<p>Unabomber was a teacher as I recall.</p>
<p>I had forgotten that. He was a math prof at UC Berkeley, if I remember correctly.</p>
<p>I agree completely with UCLAri.
About 8 years ago a young man was walking on the beach in NJ- it was completely sunny without a cloud in the sky when out of no where he was struck by lightning and killed. I still let my D go to the beach on sunny days.
No one blamed the lifeguards for not clearing the beach prior to the lightning strike.</p>
<p>I wouldn't hesitate in the least to send a child to VT. In the first place, it has to be one of the safest campuses anywhere in the coming years. But more importantly, this tragedy will affect all campuses. And I would be proud of a child who will not give in to terrorism and and carry on as they would have before.</p>
<p>I have also flown on 9/11 twice since 2001. The first time in 2002. Not only did I think that day would be safer, but again, did not want to give in to terrorism. It was also much easier getting a flight because apparently, a lot of people felt differently.</p>
<p>Okay well maybe I exaggerated in my post about teachers having guns, but I just hate when people blame guns for **** like this.</p>
<p>I'd LOVE to fly on 9/11, are you kidding me? Nothing makes me happier than empty flights and short lines at the TSA checkpoints. </p>
<p>Granted, my olive skin makes me a fun target any day (9/11 would be fun to the max), but the net hassle saved would likely be outstanding. :)</p>
<p>i never applied to VT, but it is tragic. Do you think they will vote against koreans since it was a korean student who did it?
Im not trying to be funny, but i'm serious.</p>
<p>i'm sure the professor and some students might show hostility against koreans attending VT right now</p>
<p>I sincerely doubt that 99.99% of the campus will resort to abject stupidity when dealing with this issue. I'm pretty sure that it won't result in any sort of anti-Korean sentiment.</p>
<p>For those of you who think VTech should have been able to diagnosis and intercept this individual, please consider the much, much bigger problem of college suicides. There are approximately 1100 suicides/year that occur on college campuses and that is a small amount of the total for college students or college-aged kids. Those numbers are not even close to the carnage due to alcohol and drugs.</p>
<p>If you really think colleges should do more to protect kids, consider the enforcement and policies related to alcohol and drug use.</p>
<p>
Yes, but the risk of New Orleans being hit by a major hurricane was and still is much higher than the risk of any given school being the site of an attack by a deranged shooter. For what its worth, scientists now predict a heavier than normal hurricane season in 2007 -- though they don't think it will be as bad as 2005.</p>
<p>If that's where my kids wanted to go, sure. </p>
<p>It will be a safer place, because it no longer is a "what if" to blow off. It is a real thing now, and never again be blown off with sarcastic shrugs.</p>
<p>Oh man... this reminds me of someone who told me that they'd never let their child attend UCLA because "earthquakes are so scary!"</p>
<p>I told this person that I felt more earthquakes in 10 weeks in the Kanto (Tokyo) region of Japan than I felt my entire life in LA, and they looked like I was crazy!</p>
<p>Natural disasters...can't live with them, can't build a giant space bubble around cities to stop them.</p>
<p>Calmom, I was speaking, in both cases, about people who changed their plans after either event due to safety concerns. The risks for storms/shootings are approximately the same before and after Katrina/this shooting. It has nothing to do with the size of the risk since the risk, whether great or small, remains the same.</p>
<p>I really don't see this event as a reason to doubt the safety of Virginia Tech or to be wary of people with Korean backgrounds. The only people who seem interested in the Korean angle are the reporters.</p>
<p>By the way, it can be hard to remove a student from school based on mental health problems. In some cases, such actions have been deemed discriminatory.</p>
<p>
[quote]
**the Korean angle
[/quote]
** The cultural issue of suicide is very different? I think that is the angle. Family pride and shame issues in culture other than Anglo American.</p>
<p>
[QUOTE]
The cultural issue of suicide is very different? I think that is the angle. Family pride and shame issues in culture other than Anglo American.
[/QUOTE]
The media doesn't seem to be going there. I've been listening to NPR on the road for the last two days and they've talked about a possible "back lash" against Koreans. I haven't heard anyone interviewed mention an opinion or suspicion of Koreans.</p>
<p>The main reason other than the irrational fears that there will be a drop in applications next year is that the fact that something like this could happen, with only the dorm being locked down after two murders, and it shows a clear problem in how the adminstration works in dealing with critical situations. Although a situation such a future shooting will probably not happen again in the same vein, this lack of prepardness worries many future students and parents.</p>
<p>The two hours doesn't bother me that much (they had a reasonable suspect in custody for questioning when the reports of the massacre came in).</p>
<p>I'm more concerned about the failure to get the murderer out of school despite repeated complaints and concerns about his behavior.</p>
<p>Tom1944 said , "Everywhere I ever worked or went to school had individuals that I would not have been surprised if they committed some violent act/outburst. No one ever did. Brian Williams from NBC discussed this on MSNBC tonight- he talked about the coworker that everyone says is going to kill us all one day."</p>
<p>For everyone who argues that VT should have done something to prevent Cho from his terror, can you think back over 20+ years and honestly not think of people you've interacted with who could have fit this psycho scenario? From college through 20+ years of working, I can think of about 6 people who seriously had "issues"...., but at the time, there really was no "proof" that the people were going to do something heinous (and as far as I know, none of them did). One particular woman required 18 months of corrective-behavior action before she was let go from her professional position.....and even then, the managers had to prove it was work related....she couldn't be fired because she was really strange and everyone was pretty spooked by her. Since Cho's writings did not explicitly say that he intended to gun down 50+ students, nor threaten anyone directly, how legally could the university have done anything without the ACLU all over them?</p>
<p>In the face of senseless violence, many people can't let go of the concept that people are to "blame". This guy was seriously, tragically messed up. Hindsight is always 20/20.</p>
<p>edad: Is there something wrong with being angry that this massacre happened and all of these innocent human beings are now dead? Would you still be able to be so matter of fact about it all if that was YOUR child or loved one that was brutally murdered on a campus that you allowed them to attend because you were led to believe they were in a safe place? You cannot tell me that VT did all they could do and if that is the case and this is how ALL colleges will respond in a situation where they have a student that is obviously insane and evil, then heaven help us all because this will happen again. </p>
<p>The laws that protect people with mental illnesses are one thing but for those people that show obvious signs of violent tendencies and the desire to harm innocent people is totally different. These people are now dead and their families are changed forever, so what good did those privacy laws do.....they didn't protect the innocent and they definetly didn't protect the guilty because that person is dead too. I cannot understand why this students parents weren't informed of his mental issues....wouldn't most loving parents want to know this and get help for their child? Something is very wrong here with all these privacy laws because it sounds to me like they were put in place to protect the wrong people. Excuse me if I sound angry but I am.</p>