One of us.

Thanks to Claire @ 8Asians, who links us to a commentary by NPR's Robert Siegel about Virginia Tech shooter Seung-Hui Cho.

Certainly, Cho was a Korean citizen, a detail that national and international media have run with. Just the fact that in the first couple days after the shootings, some were calling him Seung-Hui Cho (American style first name/family name), and others were calling him Cho Seung-Hui (Korean style family name first).

And of course, conservative commentator Debbie Schlussel exposed her instant racism by saying it was probabaly a "Paki" (read about it in Andrew Leonard's article in Salon.com)

Robert Siegel gets it right when he says, "People who don't know this country don't get this country." He was talking about foreign journalists, but he could have just as well been talking about Debbie Schlussel.

First of all, Schlussel should be fired. If Don Imus deserved to be fired (and he did), Schlussel deserves to be fired and slapped in the face with a shoe.

Second, it is not even useful look for some kind of foreign explanation behind Cho's actions. Siegel points out that his insane rants were grounded in American culture, not Korean. The Washington Post referrs to Cho as a local, from Centerville, Virginia.

A local. Cho was one of us. Regardless of his legal nationality, Cho grew up as a kind of American, just like the rest of us. There was no ideological or military training; just public schools and American TV.

Yes, he held a green card. But that doesn't explain anything. Cho was a deranged murderer, an American deranged murderer, like the Columbine kids, the Oklahoma City Bomber, the Unibomber. He's one of us. He's a member of a club that the government is not going to protect us from by fighting 'em "over there."

What an awful tragedy. Pray for the victims, pray for their families, but don't forget to pray for America. Most of all, say a prayer for the people who don't get this country. God help us all.

There are no words.

Blacksburg, Virginia

Monday, April 16th, 2007

thanks, rys

Snow Day!

Well yesterday was a normal school day, and we all felt cheated, just cheated that we had to be at school at 7:45. The roads were fine, of course.

Last night I was grading papers that were bad to terrible in quality, so I put in a DVD to take the edge off the dispair. When my movie was over, local news was already reporting school closures. Ha ha, not my school of course, I didn't get official word until twenty minutes to six this morning, when the faculty snowtree was activated.

So the State Patrol is asking the population to stay home. The forecast doesn't show the high temp rising above the freezing point until Thursday, possibly, so tomorrow it might still be frozen.

Local news has only rolled out a few special graphics; I haven't yet seen theme music. I'm sure they're working on it for this evening. Winter Blast! November Snow! They're showing a lot of people who've either abandoned their cars, or spent the night in a parking lot. A couple of sad cases show some dudes with their faces still painted from the Seahawks game.

So I'm so excited about a day off of work. I've graded everything I have to grade here at home (there's more to grade on my desk at work...) so today is going to be all about cleaning my house, putting up my Christmas tree, and making an apple crisp. I'm a block from a supermarket, a starbucks, a blockbuster, a taco bus, and a neighborhood diner, so I'm gonna be just fine.

Right now, the plan is to go back to sleep; then I'll think about breakfast.

please cancel school please please cancel school

It's snowing in Seattle, folks. I've heard reports from Ballard, Madison Park, Capitol Hill, Shoreline, Maple Leaf, and I'm proud to report that yes, it is now snowing in Columbia City.

Ok, first things first. You people that move to Seattle and sneer bitterly about how Seattle drivers don't know how to drive in snow you SHUT IT. Honestly. Seattle shuts down with the first snowflake, and that's how it is. Figure it out. Nobody cares that you're from the Midwest or Northeast. If I want to know a non-seattle opinion, I'll check a web cam.

For only a few days a year, sometimes as much as a work week, sometimes just one day, Seattle shuts down for snow. Why do we shut down? Because we have all kinds of wonders that you don't have in the midwest: steep hills, choke-point bridges. NO, it's NOT worth the millions of dollars to invest in municipal snow plows, NO, your shit is not so important that you can't miss one day of your stupid desk job.

Don't get me wrong, I hate snow. But I loves me some snow days. I and will punch anyone in the face that tries to tells me that this day was not about hills and bridges.

If you want to bitch about something, bitch about local news going into full disaster mode. But you know too well that those same terrible local news that you ridicule today are the only ones consoling you when you've wet your pants in a 3.0 earthquake, because 'nothing like that ever happens back in Ohio....'

For now, I will keep grading papers as planned. But tomorrow, when classes are canceled, I will put up the Christmas tree.

Are you kidding?

Breaking news:

A cannon that is fired at Snohomish High School's football games (at the beginning of games and when they score) has misfired and blown apart. Students were injured.

It just happened a few hours ago. TV news has it, but no links yet.

I work at a private institution in a big city; sometimes it seems like were're in the dark ages. But then again, on days like today, it seems like we're light years ahead.

______

Oh, there's more. Some news media are getting former congressman Mark Foley's party affiliation. HE IS A REPUBLICAN.

______

Finally, ramadan seems strange to us because it's not our culture. But rest assured, there is plenty of our stuff that seems just as strange to them.

Ah, the local news.

When unarmed Canadian border agents get word that some armed American is making a run for the border, they leave their posts and close the border.

Well, wouldn't you? I would.

Local Seattle news then picks up the story about what a nightmare it is to sit in traffic at the border for hours.

Hmm, what part of this news story is missing... Is American law enforcement doing anything? You think that they could put a call in to the Washington State Patrol to get a comment, woudln't you? I mean since the criminal is now trapped on the Washington side with hundreds of uncomfortable travelers. Not to mention the thousands of people that actually live and work in the communities on the American side of the border.

I'm assuming it's not part of the USA's plan to keep the fugitive in this country.

Is the traffic jam really the only aspect of the story worth covering?

In Memoriam

The more I find out about SPD's Joselito Barber's recent death, the sadder it becomes. He graduated the year before I started teaching at his high school.

Fresh out of the academy, out on patrol in the CD. Crushed to death in a high speed collision versus and SUV running a red light at 80mph.

Flags all over the city have been at half mast for the last three days; people are leaving flowers at the crash site at 23rd and Yesler. A police honor guard is there, along with an empty police cruiser with lights flashing. The honor guard will remain until the funeral.

When I drove by last night, there were news crews setting up their shots. There is something very vulture-like about news crews and their trucks, and their lights, and their pushy reporters angling for a spot to broadcast from, standing around and chatting as they wait to go live.

Update: My cowsins hung out with Barber in high school. They went to the memorial to leave flowers, didn't plan on talking to the news. But cowsin S just couldn't resist the charms of King 5's Mimi Jung.

Blogger isn't letting me link right now, so to see the video, go to http://thedigitalkid.com/lito.mov.

Low Point in the Blogging Cycle.

We've all been there. Interesting stuff happens, but we're too busy to blog, or it just feels like a chore to have to put something out there.

Last week was the awful shooting at the Jewish Federation in Belltown. There's two directions I'm thinking about following. The first is that whole "Fight 'em over there, so we don't have to fight 'em over here." The second is how the shooter had been baptized christian, a fact that sends that pangit Malkin grasping at straws (sorry, I refuse to link to that diseased gorilla). Something tells me she's not so hard on Mel Gibson's anti-semitic tirade..... Sure, he didn't shoot anyone, but you have to admit, we're talking about degrees of hatred; the hatred itself is not in question.

One of my classmates in Chinese class loves to make jokes about communism, and how funny it is. Our laoshi is not always find it funny, and today when it started to get weird, my other classmate started reading out loud from the textbook. I love that class! I'm sad that it's coming to an end.

I just want to do my Chinese homework and play my computer game. I don't want to face the orthodontist (I'm totally about to get braces again). I want the re-fi to be finished. I'm coming to a crossroads in my "music" career, suddenly big opportunities but no inspiration. The school year is about to start again; time to get into the 'stance.' I missed half a blood pressure pill last night. Sigh.

Well, if you ever needed to be reminded of American air superiority, you should come to Seattle this week. The Blue Angels are screaming across the sky all this week, to the delight of all of us, right? Just think, in some parts of the world that sound means death from above! We're so powerful.

I'm toying with the idea of writing about how to successfully learn a language. It might actually be a list of terrible habits that keep people from learning. If language learning is an instinct (and it is), then it may be more helpful to look at the ways people manage to sabotage that instinct.

Hey, sex scandal in Seattle! It's a good one.

Today I got some secret chicken. Mmmm. It's important to open the carton once you get it into your car; if not, it can lose it's crunch.

The news is hillarious today. I want to post it all, but I can't keep up. Sex offender released, I-83 wins appeal, Oprah gives away cars, assult weapons ban ends . . . today is absurd.

I just got word that J and M will come visit in October. Maybe I'll take a personal day.

Here's something funny; the Bon Marche is officially turning into Macy's next year. It's so funny to me that Macy's is pretending that it didn't plan this all along. It's also funny to me that their corporate ego is so inflated that they think the name Macy's has any cultural cache in Seattle.

Here's a hint to east coast entrepreneurs who want to live the Seattle life; leave your east coast baggage at home.

Ok, time to work.