destor23:

So now that the video is aired, and aired, and aired, what do you know about Cho that you didn't know before? Seriously.

Todd Gitlin

BTW, at least I have truly learned something from all the coverage of the murders (and although definitely not from coverage of his mailing, perhaps stimulated by forced public debate about the man's mental state).  I had actually commented at TPM that while we need gun control for lots of reasons, from law enforcement to reducing suicides and accidental deaths, this case wasn't relevant, as there's no background check subjective enough to sort out the potential loonies. It looks as if I was wrong and should apologize.

Countless news articles now have said that a state without a 24 hour deadline for sales or that picks up on anyone who's been ordered treatment for his own safety would have denied a weapon, and he would never have got one legally in New York (although I realize there are illegal guns, too).  So maybe they'll be some good in the end. 

John 

http://www.haberarts.com/

I don't know about Destor, but I learned to have some pity and compassion for him.

I believe that not airing it would have been a grave mistake. It would have given tremendous grist to the conspiracy mill. It could have been manipulated in a political sense - more threats that we cannot assess for ourselves.
Seems to me that there is going to be a strong examination of our society, our youth, gun laws, privacy, etc. This is all very deep and I find it hard to form a strong opinion with so many things hitting at once, but if we are going to dragged through a debate down the road, that may touch on issues that impact our society, we had better have all the facts. Thus, this has now become a part of the public record and cannot be subjected to distortion.

I don't think he was a loner, I think he was lonely.

Dan K's post on world views is excellent. I'm thinking just now of David Brooks this past week on evil, as part of my problem with the right. It's also part of why the conservatism persists, in a nation with a long tradition of individualism and moral exceptionalism, and why economic conservatism aligns itself so readily with the fundamentalist Christian kind, both of which can point to a vision of human salvation.

My only disagreement would again go to gun laws. Sometimes you stop trying to deal with causes and take the weapons away.

John

http://www.haberarts.com/

The broadcasters do not share the killer's purpose, exactly, but they serve it. In his eyes, they are fools who will serve as tools - his tools. As once the killer was humiliated, he will now humiliate these powerhouses of image by turning them into his instruments. For he understands that broadcasters share a purpose with him - getting attention. As so, in the strictest sense, those who broadcast the killers' messages are complicit.

Are you talking about Cho or the administration? 

Seriously, though, doesn't everyone--politicians, corporations, special interest groups, mass murderers--try to manipulate the media to get their message out? Of course, the media should try to avoid being manipulated for PR purposes, but don't they need to err toward disseminating information rather than suppressing it? Should the press have shown Bush's "Mission Accomplished" video, with the commander-in-chief decked out in his own killer outfit and strutting among his guns?  It was propoganda--it was a PR event. But it was also news. Rather than asking the media to suppress information, let's demand they give us more--and, especially, let's demand that they ask more questions, be more critical, be bolder at pointing out falsehoods and blatant attempts to manipulate public opinion with lies. Show Cho's video. Show Mission Accomplished. Then show us the dead and ask questions. What really have all these pathetic little men accomplished?

Examine "repeated game" solution to prisoner's dilemma.  It isn't what Cho gets.  It is what the next Cho anticipates.

I guess I just think that the point of the news business is to report what information is out there, not to try to discourage future killers.

When the media reported about the federal government wiretapping US citizens and then about its examinations of bank transactions, people who supported the government claimed that the media should have stayed silent and acted in a way that undermined national security. I didn't by that argument either. The media had a responsibility to report what it knew, no matter how it effected national security. That's how I feel about the Cho tapes. The media had them. It's their job to make them public, in one form or another.

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

I guess I don't agree that the standard should be "what's necessary." The tape was made and sent. It might give a clue about the mind of the killer. I want to see it, not have it put in another form like print. The news media should feel free to go ahead and show this stuff and then trust the viewer to decide what it means.

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

Todd,

Nothing. That's my honest answer.

But other people might have learned something.

I think that's the value of putting information out to a wide audience. What might mean nothing to me might be very meaningful to some one else. Look at how our pal Josh Marshall saw a story in the US attorney firings when nobody else did.

I say always error on the side of "show it." I'm more concerned about what the media doesn't tell us than about what it does tell us.

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

Just because terrorists can give a political mask to their acts doesn't make their acts any more rational or explainable. Nihilists who embrace a culture of death and destruction tend, after you wade through the political gargage, to sound a lot like Cho. They don't like the world as it is and their only solution for it is to kill a lot of people they blame for their fate.

Ultimately the Media does not seem to be able to help themselves. It is not so much the reporting once of Cho's video. It is the flogging of it over and over. How often were we shown O.J. in the Bronco or more akin to this the World Trade Center coming down? After a while it all becomes either numbing or unbearable.

In the end other than the news people who would decide what is to be aired and what not? The audience and what they will tolerate and what advertisers will pay for? Thus no more Imus but lots of Cho.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

Difficult situations don't have simple answers. The Unabomber manifesto was a special case, although setting dangerous copycat aspects: he had claimed he would stop bombing if the manifesto were published. There appears to have been some law enforcement hope that if enough people saw the writing style, someone might recognize the writer. As an aside, I remember reading it, and suddenly wondering why it was vaguely familiar. Several friends also thought the writing style, although not the content, had an eerie resemblance to Ayn Rand's John Galt.

When I was growing up, medical books were usually on a locked shelf in a library. Today, there are no restrictions on standard texts. Indeed, I sometimes wish that more people that just looked at popularizations on the Internet would work their way through some of the underlying theory before making decisions.

We generally accept that properly classified national security documents should be accessed only with those that have a need to know. Many less sensitive documents are available, but not necessarily pushed by the media as was Cho's video.

To me, there is a difference among pushing video onto television, having the video available with varying degrees of effort, and, as a court has ordered with certain Columbine videos having them sealed. Take the example of the Daniel Pearl video: while I cannot see it "newsworthy" in other than a tabloid sense, I can see real reasons for people outside the intelligence community, but generally scholars, to be able to gain access. The Columbine, and probably Virginia Tech, on-site videos, as opposed to the "manifestos", are valid for analysis by emergency response personnel to help plan future operations.

The sealed Columbine manifestos, however, could be useful in research on the sort of mind that can produce such killings.

In a way, I don't like the idea of creating privileged classes of people with "inside" information, but I don't see it as avoidable. Medical illustrations usually conceal the identity of a patient, even when meant for a medical audience, but there are times where, for example, a clear photograph of a patient's face is necessary to understand the case (e.g., plastic surgery).

The line, I suspect, is between mass "push" of information that can cause pain, and still having that material available, leaning in the direction of disclosure, for valid research. Material that would reveal vulnerabilities or otherwise enable future acts need the greatest protection.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

What about respect for the families of the victims.
Couldn't they have at least waited some time before
making the videos and writing available on the
internet for those who want to see them.

Now, very shortly after the murders this video
is being shown over and over again on TV where
it could very easily be inadvertently seen by
a victims family or friend, causing yet more
grief.

Or does the public's right to be entertained
trump all ? Note the video is available on the
internet, it did not need to be broadcast over
and over again.

Dan, I agree that most terrorists are politically deluded and pathological, but I think that is different from being divorced-from-reality insane. Some are “nihilists who embrace a culture of death” and some are fighters for a cause using what they consider is asymmetrical warfare. I don’t excuse any party for targeting innocent people whether they are terrorists are national armies.

Often, terrorist causes have roots in real oppression and we can ignore it at our own peril. Anyway, my point was that there is little information (aside from a psychological study) to be learned from Cho’s video itself that isn’t understood from the mere reporting that he made this video and describing what’s in it. You’re right, the flogging it over and over shows the media’s purpose in airing it.

Why should the media decide who should be able to handle this kind of content? Why a researcher and not me? I'm sure the public can handle this kind of thing and put it in its proper context.

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

Read last night that Cho was diagnosed in middle school as autistic. From a teacher friend, my understanding is that, normally, school districts pay for initial assessments if psychological problems are suspected but generally don't pay for treatments if the student is performing well academically. Cho apparently was performing academically at the very good to excellent level.

I further understand that Cho's family did not have the financial resources to pay for treatment and perhaps struggled with the stigma of mental illness within their family. Current information suggests that autism has a genetic basis.

I really don't know what I think even with this additional information. I would lean toward having treatment for autism covered for school age children under any universal healthcare that develops in the future. I find myself very uneasy with a childhood diagnosis not accompanied by any treatment, particularly with studies showing that real improvements are possible.

They already do decide.  They have decided that you are a voyeur with a decided preference for evil.  By watching, you reinforce their decision.

Va Tech is unfriendly to part time students (family experience).  It is 45 minutes to an hour from nearest substantial city.  It is a quasi-elite school.  Broder is off the deep end, again.

He may mean nothing more than that the private sector provides the (great?) majority of the housing for students and that that housing is, as would be expected, off-campus.

An odd use of the term "commuter," but there it is. 

You hit the nail right on the head with this post. I'd like to add that the media's DC sniper coverage in 2002 was grossly irresponsible. The media took public overreaction to the first killings by the snipers and whipped it up to a fever pitch.

I remember one evening on NBC Nightly News when the sniper coverage started with the word "FEAR" plastered across the screen in huge bold letters. Just to make sure we got the point, the first word spoken was "FEAR". The Washington Post's coverage was not much better.

The media sent the message that the only permissible emotion in this situation was stark raving terror. The only interviews that they shown on TV were people who expressed fear of the snipers. There was a great deal of coverage of the panic, such as the tarps pulled over gas stations and the cancellation of outdoor activites for high school students. The snipers killed someone at a gas station, therefore gas stations are unsafe. The snipers killed a kid in front of a school, therefore the outdoors are unsafe for kids.

The media gave a great deal of undeserved power to the snipers. Frankly, I was embarrassed to be living in the DC area while the media was screaming at the top of its lungs:

"WE'RE SHITTING OUR PANTS, MR. SNIPER!! WE'RE SHITTING OUR PANTS!!!"

"Killers-in-waiting may not take notice - this time. Or they may."

Unfortunately, they already have, TG. Cho cited Kleibold and Harris as martyrs.

"It's their job to make them public, in one form or another."

I agree that's the default state for news generally.

But I assume that denying would-be shooters the certain knowledge that they will be allowed to tell their story in the first person would, over time, result in fewer such incidents. IMO, willingness to die is partly conditioned on assurance that they'll get their message out, and that the injustice will be redressed.

So, given that these materials can be described, even in great detail, without giving shooters the very stage they seek to redress their grievances, why not do that instead of playing the tapes, which is obviously just what he wanted.

Impressionable adolescents, etc. (Yeah I know he was 23).

It takes one to know one -- I recognized psychosis in this deranged student when I watched his tapes on television news. Most people havn't experienced psychosis of course (as I have) and so I can't blame you for not recognizing it.

Many convicts use insanity as a false excuse when they were not insane but playing the insanity card as their get out of jail free card.

This guy was clearly insane - he had lost touch with reality, it was not a show.

I've only been crazy once. It lasted one week, seven or eight years ago. Only I had no thought or inkling whatsoever to be violent or angry at anyone or anything. On the contrary, my mind trip went the opposite direction, I felt I was on the same level of Jesus or something, as I could not explain to myself the natural high of full blown mania in any other way. And I was thinking about healing people by laying my hands on them rather than shooting them dead.

So finding fault with someone in a psychotic state is an excercise in futility. Instead we should be addressing the question of educating the public to recognize symptoms of psychosis (I don't know if they've diagnosed this guy manic (bipolar) or schizophrenic yet - but when you become expert at mental illness, from being a patient or doctor, you realize mental illness is one big spectrum, and there are overlaps, and most likely everyone who is hooked on starbucks could use a light dose of anti depressant. : )

At any rate, the public needs to be educated in symptoms of psychosis, just as we are educated in breast cancer and other health problems. So that someone who has become crazy due to brain chemistry gone haywire (and I believe this guy fit the bill from watching his tapes, again speaking from experience,) can be taken to a psychiatrist. If they refuse to go, they should be reported. As a psychiatrist would then be able to determine if the person fits into a category of crazy killer or crazy prophet or some category in between.

Obviously most psychotic episodes don't involve violence. Or you'd be hearing about many more such unfortunate events as you'd be surprised at the percentages of people with mental illness. This latest media frenzy unfortunately will increase the stigma regarding psychosis though. And it's understandable, as I can see from Todd's post, most people just don't understand psychosis and again who would expect them to be experts.

Just as bipolars like myself were stigmatized when the female high school decided (note my use of the word decided) to date her student and then scapegoated her poor decision on bipolar disorder. I doubt she was psychotic when she did her student.

I'm just waiting for the media to come out with a report regarding a diagnosis of this guy of bipolar. (Although I thought I heard on the news he had been diagnosed from schizophrenia, I'm not sure if I heard that or not, as I only heard it once.) No matter schizophrenia or bipolar, we'll all be stigmatized again when the report comes out.

Of course the media does not frenzy on people with depression or bipolar or schizophrenia who contribute to society beingn blessed often with a healthy degree of creativity. People such as Larry King, who has bipolar. If you google "famous bipolars" or "famous people with depression" or mental illness, you'll be surprised at what you find. Although I'm a bit skeptical as many of the famous people from history are from a period in history when there was probably no diagnosis of depression or bipolar disorder. But who knows. I like the sounds of Winston Churchill being bipolar for example, although if you read his biographical web site it only mentions depression.

The other issue we need to address is gun control. I could care less if it is politically incorrect to talk about this. It's obvious that if this guy had two knives rather than two guns you'd only have a few dead students, not 32. And speaking as someone with a mental illness, I agree strongly that no one with a mental illness should be able to buy a gun period. (As they'd have a good chance of killing themself - not much of a chance of killing others but obviously some people in psychosis are violent.)

You just need to remember that psychosis can be recognized (as soon as I heard this guy on tape blowing things way out of proportion - the reference to his pain analogous to jesus' pain on the cross or whatever - I knew he was out of touch with reality), and that psychosis at it's strongest levels is 100 times more powerful than any illegal street drug. You can't blame someone for being crazy when their brain chemicals have gone haywire. I'm not sure if we can blame this guy for being as violent as he was or not. As I think his poisonous feelings were probably amplified 100 fold by the psychosis. But I'm no psychologist or psychiatrist and I don't know enough about whether he should be blamed or whether he deserves a post mortum insanity defense. I also wonder if they found any violent video games in this guy's possession such as doom, as I think such games could make someone violent. Which could feed on the poisonous feelings. Which could be amplified by psychosis.

I thought he was a high functioning autistic, probably with Asberger's syndrome.

Although it may be chic to equate Osama Bin Laden and Sheik Khalid Mohamed with someone like Cho, there's a big difference. Cho's demons were internal. He felt powerless and he actually was powerless. And I don't think there is any sort of "deranged mass gunmen" association that benefits from the media's airing Cho's manifesto. I agree with destor: Cho is dead, unless you believe in an afterlife he doesn't benefit at all, and he has no compatriots who benefit from a"payoff" either.

Be that as it may, I haven't watched any of the video aired by NBC, because I don't think I would learn anything I didn't already know.

Article I read only said autistic but I agree that Asberger's syndrome seems more definitive, especially with high logic skills and low or nonexistent social skills. With that combination, it does still seem to me that early training could have helped integrate Cho socially. Maybe not resulting in high social skills but at least acceptable ones.

I sound like a "bleeding heart liberal". I would like to see folks turn off repetitive news coverage on things like this and exert more control over what bangs them over the head. I would also like to see far more stringent gun control than perhaps other Americans would want. I also want mental health treatment as part of universal health coverage so perhaps young people like Cho can get the treatment they need.

I want....now I just sound whiny. :)

I think NBC made the right decision to air it.  I have a problem with the media making the determination of what is "appropriate" for us to know and what is not.

I do have a problem with the overall coverage of the mass killing.  It shows our culture's fascination with violence.  In a sense the victims were "glorified" for being the victims of the senseless act.  We got to see memorials to the victims, prayer vigils, the pain of the victim's families, loved ones and friends.  And the killer was glorified with the week's long print/electronic media's infatuation with this story.  It got to the such a point of infatuation that we got to learn what Cho was buying and selling on e-bay... 

But the media was in a lose-lose situation with Cho's video manifesto.  On one hand there were many voices asking "why?" who would have been very upset if NBC chose censorship and decided not to broadcast it.  And the people who were grieving were upset that Cho was given some kind of spotlight that he in no way deserved.  I guess my main beef with the media is they should have wiated until the victims were buried before airing it...but I do feel at some point it should have been aired because it was part of the story.  I question the level of overall coverage of the story itself rather than the merits (or lack of) in airing Cho's video...

Libertine:

I have a problem with the media making the determination of what is "appropriate" for us to know and what is not.

But media make that decision every day! So do you when you post, and so do I. The data don't make the decision. The facts never speak for themselves.

Which is not to say that NBC should have refused to display Cho's on-paper dossier (without the egregious NBC tag which, as Josh properly pointed out, emblazons their property claim in a manner they should be ashamed of). The video, though, has galvanizing properties that static images don't have. If there were anything particularly illuminating about the video, such a fragment might have warranted broadcast--but isn't it striking that no one who advocates broadcast of the video, not one soul, has given any specific example of a Cho video segment that simply had to be aired for its instructive value?

Todd Gitlin

Of course one problem with ignorance and stigma of mental illness is those of us with mental illness don't tell a soul, for fear we'll never be hired (why hire someone if there is a chance they might "go postal?") and we'll have a tough time making friends.

I'll quote McMan from his web page http://www.mcmanweb.com/famous_people.htm where he mentions mostly illuminaries but also a few tyrants such as Hitler have had mental illnesses. Again, one can be skeptical about historical people and their diagnoses as there were no such diagnoses in their day. But I am guessing perhaps at least some of the historical diagnoses are accurate.

We all need to be educated in warning signs of someone with homicidal tendencies. (As well as suicidal as again, there are many more mental illness suicides than homicides.) Of course Cho was perhaps a tough case as he was so secretive around his colleagues that they may not have been given any homicidal clues. And we all need to know that only a relatively small percentage of people with mental illness are violent, so that we don't categorize all mentally ill people with being "postal."

"Publishing lists of famous people with depression or bipolar disorder runs a grave risk of glorifying these terrible illnesses, a point I drive home with abundant force in my first article here, "The Warped Muse." Nevertheless, in the face of overwhelming evidence, one is forced to acknowledge that depression or manic depression drove the creative engines of some of the greatest artists and writers and musicians in history, as well as fed the destructive appetites of history's worst tyrants, and that by understanding how this happened we better understand ourselves.

"Hypomanic Nation" offers a provocative take on how hypomanics shaped the destiny of the US.

"Vincent and Me" is my personal love note to Vincent Van Gogh. "Pollock and Me" explores a mysterious bond that made a believer of a naive youth, and "Rock of Ages" represents Norman Rockwell as a surprise entry.

"Murder or Suicide" investigates the tragic death of explorer Meriwether Lewis while "TR and John Muir" look at two exuberant nature-lovers. "Lincoln and His Depressions" examines how failure and despair can build character.

Then there are the two great writers, Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath.

"In a Major and Minor Mood" pays homage to Ludwig Beethoven, and "Music of the Heart" ruminates on the symphonic suicide note of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky. "Piano-Forte" concerns Chopin and Liszt while "The Man Who Saw It Coming" pays belated homage to Gustav Mahler, whom I am just beginning to appreciate.

"Something Had To Give" investigates the final days of Marilyn Monroe.

"Comedy's Fab Five" looks at Spike Milligan, Jonathon Winters, John Cleese, Robin Williams, and Jim Carrey, Not all of them have or had bipolar, but clearly they were touched with the divine manic brush.

Honesty demands an inquiry into the dark side of bipolar disorder, as well. "History's Terrible Troika" looks at the lives of Napoleon, Hitler, and Stalin.

Then we have articles about the two people most identified with psychiatry - Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. From the files of the weird and off-beat comes a spine-tingler on Walter Freeman, who pioneered the lobotomy. Finally, an article on the only psychiatrist to ever win the Nobel Prize in Medicine."

That is interesting that Zyban is indicated for quitting smoking. My mother has never been able to quit smoking, and I believe the bipolar gene runs on her side of the family (although I believe genes leap frog generations so I don't think she is bipolar while either her father or mother probably were.)

If I had the money, I'd probably invest in the company that makes Wellbutrin (and as you mention Zyban - the same drug which I think is buproprion hydrochloride or somethiing), as they are trying to get FDA approval to market it as a weight loss drug as it has a side effect of weight loss. Which I have verified from personal experience. I just wonder if those who didn't need those 2 brain chemicals boosted would become hyperactive if they took the Rx for weight loss. At any rate I think we'll be seeing a lot of this medication in the futurre.

It was my understanding that trycyclics have worse side effects.

There's another one out that boosts norapenephrine and serotonin but not dopamine as well.

Getting back on topic - http://www.mcmanweb.com/article-163.htm - I was just reading myself some of the articles on that page I posted earlier, this article talks about Napoleon, Hitler, and Stalin having "antisocial personality disorder," (as well as bipolar disorder I guess) and the description of that personality disorder fit Cho to the T as well.

So I guess someone diagnosed with both antisocial personality disorder and a mental illness that could involve psychosis it could be safe to say is a risk for going postal. And this would explain why others with psychosis are not in the least bit dangerous with the exception perhaps of being dangerous to themselves if they get suicidal thoughts.

I don't know if personality disorders are genetic or due to upbringing off hand.

One of my children was autistic . Speaking as a layman , Cho doesn't resemble any of the hundreds of autistic people I've known over many decades since. Nor does he resemble any of the Aspergers cases I have seen.

Even as a layman I can say that both autism and Aspergers are umbrella terms ( I think the technical term is "spectrum disorders"), a convenient shorthand for describing behaviors which may have different causes.

Clearly there is a genetic element in the case of many people "with autism" . But there are also cases cases of people with similar behaviors as a result of extreme sensory deprivation e.g. solitary confinement.

Since autistic people suffer enough as it is I caution against lightly applying the term to Cho . Just as one example,to the extent that people with autism benefit from mainstreaming that will be harder to achieve if the public comes to consider them as potential Cho's.

Agree (I have known many autistic people over the years also -- my wife worked for years with autistic kids and others as a special ed teacher).

Sounds more like paranoid schizophrenia. But even most schizophrenics don't commit mass murder. We shouldn't apply an internet diagnosis and then project Cho onto any other group, no matter what the diagnosis.