Catastrophes and Self-Sufficiency

Runcible — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 11:22:04 +0000

I spent some time recently talking about the Virginia Tech Massacre with a friend who lost a family member to Seung-Hui Cho's rampage. I only met her about a year ago and didn't know about what happened until she mentioned it off-handedly, as if she thought I already knew. She really doesn't like guns, and given the anguish she still feels it was hard to listen to her talk about the killings.

Symbolism over substance

Runcible — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 05:23:32 +0000

I felt a fair amount of sympathy for John Woods, a former Virginia Tech student who lost his girlfriend to Seung-Hui Cho's rampage in 2007, until I got to the final quote from his interview in yesterday's Houston Chronicle:

Everything happens too quickly...You either play dead or you are dead.

Granted, he's not much more than a kid. And lest we mistake him for a deep thinker, he made sure to show up for the interview wearing his "Virginia Tech Class of 2007" t-shirt and an "Obama '08" pin on his backpack.

But really - play dead? That's what he thinks people ought to do when facing a threat? Is that what free people should do when there's danger? Because when you beg for mercy, play dead or hide in response to a threat, it doesn't get rid of the threat. It just makes the threat permanent. Hiding from danger will never make the danger go away.