in the aftermath of the VT massacre, the media is once again trying to make our minds up about something that they are not making much of an effort to grasp themselves. the easily spoonfed public must not buy into this! in our TV tempered lives, we expect things to wrap up neatly in packages of .5 to 1 hours in length, leaving of course plenty of time for bombastic and invasive advertisements. every crime portrayed on television is neatly wrapped up in this familiar time frame, decades of barney miller, tj hooker, nypd blue, CSI and whatever spin-off of that show is on these days. in the case of cho seung-hui the media is pulling the wool over our eyes by interpreting his character, in all it's theatrics, poorly written plays, and sloppy manifestos sent to the wrong addresses, all the dumb world is waiting to hear the expert network news journalist's final decree on why this murderous asshat went berserk and shot machismo into his fellow co-eds. most likely we will hear the same story as we did with columbine; that he was a loner, (i believe i have already heard the phrase 'lone wolf' used on NPR or CNN - *vomit*), that he was disturbed, had no friends, kept to himself, and so on with the textbook qualities of an anti-socialite. the easily duped public (and my, how they love to be duped lest they have to start manually reasoning situations) will assume that anti-social behaviour, that hints of misanthropy, or just a character who enjoys waxing reclusive are indications of murderous / suicidal tendencies and impending shooting spree.

already the saturated ionosphere has carried disturbing stills from the killer's adolescent style manifesto, shocking it's viewers with the subtext that this is the last thing that his victims saw. has hollywood that much of a grip on the news? has hollywood that much of a grip on reality? isn't the news supposed to be born of information sans opinion? are we going to give this murderer the spotlight until officer mitchell solves the case and at 57 minutes (not a moment too soon!) we freeze mid-laugh while the credits roll just waiting for the theme music to start so we can all return to our normal lives, and go make a sandwich?

i think in order to understand why he murdered those 30 plus people we have to spend time studying the victims as much as we've studied the killer - moreso even.

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we're in constant reactionary mode, never having time to really set aside time to think about something fully without constant interruption from other media in the world around us. instant communication gives way to not thinking before saying. and not just thinking, but having an array of moods, being able to decide what's right, to decide what's the most humane, or how we really want to convey ourselves. if we were writing each other letters like they did 50 years ago, we'd be much kinder to each other. this is why i think text messages that say more than making evening plans are the worst form of communication to date (unless they decide to develop text messages which you can't reply to). it's a passive way of saying something spur of the moment to someone with no obligation to respond or continue the "non-versation" (you can even concoct an understandable or even honorable excuse as to why you couldn't reply back (same exact thing goes for the sender as well)) and to top it off, it's heralded by a cold mechanic ring, a low quality, heartless sound file that is uniform to whoever sends you a text message (bypassing the meaningful and unique timbre of someone's voice.) we are becoming robots, and not the good kind!! imagine leaving a post-it note for someone on their door frame attached to a bell that rang until they picked it up - it's a similar thing when you leave someone a text message from a cell phone.

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