What Cho Learned at Virgina Tech

Virginia Tech Website ^ | April 17, 2007 | Nikki Giovanni

[Jeff Chandler]

We are Virginia Tech

We are sad today We will be sad for quite a while We are not moving on We are embracing our mourning

We are Virginia Tech

We are strong enough to stand tall tearlessly We are brave enough to bend to cry And we are sad enough to know that we must laugh again

We are Virginia Tech

We do not understand this tragedy We know we did nothing to deserve it

But neither does a child in Africa Dying of AIDS

Neither do the Invisible Children Walking the night away to avoid being captured by a rogue army

Neither does the baby elephant watching his community Be devastated for ivory Neither does the Mexican child looking For fresh water

Neither does the Iraqi teenager dodging bombs

Neither does the Appalachian infant killed By a boulder Dislodged Because the land was destabilized

No one deserves a tragedy

We are Virginia Tech The Hokie Nation embraces Our own And reaches out With open heart and mind To those who offer their hearts and hands

We are strong And brave And innocent And unafraid

We are better than we think And not yet quite what we want to be

We are alive to imagination And open to possibility We will continue To invent the future

Through our blood and tears Through all this sadness

We are the Hokies

We will prevail We will prevail We will prevail

We are Virginia Tech

Nikki Giovanni, delivered at the Convocation, April 17, 2007

[syriacus]

I wonder if Cho ever visited his sister's school, Princeton, and heard a lecture by Professor Peter Singer who thinks it should be okay to kill infants.

Since Singer has "reasoned" that it's okay to kill flawed 6 month-olds, Cho might have "reasoned" it's okay to kill flawed students. (eg, those who are "debauched").

[Singer] finds notions of "sanctity-of-life," "dignity," "created in the image of God," and so on to be spurious.

"Fine phrases," he says, "are the last resource of those who have run out of argument."

Singer also said:

It is ridiculous to pretend that the old ethics make sense when plainly they do not. The notion that human life is sacred just because it's human is medieval."

Peter Singer: Architect of the Culture of Death,    DONALD DEMARCO

[aruanan]

Just zone out and think how a baby elephant feels about ivory poachers, if you can.

If he can think at all, Dumbo's probably glad he's not gone through puberty yet.

[iopscusa]

Beyond sad is this observation: the only speaker that effectively united the audience as a school...
This Teacher/Poet made no sense in regards to what she said and in reflection she continued to abuse her students,
after her original abuse as one of the indirect facilitators of the murderer. She and the Imam were both despicable reps for the gathering.

[madprof98]

I was baffled as to why Nikki Giovanni was speaking at the convocation until I learned that she was one of Cho’s professors—the only one to succeed in getting him out of her classroom because he was such a menace to her and to the other students. In that case, she did the right thing, but I’ll bet she would not have supported a POLICY to get similarly dangerous students out of the university altogether. If such a policy had come up for discussion, I’ll bet Cho would have slipped in her mind from Menace to Victim.

[DocRock]

>"...Neither does the baby elephant watching his community Be devastated for ivory..."

I teach my kids about the dangers of liberal, verbal diarrhea. Legal Ivory used to be sold through CITES with the proceeds going directly to the game wardens which provided protection for the existing herd. When the PETA type groups screamed loud enough, nobody could purchase legal Ivory driving the demand through the roof while cutting off the funds to protect the elephants. Now the elephant population is dwindling due to unrestrained poaching and black market ivory prices.

From CITES: " The ivory is held in existing legal stocks that have been collected from elephants that died of natural causes or as a result of government-regulated problem-animal control."
LINK

Ivory in five southern African countries (metric tonnes)

Country	Existing stocks	Recent annual stock growth	Future potential annual stock growth*	Elephant population
Botswana	33	7.7	10-50	120,000
Namibia	39	3.5	1-5	9,000
South Africa	32		1-4.5	13,000
Zambia	17			29,000
Zimbabwe	20.9	20	8.5-42.5	88,000

* Based on 1-5% natural mortality and low crude average combined tusk weights of 10 kg per individual.

---

That is what I teach my kids but these college kids are being taught how to hate by old hippies. I also teach my kids about the "Law of the Harvest"... You reap what you sow.

[Teacher317]

We are strong And brave And innocent And unafraid

Nice to hear it, but I'd have to argue with every point in this line. VT's parties as hard as any school (not exactly "innocent"), only one old man tried to fight the shooter (not exactly brave or strong), VT recently forbade guns on campus to "feel safer" (not exactly unafraid), and VT's body has required numerous public displays of lamentation (not exactly emotionally strong).

Un-PC of me to say, but I'm just sayin'...

[Teacher317]

But we’re STRONG and BRAVE victims! Hooray Hokies!

[tumblindice]

The invisible thirsty baby elephant,
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

What the . . .

[rudy45]

At no point in the speech does she even offer sympathy for the dead.

Right you are. It's all about "me". Did you read the Dennis Prager (?) column, "You're Dead, We're Healing"? He makes the same point.

[TET1968]

Same tempo........same emphasis....:

“In the Army of the Shenandoah, you were the First Brigade !

In the Army of the Potomac you were the First Brigade !

In the Second Corps of this Army, you are the First Brigade !

You are the First Brigade ! in the affections of your general, and I hope by your future deeds and bearing you will be handed down the posterity as the....First Brigade !..... in this our Second War of Independence.
God Speed! “

Gen. ‘Stonewall’ Jackson
God’s and Generals

[mikehoncho]

I think the message at the end is kind of awesome.

It seems that the audience dug it.

[Jeff Chandler]

It seems that the audience dug it.

That's troubling.

Welcome to Freerepublic.

[justa-hairyape]

Wow. Cho appears to be one of their best students.

[P-40]

There is a message at the end?

[truth_seeker]

Find, identify, publish the name of the Virginia magestrate judge that allowed him to run free, after recommendations that he be involuntarily institutionalized.

[mikehoncho]

Is it?

While I am typically not a fan of the very long poem that does not rhyme, the only part that strikes me as even a little out of line is the baby elephant part. That’s a strange comparison.

But I accept the overall theme that nobody deserves a senseless tragedy but that you have to overcome it with strength. And pride.

[Hugh Moran II]

When you tell me, "She should send a copy of this to the Mexican government so they can do something about the fresh water problem their children have.", I can't believe that's how you interpret Ms. Giovanni's [uh] "poem"! I mean, really! [tsk]

Ain't it at all possible that the Thug Life-tattooed--ala Tupac--[uh]"poet/teacher" was only trying to follow the good example of Emily Dickinson, a real poet who believed in telling all the truth but telling it slant?

Like: Isn't it possible that Ms. Giovanni was referring to Mexicans who sneak across the border and wander around for days in the desert simply looking for work?

8-}

[CommerceComet]

Textual Androgyny, the Rhetoric of the Essay, and the Politics of Identity in Composition (or The Struggle to Be a Girly-Man in a World of Gladiator Pumpitude)

Okay, I give up. What language is this written in?

Maybe I should see what is being written across campus by our Literature Department. On second thought, I think I'll just stay here in the College of Business ignorantly isolated from all this trendy "thought."

[theFIRMbss]

>I think the message at the end is kind of awesome. It seems that the audience dug it.