Where I rant

I haven't said anything about the VA tech shootings (or Don Imus, for that matter) because I've been so inundated with media coverage that it's exhausting. But I heard something this morning that made me angry. Someone was on Good Morning America, ranting about the irresponsibility of NBC for airing the video that Cho Seung-Hui sent in. He claimed that the disaffected youth would look at it and see a hero, and there would be copycats all over the place. First off, I believe in freedom of speech, and freedom of information. This man actually said "if we can take Don Imus off the air, why can't we take this off the air?" Oh. My. God. Are we living in some Orwellian society? Wait, we are - I fogot, the drunk coked-up frat boy is still running the country.

All jokes aside, I am tired of the media and society being blamed for tragedies like this. Other countries do not have the level of violence we do, especially gun violence. We, as Americans, are an extraordinarily violent society. Pointing the finger at video games or movies or music is naive. We live in a country where we allow our leader to take us to war against a country for no real reason, a war that only succeeds in making us the most hated country in the world. And we're worried about the media? We're worried about children seeing this video? What about the news every single night? What about the violence going on all over the world, some of which we are causing? Where is the line drawn? At what point does it become okay to censor?

I may not like what you have to say, but I will defend your right to say it. It's one of the great things about our country. Even the whole Don Imus debacle - while yes, he shouldn't have said it - I couldn't help but feel it was not that big a deal. America, post 9-11, has become hypocritical. Political correctness has reached a level of the absurd.

I'll leave you with one last thought. Charles Joseph Whitman. He lived in an era before CNN, before video games, before rampant violence. He appeared clean cut and All American. He killed his wife and mother, then climbed the tower at the University of Texas, and proceeded to open fire, killing 16 and wounding 31.

We can't just assign blame for tragedies like this. Horrors such as this don't fit in neat little compartments that we can label. Having lived with mentally ill people personally, I can say honestly that there really is no blame to be placed, save that of family or those closest to know that there was something terribly wrong. And even then, can we really blame the family? As a mother, would I be able to recognize the signs of damage in my own children?