Interesting view of things

Today in the letters to the newsdesk section of the news on public radio, a listener had pointed out an interesting fact.

The student who went on a rampage at Virginia Tech., was being showcased as a "Korean kid"! What is interesting is that he was born in Korea, but he lived his entire life here, went to school here, went to college here, was raised as an American and for all practical purposes was predominantly exposed to American culture.

The newscasters are trying to imply that his actions have something to do with his "Koreanity". Scary part is that, it is simply a question of time before someone in the media actually publicizes the word "Koreanity" and someone else misspells it as "Koranity" and before you know it you have the President triumphantly declaring that he has found the connection between the shootings and the Koran!

The USA today is scary. Over the years I have spoken to many teenagers and college students here, from the time I came here as a graduate student to the the present day. I just thank my stars that I managed to grow up in India in the eighties, an environment where students focused on their studies, were too young to chase the other sex when they were in high school (had no peer pressure to lose their viriginity before graduation !) or had to work and study at the same time.

Kids in this country have a tough time for the most part because they share the financial burden of their education (partially or completely), have peer pressure to do things that distract them from their studies and their future, do not have good examples and role models to keep them focussed and have a system that is more than happy to dole out overpriced student loans, condoms and depression pills to school kids as solutions to their problems as opposed to getting to the root cause.

The lucky ones do get to have role models, parents or relatives that support them during their education process and have the ability to focus and prioritize their goals. It is a fact that the most brilliant and creative people I have met over the last decade are of American origin. If a person has to succeed in spite of all these distractions and responsibilities, they have to be really good. Maybe that explains that creativity!

I have already written many a post on raising my kids here. I can only hope that if I support their education, keep them focussed , put them with kids whose parents share the same hopes and fears (yes, fear works at a lot of levels here) , then they will succeed!

Time and place do play a part in how people grow and develop, probably more than their birthplace or nationality. The media has a lot of growing up to do!

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Guns anyone ?

Over the last few years, every now and then a news piece comes along that does not have Iraq or George W. Bush on the headline. The sad fact is that such news has almost always been associated with a severe tragedy, either in terms of numbers and magnitude like the asian Tsunami or the utter hopelessness and despair in the situation like todays University Shooting.

This steals the joy of Iraq and GWB not being the number one headline day after day and instead plunges you to new depths of sadness. On an average we are losing tens of lives (American) and probably hundreds of lives every day in the middle east. These are guys who signed up to fight for what they believe in, or people who believe in following orders. People who wake up knowing that they might face a bullet that day. If wartime casualties are depressing, University kids attending class dying no reason, is simply gut wrenching.

During my India trip, an anonymous blogger wanted me to take responsibility for the Gun Culture in the US. I wrote a strongly worded post(the only post I think I have retracted) saying "not every american owns a gun, or at least no one I know or interact with goes around with a gun!". I also stated that I vote against this gun culture every chance I get. In retrospect, this is a losing battle. Lets face it. I cannot do diddly squat to keep guns away from the killers.

Apparently guns don't kill people. People kill people. (This, according to the National Rifle Association, which is usually credited with keeping up the access to guns active in the USA). My interpretation? People with guns kill people. Somehow the guns always have a way of finding themselves in the hands of these people who have an intent to kill! This seems to be one of those things where you say "Duh ?!". What is the probability that a person who owns a gun intends to use it? Why would that person own a gun in the first place?

At the end of the day, you cannot argue with these guys because there could be this one bloke who holds on to the gun with the intent of self defense. This is like saying we should take all candy away from all kids because they cause cavities. In the process we could be killing some kid who has low blood sugar and relies on the candy for his very life. Better have a thousand kids with cavities and have a pediatric dentistry business flourish and improve the economy than have that one kid die. I do accept that logic, in spite of all the sarcasm.

In a country plagued by teenage drinking, highly stressed out kids, peer pressure that runs rampant, high instance of drug use in college, etc., the last thing you need is for college going kids to have access to guns! So many people smoke and kill themselves and others in the process of smoking, knowing that there is a warning label on the box of Cigarettes. So many drink and drive. So many make accessing guns easy for others who plan to take innocent lives. How do you make these people responsible for their actions? Sometimes I just think "it is just the luck of the draw" and keep going and at other times I feel :
angry at what happened which
instantly changes to frustration by the fact that the anger does not help, then
panic that I am going to be raising my kids here and finally
console myself saying "nah. this won't happen where I live!" and fear takes over again saying "what if I am wrong ?".

If a guy who is so far removed from the events today at the University can go through this rollercoaster of emotions, I just cannot imagine what the people at V.Tech must be going through. My heart goes out to all those affected by what happened today.

I really wish there will be a news story tomorrow with GWB in the headlines where he does something about people shooting people!

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