I was on the road when I heard the news on the radio that an unidentified Asian male went on a shooting spree in the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg, VA.
I got chills in my spine when I heard the word "Asian" associated with a massacre. I prayed- Oh please, not a Filipino. You cannot help but worry that some reckless minds may engage in blind rage to do harm to people who look like the shooter.
My heart goes to the victims and their families. Promising lives have been cut short. My sympathies also go to the family of the shooter. The Korean parents are reportedly very hardworking blue collar workers who sacrificed individual leisure working very long hours just to get their two children to college. They are just like many Filipino parents who forego personal comforts just to provide a better future for their children. For all their good intentions, their son still turned out to be a living nightmare no parents deserve.
I watched the video produced by the
shooter and mailed to NBC news. I wanted to understand the frame of mind of an
individual who can kill without showing any sense of guilt. Before the
network finished running the video, I thought that NBC was granting the shooter
his death wish, to taunt his victims and fill the air with his nonsense rage. I
was afraid that some lunatic desperado would find inspiration in this video and
try to outdo the carnage at Virginia Tech.
The video was surely an audience getter.
It got me and a million others. But on second thought, I could get by without
watching it. NBC could have provided information by disclosing the transcript
or even the audio part of the tape. That way, it could have avoided nourishing
the appetite of some twisted minds. This was an instance when the exercise of
press freedom did not serve the public interest.
@9PTCA = ***
Hollywood is really hot on global
warming. Their patron saint Al Gore will gather celebrities to participate in a
series of concerts to keep the issue burning in public discourse.
If Al Gore’s disciples are really serious
about reducing carbon dioxide emissions, they should lead by example so others
may follow.
Let’s start with Al Gore. The inventor of
the internet can make his house in Tennessee as energy efficient as the house
of Pres. G. W. Bush in Crawford, Texas. Reports say that Gore’s house uses 20
times more energy than an average household in America. An internet story says
that the Crawford house is far more environmentally friendly than Gore’s using
the sun for some of its energy needs.
The Hollywood celebs should sell their
multimillion dollar palaces and live in condominiums. That’s less living area
to heat or cool. With little grass to mow, they save gas on lawn mowers.
No more Bentleys, Ferraris, Mercedes Benz
or BMW. Even Arnold should give up his
Hummer. They can bike, ride a moped or an electric golf cart.
If they have to go to another continent
to promote whatever new cause they can dream of, no more jets, especially
chartered jets. Just take the next sailboat and ride with the wind.
They can actually promote more reliance
on wind power. They can sweet talk Sen. Edward Kennedy and Sen John Kerry into
dropping their opposition to the installation of windmills close to their
vacation resort. Reports say that the two senators objected to the windmills
because it would spoil the natural view at their vacation homes.
Cow manure is supposed to be one of the
significant contributors of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, just like cars.
Hollywood can delete beef steak in their menu.
My barber says that if the celebs can
solve global warming, the earth will get cold and we will need more energy to
warm ourselves.
Anyway, let’s just do our share to reduce
consumption of fossil-based fuels. Every dollar we spend for foreign oil goes
to prop up the regimes of the likes of Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Abedinejad
of Iran.
