Sensitivity Slaughtered

My thoughts are with those of the tradgedy from Virginia Tech.

My thoughts, however, are not currently with the insensitive bastards who run CNN, ABC, NBC, FOX and every other American news network.

I woke up Tuesday morning to learn about the VT killings with the headline 'Students Slaughtered!' Yes, it's a very touching tribute of a headline. Simply disgusting in my opinion. If you had just lost a member of your family, no matter how they were killed, would you want to see the event discribed as a 'Slaughter?' CNN doesn't even use such harsh words to describe the events in Iraq. Most of the time all you hear is __ number killed in Iraq scrolling across the bottom ticker in size 2 font. They have also done a very good job of making the whole event into a made for TV movie by constantly calling it a 'Massacre.' Even if it was, not the best choice of words for an 'advanced intellectual' society. Thank God it didn't happen in Texas.

As for the actual event, it boggles my mind how stupidity has once again reigned over safety in another American event. Everyone has asked the question, but how in the world did the University not immediately alert the entire state about the initial 2 killings. The fact it was on a school campus should have sent alarms out to all colleges in the country not just VT. It just makes no sense how a country like the US, constantly 'Living in Fear' as they say, does not have the common sense to alert its people when 2 students are killed. They just let classes continue as normal. The other killings were not only senseless, but avoidable. How can they not get it into their heads that regardless of their international problems, their own nation is even more messed up to a point where things like this happen often. Students were not even given the option to go home. I can only shake my head.

As terrible as it is, I am not surprised in the least. Anyone can buy a gun in the US, and the authorities who control the country are complete idiots. As a teacher in Asia working with many students, I have a slightly different perspective of the events than I did when Columbine happened, and it scares me that things like this still happen. The likelyhood of something like that happening in Hong Kong is very slight, but it still makes me wonder what if? Thankfully the one thing that isn't screwed up about the Hong Kong education system is security. When my students are picked up and dropped off their parents have to present an ID card, and the doors are constantly locked from the inside. It is known at all times who is in the building. To think one security guard posted at the entrance might have saved 32 lives...