TheTrenchcoat Chronicles

Tag: Dave Cullen

  • Dave Cullen

    Dave Cullen

    Late last night, I was lucky enough to exchange e-mails with one of my internet heroes, Dave Cullen.

    For those of you unfamiliar with Dave’s work, he wrote what, I think, is the definitive article on Columbine “The Depressive and the Psychopath” and he also has a plethora of Columbine information in his Columbine Almanac.

    After our exchange, he wrote an entry on his blog called “The upside of covering Columbine” where he discussed receiving e-mails from students who are looking for help with their reports about Columbine.

    He said that it was a minor hassle, but nothing made him happier. He also discussed as we did in our exchange how my site gets all the readers who praise the killers, while Dave’s site rarely gets one. As it should be, really, because Dave is a professional writer and journalist, and I’m just some guy with a website and an opinion. Anyway, it’s a good read.

  • The Myth Spreads Like Cancer II

    The Myth Spreads Like Cancer II

    Bully for Them:

    Who would have thought? A factually inaccurate article from the Washington Post. I’m stunned. (Not really)

    Basically, this is just another “feel good” article about bullying. It states the obvious by saying bullying is a real problem in our schools but, as usual, doesn’t offer any real solutions that can be applied in the real world. It relies a lot on parental involvement. In a perfect world that would be enough, but as we all know, the parents of bullies are either bullies themselves or refuse to admit that their kids are bullies.

    And they blame the usual suspects, TV, Movies, video games, but still not offering any real solutions on what the schools can do to stop bullying. However, my major bone of contention is with this…

    Bullying’s link to violence has been repeatedly documented. For example, the 1999 Columbine High School shootings in Littleton, Colo., by two students who had been bullied, resulted in the deaths of 12 classmates, a teacher and the shooters themselves, and the wounding of 23 others.

    WRONG!!! Again I refer to what, I think, is the definitive article about Columbine, “The Depressive and the Psychopath” written by Dave Cullen for Slate. An addition to the article deals with the myths of Columbine…

    Here is the straight story on seven of the central myths:

    1. Targeting jocks, blacks, and Christians: There were no targets. Harris and Klebold just wanted body count, and they didn’t care who died. They expected their bombs to do most of the killing, murdering everyone in the cafeteria, irrespective of clique or social standing. When the bombs failed, they shot indiscriminately, firing into open crowds and under tables without bothering to see who their victims were. They taunted jocks briefly in the library, but they taunted virtually everyone else there, too.

    7. Outcasts: Perhaps the most pervasive myth is that Harris and Klebold were rejected outcasts. They were not captains of the football team, but they were far more accepted than many of their schoolmates. They hung out with a tight circle of close friends and partied regularly on the weekend with a wider crowd.

    In other words, they weren’t bullied.

    Even though some people think I encourage or excuse bullying, you couldn’t be more wrong. As a former victim, I think bullying is a cancer on our education system. But unfortunately, I don’t think there will ever be a realistic solution to eliminating bullying from our schools.

  • No Apologies

    No Apologies

    A few weeks ago, a columnist named David Brooks for the New York Times wrote this column which is basically just him agreeing with this column by Dave Cullen.

    Mr. Brooks then started receiving E-mails from Tom Klebold, Dylan Klebold’s father, which led to this piece in Saturday’s New York Times.

    In it, the Klebolds refuse to apologize for what happened. Susan Klebold even goes as far to say, “I haven’t done anything for which I need forgiveness.” They also describe the day of the shootings as “a natural disaster” and the Klebold’s discuss the day as a suicide and not as a day when 13 random people were killed. Two quotes from the NY Times article jumped out at me…

    They believe that what they call the “toxic culture” of the school — the worship of jocks and the tolerance of bullying — is the primary force that set Dylan off. But they confess that in the main, they have no explanation.

    Yet, they didn’t kill any jocks, and I have yet to hear of the names of any jocks who allegedly bullied them. And then there was this…

    “I’m a quantitative person,” said Tom, a former geophysicist. “We’re not qualified to sort this out.” They long for some authoritative study that will provide an answer. “People need to understand,” Tom said, “this could have happened to them.”

    So it sounds like to me that they’re willing to let other people raise their child. People like Eric Harris. The impression I get is that the Klebolds are very self-absorbed. They must be to have missed obvious warning signs, which they regrettably admit…

    “He was hopeless. We didn’t realize it until after the end,” Tom said. Susan added: “I think he suffered horribly before he died. For not seeing that, I will never forgive myself.”

    Suffered horribly? At least he knew that he was going to die that day. 13 other people weren’t afforded such a luxury.

    As expected, parents of the true victims are not happy…

    “I’m horrified,” Dawn Anna, whose daughter Lauren Townsend was killed at Columbine, told The Associated Press. “I wanted an apology. I wanted a contribution to help us understand why it happened, so that it would never happen again. I didn’t hear it.”

    Brian Rohrbough, father of victim Daniel Rohrbough, said he was outraged that the Klebolds likened the day of the shootings to a natural disaster in the interview with Brooks.

    The best quote to sum this all up also comes from Brian Rohrbough who said…

    “This was murder,” he said. “In my opinion, what went on in their home led to Columbine.”

    Now if only the Klebold’s would pull their heads out of the sand and realize that.

  • Columbine: Then and now

    Columbine: Then and now

    I got over 1,300 hits yesterday for obvious reasons and only one good piece of hate mail. Come on mutants. You’re slacking off.

    Anyway, I want to go over one of the articles I posted yesterday…

    The Depressive and the Psychopath:

    This is a great article, which goes with my theory that the alleged “bullying” had nothing to do with the shooting. The FBI team concluded that Harris was a psychopath and Klebold was a sycophant. Now, I do not condone bullying in any way shape or form, but how come we never hear any of the bullies’ names? We hear how they were supposed bullied, but we never hear the names of the bullies.

    According to the article, the aftermath of Columbine would have been considered a failure in Harris’ and Klebold’s eyes. So they were in death as they were in life. Failures and cowards.

    This one I saw yesterday but saved until today…

    Iowa teen arrested after Columbine-style threat:

    It turns out this mutant had no plans or weapons. It turns out he was a typical Harris and Klebold mutant. Just a punk who liked shooting his mouth off. When asked by his principal if he planned a school shooting, he said…

    “I don’t have to do things on the 20th. I can do them some other time.”

    They locked his ass up after that. What gets me is this…

    The shirt he wore to school last fall had pictures of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who killed 12 classmates and a teacher before turning their guns on themselves, and the phrase: “Always Remembered.”

    What gets me is that someone actually manufactured a t-shirt as reprehensible as that and is making money from it, and that his parents actually allowed him to wear that shirt. And to school, no less. If parents just did their fucking jobs, we wouldn’t have half the problems in school that we do now. These parents are just pathetic.