lgb&dtuba wrote:
The local media here is all full of the murder this week of the young lady who was the student body president at the University of NC. Where my wife works
Not a mass shooting, but particularly heinous.
The event is tragic. And the media is milking it for all it's worth. My sympathies to her parents for their loss and what they are getting ready to go through as they arrive here and enter the media meat grinder.
I couldn't agree more. The overwhelming trait in watching cable-news-crap about these types of tragedies seems to me to be:
-complete lack of sympathy for the victims/families
-feigned (and totally overdone) sympathy to make the newscasters seems just a little less monstrous:
Is it just me, or do Nancy Grace and her ilk seem just a little too excited when an innocent teen is gunned down on the street?
As to the original topic, I'd say media attention definitely increases the likelihood of these types of events.
Just this past year, we in Nebraska had a shooting at a mall in Omaha (remember that? Seems lost in the shuffle now) and the shooter's suicide note read "...now I'll be famous..."
Did that little snippet make MSCNNBCBS? Was the irony of smearing that across national news lost on the ratings monkeys?
You can disconnect that black cable-thingie from the back of your T.V. It doesn't carry enough current to give you much of an electric shock...I PROMISE !!!
Once you pull it loose, all of those weird people will disappear into thin air...Life will be GREAT !!! (or at least "OK")
bloke "You may find this hard to believe, but I don't know who those people are to whom you refer."
I do believe that.
And I get most of my news from NPR, because they do what, IMO, is correct for newscasters: they tell you what is happening without all the window dressing that passes for modern journalism. With NPR I will be informed on what is happening and I'm not told how to feel about it or how it affects me (if at all), plus I get good local news.
As for the black sludge pump on the back of my TV, I'm one of those guys who mostly uses the "educational" channels: National Geographic, History, Discovery, Weather (though I don't watch the programming on Weather, I only use it when the time ends with an "8"), HGTV (b/c I'm in the homebuyers' market and it gives me renovation ideas) and NET (Nebraska Public Television).
I wish cable had a la carte pricing so I could just get those few channels I use. I do watch sports occasionally but I could catch those at the local watering hole when I really need a fix.
Now that it's over and done with I can post this...
We had a threat surface here at Wayne State saying that last Monday, 3/11, there was going to be a shooting. The threat came in the form of graffiti on the back of a Men's room stall door in one of the dorms. The door was removed and thoroughly tested and, not surprisingly, hundreds of fingerprints were identified.
So no one knew what time this was supposed to happen, or where on campus, or who was behind it. We had Nebraska State Police patrolling the grounds all day and night and stationed in large common areas. AFAIK, none of the faculty begged off for the day but many students did.
In the end nothing happened (as most of us had predicted) but it just goes to show that this is not going away.
As far as students with concealed carry permits, I think if that happened I'd just up and quit my job. Not because I think anyone would want to shoot me but because of the recreational activities that occur so regularly on college campuses.
Binge drinking + firearms = big trouble.
I've seen enough drunken scuffles over girls and whatnot to know that a large quantity of guns would be a very bad idea.
