Virginia Tech @ MindSay 
My thoughts are scattered throughout and in italics.
-John
PHOTOS SHOW PENN ST. STUDENTS IN VA. TECH SHOOTING COSTUMES
WRC-TV
Some members of the Virginia Tech community were outraged on Thursday night after some pictures of a controversial Halloween costume were posted on the Internet. The pictures displayed on the social networking site Facebook showed two Penn State students dressed as the Virginia Tech shooting victims.
In the photos, the students are wearing Virginia Tech T-shirts, have bullet holes in their clothes and are wearing elaborate makeup.
The students said the costumes were worn to a small Halloween party and were meant to be private.
I'd want to say that too if it got national attention and people were outraged.
In an interview with Roanoke's WSLS-TV, one of the students in the pictures called the costumes "crazy controversial" and said they were trying "to push the envelope just for shock value."
That sounds accurate. Which leads us to the question: is there a point where it's too much?
"The thing is, everybody's making a big stink about Virginia Tech. Virginia Tech was 32 deaths out of the 26,000 that happen in America every day," he said.
"That's the problem with college students," he continued. "They all live in an ivory tower of privilege. They don't understand, when it all boils down to it, it's someone wearing a costume."
I think the one lacking understanding is the one who has opened his mouth. If the student *really* believes this: that it's only a costume, don't get worked up, then why was the earlier excuse that it was meant for a private party? You *know* when you wear something like this that it's controversial. Don't dress it up to look like something neutral.
After seeing the pictures, a Virginia Tech student created a Facebook group for people against the costumes. Some of the upset members have left threatening statements to the Penn State students.
This is just as unfortunate as the costumes in the first place.
"This is a group of college students who now think it's trendy to be upset about their friends being killed," the student in the photos told WSLS-TV.
Trendy? If by trend you mean it's a regular occurrence for people to be heartbroken, angry, mournful etc. then yes, it is a trend. Although trend usually means it's relatively new. Mourning has been going on for a long time now.
Penn State officials said they are appalled by the students' actions.
As they should be.
"We are appalled that these individuals would display this level of insensitivity, indifference and lack of common decency and sense by dressing up in this manner," officials told the Roanoke station. "These two people do not represent 90,000 Penn State students. They represent themselves."
Now comes Alan Weisman’s delightful book, “The World Without Us.” (Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin’s Press, list $24.95, $1896 incl shipping from Amazon)
What would happen if humanity had never evolved; or if, one day, all people just vanished? How would the planet adjust? What changes in the environment would occur, and how fast?
Great questions, with answers presented in a book which reads with the ease of a Harry Potter tale. Unfortunately, Harry Potter is aimed at people with imaginations, it stimulates the imagination; and that is exactly NOT what one wishes for when reading this materal.
Why do we want to be imagination dead when reading “The World Without Us?” Because your imagination will immediately trigger an awareness of the dangers revealed.
Do you wish to know where to spend limited home improvement money? Read the section on how decay and nature will erase traces of your home.
Do you have an interest in antiquity and where your ancestors might have emerged? On the net, the Shreknangst pages explore this using DNA and known history; Weisman adds to that knowledge the minor facts, such as where apples developed, and hence, in terms of the Shreknangst research, why the apple is the Genesis mentioned fruit.
But for Bush and his terrorist buddies – yes he is more the terrorist than Bin Laden, if you have doubts, ask any Iraq about their life now, and conditions under Saddam; for Bush and his terrorist buddies, “The World Without Us” is a guide for future destruction of the American economy.
Turn to Chapter 10, “The Petro Patch”, (page 129) and learn that it is Texas, not New York, which should be the next target.
No, the author doesn’t say that. All he does is describe the structure of our oil industry, and the nature of things in Houston Texas. As an example, “the 5,519-mile, 30-inch Colonial Pipeline, whose main trunk starts in the Houston suburb of Pasadena.” Or the maze of pipes under Houston, with their highly explosive contents.
When it comes to explosives, one could consider the description of the storage tanks which could easily be rupture, and more easily shocked, into explosive release.
Imagine an attack on Houston. Imagine fireballs and channels of flame running through the pipelines and maybe, with the luck they had at the World Trade Center, exiting just south of New York Harbor, in Linden, New Jersey.
Page after page of bombs awaiting detonators. Were the Houston facilities to be ignited, all of American industry would be permanently crippled. Oil tankers which bring crude to Houston refineries would go elsewhere; never to return in their current numbers.
Plastics? The basis of throwaway American society would cease to be made; the manufacturing facilities, based in Houston, would explode. The environment would be better for it; but not for thousands of years.
Tires, the environmentally devastating relic of the automotive society, would no longer be produced at Goodyear’s Houston plant – where they have been produced since 1942. Can you say “outsource”?
Twenty-percent of oil energy goes to the production and delivery of food for American tables. Houston vanishes, the refineries vanish, and the food stops. Without refineries, the cars stop. We already know of the jumps in pump prices resulting from a deficiency in refinery capacity; how much would prices soar if most of the refineries vanished?
Think about it. Now understand that terrorists are not the treat Bush would have you believe they were. If terrorists organization, who tend to attract the best and brightest of their respective ethnic populations, wanted to hurt America, The Twin Towers would still be standing, and Houston, and American power, would be a memory.
Reality check, if Terrorists groups wanted to destroy America, or even attack it, America would be history. All the Terrorists want is to engage us in actions where they gain the ability to destroy their own societies. Once again, look at Iraq, or Afghanistan.
Hello everyone…
In mid-August, we will be updating our Firearms, Weapons and Knives Policy to place more restrictions around gun-related items. Once these changes take effect, we will prohibit listings of any firearm part that is required for the firing of a gun. This includes items like bullet tips, brass casings and shells, barrels, slides, cylinders, magazines, firing pins, trigger assemblies, etc. Please read the Firearms, Weapons and Knives Policy for more details on our current policy.
As you may know, eBay does not allow the listing of any items which are regulated by individual states or the federal government; however, there are still a large number of firearm-related parts that are legal and are widely available in retail stores. These items have also historically been allowed on eBay.
After learning that some items purchased on eBay may have been used in the tragedy at Virginia Tech in April 2007, we felt that revisiting our policies was not only necessary, but the right thing to do. After much consideration, the Trust & Safety policy team – along with our executive leaders at eBay Inc. – have made the decision to further restrict more of these items than federal and state regulations require.
This new update continues to encourage safety among our community members and brings our policies in the U.S. and Canada in closer alignment with our existing policies in other markets around the globe.
Sincerely,
Matt Halprin
Vice President, Trust & Safety
First of all, what items did he get from eBay to use to kill all those students at VT? I seem to remember the guns were bought the day before, legally, at a local gun store. I'm sure they came with magazines and that he bought extras there and he probably bought factory load ammo at the shop as well. I doubt he went home and spent the afternoon reloading .22s.
Second, I shut down my eBay account after they deleted my gun related auction... for a holster. Usually holsters hold guns, which means they are not causing an issue at that moment in time (and normally, with crazed gunman, you tend to see a lack of holsters. A lot of times you see them just shove them into their waste bands because it far more gangsta do it that way). So unless you plan to bludgeon someone to death with a leather gun holster, it is pretty benign.
Active Shooter Workshop for
Law Enforcement and School Administrators
Date: June 5, 2007
Location: The campus of Indiana State University, Terre Haute, Ind.
The International Tactical Officers Training Association and Indiana State University will co-host a workshop to help prepare police and school administrators to deal with shooting incidents like the recent tragedy at Virginia Tech. The one-day workshop on June 5, "Active Shooters on Campus: Critical Strategies for Law Enforcement Officers & School Administrators," will feature experts in active-shooter encounters, high-stress scenarios, school security and violence, emergency management and close-quarters.
The workshop is geared toward law enforcement; school security officers, state, city and campus law enforcement, as well as administrators and counselors at junior and high schools, colleges and universities; from throughout the region.
"No one ever expects a situation like what happened at Virginia Tech, but what we can do is be prepared to the best of our ability, and that is what this workshop is about," said workshop coordinator Jason Winkle, president of the International Tactical Officers Training Association.
Former director of combatives for the United States Military Academy at West Point and current president of the ITOTA, Jason Winkle is an international presenter in the areas of tactical operations, leadership in high-stress/high-fear environments, counter-terrorism tactics and ethical decision-making.
"School administrators can be a hindrance when they don't know the protocol for dealing with an active shooter. If they understand what's happening and what their role is, it lessens the fear and increases their ability to respond," Winkle said. "Our goal is to get everyone on the same page and train them so they are as prepared as possible for these worst-case scenarios."
Presenting with Winkle will be Louis Rapoli, a police sergeant in the School Safety Division of a major metropolitan police department on the East Coast, and a school security consultant; Dr. Dorene Hojnicki, director of the Vigo County Emergency Management Agency, and public health coordinator of the Vigo County Health Department; and Jeffrey Edwards, exercise physiologist, and chairperson and professor of Indiana State University's physical education department.
Workshop agenda for June 5, 2007:
8:00-8:30
Registration, ISU's Hulman Memorial Student Union, Dede I
8:30-9:50
Debrief of Virginia Tech Shooting & Update on School Violence in U.S. (Louis Rapoli)
10:00-10:50
The Mindset for Combating Active Shooters (Jason Winkle)
11:00-11:55
Understanding the Physiology of High-Fear & High-Stress Scenarios (Jeffrey Edwards)
12:00-1:00
Lunch
1:00-1:55
Emergency Management Agency's Role in Active-Shooter Encounters (Dorene Hojnicki)
2:00-4:00
Active-Shooter Doctrine: Why We Must All Understand This Process (Jason Winkle)
Speakers:
- Louis Rapoli is a police sergeant in the School Safety Division of a major metropolitan police department on the East Coast, and a school security consultant. His primary assignment is to conduct preliminary investigations on all threats that come in to the metropolitan area's public school system, assess them and handle them accordingly. Sgt. Rapoli has been to Virginia to be debriefed on the Virginia Tech shooting, and will share what happened and how we can learn from this tragedy.
- Jason Winkle, recognized as a top international consultant and presenter in both military and law enforcement communities, is an assistant professor of physical education at Indiana State University, and president of the International Tactical Officers Training Association. Former director of combatives for the United States Military Academy at West Point, Winkle has more than 12 years of experience training members of the U.S. elite special operations community. His combat-readiness regimens have revolutionized the training approach utilized by numerous tactical teams and military special operators. He has a Ph.D. in education, leadership, administration & foundations from Indiana State University; a master's in kinesiology and a bachelor's in philosophy, both from Indiana University.
- Dr. Dorene Hojnicki is the director of the Vigo County Emergency Management Agency, and public health coordinator of the Vigo County Health Department. Dr. Hojnicki has more than 30 years of experience in emergency medicine, working with first responders, law enforcement and EMS personnel. She is a board-certified emergency physician and serves as medical director for numerous volunteer fire departments in the Wabash Valley. As an emergency room registered nurse, she did her trauma training at Cook County Hospital in Chicago. She is the former medical director of student health services and team physician for Indiana State University.
- Jeffrey Edwards is an exercise physiologist, and chairperson and professor of Indiana State University's physical education department, and interim chairperson of athletic training. He received his Ph.D. in human performance with an emphasis in physiology from Indiana University. Edwards was a member of the Big Red Scientific expedition high-altitude research team that climbed Mt. McKinley in Alaska; he served as research director for the National Institute for Fitness and Sport in Indianapolis, and was instrumental in starting its research laboratories; and is the inventor of the GPAC
(Global Positioning Activity Counter), a small, computerized device for measuring both physical activity and geographic location.
FOR more information on attending contact the itota at info@itota.net or call (812) 878-7928.
Article sponsored by Criminal Justice online leadership; and, law enforcement personnel who have written books.
NATURE REVEALED
NOTHING GOOD TO SAY? SAY IT HERE
Pablo
© 2007 OneWalrus/Rojombre PABLO PORTAL
No part of the content or the blog may be reproduced without prior written permission and exorbitant cash donation
>.)
Showing 1 - 5. [ Next ]