CT Opinions
Friday, April 20th 2007Column: In peace, we will find our strength
Life throws us for a loop when bad things happen to good people. When I was 15, my father died, and I questioned everything I was taught about the world. Whenever lives end suddenly, we question whether the world we live in is worth our efforts. I believe that we live our lives for our good efforts and good work. We are people know how powerful it is to stay positive even in adversity. When the team is in despair, the coach is the sole voice of strength, of faith in the team's hard work. We must not forget that what we all stand for, individually as people, and as members of a community, are what make us stronger than anything that life throws at us...
Column: Let Cho die as he lived, anonymously
I had been telling my family and friends at other schools (even a reporter) how respectful I thought the media had been toward the students and their families; then I saw the pictures of Cho Seung-Hui and heard an audio clip of him ranting while I was driving home. I had to pull off to the side of the road, I was so furious.
At first, it was like listening to talk radio being broadcast from hell. It was as if he was finally getting what he wanted: people to know his name and know who he was. I say let that man die as he lived: anonymously...
Column: Communicating with those we care for
It's impossible to remember Monday's events and not think of hate and violence. The total disrespect for life displayed by Cho Seung-Hui and the rampage he went on will no doubt scar the Virginia Tech community forever. But in similar dark hours of recent years, there has also been an overwhelming response against such actions.
Any student or faculty member who has a cell phone can attest to how many people care about each and every one of us. The first to call me was my mother. She was already in tears, and just hearing her voice in a state of complete worry almost made me cry...
Editorial: Students confront the media
Walking around campus students and faculty alike bear witness to a sea of camera crews penetrating the Virginia Tech campus. From the Roanoke Times to CNN, reporters can be seen on the Drillfield and sidewalks recounting Monday's events. The Virginia Tech campus has become a hotspot for gaining information, and most especially, interviewing students. After Monday's tragedy, student narration and personal accounts have proved themselves valuable to all news stations and reporters. Students' personal stories are the closest many reporters get to the action...
Letter: "The power to make a difference"
Dear students, you have suffered horror and tragedy on a magnitude that few of us ever experience or can imagine. You have displayed more compassion, humanity, and dignity in the aftermath of that tragedy than most of us could muster.
It is a truly unfortunate sign of the times we live in that it takes a terrible event like that which occurred on your campus on April 16 to focus the public's attention on the ordinary and good people of the world. You may wish it not so, but you now have the attention of the public, the press, the congress, and the president...
Letter: Gators show support
I have just received a phone call form a good friend who is alumni of the University of Florida and a resident of Gainesville. He told me that there are many signs posted in the town and on campus supporting our university...
Letter: The Hokie Nation unites
Nikki Giovanni said it best in her poem at the end of the convocation yesterday.
Through our blood and tears
Through all this sadness
We are the Hokies
We will prevail...
Letter: Lover overcomes hate
I hope that this university, this nation, and the entire world take away from this tragedy the idea that love is always stronger than hate. Yes, the shooter changed our world to terror but our love will remake it better than before. We are picking up the pieces and we will reassemble them into a stronger and even more unified Hokie Nation. So remember to show love, teach love, practice love, and most of all share love...
Letter: Admiring Tech's unity
I didn't know any of the victims personally, but my heart is breaking right now for everyone at Virginia Tech and the surrounding community. We will never understand what could possibly drive someone to such evil.
Of course, it was the topic of conversation at work today. We cannot understand the senselessness of it all. As one person put it, if you're not happy with yourself and you want to end it all, go off on your own and leave the innocent out of it. Obviously this young man gave no thought to the families he has torn apart (or maybe he did), but what about his own family...
Letter: Protecting those in pain
As an alum of the University of Maryland and a parent of two college students at UMd, I know deep in heart and soul the unbelievable sense of grief, sadness, and loss you at Tech are feeling this morning. My heart goes out to the entire Tech community. I cry with you this morning; I grieve with you this morning. Having lost my grandmother, my mom, and my twin sister all in the span of 18 months as a young teenager, I know first hand how devastating it is to lose a loved one...
Letter: Finding strength in life
Dear Virginia Tech students,
As soon as I heard of the Virginia Tech shootings I was caught by disbelief, anger and sickness. But as the story unfolded and news reached us--4,000 miles east across the ocean--it was sorrow and grief that really grabbed me and hasn't let loose since. All of Virginia Tech students who lost loved ones, friends or acquaintances and all others who were affected in any other way by this tragedy should know that the people in my country and all over Europe are shocked by this horrific act and deeply share your grief, tears and pain...
Letter: Sending prayers to Tech
I know the heartache you are all feeling right now at the loss of so many of your own. I can only give you my deepest condolences and the knowledge that my heart breaks for the friends and loved ones of the lost. My support and prayers are firmly with all of the families, the injured students, and the Virginia Tech community as you begin the slow process of mourning and recovery...
Letter: At a loss for words
"Condolences" is such a watered down word in comparison to the events that took place at Virginia Tech that I don't want to even use it. "Sorry" doesn't match up with the physical ache I feel in my heart when I think about what happened to these sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers who never saw it coming and shouldn't have had to anyway. "My sympathies" sounds ridiculous in the face of what the survivors, friends and families of these victims will have to carry with them for the rest of their lives. I honestly don't know what to say but that it hurts to know that man at his most depraved is actually capable of doing something like this...
Thursday, April 19th 2007
Column: Coming to terms with profound loss and tragedy
Having just graduated from Virginia Tech in December, I have known just about every emotion a college student can encounter, but Monday's mass shootings have added one more emotion to a list I thought I had completed along with my bachelor's degree: a sense of loss. Blacksburg, Virginia is a stranger to losing; its alumni refuse to forget its charm, its sports teams find pride in success, and its students even sometimes find it difficult to cross the stage as I did just a few short months ago. Blacksburg is a town that gives birth to success...
Editorial: Deciding who should take the blame
Virginia Tech is facing excruciating grief and tragedy. In the aftermath of Monday's events the pain is still very much raw and real. Cho Seung-Hui, selfishly took the lives of thirty-two innocent victims, and injured a number of others, before taking his own. His actions have inflicted unimaginable pain and grief on so many, and the outcome of Monday's events is no one's fault but his own.
In the wake of such a tragedy, we are impressed by how our community has banded together in such solidarity to show the world that we are Virginia Tech, and we will overcome this. So many of us are left with unanswered questions...
Letter: Blacksburg tragedy breaks hearts
My heart aches for the senseless and mind-numbing loss in Blacksburg. Given that I'm suffering so badly even across a complete degree of separation (I lived in West Ambler Johnston years ago, spent countless hours in Norris, and took classes from Dr Loganathan), I can't fathom the shock on campus, let alone for the families, friends, and community members of the victims-these dear precious people were shining lights in others' lives and now they have been extinguished!
Letter: Prayers for Virginia Tech
To the students and faculty at Virginia Tech University:
I am writing this letter to you in hopes that my words may bring you some comfort, much the way your support brought my family comfort in the aftermath of my brother's untimely passing in March of 2001. (Michael C. Ziegler, Class of 2001)
The two events are vastly different, of course. But as time passes, I have learned, there will be many similarities. When the dust begins to settle out of the horrific event you have just shared, you will continue to ask questions. As time goes by, certain memories will not be able to be erased from your minds. My hope and advice is for you to focus on the good that will come from this infamous event...
Letter: Blacksburg tragedy shocks students and community
I find myself in a state of shock, and so many emotions are coming to the surface that I can't distinguish one from another. I'm left feeling empty and I believe many of us feel this way. We are searching for emotion so we can begin to make sense of what has happened, but as we attempt to figure this out we must stay strong and united to avoid despair.
I worry many people have lost faith in humanity or that their ability to trust was damaged. However, we must step back to see that in the face of the worst side of humanity, the best is allowed to blossom. The most impressive human traits push through, and we choose love in response to hate. We cherish life in the face of death...
Letter: We all need time to heal
One of the worst parts about all this is the effect it will have on Virginia Tech's image. I can't really blame people who are applying for colleges if they take Tech off of their lists now, because I probably would have also. It's not because I am afraid of a gunman, I know fearing bizarre and uncommon episodes like this is illogical and won't solve anything; it's because I'm worried Tech will never be the same place again, won't offer the same level of education it used to...
Wednesday, April 18th 2007
Column: Moving forward from devastating tragedy
Columbine, Nickel Mines and Bailey are all famous for conjuring up images of school violence. Now our own Blacksburg joins that list as the greatest of them all with 33 of our fellow colleagues dead, including the gunman. We were all present that fateful day and there is no question the memory will stay with us for the rest of our lives. As witnesses to the greatest mass murder in American history, we were all humbled by what happened on the morning of April 16, 2007...
Column: Students struggle for understanding and meaning
As roughly 32 of my peers lay deceased in Norris and West Ambler-Johnston Halls, I struggle for the words to describe how I feel. As eager, ambitious students, we all want to make history and leave our mark on the world, none of us wanted to be a part of the history that unfolded on campus Monday morning. We now share the burden of having been unwilling participants in one of our nation's worst tragedies...
Editorial: Convocation brings hope to students
The day after the deadliest shooting spree in United States history, Virginia Tech students, Blacksburg residents, and supporters from far and wide came out to pay tribute to the thirty-one fallen victims. At the core of the media spectacle, taking place in the humble town of Blacksburg, is a complete tragedy, affecting each and every one of us in our own ways. After the events of Monday, so many of us were left with feelings of helplessness, despair, unsure of who to turn to or how to grieve...
Letter: Sorrow pervades entire VT community
This note is addressed to the students of Virginia Tech. Never in one day have I been so stricken with grief and sorrow for my fellow Hokies, while at the same time been so proud to be part of the Virginia Tech community. As an alumnus and a very proud Hokie, I would like to take this opportunity to commend the students and student body of Virginia Tech during this time of crisis and subsequent mourning. I do not need to belabor the point of what each and every one of you, your parents and loved ones have had to endure in the past hours. But the manner with which each of you individually and as a collective whole have carried yourselves through this tragedy has struck me...
Letter: Media unfairly exploits VT tragedy
I am a student here at Virginia Tech, and like everyone else, I was shocked and saddened by Monday's events. I am also angered at the national media's coverage of our tragedy. The constant assumption of the incompetence of our school officials is unfair and uncalled for. We at Virginia Tech know that our school cares deeply for our safety and would never knowingly put our lives in danger...
Letter: Blacksburg tragedy has far-reaching effects
I am a Virginia Tech alumna and a former copy editor for the Collegiate Times. I just want to express my condolences to the entire campus, the CT staff, President Steger and the Blacksburg Police Department. It's hard for those of us who are no longer in Blacksburg to sit here and do nothing as the news stations run their little tickers counting names and numbers, but it must be even harder for those still on campus who are sitting there feeling just as helpless, right in the thick of the disaster...
Tuesday, April 17th 2007
Column: The culture of violence
First, I would like to offer my deepest sympathies to those affected by yesterday's tragedy. No words can describe it. I never thought I would be attending a school with the record for deadliest school shooting in history.
The only personal account of the tragedy that I have is the following: Upon returning from working at my job in the morning I checked my e-mail. The only message sent out at that time was the news of the first shooting at the dorm. I didn't think much of it, so I got ready to attend my first class at 10:10. When I was walking across the Drillfield, I noticed something was wrong...
Column: Focus on the victims, not the recriminations
Yesterday's events are still difficult to sort out and the exact scenario that unfolded yesterday morning is still murky amid the chaos, sensational and contradictory news reports, and second and third hand accounts. The situation is so horrible it's difficult to even admit it has occurred, much less comprehend the magnitude of events; at least 30 people are dead, their lives taken without any reason, or any remorse in what appears to be the single most outrageous indiscriminant act of violence in the nation's history. Others are wounded, and we cannot begin to imagine or even speculate about the horrors they experienced...
Column: What I want Virginia Tech to be remembered for
Last Monday was a very sad day. That preceding sentence was an understatement, yesterday was far worse. Waking up to the sounds of police sirens and ambulances was an alarm with no snooze button. There was only so much we could learn from sitting in front of a television screen, trying to find the most up to date news. It would take a couple hours for the magnitude of the event to finally sink in.
When I came to Virginia Tech as a freshman, life wasn't anywhere near as crazy. It was a college town, just like any other, except we had better football and a quality academic reputation with which other schools could not compare...
Editorial: A tragic day undeserved
Yesterday's events escalated far beyond what any of us ever imagined when the campus community received e-mail at 9:26 a.m. indicating that there had been a shooting in West Ambler-Johnston Hall. That in and of itself was a tragedy. What transcended after that was an inconceivable disaster. With 31 deaths in Norris Hall, and two more in the dormitory, the pain and heartache blanketing the entire campus community is very much alive. All 33 deaths that occurred on campus yesterday were senseless...