[IP] interesting va. tech perspective from japan

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Paul Andrews <paul@paulandrews.com>
Date: April 19, 2007 11:13:46 AM EDT
To: dave@farber.net
Subject: interesting va. tech perspective from japan

Hi Dave, for the list if appropriate, from an American professor friend:

i'm in japan watching cnn's "coverage" of the
virginia tech business, and i'm about to go off the
deep end myself. Their "senior correspondents"
(pronounced without jon stewart's irony) are vying to
outdo one another with the inanity and irrelevance of
their commentary. apparently, instead of a psychotic
kid who had excessively easy access to weapons of mass
destruction, Cho apparently was an embodiment of pure
calculated evil second only to hitler, the only
guaranteed-safe dead horse to be beaten on all
occasions. unfortunately as his voice on the video he
sent demonstrates, instead of an incomprehensible
foreigner speaking broken english, what we had here
was a native son, displaying the cultural accuracy
only achievable by immigrants.
 oddly enough, there was a very similar incident here
in Japan on wednesday: a low-level yakuza cracked and
assassinated the mayor of nagasaki because of
perceived disrespect on the part of city officials (a
city work crew dented the fender on his car, and his
demands for 20,000 dollars compensation were ignored
by officials). On a Japanese scale this murder is of
equivalent shock value to those in Va - maybe the
virgina shootings triggered the gangster to go over
the edge in his rage. in a few months he will have his
1-day trial and then be duly hanged. Of course, here
only professional criminals have handguns, and even
they can't easily obtain ammo, so all he could get off
were 2 shots. Ordinarily such murders (looneys are no
less common here than anywhere) are committed with
large knives, or grandpa's WW-II officer's sword, so
the victim list is always short. The local yakuza
family were so ashamed they announced they will close
their "office" permanently. wish cnn would do the same.

Paul Andrews

Contributing editor, Crosscut.com
Check out the Phinney EcoVillage! http://phinneyecovillage.net
Editorial director, Green For Good: http://www.greenforgood.com



-------------------------------------------