growing very annoyed with the columbine hoopla...

[Mike70]

seems like every fucking place you turn today there's some boohoo thing about columbine. what is the big damn deal? 12 people got shot by two kids. whoopity-doo. there have been bigger mass murders. why in the fook is columbine used as some sort of war cry or rallying point as if it was some great national event??? it wasn't D-Day or the battle of midway.

i don't mean to come off as cruel or uncaring but i am so it just comes out that way.

[Yojimbo]

seems like every fucking place you turn today there's some boohoo thing about columbine. what is the big damn deal? 12 people got shot by two kids. whoopity-doo. there have been bigger mass murders. why in the fook is columbine used as some sort of war cry or rallying point as if it was some great national event??? it wasn't D-Day or the battle of midway.

i don't mean to come off as cruel or uncaring but i am so it just comes out that way.
While I acknowledge that Columbine was a tragedy, and my sympathies go out to those who suffered on that day, I detest how it has been co-opted by those who have a political agenda- in particular the anti-gun contingient - as I think that this agenda sullies the memory of those who lost their lives on that day.

[slickwilly13]

A number of reasons. Parent groups, the media, lawyers, & politicians.

[AcesandEights]

Meh. I go back and forth on the issue. Is it disingenuous of people to bring it up, especially when using it as fodder for their own agenda? Can it really be disingenuous if they believe in the justness of their agenda? Does any of it matter? I dunno.

I do know, however, that it is a tragedy. It may not rank very high in what many of us may consider the grand scheme of things, but it's something that resonates with a lot of people in this country and I can appreciate why.

[Yojimbo]

Meh. I go back and forth on the issue. Is it disingenuous of people to bring it up, especially when using it as fodder for their own agenda? Can it really be disingenuous if they believe in the justness of their agenda? Does any of it matter? I dunno.

I do know, however, that it is a tragedy. It may not rank very high in what many of us may consider the grand scheme of things, but it's something that resonates with a lot of people in this country and I can appreciate why.
Here, here. Well stated.

[ProfessorChaos]

i can recall several things about that day, hard to believe it's been 10 years...

1) i was on a field trip to st. louis to watch a play for french class

2) a bomb threat was called into my high school and the school was evacuated while i was on the field trip

3) i got a girl's phone number and a short note from her on a matchbook, still have the matchbook for sentimental value (not cuz of the chick, just the crazy events of the day)

4) after i got back that afternoon, my pals and i made a road-trip to the local head-shop to pick up new smoking pieces, then went to my friend's house and bonged out while watching live news footage of the scene...then my friend's mom showed up and totally busted us all out for blazing and threatened to throw away all our new bongs and hookas.

so yeah, it was a memorable day for various reasons for me....although i don't understand why the media has focused so much on this particular shooting, as there are dozens of others dating back for decades prior...

[PJoseph]

I can't believe violent video games killed those kids.

That's what I heard.

pJ

[EvilNed]

It was Rock'N'Roll, I tell ya!

[MinionZombie]

It was Rock'N'Roll, I tell ya!
Nah, it was clearly caused by teaching evolution in schools. These kids need some Jesus in their lives damnit! :eek:

...

Well, that's the sort of crap you'd hear from O'Reilly or any one of those babbling far-right-wingers ... ... and the far-left-wingers talk a load of bullshit too, a one-in-a-million mis-use of a right & freedom isn't an excuse to impose a top-down, out-right, way-of-life-changing ban.

Oh and clearly Doom - which was at the time six years old - made them do it. :rolleyes:

[MikePizzoff]

i can recall several things about that day, hard to believe it's been 10 years...


I can recall smoking a bunch of fat joints then getting chinese food. I got General Tso's chicken (which I hate now) and ended up vomiting it all up as I was passing the town library. I called my mom and told her I was sick from food poisoning and asked her to pick me up... in reality, I was just so stoned that I could barely even function. As we drove home she told me about what happened and it didn't seem to phase me because I was so blazed.

[SymphonicX]

Fucking cold thread. Nice to have memorials isn't it? Jesus.

[Rottedfreak]

Them kids who survived dunblane and have since became teenagers and young adults are dishonoring their dead classmates by doing what teenagers and young adults do. Where do they get off living their lives for themselves eh? just where do they get off....

[SRP76]

It's a big deal because they were middle-class folk, with parents that vote, attend soccer games, and live together. On the other hand, the 50 teenagers that got gunned in the streets over the summer of 1999 in Compton get no press. Who cares about poor people?

[AcesandEights]

Them kids who survived dunblane and have since became teenagers and young adults are dishonoring their dead classmates by doing what teenagers and young adults do. Where do they get off living their lives for themselves eh? just where do they get off....

Yeah...I think what some of the above people are reacting to falls into two categories:

1) Uneven and arguably exploitative media coverage of the anniversary

2) People using the anniversary as a means to spin the public's attention toward their own sociopolitical agendas.

I doubt anyone has too much trouble with people remembering their fallen friends or family members and the events that may have led them to undergo many billable hours of therapy.

[SymphonicX]

cynical bastards!!!!!!

lol

[Wooley]

1) Uneven and arguably exploitative media coverage of the anniversary

2) People using the anniversary as a means to spin the public's attention toward their own sociopolitical agendas.



This. I think this is where the backlash against these all day memorials years after the fact is from. A day where the media ghouls get to short stroke old bloodshed, and where some group tries to use the memory of the dead and injured to sell their political ideology. I'm looking at you, gun control advocates, you pack of fucking vultures.

[Chic Freak]

Are we debating commemorating the deaths themselves, or the way they are being commemorated?

[mista_mo]

Good question Chic.

Personally, I think they just really wanted a Klondike bar.

[MinionZombie]

Are we debating commemorating the deaths themselves, or the way they are being commemorated?
I think the annoyance comes at the media blitz about it all - but it's what the mainstream media does - they pick a story and then suck all life out of it, while not doing a single bit of investigative journalism as they do so, which is a real annoyance in itself.