whatever happened to 'too bad' ?
For a while, I was ok with how the Virginia Tech tragedy was dealt with by the rest of us. No one stared inquiries and independent reviews and government probes and new legislation. People just published stories about the victims and the university decided to change the way it deals with people like Cho. Sensible reaction, right?
But I forget, we live in the land where the buck has to stop somewhere, no matter what.
Can't anything just be a 'tragedy' anymore? Can't we all just accept that something awful happened and move on? No, apparently not. Now some review has come out that blasted the university for how it dealt with the situation up to and after the incident. But my belief is that just because a situation 'could have been handled better' doesn't necessarily mean that IT'S SOMEONE'S FAULT WE MUST HOLD THEM ACCOUNTABLE AND DO INVESTIGATIONS AND HIRE NEW PEOPLE AND SPEND MILLIONS OF DOLLARS SOLVING THIS "PROBLEM", AND THOUSANDS OF HOURS OF AIR TIME TALKING ABOUT IT.
I mean, how high of standards do we need for people? Is it really possible for any person, department, or institution to be on top of every single aspect of every operation and handle everything flawlessly? Do we think that the reason that other universities around the country aren't being shot up by schizophrenics all the time is because *those* universities know how keep it from happening, whereas it just happens that the Virginia Tech administrators are just clueless? Well, schizophrenics exist everywhere and every institution from a college to the department of defense are run by PEOPLE, that's it. Security guards and mental health professionals who, from time to time, during work drift off and think about dinner or sex with their wife the night before, are not BAD or INCOMPETENT people. They're just people like the rest of us.
So sometimes, shit happens. Not everything can be reasonably prevented. In a society of 300 million, one or two of us are going get crazy and violent. Sorry folks, you're in with the social contract whether you like it or not. If you think you're in more danger now than if you were living in the jungle in 170,000 B.C., I'd disagree with you there.
Anyway, I digress. My point is that after all this, we just need to leave Virginia Tech alone. It's a college, I'm sure the people who run it are pretty sharp. Their school's gone through all this, and this is the last thing these people need.
But I forget, we live in the land where the buck has to stop somewhere, no matter what.
Can't anything just be a 'tragedy' anymore? Can't we all just accept that something awful happened and move on? No, apparently not. Now some review has come out that blasted the university for how it dealt with the situation up to and after the incident. But my belief is that just because a situation 'could have been handled better' doesn't necessarily mean that IT'S SOMEONE'S FAULT WE MUST HOLD THEM ACCOUNTABLE AND DO INVESTIGATIONS AND HIRE NEW PEOPLE AND SPEND MILLIONS OF DOLLARS SOLVING THIS "PROBLEM", AND THOUSANDS OF HOURS OF AIR TIME TALKING ABOUT IT.
I mean, how high of standards do we need for people? Is it really possible for any person, department, or institution to be on top of every single aspect of every operation and handle everything flawlessly? Do we think that the reason that other universities around the country aren't being shot up by schizophrenics all the time is because *those* universities know how keep it from happening, whereas it just happens that the Virginia Tech administrators are just clueless? Well, schizophrenics exist everywhere and every institution from a college to the department of defense are run by PEOPLE, that's it. Security guards and mental health professionals who, from time to time, during work drift off and think about dinner or sex with their wife the night before, are not BAD or INCOMPETENT people. They're just people like the rest of us.
So sometimes, shit happens. Not everything can be reasonably prevented. In a society of 300 million, one or two of us are going get crazy and violent. Sorry folks, you're in with the social contract whether you like it or not. If you think you're in more danger now than if you were living in the jungle in 170,000 B.C., I'd disagree with you there.
Anyway, I digress. My point is that after all this, we just need to leave Virginia Tech alone. It's a college, I'm sure the people who run it are pretty sharp. Their school's gone through all this, and this is the last thing these people need.