the overreaction to the shootings is going to be far, far worse than the shootings themselves. Think of what happens to a generation that's overprotected and still lives in fear.

The past generations feared the bomb. The next generation will fear each other. The humanity that it takes to recognize problems in these adolescents will be systematically erased from them. The problems that have led up to these shooting will continue and worsen. So I predict that there will be many more shootings to come.

[elSicomoro]

Originally posted by Tony Shepps
The past generations feared the bomb. The next generation will fear each other. The humanity that it takes to recognize problems in these adolescents will be systematically erased from them. The problems that have led up to these shooting will continue and worsen. So I predict that there will be many more shootings to come.

Interesting...

You know, I only graduated from high school 7 years ago. The worst thing I ever saw during my 4 years were some pranks and a fistfight. Of course, I went to parochial school. I saw a few odd things at the public schools, like the kid who was chased through a high school with a gun--he wound up leaping out a second-story window and broke his leg.

I think that there were a few isolated incidents that spawned copycat after copycat. You would have thought that Columbine would have been the end of it, but sadly, no. Furthermore, we have REACTION instead of some practical PROACTION. The schools are "getting tough" on these "bad seeds." Zero tolerance...blah blah blah.

Seems to be working well so far, eh?

Granted, I only have a bachelor's degree in psychology with a minor in social work. But is that damned hard to give kids some simple ways to blow off steam? Help them better resolve conflicts? Instead, we blame TV and Marilyn Manson.
Or the parents. Has it also ever occurred to the experts that maybe these kids simply aren't hard-wired very well?

</rant>

[Chewbaccus]

Even now, parochial schools aren't safe. It wasn't popularized greatly but in Williamsport, PA, one girl shot (not fatally) another with a revolver in a Catholic school.

It isn't so much steam (though it is a factor) as it is denial. The parents of these kids live in the deepest pit of denial I have ever seen, because they know that their kid is in the same situation, but they refuse to take responsibility. Instead they blame mass media. Who is it this time, Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit that's taking the shots on this one? Does anyone else find it ironic that these are the bands that released albums around the time that this whole thing had to have begun to be planned?


~Mike

[adamzion]

Originally posted by sycamore
I think that there were a few isolated incidents that spawned copycat after copycat. You would have thought that Columbine would have been the end of it, but sadly, no. Furthermore, we have REACTION instead of some practical PROACTION. The schools are "getting tough" on these "bad seeds." Zero tolerance...blah blah blah.

Seems to be working well so far, eh?
[/i]

Especially in the "nice, safe suburbs, where this kind of stuff never happens."

News flash: the "nice, safe suburbs" seem to be the only kind of places where the mass school shootings happen. Granted, city kids bring guns into school, but not one of the shootings over the past few years has been at anything other than a suburban school, or was committed by anyone other than a white kid, typically a child of privlige.

Just pointing out the obvious, again,
Z

[elSicomoro]

Originally posted by adamzion
Especially in the "nice, safe suburbs, where this kind of stuff never happens."

No one would have given two shits about grunge music, rave culture, and the rise in pot use...until some 15-year old kid and his buddies got into it all.

I'm not trying to start a city-suburbs war here...you are entitled to live where you choose. But all that sorta thing was looked as "freakish" until the early 90s...when all the madness started seeping into bedroom communities.

(And quite frankly, I'll put my neighborhood here in the city up against any suburban neighborhood. We'll match 'em on amenities, crime rates, etc. Good living is still possible in the big city. That's it...I'm running for City Council. ;-) )

And I lived in a small town when it was still uncool to be a freak...heh.

[Undertoad]

What CC neighborhood are you in? I've seen top-quality city living in Center City east and west, much of South Philly, Manayunk, Roxborough, East Falls, Chestnut Hill (although that's not really city living I guess).

Apologies to out non-Philly users...

[tw]

Originally posted by sycamore
Granted, I only have a bachelor's degree in psychology with a minor in social work. But is that damned hard to give kids some simple ways to blow off steam? Help them better resolve conflicts? Instead, we blame TV and Marilyn Manson.
Or the parents. Has it also ever occurred to the experts that maybe these kids simply aren't hard-wired very well?

The symptoms first perplexed me in the late 1970s while living along Route 80 in NJ. The snow line terminated west of the Delaware River. But about 10% to 1/3rd of the cars were covered in snow even as I got off the interstate just before Newark. Where were all these cars commuting every day completely across the state of NJ? How much time did those parents spend at home?

Latest report puts parent out of the home even more. 60% of all kids are now latch-key children. Of course, what can you expect when parents leave before 6 AM and return only after 7 PM. What kind of responsible upbringing is that? We call it the suburbs. Observe the Schukyll Expressway. PBS Frontline made that obvious in their report on Atlanta suburb schools, ironically, just before one of those schools had a Columbine type shooting.

Allentown is now a major growth city in Philly. Why? Allentown is now a suburb of NYC. The bumper to bumper traffic on I-78 between Allentown and the cities every weekday?

We cannot purchase guns with locks - my god that would violate the 2nd Amendment!!! But who puts that gun and kid in the house - then leaves them together for how many hours every day? They don't know the kid and really don't know where the gun is. Boom. Frontline in particular made that obvious - and scary.

[russotto]

Originally posted by adamzion

Especially in the "nice, safe suburbs, where this kind of stuff never happens."

News flash: the "nice, safe suburbs" seem to be the only kind of places where the mass school shootings happen. Granted, city kids bring guns into school, but not one of the shootings over the past few years has been at anything other than a suburban school, or was committed by anyone other than a white kid, typically a child of privlige.

Just pointing out the obvious, again,
Z

Actually there was a shooting in a Philadelphia school last year. Accidental. City kids do seem to have other ways to blow off steam; however, these include killing each other off of school grounds. I think in the suburbs the school is probably the only place that the most despised of teenagers will interact with his peers, thus it presents the only opportunity for this sort of thing.

[Undertoad]

I said, <i>"This is feeling that these shootings are part of something larger than all of us. People die, that's a tragedy. People die needless, that's a bigger tragedy. People die and our overreaction causes more and greater problems than the original killings: that's the worst-case scenario."</i>

There was a stat on TV the other day that showed that school shootings are actually down to 11, from 53 eight years ago.

53! Where was the media attention back then? Why weren't we all horrified beyond belief? Because even 53 is a ridiculously low number. One per state. Now it's 1 per every ten states.

About 1000 children die from drowning; now there's a much more meaningful number. It's just not a Springer show type of story.

On one hand, we're being fed by the media. But on the other hand, it's we who are feeding the media, with our interest or lack of interest in any particular news story. What maintains our interest is very carefully measured and worked out with great detail, every day.

As a society, we are moving from requiring a careful, journalistic approach to wanting every story to amaze us to a new level.

There was a story a couple years ago of a spring break travel agency allowing all kinds of craziness on the plane trip down to Mexico, including a wet t-shirt contest, in which high-school students were included. Now, lewdness amongst the young is not news, right? But in this case, there was VIDEO. Which meant the story was run not once, but several times, with a followup a few months later so they could run it during sweeps.

So, to me, the shootings themselves are not really as big a deal as the overreaction to them.

[Edited by Tony Shepps on 03-12-2001 at 01:22 AM]

[elSicomoro]

Originally posted by Tony Shepps
What CC neighborhood are you in? I've seen top-quality city living in Center City east and west, much of South Philly, Manayunk, Roxborough, East Falls, Chestnut Hill (although that's not really city living I guess).

Actually, I'm up in Torresdale, near the Bucks County line. Granted, it's almost like a suburb in these parts, but I'm very blessed to have found such a nice area. Truth be told, between Franklin Mills (5 minutes away) and the 3 strip malls near me, I have everything I need--groceries, banking, fast food, sit-down eating, and shopping. Most of it I can actually walk to (and could walk to Franklin Mills if I were up for a brisk walk). It's not exactly upscale, but it reminds me a lot of the neighborhood I lived in back in St. Louis. Public transit is right outside my front door. Center City is 20 minutes away by car or just under an hour by bus/subway. Now, if Starbucks or XandO would open a coffee joint up here...I imagine they'll put one on the Boulevard in the near future.

I couldn't live in Center City, particularly after I just completed a tour of duty working down there. It's nice and all, but the parking...ugh. S. Philly, Manayunk, Roxborough...they're nice, but all the houses on top of one another makes me a tad claustrophobic.