Idiots and video games

Student held in off-campus apartment shooting

At first I thought, oh no! How terrible! How awful!

Then I heard this part:

One of the wounded men, returning home with a bloody bandage on his left shoulder, said the dispute started Monday night when he and the other victims accused Brooks of stealing a Sony Playstation console and game.

[spit]

Video game enthusiasts.

[spit]

I seriously stopped giving a shit about this story the instant I heard some video game system was involved.

The fact that our culture is producing grown men who give a shit about video games... It's tied into a lot, I think. Video games suggest pasty, weak, pudgy, soft young men with whiny voices.

You know the guys I'm talking about. The mere sight dragging his pale, flabby self around the grocery store, stocking up on energy drinks and salty snacks, makes me foam at the mouth.

Can't even hack it as a real 19-year old, spends his time fucking with video games.

See - I'm foaming at the mouth now, I can't write, because I can't string that much foul language together.

If there's a straight 19-year-old guy in America who's not in some sort of single-sex environment, and he's trying to do anything other than get laid in his off-time, that guy just ain't right.

Listen - you're 19. You chase girls to try to get laid. You work on your car to impress girls to try to get laid. You lift weights to look hot to get laid. You hang out on beaches and at bars and in bookstores to try to find a chick who likes you so you can get laid. You go to work so you can buy shit and try to get laid. You study so you can get good grades and get a decent job and make money to buy more shit and get laid.

Get it? That's what 19 year old guys should be doing. Hell, if you're gay and you're 19, I'm assuming you're doing something very similar.

I've been fortunate enough to know some very fine young men in the 18-22 age bracket. Not a single one of them would ever have sat around playing video games if there was a snowball's chance in Hell of running across some ass somewhere. The ones who might have were to a man anemic in all senses of the word.

Any boy who's regularly playing video games after he reaches, say, 14 or so...ought to be snatched up and sent to some Young Man Re-Education camp, run by, say, lumberjacks. Or rodeo cowboys.

I blame the lack of quality father figures.

Now I'm going to go spit again.

For the record...

I've about had it with the overuse of the word "kid" when the talking heads are going on about the Virginia Tech shooting.

The evil cowardly sniveling whiny wannabe shit who did this...let's please not soften the vileness of his acts by referring to him a "disturbed kid," or a "kid who needed help."

He was 23. He was a grown man.

23 and in college does no confer upon one some sort of "errant child" status. 23 is five years past the age of majority.

I find this whole trend offensive. Hanging out in college is not, it is generally accepted, a sign of emotional, intellectual or social retardation. So why is this little fucker getting off with the label "kid?"

Why does infantilizing some guy in his early 20s piss Abby off? Well, folks, because it infantilizes all the guys in their early 20s. We should not allow that.

It pissed me off, when I heard either Glen Beck or his guest use the term for the shooter. For some reason, it made me think of another guy in his early 20s. A year younger than Cho, in fact.

Cpl. Jason L. Dunham was 22 when he died.

These two young men should not be mentioned in the same breath, unless we're discussing the very finest and the very worst that we produce here in America. But it remains useful when we need reminding that childhood does not extend into one's 20s. It simply does not. To do so is to try to put off accepting responsibility for one's actions. When we allow this sort of "cute term" to be applied to GROWN MEN, we increase even further that ever-growing goddam group of people who we don't simply expect to able to pull their weight.

A 23 year-old man is fully responsible for the things he does. Beyond just Cpl. Dunham - an exceptional example, one of the finest men of his generation - hundreds of thousands of 23-year-olds in this country are adult, productive members of society. Fathers, mothers, guys with five years' seniority on the assembly line, nurses with degrees and couple of years of experience. Teachers.

It is possible that Cho should have been more forcefully handled by the University. It is possible that someone, somewhere along the way could have done something to prevent this specific event.

But he alone is responsible. He was a disturbed, pissy, whiny, sulking little beast. He wallowed in his own perceived little world of drama and torment. He was smart enough to be a student at Virginia Tech - this is not East Podunk Junior College - he was a functioning adult who conciously made bad, evil, murderous decisions.

Just because we don't like what he did doesn't mean we get to pretend he's a dumb little kid. He was a bad man.

Last word...

from me on this Virginia Tech situation. I say again, Bad Dog hearts go out to victims, families and those in pain tonight.

We do not yet know, and will not know for several days, at the least, exactly how this unfolded. We know there was a single gunman. We know he shot people in the dorms, then crossed campus and shot roughly 40 more.

We know this unfolded over a couple of hours, although it doesn't seem clear exactly how long the shooter was "active" at the second location. We do know he moved among a few different locations within Norris Hall.

There will be much speculation about the gunman's motivation - what drove him to such violence, what could have been done to "help him" before he committed the crimes. There will be discussions about more "programs" to "support" troubled students.

This is all fine and good, but it isn't the angle of this tragedy on which I feel qualified to speak.

Once upon a time, I was on a small Forward Operating Base, and there was a shooting. As often happens in such situations, very little was immediately clear. There was a gravely injured soldier, and with no other information to go on, word was rapidly spread that all soldiers must immediately load a personal weapon, confine themselves to their tent areas, and be prepared to defend themselves.

I feel qualified to speak to this: there is evil in the world. There are people who are evil, and there are people who are not, but who nonetheless commit evil acts. Once this begins, the only option is to limit the damage.

Focusing soley on the prevention of horror denies human experience. No matter what we do, bad things will happen.

LawDog has written very well today on the mindset required to counter evil and horror. He also points out that Virginia is a state that allows individuals licensed to carry firearms to do so on college and university property - Virginia Tech as an institution decided this would not be allowed. The Virginia legislature opted not to force universities to allow the carry of firearms by licensed individuals.

What are the chances that, had it not been forbidden, an armed student or staff member would have been in a place and time and tactical situation that would have permitted them to intervene? We'll never know. What are the chances that a student with a firearm in a dorm room could have stopped this horror after two deaths? We'll never know.

If any of those dead or wounded were my friends, my family, I would like to have had the chance to find out. I would like for someone, anyone - the janitor, a GI Bill student, a professor, anyone - to have been able to fight back. If it had been one gutsy, stupid soul three rooms away, who'd arrived only in time to shoot it out and save one student - that would have been a better outcome.

Listen, guns aren't the answer to every question, the solution to every problem. But - in a world where evil happens, and 32 people die at the hands of one sick bastard, it sickens me that the university administration clearly and consciously, with eyes wide open, decided to remove the ability of those in their care to fight back.

I cannot imagine many situations which would tear me up more than this: I imagine sitting in a classroom in the morning, listening to a lecture, backpack by my feet, coffee on my desk. I imagine hearing shots - knowing instantly, viscerally, what they are - hearing screams. I imagine my old instincts to run to the sound of the guns - I have felt it before. I imagine looking down at my backpack, in which any of my service pistols could ride comfy and concealed and realizing that, because I am a rule-following student, I have a graphing calculator. I imagine the horror of realizing that although I have the training, the mindset, and the ability to save lives, I do not have the tool. It would break my heart.

Good God...

I'm watching a movie called "Jesus Camp," which seems to be about...nutbag evangelical Christians in Missouri.

Full of conversations with nine-year-olds in which they recycle whatever garbage they're being fed by their youth pastors. And they have picked the nutty ones.

They're talking right now to some little blond girl who just said, "my favorite music is like Christian heavy metal and rock and roll..."

Oh, honey, let's talk to you again in six years.

I'm not a religous individual. I try to respect the beliefs of others (that is, I don't refer to anyone's God as "Santa Claus" in front public). But I'm also a big fan of moderation, and religious nuts of all sorts creep me out.

These folks, who've dreamed up a Jesus-based Pledge of Allegiance that they can recite before beginning their homeschool day to study how God created the earth 6,000 years ago... Ugh.

That's just creepy, and I don't care who you are.

UPDATE - Goodness. The youth pastors are now praying over the projector for their PowerPoint presentation. It was kind of touching and sweet, until they started speaking in tongues.

But I think I can agree with them that Satan invades meetings regularly via digital projectors.

UPDATE II -- Okay, it's done. These people deserve only my ridicule. And I quote, "and had it been in the Old Testament, Harry Potter would have been put to death!"

You don't like Harry Potter, you suck. End of story. I will continue to watch, but will share no more of this "Jesus Camp."

UPDATE III -- I lied! Rev. Ted Haggard (a perennial favorite of mine) is in the movie, preaching morality and spiritual warfare.

Rope. Tree. Assembly required.

The jury was out less than 90 minutes before deciding 10-2 to recommend death in the John Couey case.

Good.

There are those who don't like what the death penalty says about our society. When I look at this case and this crime, I am pleased that I live in a society which says this man is unfit to live, even in a cage.

The horror...

I just took a break from the book I'm reading and re-filled my water glass. I sat back down and realized that the local news was long over, and that I was "watching" Entertainment Tonight's coverage of the Anna Nicole Smith funeral.

I don't think I've ever grabbed the remote and switched to the old country music channel so quickly in my life.

Wife Swap

Is this not the weirdest show ever? Have you ever watched this? I'm catching it for the second time, and it's a strange one.

Two families are selected. It's apparent that each family needs to be profoundly weird in some way. This week it's the family that bottles deer urine and a family wherein the husband has a real job and the woman apparently travels around hosting "princess parties" for 5 year old girls.

The last one I watched involved a family that adhered to some sort of raw meat diet swapping women with the wife of some urban hipster.

What I find interesting is that these people all apparently volunteer for this show. I think a lot of it is some sort of urge to evangelize - they think they need to share their way of life with others.

People get awfully worked up on this show, but for the most part, I think the participants are good sports.

Unburdening ourselves

Oh, good lord. In today's pointless news that's supposed to make us all feel good (or perhaps, bad) about ourselves - Virginia expresses 'profound regret' for slavery

This has got us all in the mood to apologize for sins we have not committed, but which have been committed by someone somehow related to us.

I am profoundly sorry about all the trees my logger Grandpa cut down.

Mr. Abby is profoundly sorry about all those conquistadors his ancestors killed.

Casey is profoundly sorry about every rioter ever bitten on the ass by a police dog.

I'm sure the trees, conquistadors and rioter asses will feel as good about this as the slaves do.

Sorry, but I've never been sufficiently Catholic to see the point in self-flagellation.

Mt. Hood

Up front, we'll say we're very happy about this.

The dog, named Miss Velvet, is doing better than the humans, Trevor Liston said at a news conference Monday evening.

Good. It's not the poor Black Lab's fault that its idiot people dragged it up Mt. Freakin' Hood in winter.

Good dog.

Stupid people. Isn't this like the 37th dramatic-Mt.-Hood-rescue we've been subjected to on CNN in the past few months? It seems the Oregon legislature has introduced a measure that would require climbers headed above a certain elevation to carry position-pinpointing equipment to aid in rescues (this appears to be what saved this most recent group). I'd rather see Oregon start billing people who decided to ascend past a set elevation during these winter months when they require rescue.

Idiots.