Posted on 04/17/2007 5:52:13 PM PDT by subbob
“We are Virginia Tech. We are sad today and we will be sad for quite awhile. WE are not moving on, we are embracing our mourning. We are Virginia Tech. We are strong enough to know when to cry and sad enough to know we must laugh again. We are Virginia Tech. We do not understand this tragedy. We know we did not deserve it but neither does a child in Africa dying of AIDS, but neither do the invisible children walking the night to avoid being captured by a rogue army. Neither does the baby elephant watching his community be devastated for ivory; neither does the Appalachian infant in the killed in the middle of the night in his crib in the home his father built with his own hands being run over by a boulder because the land was destabilized. No one deserves a tragedy. We are Virginia Tech. The Hokier Nation embraces our own with open heart and hands to those who offer their hearts and minds. We are strong and brave and innocent and unafraid. We are better than we think, not quite what we want to be. We are alive to the imagination and the 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 are Virginia Tech. "
Probably the worst thing about this is that Nikkomie achieved greater notoriety with this speech. Before this, who ever heard of hear except for those in her socialist revolutionary circles. (I’ll bet she’s Castro’s favorite poet.)
My morning email to local TV:
“Yesterday the FCA rightly cleared Imus of “indecency”. Now the FCA needs to take a look at NBC, again.
Showing a nonfiction breathing example of madness,
benefited who? It is easier to know why NBC decided to
add to their problems, than to waste time understanding that
an insane person can be a shooter, be it 1 or 32 persons.
NBC is not insane and needs to be accountable in their
shameful lust for ratings!”
I wish I could find email addresses for all TV stations.
"Does anyone know what the 'Appalachian infant' thing is all about? Very strange, I thought...."bpjam replied:
"When you mine for coal in West Virginia (where she is most likely referring to), you can destabilize the ground and cause settling of the soil which can be a hazard to buildings. ...."But . . . the January 6, 2005 issue of the Washington Post indicates that it wasn't in West Virginia that the half-ton boulder "...hurled like a cannonball into Dennis and Cindy Davidson's house, right through the wall of the bedroom and onto the bed where 3-year-old Jeremy was sleeping. ...and continued its path, crashing through a closet before finally stopping at the foot of 8-year-old Zachary's bed. Zachary would be fine. Jeremy was crushed to death."
"She needed to include white people, so the hick Appalachian infant is killed by a boulder rolling over their shack, think Cletus from the Simpsons."word_warrior bob's attitude tells me more about him (and what he "needed"!) than it does about Giovanni and/or her Thug Life-inspired rah-rah sis-boom-bah cheerleading style at a convocation for dead students and faculty members!
I know about the mining incident, how many others do who heard the speech.
You don’t have much of a sense of humor do you? My comment had the same relevance to her speech comparing kids getting shot to elephants losing their tusks, it’s open for interpretation. I interpreted the appalachian parable to Cletus’ baby getting rolled over by a boulder in the lean-to they live in.
Art is our interpretation of what’s presented isn’t it? I have a strange sense of humor, so now that you think you know what I’m thinking, tell me what I’m having for dinner tonight.
At my age—three-score-and-ten plus—you’d think that any mention of Cletus on the Simpsons would ring a bell, wouldn’t you? Unfortunately, I haven’t watched cartoons since our granddaughter outgrew ‘em.
As for what you’re having for dinner? Lemme look into my slightly cracked magic-mirror and . . . hm-m-m. Veddy, veddy interesting. Is that blackbird baked in a pie . . . or crow?
8-}
Who is this woman?...A black woman with an Italian surname not to mention two first names...very strange. Usually those names are used/reserved for the Porn Industry (...you never call yourself with a short version of your first name, so I was told)
I would guess most of the students and all of the faculty. The incident was in the town of Appalachia, about 130 miles from Blacksburg, and I'm sure it was the top story on every local newscast and paper, followed by the investigations, the protests, and the lawsuits.
Thank you. That has bothered me since I tried to watch the service.
Where can I read his academic writing? All I've seen are two plays. The plays are awful, but you don't have to be a playwright to get an English degree.
In Appalachia? Don't count on it.
Almost 20 years ago, we tried to find a Catholic priest to officiate at my great-aunt's funeral. One of the two priests in Northwest Georgia couldn't make it, because he was presiding at the funeral for the other. We had to settle for an Episcopalian, explain the situation, and ask him not to wear a wedding ring. We didn't burden the widower, a 90-ish man who'd had a stroke, with any of this information.
With the influx of Latinos to work in the carpet mills, I'm sure there are more catholic churches now, but finding an English-speaking priest might still be a problem.
I should clarify that I heard about it here after the speech, hence my cynical reaction. That was what I thought when I heard it, as I’m sure many others did who didn’t know about the mining incident.
Apologies to all of you named Cletus and living in lean to’s :)
I’m a lifelong conservative, long time reader, first time poster, but at the moment just proud to be a Hokie. I created an account because of the comments to this article. I normally enjoy the rantings on here as a conservative, and I normally would enjoy rantings against Nikki’s politics, but I don’t understand why some my fellow conservatives on this site can’t see the world other than through political lenses.
At the moment, I think most of us would just appreciate your support. Nikki had the right things to say at the right time for our community even if she did have shades of her own world view in there, and she is one of us who was also very personally involved in this tragedy. Try listening to the speech through human ears instead of political ones, and I think, or at least hope, you’ll have a different view.
kabar raises the very important point that the audience at the convocation responded with a standing O. While we're all entitled to our own opinions, theirs trumps. If the people on campus thought it was appropriate and inspirational, then it was -- they were her audience.
But for all the political debates and personal quibbles, I hope you know and believe that the thoughts and prayers of everyone here are with the victims, their families, and the whole community, on-campus and off, current and alums. And most of us are stuck by the fact that, unlike FR, Hokies have not quibbled or been divided -- their unity has been an inspiration.
Wow. I’m surprised she didn’t stick in a jab about global warming as well.
When confronted with this diatribe, I truly wonder if Virginia Tech wouldn’t be better served by having a resident marksman as opposed to a resident poet.
Most of us here support you and Virginia Tech.
If you have lurked, you have to know that the smug moralists on this site swarm to threads like these to puff themselves up.
The saddest part is that they aren’t pretending; they really believe what they’re saying.
Just remember MOST of us do NOT agree with them.
I personally thought Nikki was a gas!
Nikki is somebody stupid who demeaned these tragic deaths. This does not reflect well on Virginia Tech.
It should be impossible to get a degree in the humanities with such an obvious inability to write cogently. I am referring to his “plays” alone, and on that basis alone he was obviously passed along with solid grades because the instructors at VT lack any intellectual conscience. Even if they were not afraid of him, they would have passed him. It is not just that his writings are crazy and violent, but they are stylistically indefensible; the entire play is a disaster. From what I can tell from his “plays,” and you can actually tell quite a bit, this man is not a college student, but a very angry retard who watched too much television. The writing is simply not at a university level. He should have been changing tires somewhere.
My daughter lives in a suburb of Richmond, VA. The new Pastor of hercheurch was transferred from a "circuit" in Appalachia. I think he had 7 Catholic churches under his wing -- most of them in the 200-400 parishioner size. Perhaps even less. He traveled from parish to parish over a wide area to say Mass, so I know what you are saying.
Actually, I wanted to say that it was probably impossible to find a Catholic clegyman on short notice PERIOD. But I was sure that some other FReeper would jump down my throat, so I just conjectured that they hadn't thought of it, or hadn't tried hard enough.
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