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Posted

Those NBC photos are creepy stuff. Aiming for sicko-idol status... do you think this kid got sexually assaulted at some point? Sounds like his earlier writings have at least two references to vengeful violence being perpetrated on an authority figure who's committed sexual abuse... and this "weak & defenseless" line in the manifesto.

Re: guns--I think they should be very, very, very difficult to purchase. You should have to get a license to buy/own, be required to take safety/shooting classes, submit to a rigorous background check, etc. That said, consider me in the "armed and liberal" camp.

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Posted

Personally, with the kind of arseholes running our country, I'd like to keep the freedom to bear arms. Who knows when we might need them?

If there ever comes a time that the arseholes running your country ( as oppossed to the arselickers running mine) think it in their best interest for you not to have the right to bear arms I'm sure they'll happily take that freedom away fast.

Posted (edited)

I don't buy the "I need a gun for self defence" argument.

Why? It's perfectly rational. Let's start with how Rousseau's 'Social Contract' -- you relinquish certain rights in exchange for personal protection by the state -- is seriously flawed. Now dialing Blacksburg S. VA........ring, ring, ring....

No state undertakes that, Weizen.

The arguments for and against gun control are almost certainly irrelevant in relation to an incident like this. Talk about gun control in relation to armed robbery or drive-by shootings. Britain has probably the most restrictive gun control regime in the world, but it doesn't stop incidents like those at Hungerford in 1987

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungerford_Massacre

or Dunblane in 1996

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunblane_Massacre

Basically, in these cases, we're dealing with nutters, not rational people like criminals and gang members.

MG

MG,

If gun control legislation in the United Kingdom mirrored that of the United States, do you think that the occurrence of tragedies similar to the two that you note above would?:

A. increase,

B. decrese, or

C. stay exactly the same

Thanks!

Edited by Edward
Posted

I find it tasteless that the media is playing this guy's video and showing his pictures. Just what he wanted: To achieve matyrdom status like his heroes, the Columbine killers. Why not say, "He mailed us a package containing his manifesto. In respect to the dead and in defiance of the killer's intention, we're not going to show anything from it." And then hand it over to the FBI.

Posted

Why not say, "He mailed us a package containing his manifesto. In respect to the dead and in defiance of the killer's intention, we're not going to show anything from it." And then hand it over to the FBI.

Not that we don't already know the answer to that. <_<

Posted

Re: guns--I think they should be very, very, very difficult to purchase. You should have to get a license to buy/own, be required to take safety/shooting classes, submit to a rigorous background check, etc. That said, consider me in the "armed and liberal" camp.

It would certainly be a start.

It's interesting that the news media castigates the police and University officials for not taking greater action on the perceived thread from Cho. Anyone who has had any insight into stalkers knows that the police request that the woman maintain a log first so as to write down the pattern of abuse. In the meantime, there is little protection if the stalker decides to physically harm her. Police have to be aware of individual rights, so there is little they can do until something actually happens.

It blows me away that no one on the media has suggested that there be a mandatory report to gunsellers whenever someone is charged with stalking (as Cho was twice,) or was commited to a mental institution. The law does not allow any forced mental incarceration beyond 72 hours. But surely there could be a mandatory report to all gunsellers whenever someone is committed to a mental institute. Now how difficult would that be?

Posted

I find it tasteless that the media is playing this guy's video and showing his pictures. Just what he wanted: To achieve matyrdom status like his heroes, the Columbine killers. Why not say, "He mailed us a package containing his manifesto. In respect to the dead and in defiance of the killer's intention, we're not going to show anything from it." And then hand it over to the FBI.

Yes, all the paranoid-schizos out there can now view their anti-hero par excellance as he becomes the media darling.

Now that's somebody who has acheived a status worth aspiring towards....

Posted

I find it tasteless that the media is playing this guy's video and showing his pictures. Just what he wanted: To achieve matyrdom status like his heroes, the Columbine killers. Why not say, "He mailed us a package containing his manifesto. In respect to the dead and in defiance of the killer's intention, we're not going to show anything from it." And then hand it over to the FBI.

In addition being in bad taste I agree it's a big mistake to grant any kind of public forum to someone like this, even if it is a media "coup". I would think it might encourage any wanna-be copycats out there, and you KNOW they're out there. I just hope we don't see even more of an escalation of this type of act.

It's so sad to see the pictures of all the victims, all those young lives extinguished right when they should be celebrating the best part of their lives. And the teacher who survived the holocaust only to be gunned down by this loser, how ironic is that?

This guy was obviously very sick- the red flags were numerous. To say that action should have been taken earlier is opportunistic hindsight, but I continue to hear stories from teachers and fellow students that this guy was acting pretty strangely for quite some time. I think had there been better communication among all these folks, there might have been a chance to intervene and take this guy out of the game before he acted as he did.

Unfortunately, I don't think there's any specific thing that could be done to stop events like this in the future. If someone is determined to hurt people in this manner, they will probably find a way. I think a lot of the responsibility will ultimately fall upon the students to monitor their peers and act if they feel it is necessary. This whole thing makes me so sad- I never had to deal with this kind of thing in college, it was a safe environment.

Times have sure changed, haven't they? :(

BTW, one thing I heard that I think is a great idea is getting all the students cell phone numbers into a data base where they could be mass-texted in an emergency. Much better than email or sirens. Even if a student has no cell phone, he/she would be likely in the vicinity of someone who does.

Hard to know what the solution is. College students should be studying, partying and getting laid. Not getting shot.

Posted

I don't buy the "I need a gun for self defence" argument.

Why? It's perfectly rational. Let's start with how Rousseau's 'Social Contract' -- you relinquish certain rights in exchange for personal protection by the state -- is seriously flawed. Now dialing Blacksburg S. VA........ring, ring, ring....

No state undertakes that, Weizen.

The arguments for and against gun control are almost certainly irrelevant in relation to an incident like this. Talk about gun control in relation to armed robbery or drive-by shootings. Britain has probably the most restrictive gun control regime in the world, but it doesn't stop incidents like those at Hungerford in 1987

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungerford_Massacre

or Dunblane in 1996

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunblane_Massacre

Basically, in these cases, we're dealing with nutters, not rational people like criminals and gang members.

MG

MG,

If gun control legislation in the United Kingdom mirrored that of the United States, do you think that the occurrence of tragedies similar to the two that you note above would?:

A. increase,

B. decrese, or

C. stay exactly the same

Thanks!

I suspect it would remain the same. I don't think incidents like this are either encourged or discouraged by the gun control regime. Nor, for that matter, any other generalised social/cultural situation. Some people are just sick. If something can be done about those individuals (and in many cases I would guess that does happen), fine. But to expect every one of those people to be identified before they do something horrendous is asking too much of society.

MG

MG

Posted

There are certainly many more young men around us which are as mentally disturbed and dangerous as this guy. Which easy access to (semi-)automatic weapons, a tragedy of such a dimension can happen again and again.

I don't understand how a country can put so much effort in preventing terrorist acts, thereby reducing many civil liberties, and at the same time accept the possibility of deranged individuals buying arms and committing mass murders, because the right to own arms is considered sacred.

Posted (edited)

Personally, with the kind of arseholes running our country, I'd like to keep the freedom to bear arms. Who knows when we might need them?

I think that you interpreted correctly the Constitution's emendament about arms. I think that at times the proposal of it was exactly to prevent the taking over from undemocratic federal government against single states. That is pretty obvious, considering that Jefferson and the Others lived in an epoch were undemocratic centralized Kingdoms ruled the world. A federation of armed free states (with the milicia) was the better cure for that. And the right to carry arm has more to do with it then with personal selfdefense. How ironic that Hamilton won the battle against Jefferson in the long run and today we have the more invasise and centralizad federal control over the country but the freedom to enteer in a shop and buy an assault gun.

About the NBC video broadcasting :bad:

though I would be surprised if Cho wouldn't had doing something like this. In the common perception nothing has happened if is not on the Medias. In Italy we faced a growing tendence between teenagers, and even youngers, to put on youTube their bravados, filmed with cellphones. Nor that bravados had not happened before, but now they have a place to show them.

And, working in the media's world, I would be surprise even more if they wouldn't broadcasted it. Morals in the Media is rarer then a good KennyG record.

Edited by porcy62
Posted

I find it tasteless that the media is playing this guy's video and showing his pictures. Just what he wanted: To achieve matyrdom status like his heroes, the Columbine killers. Why not say, "He mailed us a package containing his manifesto. In respect to the dead and in defiance of the killer's intention, we're not going to show anything from it." And then hand it over to the FBI.

Yes, all the paranoid-schizos out there can now view their anti-hero par excellance as he becomes the media darling.

Now that's somebody who has acheived a status worth aspiring towards....

It is tasteless I agree...but, the media doesn't care. In the past, they have shown video of a soon to be beheaded hostage over and over. They don't worry how the family and friends will react to this footage being shown, or how may breed more copycats. Same with suicide bombers videos, they are shown again and again worldwide, since it's "news"

Posted

There are certainly many more young men around us which are as mentally disturbed and dangerous as this guy. Which easy access to (semi-)automatic weapons, a tragedy of such a dimension can happen again and again.

I don't understand how a country can put so much effort in preventing terrorist acts, thereby reducing many civil liberties, and at the same time accept the possibility of deranged individuals buying arms and committing mass murders, because the right to own arms is considered sacred.

I believe most murders in the U.S. are committed with illegal weapons. Criminals always have had guns, and will always have guns. Somehow, I don't think that they will hand in their weapons if there was a complete ban.

I don't own a gun, and don't plan to own one...but I do know that if the government tried to take guns away from law abiding citizens in the US, there would be bloodshed. As you see on this thread, Republicans and Democrats own guns.(And some right wingers here don't want anyone to have guns, and lefties are for folks owning guns....what's next, Dogs and cats living together? )

Posted (edited)

It's about making access to guns more difficult, especially those guns which seem to have no other purpose than committing a crime (semi-automatic assault weapons).

The Virginia Tech killer didn't have a criminal background. He bought the weapons through the normal legal procedure. A young man here in Europe would have a hard time finding such a weapon, even on the black market.

Again, my surprise is that in the US everything is being done to detect terrorist plots (people buying explosives, etc) while nothing prevents a lunatic from amassing dangerous assault weapons which can be used for equally deadly revenge plans.

Edited by Claude
Posted

cho_hammer_medium.jpg

This is interesting.

An Image’s Ties to a Dark Movie | 8:07 PM ET

Inspiration for Cho's Images?A self-shot photo of Mr. Cho, above, and a still from the Web site of the movie ‘Oldboy.’ (Photos: NBC News, top; Tartan Films)

The inspiration for perhaps the most inexplicable image in the set that Cho Seung-Hui mailed to NBC news on Monday may be a movie from South Korea that won the Gran Prix prize at Cannes Film Festival in 2004.

The poses in the two images are similar, and the plot of the movie, “Oldboy,” seems dark enough to merit at least some further study. Following is The Times’s plot summary:

The film centers on a seemingly ordinary businessman, Dae-su (the terrific Choi Min-sik), who, after being mysteriously imprisoned, goes on an extensive, exhausting rampage, seeking answers and all manner of bloody revenge.

In a Times review, Manohla Dargis wrote that the film’s “body count and sadistic violence” mostly appealed to “cult-film aficionados for whom distinctions between high art and low are unknown, unrecognized and certainly unwelcome.”

A Virginia Tech professor, Paul Harrill, alerted us of the similarity between images in the hope that it would shed some light on what led Mr. Cho to kill 32 on Monday before turning the gun on himself.

Here is the NYT review of the film.

The New York Times

March 25, 2005

MOVIE REVIEW | 'OLDBOY'

The Violence (and the Seafood) Is More Than Raw

By MANOHLA DARGIS

One question, perhaps the question, is this: what does art have to do with a guy eating a live octopus, and then hammering a couple of (human) heads?

The guy in question, the one doing the gobbling and hammering, is Oh Dae-su, the central character in the frenzied Korean thriller "Oldboy." The latest in pulp-fiction cool, "Oldboy" was directed by Park Chanwook, whose films, including the very fine "Joint Security Area" and the repugnant "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance," have won him admirers in rarefied circles, including the Cannes Film Festival, where last year "Oldboy" took second prize. Given the body count and sadistic violence in "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance" and "Oldboy," it's no surprise that Mr. Park's largest fan base may be those cult-film aficionados for whom distinctions between high art and low are unknown, unrecognized and certainly unwelcome.

After going on a raucous drunk, an ordinary businessman, Dae-su (the terrific Choi Min-sik, who also starred in Im Kwon-taek's "Chihwaseon"), is mysteriously abducted to a private prison. There, with a television set and a painting of a leering Jesus-like figure for company, Dae-su keeps body and mind together (if barely), mostly by working out and chipping away at his prison walls. Eventually, he's released, whereupon he meets a kindly, predictably beautiful sushi waitress, Mido (Gang Hye-jung), gobbles down that poor octopus and proves that he wields a mean hammer. In time, he comes face to face with his anonymous tormenter, a smoothie with a smile named Lee Woo-jin (Yoo Ji-tae), who gives him five days - or else! - to learn why he was imprisoned.

A master of composition, Mr. Park makes some of the snazziest-looking pulp fiction going. He has an impeccable if unoriginal visual style, indebted both to the usual masters (Hitchcock, Kubrick, with a nod at Buñuel) and especially to David Fincher, whose pop nihilism and dedication to the plasticity of the medium hang heavily over this film. That generally makes "Oldboy" entertaining to watch - notwithstanding the scene in which Dae-su eats a live animal - which is a good thing, because there is not much to think about here, outside of the choreographed mayhem. The screenplay, which the director helped write, is the least of the film's attractions; certainly the puerile, big-bang finish, which flashes the story back to high school and a teenage "slut," suggests that Mr. Park knows the adolescent mindset of his target audience all too well.

"Oldboy" is a good if trivial genre movie, no more, no less. There's no denying that Mr. Park is some kind of virtuoso, but so what? So was the last guy who directed a Gap commercial. Cinematic virtuosity for its own sake, particularly as expressed through cinematography - in loop-the-loop camera work and, increasingly, in computer-assisted ornamentation - is a modern plague that threatens to bury us in shiny, meaningless movies. Historically speaking, the most interesting thing about "Oldboy" is that like so much "product" now coming out of Hollywood, it is a B movie tricked out as an A movie. Once, a film like this, predicated on extreme violence and staying within the prison house of genre rather than transcending it, would have been shot on cardboard sets with two-bit talent. It would have had its premiere in Times Square.

The fact that "Oldboy" is embraced by some cinephiles is symptomatic of a bankrupt, reductive postmodernism: one that promotes a spurious aesthetic relativism (it's all good) and finds its crudest expression in the hermetically sealed world of fan boys. (At this point, it's perhaps worth pointing out that the head of the jury at Cannes last year was none other than Quentin Tarantino.) In this world, aesthetic and moral judgments - much less philosophical and political inquiries - are rejected in favor of a vague taxonomy of cool that principally involves ever more florid spectacles of violence. As in, "Wow, he's hammering those dudes with a knife stuck in his back - cool!" Or, "He's about to drop that guy and his dog from the roof - way cool!" Kiss-kiss, bang-bang, yawn-yawn. We are a long way from Pasolini and Peckinpah.

"Oldboy" is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It includes wall-to-wall extreme sadistic violence, a little sex and partial nudity.

'Oldboy'

Opens today in Manhattan.

Directed by Park Chanwook; written (in Korean, with English subtitles) by Hwang Jo-yun, Lim Joon-hyung and Mr. Park, based on a story by Tsuchiya Garon and Minegishi Nobuaki; director of photography, Jung Jung-hoon; edited by Kim Sang-bum; music by Cho Young-wuk; production designer, Yoo Seong-hee; produced by Kim Dong-joo; released by Tartan Films. Running time: 118 minutes. This film is rated R.

WITH: Choi Min-sik (Oh Dae-su), Yoo Ji-tae (Lee Woo-jin) and Gang Hye-jung (Mido).

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

Posted

Put me down in the "no need for guns" camp. . . .I've fired a rifle several times in Africa as a teenager in a hunting manner and haven't ever felt the need to own or use one since.

But as a citizen of the nation that is the biggest arms seller and constant promoter of weaponry, covert intrigue and war, I don't expect things to change.

This recent shooting spree. . . it's so saddening. Especially with the evidence of such premeditation and preparedness. It's as if the planned this, prepared his claim to fame (in his eyes) package, started with a few murders, decided that he could do more, maybe even enjoy more, mailed off his package and went for broke. Chilling. And since he achieved the sort of attention he wished, I think seeds are planted for more . . . although the chance of spontaneous sprouting is high without the attention paid to his package.

Posted

cho_hammer_medium.jpg

This is interesting.

An Image’s Ties to a Dark Movie | 8:07 PM ET

Inspiration for Cho's Images?A self-shot photo of Mr. Cho, above, and a still from the Web site of the movie ‘Oldboy.’ (Photos: NBC News, top; Tartan Films)

The inspiration for perhaps the most inexplicable image in the set that Cho Seung-Hui mailed to NBC news on Monday may be a movie from South Korea that won the Gran Prix prize at Cannes Film Festival in 2004.

The poses in the two images are similar, and the plot of the movie, “Oldboy,” seems dark enough to merit at least some further study. Following is The Times’s plot summary:

The film centers on a seemingly ordinary businessman, Dae-su (the terrific Choi Min-sik), who, after being mysteriously imprisoned, goes on an extensive, exhausting rampage, seeking answers and all manner of bloody revenge.

In a Times review, Manohla Dargis wrote that the film’s “body count and sadistic violence” mostly appealed to “cult-film aficionados for whom distinctions between high art and low are unknown, unrecognized and certainly unwelcome.”

A Virginia Tech professor, Paul Harrill, alerted us of the similarity between images in the hope that it would shed some light on what led Mr. Cho to kill 32 on Monday before turning the gun on himself.

Here is the NYT review of the film.

The New York Times

March 25, 2005

MOVIE REVIEW | 'OLDBOY'

The Violence (and the Seafood) Is More Than Raw

By MANOHLA DARGIS

One question, perhaps the question, is this: what does art have to do with a guy eating a live octopus, and then hammering a couple of (human) heads?

The guy in question, the one doing the gobbling and hammering, is Oh Dae-su, the central character in the frenzied Korean thriller "Oldboy." The latest in pulp-fiction cool, "Oldboy" was directed by Park Chanwook, whose films, including the very fine "Joint Security Area" and the repugnant "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance," have won him admirers in rarefied circles, including the Cannes Film Festival, where last year "Oldboy" took second prize. Given the body count and sadistic violence in "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance" and "Oldboy," it's no surprise that Mr. Park's largest fan base may be those cult-film aficionados for whom distinctions between high art and low are unknown, unrecognized and certainly unwelcome.

After going on a raucous drunk, an ordinary businessman, Dae-su (the terrific Choi Min-sik, who also starred in Im Kwon-taek's "Chihwaseon"), is mysteriously abducted to a private prison. There, with a television set and a painting of a leering Jesus-like figure for company, Dae-su keeps body and mind together (if barely), mostly by working out and chipping away at his prison walls. Eventually, he's released, whereupon he meets a kindly, predictably beautiful sushi waitress, Mido (Gang Hye-jung), gobbles down that poor octopus and proves that he wields a mean hammer. In time, he comes face to face with his anonymous tormenter, a smoothie with a smile named Lee Woo-jin (Yoo Ji-tae), who gives him five days - or else! - to learn why he was imprisoned.

A master of composition, Mr. Park makes some of the snazziest-looking pulp fiction going. He has an impeccable if unoriginal visual style, indebted both to the usual masters (Hitchcock, Kubrick, with a nod at Buñuel) and especially to David Fincher, whose pop nihilism and dedication to the plasticity of the medium hang heavily over this film. That generally makes "Oldboy" entertaining to watch - notwithstanding the scene in which Dae-su eats a live animal - which is a good thing, because there is not much to think about here, outside of the choreographed mayhem. The screenplay, which the director helped write, is the least of the film's attractions; certainly the puerile, big-bang finish, which flashes the story back to high school and a teenage "slut," suggests that Mr. Park knows the adolescent mindset of his target audience all too well.

"Oldboy" is a good if trivial genre movie, no more, no less. There's no denying that Mr. Park is some kind of virtuoso, but so what? So was the last guy who directed a Gap commercial. Cinematic virtuosity for its own sake, particularly as expressed through cinematography - in loop-the-loop camera work and, increasingly, in computer-assisted ornamentation - is a modern plague that threatens to bury us in shiny, meaningless movies. Historically speaking, the most interesting thing about "Oldboy" is that like so much "product" now coming out of Hollywood, it is a B movie tricked out as an A movie. Once, a film like this, predicated on extreme violence and staying within the prison house of genre rather than transcending it, would have been shot on cardboard sets with two-bit talent. It would have had its premiere in Times Square.

The fact that "Oldboy" is embraced by some cinephiles is symptomatic of a bankrupt, reductive postmodernism: one that promotes a spurious aesthetic relativism (it's all good) and finds its crudest expression in the hermetically sealed world of fan boys. (At this point, it's perhaps worth pointing out that the head of the jury at Cannes last year was none other than Quentin Tarantino.) In this world, aesthetic and moral judgments - much less philosophical and political inquiries - are rejected in favor of a vague taxonomy of cool that principally involves ever more florid spectacles of violence. As in, "Wow, he's hammering those dudes with a knife stuck in his back - cool!" Or, "He's about to drop that guy and his dog from the roof - way cool!" Kiss-kiss, bang-bang, yawn-yawn. We are a long way from Pasolini and Peckinpah.

"Oldboy" is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It includes wall-to-wall extreme sadistic violence, a little sex and partial nudity.

'Oldboy'

Opens today in Manhattan.

Directed by Park Chanwook; written (in Korean, with English subtitles) by Hwang Jo-yun, Lim Joon-hyung and Mr. Park, based on a story by Tsuchiya Garon and Minegishi Nobuaki; director of photography, Jung Jung-hoon; edited by Kim Sang-bum; music by Cho Young-wuk; production designer, Yoo Seong-hee; produced by Kim Dong-joo; released by Tartan Films. Running time: 118 minutes. This film is rated R.

WITH: Choi Min-sik (Oh Dae-su), Yoo Ji-tae (Lee Woo-jin) and Gang Hye-jung (Mido).

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

I saw the movie, and basically agree with the review and its conclusion: we are a long way from Pasolini and Peckinpah and I would add at least Cronenberg and Polansky.

Posted

How many people got blown to shit in IRAQ today? *

Oh goody, a death toll throwdown.

Around 30,000 people a year die in the U.S. by gunshot.

40,000 a year die in car wrecks, lets ban all cars!

Posted

I'd respond, but it would be like driving over fish in a barrel.

Not really. Comparing death tolls is the silliest fucking thing I can think of.

"Oh yeah, you think that's bad?! What about all the death in Darfur? Huh? How about THAT big boy?!"

It's almost as if Clem is saying the deaths in Va. are inconsequential in comparison.

Posted

It's almost as if Clem is saying the deaths in Va. are inconsequential in comparison.

No, I think he's saying what I was saying; you can't actually do anything about stopping the deaths of victims of nutters like that. But you MAY be able to stop other deaths, which you're paying taxes to arrange. I didn't go that far, because this isn't a political thread. And the REASON it isn't, is because there isn't a political answer to this problem.

MG

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