Cho Seung-hui was a Korean immigrant, as was the Serbian shooter who killed five in Salt Lake City’s Trolley Square last month. This is not an anti-immigrant screed because I’m pro-immigration (brain drain made America what is today, but that’s another topic). The only reason I bring this up is to point out that it’s not immigrants that are the problem. It’s not the American education system that is at fault, its not Virginia Techs fault, psychological counseling’s fault’, it’s not a lack of ‘good Christian value’, or loneliness, or religion or anything else that is at fault here. As soon as one of these tragedies unfolds, the finger pointing game comes into full swing and every pundit, preacher and pontificator gets on his or her soapbox to blame someone or something.

Cho Seung-hui was sick. He was disturbed and socially disenfranchised (and for good reason, he obviously wasn’t a barrel of yuks to be around). Mentally ill and socially disenfranchised people are everywhere in the world—and by the millions. Most are not dangerous but the ones who turn violent generally turn to the resources they have at hand to lash out at others. I was on a subway once and was attacked by a mentally ill person with a rolled up newspaper. I’m 6’4” and weigh 270 so the effects of that rolled up Monday Times on me were physically negligible, especially since this guy was probably 120 pounds dripping wet and weak from malnutrition.

I think most readers here will see that what I’m getting at is that the difference between a rolled up newspaper and a AK-47 (or a twelve gauge shotgun, etc.) are pretty big when put in the hands of a person with severe ‘issues’.

Before the advent of modern weaponry, a nut job with a hankering for violence could sharpen a stick, wield a knife or throw a rock at someone—and there is just so much damage that can do! In fact when the Bill of rights was penned, the muzzle-loaded gun was the most dangerous personal weapon at hand (and by the way, despite the ‘frontier’ mythology, only a very small percentage of American’s at that time actually owned a functioning one). It took about thirty seconds for a very skilled person to reload for another shot— making it pretty hard to commit mass murder.

It’s only fair to note that the two biggest school killings in history actually took place in Scotland and Germany. But as far as the frequency of this phenomenon goes, no one can touch the good ole’ U.S. of A. (just one more thing that we do better than everyone else).

It’s time to see the ample and easy availability of guns in America for what they really are—weapons of mass destruction.

We’ll go to war with a country over a fallacious rumor that they possess weapons that could POTENTIALLY kill millions—yet we can’t get our own country to address our own millions of weapons of mass destruction that DO kill thousands a year.

I was trying to think of some way to mock or satirize the situation but how do you parody a parody? This corrupt, paranoid, nepotistic huckster is already a cartoon caricature of himself (The Caligula comparison above comes close but I think even he was circumspect compared to Wolfy).

It absolutely blows my mind that he was ever able to get into a position of power and responsibility in the first place. What’s even more baffling is that he just keeps moving up despite his incompetence and intellectual vacuity.

The only explanation I can think of is that he must have something big on the Bush or Cheney— like pictures of them in a dog and pony show or a video of Laura getting it from Tommy Lee.

There is no other sane explanation for keeping a man like that around.

Dear Editor,

Do you read over Camille Paglia’s columns before they go to print or does she get carte blanche to write whatever self-indulgent drivel that spills from her head?

Just curious.

“…(What) makes "God Is Not Great" such a disappointing book. Watching a man of his intellect and learning go to work on the indefensible crassness of religious fundamentalism is rather like watching a vainglorious father running rings around his young son in a game of soccer.”

Did we read the same book?

You’ve made a lovely analogy here Giles, but unfortunately I don’t think it applys to Christopher Hitchen’s book. ‘God is not Great’ does not just level it’s criticism at the Evangelical or Muslim ‘fundamentalist’ but at all of the organized monotheistic religions—no matter what stripe they be. I think that Hitchens made a pretty cogent argument that religion does, indead, poison everything. And he wasn‘t just pointing fingers at the ‘indefensibly crass fundamentalist’ ones as you mention but the indefenssibly crass moderates as well.

“Hitchens might have engaged with the nuanced, less easily ridiculed faith of William Blake or Simone Weil, thinkers in whom he would have found worthy opponents.”

I think you are equally wrong on this point. In fact I think that Hitchen’s could take these authors apart with even greater ease than the so called ‘fundamentalists’ you mention. Why? Because they're smart and wouldn’t be able to retreat into the fantasy land that marks the fundamentalist mindset. I would love to see Hitchens debate Blake or Weil. They were both reasonable people (or at least reasonably reasonable people) who would be forced to defend the so called ‘nuanced faith’ against even greater reason.

The debate wouldn’t last half as long as the one Hitchens had with Sharpton Tuesday night at the New York Public Library.