Posted on 04/25/2007 12:48:14 AM PDT by neverdem
BLACKSBURG, Va., April 18 — Cho Seung-Hui rarely spoke to his own dormitory roommate. His teachers were so disturbed by some of his writing that they referred him to counseling. And when Mr. Cho finally and horrifyingly came to the world’s attention on Monday, he did so after writing a note that bitterly lashed out at his fellow students for what he deemed their moral decay.
Mr. Cho’s eruption of violence, in which 32 victims and himself were killed on the Virginia Tech campus here in a rampage of gunfire, was never directly signaled by his actions or words, several of his acquaintances said Tuesday. But those acquaintances were frequently disturbed by his isolation from the world and his barely concealed anger.
Joe Aust, who shared Room 2121 at Harper Hall with him, said he had spoken to Mr. Cho often but had received only one-word replies. Later, Mr. Aust said, Mr. Cho stopped talking to him entirely. Mr. Aust would sometimes enter the room and find Mr. Cho sitting at his desk, staring into nothingness.
“He was always really, really quiet and kind of weird, keeping to himself all the time,” said Mr. Aust, a 19-year-old sophomore, who, though finding Mr. Cho strange, had not thought him menacing.
Yet there were signs that his behavior was more than just bizarre.
Lucinda Roy said that in October of 2005 she was contacted as head of the English Department by a professor who was disturbed by a piece of his writing. Ms. Roy, rebuffed by Mr. Cho, contacted the campus police, counseling services,...
--snip--
He also took a prescription medicine. Neither Mr. Aust nor Mr. Grewal knew what the medicine was for, but officials said prescription medications related to the treatment of psychological problems had been found among Mr. Cho’s effects.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
This might get interesting.
The drugs affect his brain.
“He was always really, really quiet and kind of weird, keeping to himself all the time,” said Mr. Aust, a 19-year-old sophomore, who, though finding Mr. Cho strange, had not thought him menacing.
Sounds like the ideal roommate to me...
Gosh, why such an *old* article? I’ve seen more updated news than this, which is a week old. They’ve learned much more now...
“Gunman Showed Signs of Anger”
No. Your kidding. He was actually angry when he killed thirtytwo people? Who’d of ever thought...
Stupid, just plain stupid.
< / CAPTAIN OBVIOUS PIC >
Actually, his moron of a rommate was the principal reason any of this happened. His political ultra-correctedness led him to believe Cho’s behavior was acceptable. “Perhaps his culture is such that no one speaks to one another.” He has openly said as much.
Not all are like that and many are decent people and would most likely help others if they knew there was a need. However for someone who is an introvert to start, I imagine not having social contact on an isolated campus can result in a mental break.
This is an environment where young people are thrown together from different parts in the country after going through the rat race of having to do really well on a test and being told the results will determine the rest of their lives. I guess what I am trying to say is that college campuses are really abnormal places that really screw with people mentally. The fact that this guy had been there for such a long time and only one person attempted to speak to him is a window into how messed up these places and education really is.
You said — “Actually, his moron of a rommate was the principal reason any of this happened. His political ultra-correctedness led him to believe Cho’s behavior was acceptable. “Perhaps his culture is such that no one speaks to one another.” He has openly said as much.”
Nope, I really don’t think it had anything to do with his Dorm-mate. The reason i can be really confident on that is because there *was* a time when a Dorm-mate did act because he feared something was wrong. He reported that Cho might be suicidal. And so that got the police involved and the psychiatrists involved. They already knew that. They knew Cho was released. They knew he was taking medication. They knew that the police had already talk to Cho several times about other girls and stalking. All this is what they knew.
So, they (the dorm-mates) don’t take responsibility for another person when they’ve already done what they could, referred to authorities and nothing more came of it. No, you simply leave the guy alone. So, there was *nothing* more that they could have done.
Heck, the police couldn’t do anything, the teachers couldn’t do anything, the department at the university couldn’t do anything, the psychiatrist couldn’t do anything, his parents couldn’t do anything — and you expect a dorm-mate to do something? I would hate to have you as a dorm-mate...
Regards,
Star Traveler
What medicine was he taking? That's the question. What prescribed drugs was he getting, and when they were prescribed?
Are meds to blame for Cho's rampage?Experts say psychiatric drugs linked to school shooting sprees
On the Trail of Parkinson’s, Through Yeast Cells
Abortion study results blamed on 'ideology', Critic says no connection found because none wanted
FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list. Anyone can post any unposted link as they see fit.
You said — “The fact that this guy had been there for such a long time and only one person attempted to speak to him is a window into how messed up these places and education really is.”
That’s a totally false representation of Cho. He basically *did not want to talk* to people. It didn’t matter if people tried — and many did try. Even his teachers tried. In class, just to answer simple things, something that would be nothing at all, he wouldn’t do it. If he was asked to say something, he would walk out of the class. Even being asked his name, he would say “question mark”.
No, it had nothing to do with others reaching out to him. Many did. Many tried. He rejected it all. It’s all in his lap and on his shoulders. It’s all totally his fault and no one else’s and certainly not the culture or the atmosphere of the campus.
That guy was not only whacked and disturbed, he was evil, too.
This is the common thread running through all these killings.
The only way to defend against this guy was to be able to shoot back.
This article is by the Nannystate—flailing around trying to find a passive way to defend against a killer. It can’t be done, but no matter. The Nannystate must prevail.
Gee, it must have been the wrong meds. /sarc
Are meds to blame for Cho’s rampage?
Experts say psychiatric drugs linked to school shooting sprees
WND | 04.23.07
Posted on 04/25/2007 12:54:29 AM EDT by Coleus
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1823086/posts
Can you please cite a source for this? I am unaware the roomate did anything.
The fact that 9-11 could have been prevented had the t.s.a. et al listened to a very credible report from none other than a famous actor with a 160 i.q., and few if any reading this post can name that actor, points to the heart of the problem re: discovery of potential security threats like Cho.
I don’t disagree.
I think his problems started when he young before his family got to the US and only got worse as time continued.
But at the same time I wanted to convey to those who have to work for a living every day, unlike tenured college professors, what I see on a near by college campus is not what you think a college is. I mean I’m there and I see it!
Colleges are not this great institution of higher learning; the best I can describe it is that it is retirement village for the young and old where no one really has to do any hard work - I mean it’s really freaking unreal.
While everyone is out delivering the milk or providing a service, everyone on the campuses are having a time of their lives; if everyone acted like this, this society would collapse in a nano second. So when you say the professors tried to talk to him - I find that more blozak for their egos than anything. Either way, he was probably too far gone!
You said — “Can you please cite a source for this? I am unaware the roomate did anything.”
That was repeated several times, at news conferences by the authorities, by interviews of the dorm-mates, in articles. It’s the *reason* Cho had that temporary committal order, and had to be examined by a psychiatrist in the first place. And if the psychiatrist had not made Cho an “outpatient” for treatment, then it would have been on the record and that would have prevented Cho from purchasing the guns legally. As it was, this was an area where the state of Virginia said that this was their law and Cho was “legal” as a result.
This fact, that his “dorm-mate” reported him as suicidal was the *only reason* that he ever had the evaluation from the psychiatrist and the only reason that he was taking medications.
As for an exact reference, perhaps someone can supply that for you. I could give you a long list of FReeper articles that you could hunt through, if you want. It would be in there, in several places, but I don’t know which exact article.
Do you want the list of FReeper articles? They won’t all necessarily be in the exact topic area, but they’ll all be about the shootings, in one way or another.
You said — “Colleges are not this great institution of higher learning; the best I can describe it is that it is retirement village for the young and old where no one really has to do any hard work - I mean it’s really freaking unreal.”
Well, I was in college, too. It’s not supposed to be a “trade school” where you learn welding or carpentry where you’re constructing houses. So, you’re not going to see that kind of “work activity”.
It’s all mental gymnastics. And it’s a period of time, where (if you’re able to do this), you *do not work* — but concentrate on studies and do what you need to do there.
In addition to that, I also realize that there is “party, party, party” too on campus. I’ve been there and have seen it.
Along with that comes the hours needed to be in clase, the hours needed to read and study, the long study sessions, the research and writing, the doing of many tasks in order to finish the course work successfully and get what is desired — that course grade and eventually that degree.
There are those who are there only part time, or who are spinning their wheels. Many don’t make it and simply drop out. But the ones who do make it, will be doing this kind of necessary work. And it is *work* — although it’s not “trade school work”...
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You then said — “So when you say the professors tried to talk to him - I find that more blozak for their egos than anything.”
Well, they did so. They may not have accomplished much by it, but they did try. From what I’ve seen, two professors were trying to get him out of there. They were thinking he was a danger. But, that went nowhere. I guess it was against their principles (i.e., the “university”) to do something like that....
No, not really! There are some people who benefit and get a good education, but any more, the curriculum is weak, and the product the universities are producing is poor.
Many of the teachers are at best “think they know it alls” typically with no practical experience beyond reading books and sitting in front of computer screens, and the children (forgive me if I don’t call them adults because they are not) party all the time and have the delusion that they really know something when they get their degree.
I know I have offended you, but I have to call it the way I see it; American colleges are typically the home of over paid under achievers - both young and old,.
But it’s odd; every once in a while you meet one of those oddities that you know could change the world if they don’t get crushed like a bug by some under achieving bean counter in government or industry.
You were commenting on me saying — “It’s all mental gymnastics.”
You said — “No, not really! There are some people who benefit and get a good education, but any more, the curriculum is weak, and the product the universities are producing is poor.”
When I said “mental gymnastics”, I was contrasting the type of “work” that is done by the students there, to other “work” in the public.
Now, when you look at someone at “work” (in the public), you might be looking at one kind of laborer or another, perhaps. It could be any sort of the trades or whatever. It actually “looks busy”. You can see people “doing” things. It actually looks like “work”. And so it is. Even with office jobs, where you’re not hauling things around in a warehouse or building something or whatever — you can see people “working” in an office, too.
But, when you come to the university, what do you see most of the time. Well, when they’re “working” — they’re simply sitting around, maybe reading a book, perhaps writing something on paper, or perhaps just sitting contemplating or trying to figure something out. It all looks sort of what a person at “real work” would be doing when they are “on vacation”.
Most of the time, as a student, you’re either at a library, on a bench somewhere, at a computer terminal, sitting around in some public space, at a park, in your room, or just sitting around — when you’re “doing work”. Maybe there are times when you may be in a lab and perhaps that looks a bit more like “work” than the other. But really, most of the time it “looks like” nothing at all. It looks like “vacation”.
However, it’s far from vacation. It can be grueling to get through all that stuff, understand it, make sense of it, memorize it, categorize it and then be able to repeat it back again. And all this stuff is supposed to carry you through on some future job or occupation that you get, later on, when you get out of school.
So, that’s what I’m referring to as “mental gymnastics” — in that the “work” consists *mostly* of the totally unseen and totally in the mind. That’s where all the work is being done. That’s the “gymnastics”.
I remember when I first started college and was accepted at a particular university. I got a letter that asked me to come in and talk to some people about a special program that the university was trying. I have no idea how they got me, but apparently it was me and a few others. I never saw who else though.
They wanted me to participate in some sort of program where I would be the one to set my own curriculum. I would design and devise my own course work, and then I would follow through on it, too. I would be working closely with some kind of university advisor/counselor (have no idea what he was...). So, in essence — they were telling me I would pretty much devise my entire curriculum for the entire four years.
Well, let me tell you, I had no idea at all what to think about that one. I thought and thought about it, but I finally came to the conclusion that although it would be interesting to do and I could probably do it — it simply looked like *way too much work* for what I wanted to do. Thus, I turned them down and said that I would go with the standard curriculum and the standard course. Who knows what would have happened if I had designed my own entire college course load myself.
They did tell me that not very many were chosen to do this and it would be a marvelous opportunity. Maybe so, but I figured if I did that, they should be paying me to go to college.... :-)
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You then said — “Many of the teachers are at best “think they know it alls” typically with no practical experience beyond reading books and sitting in front of computer screens, and the children (forgive me if I don’t call them adults because they are not) party all the time and have the delusion that they really know something when they get their degree.”
That may be for a certain part of them. And for them, it’s not necessarily a bad thing. I mean, if you’re a mathematics professor and teaching Calculus, what kind of “job” do you need? In fact, I don’t know of too many “jobs” that most of us work at, that would be using calculus. So, what is that professor supposed to do — in order to enhance his teaching abilities at caculus? Is he supposed to work at McDonalds, or perhaps Best Western, or maybe Kroger’s Grocery, or maybe learn how to weld, or perhaps learn how to build a house, or be an auto mechanic or what? It doesn’t make any sense for his job in teaching calculus to to any of that other stuff. It doesn’t relate.
And then, there are lots of other positions like that. At the same time, I’ve come across professors who have come from the work force and they teach also from their experience. For example, I also took some university level business courses at one time (later than my college days). Now one guy was teaching about the stock market. He had been a floor trader on the New York Stock Exchange for many years. He knew that subject inside and out, and he knew it first-hand. And he could talk from his experience, besides teach what was in the course curriculum. Another guy taught another business course. He was a successful business owner, having over a hundred employees and having retired from it (actually from several businesses) and was now teaching. So, his teaching benefitted from that.
Therefore a lot of the professors will not benefit from the workforce while others will. Calculus, geometry, computer programming, physics, astronomy, literature, and so on. It goes on and on. There may be some aspects of certain things that *may* — once in a while — be used in business, but some of those — there are no business aspect to it. They are merely “knowledge areas” where a certain business may from time to time use a piece of that knowledge — but that “knowledge area” is never a business unto itself.
Thus a university is an entirely different type of environment and it is not supposed to match the job market or what people are doing on jobs. If you want that — don’t go to a university — go to a trade school to learn a particular skill for a particular job — if that’s what you want. Universities are not trade schools.
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And then — “I know I have offended you, but I have to call it the way I see it; American colleges are typically the home of over paid under achievers - both young and old,.”
No, I haven’t been offended, I just talk like I have been (although I hardly ever am offended). But, you just have to understand that universities are not trade schools and they are not for directly educating anyone about getting a job. They are simply places where a lot of knowledge is stored and passed on to another generation — and not job skills. Like I said, if it’s “job skills” and learning a trade, just go to a trade school and that will suffice. But, if it’s about learning a lot of those things about the scineces or mathematics or sociology or literature or many other areas of education, then the universities are it.
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Finally — “But it’s odd; every once in a while you meet one of those oddities that you know could change the world if they don’t get crushed like a bug by some under achieving bean counter in government or industry.”
There are a lot of smart people in universities, that’s for sure. And there is a problem with a certain part of that culture in universities that breeds a liberal political philosophy, besides also breeding contempt for Biblical matters, like Jesus Christ and the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They seem to think that they are “centers of self-sufficiency” in terms of those two things. Aside from that, on the pure knowledge basis, they do manage to convey that to the up and coming generation. If they could leave the philosophies of the two areas that I just mentioned, alone, then it would be much better.
Duh!
I believe James Woods has a 180 IQ. Lets not short change him.
No Doubt, he is a full blown genius, and it is ironic, he alone could have prevented 9/11, if only LE had listened to him.
After helping design and operating some of the most sophisticated machines on this planet, I decided ten years ago to move back near a big ten university in Pennsylvania since it was near where I grew up.
What I learned was disturbing; the engineering curriculum was watered down, and so was the mathematics that went into it. Everything was group accomplishment. I’ve seen research preformed that was a repeat of work done 30 years ago; I’ve seen a costly experimental set up where not the slightest fundamental knowledge was known about the mechanical components used to run the experiments. Engineering was representative of the other colleges within the university.
I could go on and on, but the simple truth from an expert’s point of view is basically what I said previously.
So, I appreciate you thoughts but I’ve taken my own time to look into this matter and really know where it stands!
You said — “I could go on and on, but the simple truth from an expert’s point of view is basically what I said previously.”
—
So, it’s that they are not being rigorous enough (not high enough standards) in their teaching and studies? They’re slacking in the level of their education?
If that’s the case, as you say, where are students going for their best education, if not here in the United States? Have things changed now, so that students are going to certain other countries, because now their universities are better (maybe different countries for different disciplines)? Or maybe it always has been that way, that some other countries have always had better educational programs (in certain countries)?
I’m not saying I know, but since you said you know about the above, I figured you would know that.
You're right, I was thinking of mine.
Looking and searching for excuses! Liberal policies look no further! We were convinced years ago that the mentally ill could be treated in outpatient clinics with no supervision and mental institutions were wrong and cruel. So today they walk amoungs us and 32 bright young people who could have made a difference are gone thanks to thier “I know better than you” hypocracies. LETS GET A HANDLE ON THIS FOLKS THE TOILET IS ABOUT TO BE FLUSHED!
Education has become big business; i.e. charge them allot of money for 4 years, give them crap and at the end a piece of paper saying something to the extent “yesterday I couldn’t spell smart, but today I are one”. People will believe anything if you put it in their minds, tell them they are smart and give them a paper that says it. For me, it takes a whole lot more.
The socialist that run this big ten university in Pennsylvania only care about cutting deals with companies and forcing as much “product” through the pipeline as possible”. They haven’t even developed standards to look at quality except some nonsense numbers that make them look good.
What went on at Enron pails in comparison to the stuff going on in the universities.
I suppose by now you’ve heard about the Admissions Dean at MIT;
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/1997/jones-1217.html
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/tools/papertrail/070427/mit_admissions_dean_falsified.htm
Standard procedure in a personnel company I owned 15 years ago was to do checks on resumes to make sure people were who they were saying the were; heck, there is an ANSI standard developed in 1986 for this purpose! And the brainiacs at MIT were not smart enough to use the quality control tools everyone else uses to verify fact from fiction?
Universities are in a state of retrograde due to socialist in charge implementing social engineering standards of how America should look; chasing wealth, and quite frankly of thinking their stuff stinks when it really does not (i.e. they are full of themselves).
About where other schools students are going to you need to look at the flow; there has been some discussion of the quality of tech schools in India and that may be reducing the flow to the US; certainly many Indians are not staying here.
Just because the only product you have to give someone is inferior does not mean people will not use it; the socialist soviet economy shows people will use any product they can get - then there is the great Harvard “shock Therapy” to that economy that set them back 2 decades! Did you know that the US government sued Harvard over that to get their money back? But thats another story.
Well, it doesn’t sound good, then. I’m long out of that environment, so I’ll never see it myself. But, I guess others will be having problems...
Well..., in fact, I’m to the point where I’ll be saying, “Let the world go to hell, because I’m gonna be outta here pretty soon...” LOL...
Thanks, this needs to be repeated often, and whenever a thread or person begins to look for someone other than Cho to "blame".
His photos with the hammer, the knives, and the guns show that he was consumed by evil.
Know what you mean. Now it’s my son’s turn in the barrel, and he is in a place where you would want things to be running perfectly, and, well, god help us.
Best thing I did was walk away; it was the only way to bring peace to my soul, but it still bothers me.
Good luck. It was nice talking to you.
I was and Electrical Engineer on an Army Scholarship. I worked my ass off. My life since has been gravy in comparison.
I had a wierd loner roommated for a while. I kept an eye on him, but he quit and went back to live with mommy and daddy....
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