I promise not to be irreverent about the students who lost their lives today about an hour and a half north of my house. It didn't take TWO seconds for rumors to run rampant- he was bullied, it was sad, and why isn't the world a better place, and when will it end, and when will we learn. (those are questions best left to Putin and ISIS to answer) Our newscasters were crying rather than reporting. Then it comes out that the kid was a student athlete- a wrestler and football player- who was popular enough to be on the freshman homecoming court. (Just letting you know that I wasn't on any kind of homecoming court ever). However, if you visit his twitter account, you can see that his mother should have gotten him HELP- like last June. There are some very vulgar posts, mostly sexual references, retweets of things that are gross, and some not so very veiled threats. Why? Because his girlfriend since 7th grade, or something like it, broke UP with him. I guess she was seeing the gross (don't go to it if you are easily offended) imagery on his twitter feed. Instead of his parents (if he has parents and not just one parent) immediately taking this angry, angry and sexually obsessed kid to a real professional (and maybe they did and they should sue the person) and taking him OUT of his school and putting him somewhere else, they seem to have ignored it. I might be as crappy a reporter as the current tv ones to make those suppositions- but that twitter feed was beyond alarming. There is some nasty porn on it- I didn't know twitter was a place for porn. I guess I don't think about those things much. I don't know who he killed, but one of the kids at the table with him said it was "people he knew". They probably voted for him to be on the homecoming court. I guess we'll find out if the gun he used was registered. Because I don't think ninth graders can go buy a gun. Whoever supplied the gun or allowed access to it (unless it was stolen) should be held accountable as an accessory to murder. That everyone thought this was a well adjusted and happy kid DESPITE the evidence on his twitter feed- that just gobsmacks me. Did NO ONE think his anger was at a dangerous level? Let's see if the girls he shot are his ex-girlfriend and her best friend. Either way, this kid wasn't "bullied". He was the BULLY- and the murderer and committed violence against 2 women. Very young ones, but certainly female. I'm not mad at guns. I think the people who KNEW this guy was threatening something are frightful in their neglect.
Don't go to his twitter feed. The perversion in one picture was too much for me. I am so sorry for the parents of the children who were killed and injured seriously. I am sorry for the kids who just went to school, felt kind of safe, and then had a crazy person give them a shock they will never, ever forget. If he hadn't had a gun, he would have used a knife. That is clear in his threats. We all think we can recognize the person who could harm us. Evidently not.
He posted something about 12 million Indians had been killed by Christians. Do you see what spreading HATE gets you? All this message over and over about women being victims and men being evil, Christians deliberately bringing smallpox to kill Indians, that we stole this country, that there is some plot to give white people money and keep it away from anyone else, that every one is racist, that this is an evil and horrible country- it is all bullshit that feeds anger and hate, BUT people believe it because they need to cling to something to explain their lives. Well, this kid believed it. It didn't make him crazy- his brain and his hormones and the lack of intervention made him crazy. But it didn't HELP that he was bombarded (like all kids now) with the message that they are getting screwed out of something. By you and by me. Then when he faced real stress, he went over the edge.
So here's an idea- rather than go nuts over guns, and then scream some more about bullies or racists, why don't we teach kids how to COPE with a world that is not now and never has been "fair". Teach them to deal with disappointment, unhappiness, and to have goals other than getting stoned or laid or marching with a sign rather than helping.
Ugh. I have had a couple of people I know get shot. And killed. A college friend was shot in the French quarter because he told a black guy to get off the hood of his car because he had to go home. Evidently that wasn't racism. My former sister-in-law was shot by her husband's brother. Evidently that wasn't sexism. We are violent by nature- especially if it involved jealousy or rage. But most of us settle for cursing and crying. The gun was an inanimate object. The kid was not.
Okay- I'll quit.
Zoubi didn't enjoy the tv being on today. Here was her reaction:
She doesn't know that she was thrown away as a kitten, but she does know that there is a lot of love in the world because she sees it every day. We make sure of it. Just like good parents do.
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