Thursday, April 19, 2007

I'm a parent

I know many of you are parents too.

As parents, our entire lives are focused on loving our children, raising our children to be good, responsible adults, and protecting them from harm until they get to the point where they can protect themselves.

Whether you are a penguin, a possum or a human, that's what parents do.

Raise 'em, teach 'em, protect 'em, and send 'em off into the world to make their way.

Now imagine that you have pulled off this seemingly impossible task. Some of you already have.

You got them through infancy without them dying from SIDS, or swallowing poison, or tumbling down the stairs and breaking their necks, or being attacked by pit bulls.

You got them through childhood without them being abducted by a child molester, walking into traffic and being hit by a car, or falling down a mine shaft.

You got them through their teen years without them running away, becoming a mother or father, becoming a druggie or an alcoholic. They weren't killed in a teen car accident. They aren't violent or disrespectful. They make good grades. They are actually good, responsible, caring, young adults with common sense and a bright future.

You send them off to college thinking, "they're going to make it. We did good. We can relax a little bit. Our job is almost done."

Then you get the call. It's over. They're gone.

Some sick, twisted, worthless piece of shit took away everything your child had and everything they ever would have had.

For nothing.

They didn't do anything wrong. They were just going about being the wonderful people you raised them to be.

And now they're dead.

How would that feel?

Multiply that by 32.

Multiply that by all of the friends and family that each one of those 32 victims had.

Each and every one of those thousands of grief stricken people had their hearts ripped out, their souls crushed and their dreams destroyed in a senseless act of unspeakable violence.

Try to think, for just a minute how YOU would feel.

Now imagine that EVERY FUCKING TIME you turn on the TV, or open a newspaper, or get on the internet, you are confronted with the image of the "thing" that brought your entire world crashing down around you, and he is pointing a gun directly at you.

Everywhere you turn, you see the very last thing that your precious child saw before they died a horrible, undeserved death. And you haven't even come to terms with the fact that they are gone. You haven't even made arrangements for a funeral. You are still notifying family.

And what is dominating the media? What a wonderful gift the world has lost? Your grief?

Nope.

The monster that committed the crime.

I'm a parent.

You're a parent.

Do they not have any parents working in journalism?

This should not have been a difficult decision. Publishing pictures of the killer pointing guns at a camera while the victims are still sitting in the county morgue waiting to be buried and grieved...

That's not news. That is unspeakable cruelty.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

The newsmedia are ghouls. All of the national outlets were running the same fucking story.

Anonymous said...

Since common sense doesn't prevail I'd love to see a law which prohibits the publishing of the name, image, or identity of mass killers - at least for a year, if not ever.

We protect victims of sex-crimes in this manner so why not protect potential victims of mass-killings if even a tiny bit of their motive is notoreity?

Maybe then, it won't be as quick a time until the next sad sick refers to previous ones as martyrs.

I deliberately haven't watched said video nor read any transcripts, but I really wish I didn't have his image feisted on me by a million websites - and I'm somebody with zero connection to Virginia Tech.

Anonymous said...

I've read your comments on Greg's spot for a while. We've even gone toe to toe a few times. This was an excellent post.

You're dead on.
MM

Anonymous said...

I agree 100% with the sentiment of this posting. It was a moral decision and the media got it wrong.

We have entered a new technology era, one that makes it possible for nearly everyone to communicate instantly. All you need is a camera and a computer to see or convey any kind of image or message, horrific or not. Cho used it. NBC and every other station capitalized on it.

Along with the good, always seems to come the bad. We want freedom of the press and we don't want censorship but we don't want to be staring at the murderer of our children either. I'm sure Daniel Pearl's family suffered immensely just knowing that his agonizing death was available for the whole world to see on the internet.

Balance is not easy.

ZigZagMan said...

I couldn't have worded it better. I think this tragedy needed to be reported....but now it's a time to grieve...not celibrate a fucking madman.

I read on the smoking gun website that the same group that stages protests at soldiers funerals...plan to protest one of the victims funeral this.....grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

crse said...

oh wow. you wrote that so well that I felt it like a punch in the gut. Did you hear about the one kid who is trying to get on as many news shows as possible so he can take time away from that "useless piece of shit". I seriously have not seen something affect us as a nation since 9/11.