Revisiting Columbine Part 2

In response to my recent Columbine post, Streak asks: Why do you think all of these testimonies were rejected? Do you think that the investigators found enough evidence that contradicted them? Or that it simply, as you put it, went against the official and, while horrible, more palatable version? It's a good question. On the face of it, it seems absurd that there could be so many eyewitnesses claiming more than two gunmen were responsible for Columbine without more people in the general population knowing about it. That said, I counted more than four dozen people who claimed that someone other than Harris and Klebold were on site with guns drawn. That just floors me. I can't think of a more striking example of the fact that journalists in this country aren't doing their jobs. At all. Reality is not what actually happens out there in the real world. Reality is what the media says it is. And in that reality, Harris and Klebold did it all by themselves. The fact that 99 percent of the people in this country don't know about these claims, regardless of whether the claims are true or not, says something about the state of journalism in the United States. And what it says isn't very polite. As for Streak's question, I guess the best way to determine whether the crime scene contradicted the eyewitness accounts would be through ballistics tests and autopsies. It's my understanding that the local sheriff's department has been withholding that sort of information from the public (although I could be off base there--does anyone know?). If that's true, it doesn't speak too highly of the official version of reality. So, on the one hand, it's possible that law enforcement is stalling to hide information. If that's the case, my guess is that it's to avoid embarrassment. After all, it looks really bad when two kids who gave off plenty of warning signs shoot up the local school. It looks a whole lot worse when a small army pulls it off. Of course, it's also possible that nearly 50 people didn't see what they thought. Stranger things have happened.

Saturday Comics Blogging

The McCartys had a recent post about the narcissism of our entertainment culture. It made me think of this Parking Lot is Full comic.

Revisiting Columbine

Today marks the sixth anniversary of the Columbine shootings in Littleton, Colorado. As the dust clears from last month’s Red Lake school shooting, Columbine still remains the most infamous school shooting in US history. And, as Russ Kick notes in Everything You Know Is Wrong, it appears that Columbine will forever remain ingrained in the American psyche as the archetypal school shooting. But that’s not what intrigues me about Columbine. Nor am I particularly concerned with rehashing the blame game that accompanies each and every school shooting in this country. (Who’s at fault this time? Marilyn Manson? Eminem? Easy access to guns? Bad parents? Schools that turn out drones? Our increasing willingness to dope kids up on Prozac and Ritalin? Violent video games? Bible verses about throwing babies against rocks and bathing in blood?) What does concern and intrigue me, though, is the version of reality that has been sold to us about Columbine. There is an Official Version of Events in regards to the Columbine Massacre. But that version does not square with some of the evidence. Much like the facts of 9/11, do some digging on your own and you may discover a few things about Columbine that make you damned uncomfortable. The Official Version of Events is basically as follows: Two bullied students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, planned and executed the attacks by themselves. Some other people bought guns for the two Trenchcoat Mafia members, but these buyers were unaware of the duo’s plans. The two gunmen, dressed in black pants and trenchcoats, began shooting at roughly 11:19 AM. By 12:08 PM, Harris and Klebold were both dead, having committed suicide. That’s fine. That’s what we’ve all been told to believe by a media that doesn’t bother asking questions once an official story has been decided upon. Unfortunately, the official version does leave a few of those questions hanging in the air. For instance, that story doesn’t quite explain why shots were still being fired in the school three and a half hours after Harris and Klebold lay dead. Nor does it explain why the lead FBI investigator on the case had a son who filmed a trial run of the shooting spree two years before the fact. But what’s even more intriguing, and disturbing, is that there are dozens of eyewitnesses on the record who report seeing more than two gunmen inside the school that day. In fact, based on these eyewitness accounts, there may have been anywhere from six to eight shooters. These accounts, taken from 11,000 pages of raw Columbine documents, can be read here. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that eyewitness testimony is often shoddy and unreliable. You probably can’t remember what the cashier who sold you coffee this morning looked like. How could you possibly remember details about gun-toting thugs after the trauma of a massacre? Yet, as Kick notes, “(there’s) an amazing amount of congruity among the statements of people who saw other participants in the massacre.” And keep in mind that at least one of these extra gunmen (or in this case bombmen), was seen with both Harris and Klebold. Anyways, I’m only going to quote a few snippets of these accounts. If you’re interested in reading more, check out the 11,000 pages of documents. Keep in mind that any time a suspect other than Harris or Klebold is mentioned, the student’s name is redacted. (Also keep in mind that whoever did the redaction missed a few times. I won’t name names, but several other Trench Coat Mafia members are fingered as having been on the scene, with guns. You can look for yourself on, for example, p. 5,248-9.) "Me and my friends were about 100 yards away from the people. There were 3 of them[:] 2 wearing trench coats and one wearing a white shirt. We heard what we thought was a gun & started running. Then we figured that they were fireworks & went back. We saw one of them aim a gun at us and started shooting as us. We got up & saw the kid in the white throw what looked like grenades on the roof." – Chris Wisher (p. 1,262) "She thought she saw fireworks sparking on the sidewalk, and then saw a guy in a trench coat coming down the hill. Three kids went ‘down’ to the ground, and the guy in the trench coat was standing over two of the downed kids. She stated she knew it was (redacted) in the trench coat, standing over the two kids, because she recognized him…She stated (redacted) had a gun hanging from his neck on some type of strap. The gun was all black and approximately 15-18 inches long. She stated it looked like a machine gun, and there was no Duct Tape on it. She stated that was the only gun she saw him with, and it was in his right hand." – Bijen Monte (interviewed April 30, 1999, by Agent Jerry W. Means and Agent Ricky S. Mundine, Colorado Bureau of Investigation) (1,016-22) "He was holding the rifle in his right hand(.) He was just pointing and shooting at people at the outside commons area(.) She couldn’t see his left hand. She said that she didn’t notice if he had anything on or about his trench coat. "Kate said, 'It was (redacted)(.) I’m almost positive of it(.) I remember looking him dead in the eye(.) He was in my debate class for a little big either the end of last semester or the beginning of this one(.)'" – Katelyn Sue Place, (interviewed May 14, 1999, by P.J. Doyle) (p. 750) "The still photos clearly depict Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris as being the two armed gunmen in the school. One of the photos has the time of 11:46 a.m. This is one minute after Jennifer claims she saw them in the upper level of the school. Eric Harris is shown in the photo wearing a white colored t-shirt. He has a short haircut, dark pants, and is carrying a sawed off shotgun. Jennifer looked at the photos and again I asked her are these the two individuals she saw at the high school. Jennifer positively identified Dylan Klebold, but stated the other suspect she saw was not Eric Harris. She told me that the party she saw was about 25 to 30 years old, had a thick muscular neck and muscular build and that Eric Harris was too scrawny to be the party she observed. I again reiterated with Jennifer that the still photos are of Eric Harris and is the same description she is giving to us. Jennifer told me that she could not positively identify the second gunman as being Eric Harris and believed that the second gunman she saw was somebody other than Eric Harris." – Jennifer Smull (reinterviewed on October 12, 1999, by Larry Erzen) (189-190) "Ashley identified the shooters as Eric Harris and (redacted). According to Ashley, (redacted) was dressed in a white shirt with a black trench coat over it. She said that (student’s name) was armed with a handgun while Harris was armed with a shotgun. Ashley said that she was not sure about (redacted) identity until her sister Heather showed her a Columbine yearbook and she saw his picture in the book. Ashley is sure the two shooters she observed were Eric Harris and (redacted)." – Ashley Egeland (interviewed April 27, 1999, by Agent Timothy Steffes) (5,248-9).

Knick Knacks and Paddywhacks

Random news and notes: • So if you thought Saved! was a funny film, you'll be pleased to hear about Never Been Thawed. Never Been Thawed is a strange-looking tale of Christian rock and frozen entree collecting. I'm not really sure how those two things tie together. But I can't wait to find out. Check out the trailer here (click on "trailer" up at the top). Beautifully telling quote: "The lyrical formula is quite simple, right? It’s man has problem, man finds Jesus, Jesus fixes problem. Repeat." • Several years ago I read about the Black Bible Chronicles, a "hip and holy" version of the Bible written for the streets of the South Bronx. (Actual quote: "Now when the Almighty was first down with His program, He made the heavens and the earth."). In Christianity's continuing attempt to make itself hip and relevant, now there's the Metal Bible. Not only does it make the text more accessible to metalheads, but it also includes testimonies from Nicko McBrain (Iron Maiden), Tommy Aldridge (Whitesnake) and Michael Sweet (Stryper), among others. I'm in line already. • And finally, via Ship of Fools:

Saturday Comics Blogging

Community

So my wife has a really good post up about community and baggage. You should go read it. And I’m not just saying that because we’re sleeping together. She notes: In my family, and from what my classmates have shared, in a lot of Christian families, we sweep our struggles under the rug. Our pains and hurts are signs of our fallenness, and we just aren't comfortable with that. I have realized that parents get really defensive when you start looking at how they disappointed you or maybe didn't fulfill some valid need that you had. It happens out of their brokenness, their sin, their being human. And you would think in true Christian community things would be different, but they aren't. In fact, I think they may be worse because we're all so damn busy trying to look good for the other Christians and for the rest of the world. I think that’s exactly right. But what is it about us that makes us this way? Is it because we’re insecure people who have this desperate desire to make sure everyone likes us, even if it means they like an us that isn’t us at all? Is it because of the way we have transformed the meaning of church, so that it is no longer a group of people living in community together, but rather a physical building with a steeple and sign, where we worship God and listen to a preacher, then return home to our isolated boxes? Is it because we’re Americans, and live in a culture where individualism is praised and practically anything else is labeled Socialism or Communism? Or is it something else?

Book Blogging: The War of the Worlds

For those scoring at home, this is an update of my status on Project 50: Finished: A Time to Kill – John Grisham Addicted to War: Why the U.S. Can’t Kick Militarism – Joel Andreas The Haunting of Hill House – Shirley Jackson Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith – Anne Lamott The War of the Worlds – H.G. Wells Blankets – Craig Thompson Animal Farm – George Orwell Books in Progress: The Everlasting Man – G.K. Chesterton On Deck: Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters - Peter Vronsky I finished H.G. Wells’ infamous The War of the Worlds a week or two ago. A few thoughts: 1. This is my third Wells’ novel, behind The Time Machine and The Island of Dr. Moreau. I’m not sure which has been my favorite, but War is quite good. I felt like I’d already read it though, which in a sense I had because Alan Moore’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol. 2 is essentially a retelling of War from a different perspective. I may even prefer Moore’s take to Wells’. (Moore combines the worlds of War and Dr. Moreau, among many others from 19th century Victorian literature. It’s quite brilliant.) 2. Not that you didn’t already know this, but Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruse are set to bring you a hyped-up film version of Wells’ novel this summer. The key word there is version. Naturally, Spielberg (or more likely his studio) doesn’t trust audiences in the United States with Wells’ story, so he’s bastardized updated it. The events of the book have been moved to the present day U.S. (the original story is set in England in 1901). Why? Well, I suspect it’s because American audiences wouldn’t know what to do with Wells’ story. It’s too British. It’s too old. (Americans can’t be expected to appreciate any culture other than their own, after all). It’s also, well, a bit boring. Not actually boring. But boring in the sense that not a lot of exciting things happen, at least not for people addicted to Vice City and 24. There’s plenty of pulpy excitement in Wells’ book, what with heat rays vaporizing gobs of people, fist fights, and alien tripods demolishing the landscape. Yet evidently Wells didn’t pack enough explosions and car chases into his story. I expect Spielberg also needed to pack some romance and, I'm betting, a dramatic ending into his version, both of which are missing from Wells'. (The novel is actually a bit anticlimactic. I won’t tell you how it ends, but it’s a very plausible scenario. Humanity is saved by the smallest possible "weapon," one that might leave moviegoers demanding a refund.) 3) War is a very telling commentary about colonization. Wells is talking about England colonizing Tasmania, but he could just as easily be talking about the entire history of the United States. Wells’ flips the idea on its head. Here Martians are the colonists who have come to expand their territory and resources. Humans have the unfortunate displeasure of occupying the wrong piece of land. Notes James Gunn (paraphrasing English scholar I.F. Clarke): The War of the Worlds...is about three kinds of wars. It is about the kind of war Europeans had visited upon less civilized countries during the great imperial expansion in the 1880s and 1890s, with the English now in the role of the backward Tasmanians and other less "civilized" peoples. It is about the kind of natural biological warfare in which the fittest survive. And it is about the kind of war that might be experience if science turned its laboratories over to the task of producing the most advanced and destructive weapons. In that sense, War is the perfect film for the United States to see this summer, given BushCo’s continued colonization forced democratization of the Middle East. Sadly, I'm not sure moviegoers in the U.S. will get the analogy.

Judicial Activism

There's been a lot of complaining lately in some Republican quarters about what they have dubbed activist judges. To hear Tom DeLay tell it, activist judges are those judges who circumvent the law by making decisions that reflect their own liberal convictions. Activist judges are prone to do things like rule in favor of gay marriages or in favor of a husband who probably knows his wife's deathbed wishes better than her parents do (whether or not the man in question is an asshole is really a seperate issue). Of course, this sort of thing is only a problem when Republicans don't share the convictions. It would be quite acceptable, for instance, for judges to rule in favor of displaying the decalogue in courthouses, or in favor of overturning Roe v Wade. That wouldn't be activism. It would naturally be a correct reading of the law. Nor was it activism for Florida courts to ignore the law in 2000 when it decided democracy is best served by not counting all the votes in a presidential election. Or that same year, when the Supreme Court mysteriously voted along party lines to elect the President of the United States. That, too, was a correct reading of the law. Democrats, apparently, just needed a little extra tutoring in law school.

Saturday Comics Blogging

Mix Blogging

So I think I'm in need of some new music. I'm burning a couple of mix discs for a friend in the next few days. If anyone else who lurks 'round these parts wants to swap mixes, drop me a note in the comments and we'll swap. It'll be kinda like the CIA and heroin smuggling, only legal. (See my music blog for a rough idea of what I'm into.)

Welcome to the Terrordome

Nine days after September 11, George W. Bush, in an address to the nation, outlined his initial plans for "the war on terror." Fingering Al Qaeda as the organization behind the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Bush explained that, much like the war on drugs, this new war would be ongoing: Our response involves far more than instant retaliation and isolated strikes. Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen. It may include dramatic strikes, visible on TV, and covert operations, secret even in success. We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or no rest. And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime. We all know what happened after that. The US first turned its attention to Afghanistan. After botching the capture of Osama bin Laden there, Bush set his sites on Iraq. Apparently Iraq was somehow involved in 9/11. Even though there was, you know, no evidence of it. (Lots of oil there, though.) I shouldn’t really be surprised. Evidence is not something of which Bush is particularly fond. If he were, a lot fewer death row inmates would have been electrocuted while he was governor. Or we would be doing something about global warming. Or our addiction to oil. Nonetheless, if Bush were really concerned about terrorists, and with nations that support them, he probably shouldn’t have agreed to transfer F-16s to Pakistan a couple of weeks ago. There is more than a little evidence to suggest that Pakistan, and more specifically the Pakistani ISI, had a direct role in orchestrating 9/11 (the ISI is essentially the Pakistani equivalent to the CIA). Remember, for example, journalist Daniel Pearl? Rigorous Intuition does: When Daniel Pearl was taken hostage in January 2002, one of his kidnappers' demands was the completion of the US transfer to Pakistan of F-16s, held up since that country's nuclear tests of 1998. That the US has at last approved the sale is only the latest reason why Pearl died in vain. It seemed a strange demand at the time, perhaps because even that time was more innocent than this time. Since that was before we learned that Omar Saeed Shiekh, the abduction's mastermind, was both Osama bin Laden's "favourite son" and an asset of Pakistan's ISI. It was Omar who wired more than $100,000 to Mohammed Atta in the weeks before 9/11 on the instruction of ISI Director Mahmood Ahmed. All Ahmed suffered for his travails was an early retirement and a comfortable sinecure. The buddy of Atta and George Tenet was not even interrograted by the FBI, and questions regarding his role in the 9/11 money chain were scrubbed from official White House transcripts. Pearl was kidnapped and murdered because he learned things about the relationship between Pakistan and Al Queda, things that other journalists will never bother to investigate. Why? Because, as Pearl learned, investigative journalism is dangerous. Investigative journalism is also expensive. There’s little money in it. It’s often bad for your career. There are very few readers, because people, Americans in particular, have little patience for long, footnoted stories that aren’t very entertaining. It’s far easier, and far more profitable, to keep reporting about Michael Jackson and American Idol finalists with criminal records. Those are the stories that really matter. Following the trail of money and relationships that leads back to two fallen towers? Eh, not so much. As an anonymous commenter notes at Rigorous Intuition: If someone in the corporate media would actually follow the trail that leads from 9/11 to the ISI, Daniel Pearl's murder, back to president Musharraf's coup in '99, to the international black market for arms, drugs and money laundering, to Sibel Edmond's revelations about the American Turkish Council, to Cheney and Rumsfeld, to the BCCI, to Leonid Shebarshin's claim of Bin Laden's continued CIA connections, to the Figaro story of his meeting with the CIA station chief in Dubai in 2001, to Porter Goss's and Bill Graham's and George Tenet's hectic meeting activity with Mahmood Ahmed in the weeks before 9/11, to the ISI-Taliban connection, to the trail of Bin Laden which has "gone cold", to the PNAC, and to this latest sale of F-16s to Pakistan. But they can't do that, because if they did, it would open up a can of worms so deep that Iran-Contra and Watergate would be dwarfed. Iran-Contra, after all, is just a part of this bigger picture. And they won't be allowed to. Dan Rather and Eason Jordan served as examples to the rest. So did Daniel Pearl and Giuliana Sgrena. Indeed.

Apathy is a Fruit of the Spirit

The year following the Columbine school shooting, the parents of murdered Christian teenagers Cassie Bernall and Rachel Scott cashed in on their daughters’ deaths in one of the more sickening displays of publishing prostitution seen in modern Christendom. Both families wrote books recounting the spiritual journeys and “martyrdoms” of their late loved ones (I use quotes because, in the case of Cassie Bernall, the whole “she said yes” business quite possibly never happened.) I was thinking about that this week in the aftermath of Terri Schiavo’s death. Somehow these two instances seem strikingly similar. In the case of Bernall and Scott, her well meaning parents decided to peddle their daughters’ recently snuffed lives for cash, undoubtedly for the greater good of “reaching people for Jesus” or “comforting the afflicted” (though it’s possible they also used the writing of the books to work through grief; grief, if you didn’t know, is easily comforted by a cash advance). In the case of Schiavo, RepubliChristians decided that this politically advantageous life was one worth saving. In both cases, we have well-meaning people using tragedy for their own purposes. I’m willing to let the Columbine parents off the hook. Losing a child makes one do funny things, I’m sure. I’m not so willing to give the RepubliChristians a free pass. That’s because even a cursory glance into the world reveals that there is a lot of tragedy that RepubliChristians don’t give a rip about. As Baptist minister Tony Campolo is often known to remark to Christian audiences, "I have three things I'd like to say today. First, while you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition. Second, most of you don't give a shit. What's worse is that you're more upset with the fact that I said shit than the fact that 30,000 kids died last night." If Terri Schiavo had not been politically advantageous, or had she not been white, you can bet your ass George Bush would have continued his vacation. Don’t believe me? Explain why, in the very midst of arguments about removing Schiavo’s feeding tube, a church in Charlotte, N.C., decided to cut ties with a food pantry because said pantry works with Roman Catholics (Would this group of Christians have let Catholic Schiavo starve?). Explain why the Michigan House of Representatives has agreed to let doctors refuse to treat gay patients. Explain why the US may have allowed malnutrition rates of Iraqi children to double since the invasion. Where is our outrage over these things? Perhaps apathy, not love, is the fruit of the spirit.

Saturday Comics Blogging

Speaking of weekly thematic blogging, Slacktivist has jumped on the Friday blogging bandwagon. This is a very good thing, particularly because he's doing Friday Left Behind blogging. For a year and a half now, Slacktivist has been deconstructing Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins' Left Behind, showing it for the poorly written, theologically impotent piece of trash that it is. Updates have been extremely scattershot. Hopefully now we'll get a weekly dose of Left Behind analysis. If you're new to these Left Behind posts, do yourself a favor and spend some time reading through the archives over at Slacktivist. You'll be glad you did.

April Fool's Day Blogging

The latest Lark News is out today. If you're not familiar, Lark News is basically The Onion if it reported about religion, specifically evangelical Christianity. Sadly, Lark News is only updated on the first of the month. But it's good stuff, particularly this month's headlines: Rapture takes two Missionaries maintain obesity against long odds Jack Chick buys popular comic strips Adulterous pastor seeks reinstatement, citing King David

Marketing 101

During my final year of college, I had an internship with a group called Hi Frequency Marketing. Hi Frequency "specializes in developing and executing unique and edgy marketing campaigns that utilize under-the-radar approaches, including our street team, online e-teams, guerrilla-style publicity and other methods of connecting directly with today’s media-savvy consumer." One of my projects was working for a then-unknown Canadian songstress named Avril Lavigne. Hi Frequency came up with an ingenious, if not dishonest, backdoor approach to launch Lavigne’s career. Using guerrilla-style e-teams, Hi Frequency sent marketing reps like myself into chat rooms and onto message boards, where we would casually namedrop Avril Lavigne and her music. We acted as if we had just heard of this great new musical act, and casually suggested that others check her out. Hi Frequency also steered its reps to create dozens of fan Web sites. Of course, these sites weren’t constructed by fans at all, but rather by Web savvy marketing interns. But these "fan sites" made sure that anyone searching for Avril Lavigne would find her. Exactly how much of her career Lavigne owes to this subtle marketing blitz is probably impossible to say. But word of mouth works far better than any commercial you see on television. When you tell a friend about a good experience that you have had with a product or service, that friend is a lot more likely to use that product or service based on your recommendation. Television, radio and glossy magazine ads have tremendous power. But they don’t have as much power as word of mouth. So it’s not inconceivable that a deceptive word of mouth campaign like this one had an enormous impact on getting Lavigne into both the marketplace and mainstream pop culture. This type of marketing isn't new at all, nor is it uncommon. I saw a report on the news several months ago (back when I used to watch the news occasionally) about people being paid to go into bars and coffee shops to play a new gaming system. If the marketing plant could casually convince a bystander to play the system for a few moments, then success had been achieved. This is the advertising and marketing of the future. That’s not to say that television spots or Web ads are going to disappear. Not at all. Direct advertising works. As long as it continues to work, you’ll continue to see it. But you can also expect to see advertising and marketing take a more creative approach to brainwashing you to purchase its products. And by see it, I mean you won't see it. It will be there. But, if the advertisers and market gurus have done their job, you won't know it at all. Take product placement. Just this week McDonald’s announced that it will pay rappers $5 for each time they use the word Big Mac in a song. Fox has long been placing sponsor products on its television shows. Count all the Ford vehicles the next time you watch an episode of 24. Watch for 20-oz bottles of Coke casually sitting around the next time you watch American Idol. You often consciously don’t notice these things. But your brain does. And your brain will remind you the next time you get hungry or thirsty, or the next time you get car fever. What’s also interesting is how people have started prostituting themselves on eBay. You’ve undoubtedly heard about a couple of people being paid to have product branding tattooed on their bodies. But the ante has been upped. Recently, a woman in Knoxville placed a bid on eBay to have the auction winner change her name. So Terri’s new name is now that of a Las Vegas casino. Sadly, she only got a little over $15,000 out of the deal, which doesn’t seem like a lot to have to go through the hassle of changing your identity and explaining in your next job interview why your name is Golden Palace Casino. Maybe she’ll get a book deal.