Your Opinion on Cho seung Hui’s Play?

I read the plays, and they certainly are violent. But I’m cautious not to take these two plays out of context; I mean, we’re not told if Cho wrote 40 plays, and all the other 38 were about prancing unicorns and sunny summer days. It’s easy for us to look at two isolated scripts, and say “oh, everyone should have known”.

The problem with creative writing is that it’s supposed to be creative, and, in disciplines such as English writing and drama, we must make a distinction between art and life. A lot of the time, teachers push students to explore their creative boundaries, and to even explore taboo or controversial material.

I mean, look at William Shakespeare. If you want to read King Lear, it has really terrible violence – eyes being ripped out of live skulls, and nasty, nasty deaths. In King John, there is another scene where a prisoner’s eyes are to be put out with hot pokers. And Romeo and Juliet, a high-school staple, features teen suicide. A lot of other drama and writing has equally – and even more graphic – violence.

But we study this stuff openly in English classes everywhere – it’s even considered fine literature. And then, when you compare the violence in literature and the violence imagined by screen writers, directors and producers for many of Hollywood’s most celebrated movies and films, Cho’s writing really pales into insignificance. I mean, look at “Silence of the Lambs,” or any one of the three films in the “Saw” trilogy, which features people’s ribcages being ripped open while they’re still alive, and people being forced to put their own hands into acid. That’s way nastier than Cho’s writings, but it made the film producers multi millions.

Because of the graphic nature of a lot of material in English, Drama, and Arts – and because we don’t know if Cho wrote other plays that weren’t of this orientation, I think it’s difficult to condemn his teachers for not “recognising” the “warning signs”.

Otherwise, we should probably lock up a great many of the world’s best writers and artists in the name of safety and security. And we should probably shut down Hollywood while we’re at it…. minds that twisted should be referred to counselling, right?

In college, the modern dances, performances, plays, etc. are always LIKE this (”controversial” or “shocking”), it wouldn’t have surprised me.

The difference is this Cho guy was insane.

Think of somebody like Quentin Tarantino in college, you don’t want to falsely “worry” or “accuse” our future Quentins, it’s just that SOME people are nutz (Cho)!

It has an effect, but it is not the body of the case. Koreans (in general) are violent people. When I was watching the news (in China) they first thought it was a Chinese guy. My gut reaction was that it sounded like a Korean would be a better fit, and low and behold. I would venture to guess that in the coming days you’ll see them reporting on childhood abuse and the father very likely beat his wife and kid(extremely common in Korea). This type of violence is bread closer to home. Also, Korea is violent itself and the fact he was stalking women is very telling of Korean society. 1 more thing. Korea has taken over “Bollywood” as the second biggest producer of movies next to the US and if the guy your talking about watched any of them he’d write the same review again. It doesn’t excuse Americas violent media but it certainly isn’t the main factor.

Quentin Tarantino wins awards for his violent, graphic screenplays/movies. What’s the point?

The guy had a warped impression of HIMSELF, not the culture.

Your Opinion on Cho seung Hui’s Play?

You did ask
I think that every publicly available copy of this crap should be burned where it is found and the only allowable existing copies of everything this lunatic ever wrote be regulated to a crime lab psych department for study !!

The shear fact that the spotlight is now on this slug and the fact that within ten days every human on the planet will know FAR more about this individual than they will EVER know about the victims IS WITHIN ITSELF A TRAGEDY !!!

But, in no time at all — some “push the envelope” producer will have this slime’s “work” on off-Broadway stage raking in profits from the blood thirsty public — just “dying” to get a “closer look” into the “inside workings” of a mass murderer !!

And, then people have the question of WHY such things happen !! They happen because little nobody’s who would be the one’s crawling into a closet to blow their own worthless brains to God’s back door — now have the option to BECOME somebody in their “passing” by taking a load of others with them !! They accomplish — with these horrindous acts what they never could in life — making the pages of history AND leaving a name for themselves —– Something that literally tens of thousands of hard working people who accomplish MAJOR GOOD IN LIFE can never hope to achieve !!

YOU WANT SOME REAL READING TO CONCENTRATE ON ——-TRY THE FOLLOWING !!!!!

By The Associated Press Tue Apr 17, 12:07 PM ET
A look at some of the victims killed in the Virginia Tech massacre
Ross Abdallah Alameddine
Alameddine, 20, of Saugus, Mass., was a sophomore who had just declared English as his major.
Friends created a memorial page on Facebook.com that described Alameddine as “an intelligent, funny, easygoing guy.”
“You’re such an amazing kid, Ross,” wrote Zach Allen, who along with Alameddine attended Austin Preparatory School in Reading, Mass. “You always made me smile, and you always knew the right thing to do or say to cheer anyone up.”
Alameddine was killed in the classroom building, according to Robert Palumbo, a family friend who answered the phone at the Alameddine residence Tuesday.
Alameddine’s mother, Lynnette Alameddine said she was outraged by how victims’ relatives were notified of the shooting.
“It happened in the morning and I did not hear (about her son’s death) until a quarter to 11 at night,” she said. “That was outrageous. Two kids died, and then they shoot a whole bunch of them, including my son.”
___
Ryan Clark
Clark was called “Stack” by his friends, many of whom he met as a resident assistant at Ambler Johnson Hall, where the first shootings took place.
Clark, 22, was from Martinez, Ga., just outside Augusta. He was a fifth-year student working toward degrees in biology and English, and a member of the Marching Virginians band.
“He was just one of the greatest people you could possibly know,” friend Gregory Walton, 25, said after learning from an ambulance driver that Clark was among the dead.
“He was always smiling, always laughing. I don’t think I ever saw him mad in the five years I knew him.”
___
Daniel Perez Cueva
Perez Cueva, 21, from Peru, was killed while in a French class, said his mother, Betty Cueva, who was reached by telephone at the youth’s listed telephone number.
Perez Cuevas as a student of international relations, according to the Virginia Tech Web site.
His father, Flavio Perez, spoke of the death earlier to RPP radio in Peru. He lives in Peru and said he was trying to obtain a humanitarian visa from the U.S. consulate here. He is separated from Cueva, who said she had lived in the United States for six years.
A spokesman at the U.S. Embassy in Lima said the student’s father “will receive all the attention possible when he applies” for the visa
___
Kevin Granata
Granata, a professor of engineering science and mechanics, served in the military and later conducted orthopedic research in hospitals before coming to Virginia Tech, where he and his students researched muscle and reflex response and robotics.
The head of the school’s engineering science and mechanics department called Granata one of the top five biomechanics researchers in the country working on movement dynamics in cerebral palsy.
Engineering professor Demetri P. Telionis said Granata was successful and kind.
“With so many research projects and graduate students, he still found time to spend with his family, and he coached his children in many sports and extracurricular activities,” Telionis said. “He was a wonderful family man. We will all miss him dearly.”
___
Caitlin Hammaren
Hammaren, 19, of Westtown, N.Y., was a sophomore majoring in international studies and French, according to officials at her former school district.
“She was just one of the most outstanding young individuals that I’ve had the privilege of working with in my 31 years as an educator,” said John P. Latini, principal of Minisink Valley High School, where she graduated in 2005. “Caitlin was a leader among our students.”
Minisink Valley students and teachers shared their grief Tuesday at a counseling center set up in the school, Latini said.
___
Emily Jane Hilscher
Hilscher, a freshman majoring in animal and poultry sciences, was known around her hometown as an animal lover.
“She worked at a veterinarian’s office and cared about them her whole life,” said Rappahannock County Administrator John W. McCarthy, a family friend.
Hilscher, 19, of Woodville, was a freshman majoring in animal and poultry sciences. She lived on the same dorm floor as victim Ryan Clark, McCarthy said.
A friend, Will Nachless, also 19, said Hilscher “was always very friendly. Before I even knew her, I thought she was very outgoing, friendly and helpful, and she was great in chemistry.”
___
Liviu Librescu
Librescu, an Israeli engineering and math lecturer, was known for his research, but his son said he will be remembered as a hero for protecting students as the gunman tried to enter his classroom.
Librescu taught at Virginia Tech for 20 years and had an international reputation for his work in aeronautical engineering.
“His research has enabled better aircraft, superior composite materials, and more robust aerospace structures,” said Ishwar K. Puri, the head of the engineering science and mechanics department.
Librescu’s son, Joe, said his father’s students sent e-mails detailing how the professor saved their lives by blocking the doorway of his classroom from the approaching gunman before he was fatally shot.
My father blocked the doorway with his body and asked the students to flee,” Librescu’s son, Joe Librescu, said Tuesday in a telephone interview from his home outside of Tel Aviv. “Students started opening windows and jumping out.”
__
G.V. Loganathan
Loganathan was born in the southern Indian city of Chennai and had been a civil and environmental engineering professor at Virginia Tech since 1982.
Loganathan, 51, won several awards for excellence in teaching, had served on the faculty senate and was an adviser to about 75 undergraduate students.
“We all feel like we have had an electric shock. We do not know what to do,” his brother G.V. Palanivel told the NDTV news channel from the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. “He has been a driving force for all of us, the guiding force.”
___
Mary Karen Read
Read was born in South Korea into an Air Force family and lived in Texas and California before settling in the northern Virginia suburb of Annandale.
Read, 19, considered a handful of colleges, including nearby George Mason University, before choosing Virginia Tech. It was a popular destination among her Annandale High School classmates, according to her aunt Karen Kuppinger.
She had yet to declare a major.
“I think she wanted to try to spread her wings,” said Kuppinger, of Rochester, N.Y.
Kuppinger said her niece had struggled adjusting to Tech’s sprawling 2,600-acre campus. But she had recently begun making friends and looking into a sorority.
Kuppinger said the family started calling Read as news reports surfaced.
“After three or four hours passed and she hadn’t picked up her cell phone or answered her e-mail … we did get concerned,” Kuppinger said. “We honestly thought she would pop up.”
(A previous version of this story referred incorrectly to Martinez, Ga., as an Atlanta suburb. It is a suburb of Augusta.)

HOW’S THAT FOR A REAL INTERESTING READ ?????