Only 11, well, now twelve posts this year?
It’s been a busy year, let’s hope I can work more on this site in 2013.
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 2,500 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 4 years to get that many views.
You get attached to students. It happens.
You want to see them succeed and not go (back) to jail.
I subbed at Tiger today. It was great. I saw a few students I knew, and a lot of students I didn’t know. Another few months and “my” students will all be gone.
The topic of discussion among the teachers and other faculty was the news that a former student who got out a month ago was arrested earlier this week for possessing a firearm… among other things. I want to read a news report or SOMETHING as some of the information I was given about it are flipping crazy. At least he isn’t dead, but if I recall, the sentence for using a gun on someone is life in prison, but the person he was shooting used one on him first (and hit him), but who knows.
I had high hopes I’d never hear of him getting arrested or see him on the news in a negative light. I told him last year that I had bought an automotive class book for him to do work out of since he wouldn’t do the normal English work. He thought it was a good idea and was receptive to it (he had previously told me he was interested in working in the automotive repair industry). Then, as an aside, he asked, “How much did you spend on it?” I didn’t lie to him, I said, “It was $14.” I’ll never forget the look on his face as he said, “You spent $14 for me?” He couldn’t believe that someone would do that for him.
I loved it when he actually worked on the stuff I assigned out of that book. He never got a problem wrong, even came to me for assistance a few times showing me the question in the book, then showing me where he found the answer in the book wanting to help me reconcile his idea of what the right answer should be among the two he was thinking of. It was great.
Even when I left that assignment, the new teacher assured me she would continue using that book for that student, and she did. I talk to her sometimes about my students. But now, there’s only a few left. Oh, there’s a full class of 24 students, there’s always 24, but of those, only a few are ones that know of my time there.
It makes me sad, but what can you do? Promise yourself you’ll work that much harder on the next one? And the one after?
I’m not sure.
This post is cross posted to http://jaxkidsmatter.blogspot.com/2012/04/you-cant-save-them-all-but-that-doesnt.html?spref=fb
First a bit of background. I wrote this for my Insanity & Crime class at the University of North Florida. The date on the paper is April 1. I was to write a paper on someone who committed a crime. I was originally going to do mine on Charles Manson (no, hadn’t discovered the Unabomber at this time). The day after I was to start writing, Jeff Weise did his thing, and I asked my professor if I could do my paper on him instead. She agreed.
I would like to revisit this paper and expand on it, maybe turn it into a larger work. Looking back on it today, it looks amateurish, I know I could easily do a tighter, larger, and more in-depth essay on him and school shooters in general. Of course, over the past seven years more information has undoubtedly come to the fore. I had been interested in school shooters for years and was always saddened that none had ever been taken into custody alive. Today one in Ohio was apprehended alive, so maybe this will help shed light on these kinds of things. Here I present the paper as it appeared in 2005 (with a few small pieces of editing to make it read better, I would love to do a complete rewrite of this thing), oh, and if you read this and are aware that certain things do not jive with what really happened (example: I say he was shot in the leg when most reports now say he was shot in the arm), this was because the data I had at the time said whatever it was that I say that is now known as being wrong.
Okay, onward:
Bradley Hall
CCJ 4606
Insanity & Crime
4-1-05
Immortality Doesn’t Mean Never Dying: The Jeff Weise Story
Well now I’m back in the middle of the day that starts it all.
Well I can’t begin to let you know just what I’m feeling.
And now these red ones make me fly,
And the blue ones help me fall.
And I think I’ll blow my brain against the ceiling.
~ Headfirst for Halos, My Chemical Romance
INTRODUCTION
March 21st 2005 was a day like any other. For many people, it was. It was a beautiful Spring day. Flowers were in bloom, Spring Break was a looming thought, and the end of the current semester was on everyone’s mind. But, while most people were having the time of their lives, a group of ten people were having the last moments of theirs as they were gunned down by Jeff Weise in Red Lake, Minnesota.
Weise is the latest person to be a “school shooter,” as in, he went to school one day armed with guns and the intent to kill as many innocents as possible before turning the gun on himself.
BACKGROUND
Weise’s background is very interesting. According to the Wikipedia entry, his father committed suicide in 1997 after a feud with police. Oddly enough, Jeff’s grandfather, Daryl Lussier, was a police officer himself. A couple years later, Jeff’s mother was injured in a car accident that left her brain damaged. It was this final event that made him live with his grandfather (1). It must have felt weird living with a person who not only was a blood relative, but also was a member of the same group that pushed his father to suicide.
What makes Weise so interesting, is that never before have the writings of a killer been placed where anyone could see them. Jeff Weise posted online on several websites, including Nazist sites, Zombie forums, Newgrounds, and LiveJournal. The last two are visited by almost everyone who has an Internet account.
On http://www.newgrounds.com, he posted under the screen name of “Regret.” Newgrounds is a site devoted to Flash animation. Weise created two short films in the Flash format and posted them to this site. In one, called “Target Practice,” a lone figure walks up, takes a drag of a cigarette-like thing, pulls an AK-47 from a bag and proceeds to shoot everyone in sight, blows up a cop car, then shoots himself in the head (1).
Looking back in retrospect, it could be thought “he was trying to tell us something,” but, if everyone who writes has murderous tendencies lurking inside them I wonder what Koushun Takami (author of Battle Royale, see endnotes) and Stephen King have been trying to tell us in their stories.
In his posts, he says that once he decides something, he sticks it through to the end, and he’s a budding writer. He posted a three-part story called “Rise of the Dead” on a zombie fan website that features what is first thought to be a school shooting from the perspective of a potential victim, but turns out to be a zombie on the loose in the school. At which time, the military steps in and cleans up. Aside from a few grammatical problems, it was a very good read.
On the various forums, he used a variety of aliases, including blades11, Todesengel, NativeNazi, Regret and others.
BEHAVIOUR: BEFORE AND DURING THE CRIME
BEFORE
Aside from the circumstances surrounding the death of his father and debilitating injury of his mother, Weise was largely ridiculed and made fun of by other kids (4). He was also on antidepressants. His dosage had been increased to 60MG of Prozac the week before the shootings (4). Most antidepressants have warning labels signifying that people should monitor those who actively use them since suicidal thoughts can manifest.
In Internet posts, Weise stated that before her accident, his mother would beat and berate him saying things such as “You were a mistake.” (4). He was a loner who often got into fights at school (1). Various students said that he always carried a notebook that he’d draw “evil” pictures in (1). In his LiveJournal, he describes himself as “your ordinary Native American stoner (1).”
DURING
On that morning, he killed his grandfather, Daryl Lussier, and his girlfriend. Then, sometime after noon he donned his fallen grandfather’s bulletproof vest and his guns (some accounts say he took one pistol and one shotgun, though this is in conflict at this time), stole [his grandfather's] patrol vehicle, and rammed right into the front door [of his school]. He leapt out and killed security guard Derrick Brun (2).
The next part is interesting, he killed a few random students with the shotgun until he came face to face with teacher Neva Rogers. He lifted the shotgun and pulled the trigger, but it wouldn’t fire. After throwing it down, he shot her with the pistol (2). Leaving the classroom, he encountered a tribal police officer that shot Weise once in the hip and another time in the leg (3). Weise limped back to Rogers’ room where he lifted the formerly discarded shotgun and fired one last shot into his own head.
I do not know whether Weise would be categorized as an “organized” or “disorganized” killer. He showed symptoms of both kinds. He obviously planned his crime and brought his own weapons, which fit with the organized personality, but, he left the bodies where they fell and didn’t seem to care about leaving evidence such as his dead body behind. Also, I’m sure he doesn’t care to follow the investigation either. So, my guess is he fits half of each.
CONCLUSION
From what I’ve read, Weise was an emotionally disturbed young man. Surely he displayed quite a few “warning signs” that something was amiss inside his head. Many of these can still be seen today in his LJ posts, Flash animations, etc. People across the country are accessing these sites, reading what he had to say in his short life, and making notes. While researching some of the things he liked, I couldn’t help but think that if I were to have run across him online one day, that we could have been friends.
Yet no one tried to help him. Not his therapist, not his grandfather, no one. He was alone inside his torment. In this state, he found Adolf Hitler and his dream. Young Weise loved what Hitler stood, fought, and died for. Though I’m sure Hitler would have eventually ordered the slaughter of countless Native Americans in his conquest to rule the world. In this matter, Weise was oblivious.
Every time an event like this happens, people put on a show of pity and remorse for what happened, saying that the person who precipitated the attack “slipped through the cracks” somehow. And every time, it receives less and less attention. It’s almost like the country as a whole has become desensitized to this problem. Several years ago, the Columbine Massacre filled our TV screens, newspapers, and elected officials mouths for weeks, if not months. Now, with Red Lake, all we got was four or five days’ worth of newspaper articles and maybe three minutes on TV.
Is that what this country has come to? If the people in Weise’s life took a little more interest in what he was doing, he may have turned out all right. Surely his grandfather, the guy who BOUGHT Jeff’s prescriptions knew what they were for, so why didn’t he try just a little bit to see what his problem was? The world may never know.
ENDNOTE
Battle Royale: Battle Royale is a book written by Japanese writer Koushun Takami. The story centers on an alternate universe in the Republic of Greater East Asia. Every few months, a random ninth grade class is chosen to compete in the “Battle Royale.” In the Battle Royale, the students are taken to a remote island and each is given a bag containing a compass, food, water, a map, and a random weapon. The weapons range from a fork to a semi-automatic machinegun. The students are given three days to kill each other until only one remains and is announced as the winner. If after three days more than one student is still alive, they all die.
When it was released in Japan in 1999 (and in 2001 when it was released here), many anti-violence groups immediately protested against it. Their main claim was that the violence depicted in the book could plant ideas into the impressionable minds of young people around the world. Needless to say, I bought the book (and imported the movies based on it) and enjoyed every minute spent reading it.
Bibliography
1.Www.wikipedia.com entry on Jeff Weise. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Weise
2.USA Today article, “Tribal leader says son didn’t help shooter” by Richard Willing. March 30, 2005
3. USA Today article, “School gunman was shot twice” by Kevin Johnson. March 30, 2005
4. Minnesota Star Tribune article, “Did meds play a role?” by Chuck Haga. March 25, 2005
Additional Source
A. Takami, Koushun. Battle Royale. Translated by Yuji Oniki. Published by Viz, LLC
This post was actually sent in November 2010 as a newsletter item on the United States Pirate Party mailing list. It is mirrored here because of its mention in No Safe Harbor, a publication of the USPP for those who wish to read the article. Odds are it has dispersed to other corners of the Internet as well.
This past Sunday I went out to the local flea market. There was an item I needed to acquire and one of the shops in the market typically has a good deal on them. I also like stopping by the coin collector guy’s booth and grab a few world coins, only one dollar for five coins. I once bought a handful of coins from him only to return home and investigate my haul to find that one coin in the mix was worth around $28. A good find indeed seeing as I paid 20 cent for it, but I digress.
After I found my item, I had a few hours to kill until I had to be back home so I walked around the flea market. There was quite a few new shops open since the last time I had been there. I noticed one shop in particular had a lot of people buzzing about. Upon closer examination, the shop contained a table with a some containers on it. Behind the table was the proprietor, answering questions and selling things as fast as he could.
What was he selling? DVDs.
More to the point, he was selling DVD-Rs onto which he used a Sharpie to write the name of a movie, such as A Bug’s Life, or Rocky, or any other number of movies. He had a sign advertising his prices. Five dollars for one movie, eight dollars for two, etc.
If you’re wondering why I was saddened at this sight, let me explain. The United States Pirate Party is against this blatant form of copyright infringement (and others as well). Am I the only one that reads the FBI warning that precedes every movie?
There was another thing that rather irked me. The stupidity of the shoppers. Were they really wanting A Bug’s Life so much that they’d spend $5 on a bootleg copy? Or, more likely, was it the “stick it to the man” attitude of buying an obviously bootleg DVD? I say stupidity because the first rule of flea markets is to buy it right when you find it if you can’t live without it as you can routinely find another copy of a book or film elsewhere in the flea market.
Oh, and that item I bought? It was a DVD. A legal, legit, albeit used, DVD. Cost? Only $2, disc doesn’t even have a scratch on it, even came with the original box and artwork. The shop I bought it from sells all of their used DVDs for $2, yes, even A Bug’s Life.
Sometimes sticking it to the man isn’t exactly cost effective… or legal.
Seriously, it’s an email from the deposed ruler of Egypt. He’s begging for my help and everything.
Of course, I know this is just another of those “deposed Nigerian Prince” style emails, it still makes me laugh that they started using a real deposed Egyptian guy for these. I look forward to receiving mail from Muammar Ghaddafi.
22/08/2011
Attn; My Noble Fellow
It will indeed be a pleasure to get associated with a good person of nobility like you. With this letter, I am making an appeal for your kindest attention. I only have limited access to communication so I will address straight to the point.
This is Muhammad Hosni Sayyid Mubarak, deposed President of Egypt, I was allegedly deposed and forced to step down by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces after the Egyptians protestsfor faster political reforms and demanded that I and my officials in my administration be forced to step down for political corruption, prompting the cabinet to look into reviving a law drafted after the 1952 revolution that overthrew the monarchy.
I would have called you on phone, but because the Egyptian Security Networking with Armed Forces is taping and monitoring myofficials’phone numbers, so it is no longer safe for me to call you which is why I think it is safe to send you this mail. I am placed under surveillance and still on detention and trials with my ex-Interior Minister Habib al-Adly, and six more senior ministry officials including my two sons.
However my main point of contacting you is to seek your sincere suggestion and guideline to move some allocatedfunds from my offshore accounts toyour country. Now I amcurrently incapacitated and suffering partial stroke and extremely worried over the political crisis which I cannot endure the ongoing catastrophe here, and please because of my position in the government now, I do not need to tell you of the absolute confidentiality which we both must have to observe as you are to help me in investing the funds in your country as my tycoon business representative.
Most of my private assets, bank accounts, my portfolio is being seized and confiscated by the Supreme Council, adding to that, the next session of my court trial is scheduled for September 5, that is why I decided to contact you now, though we are still going to court but the environment is good now to handle the transaction very safely before the specific date.
From the brief explanation of my present predicament which has befallen me now, you will understand my catastrophe with the Egyptian government now.I thank you very much for taking time to go through my mail, and please if you are sure you are truly capable to handle this transaction, revert back to me immediately.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely
Hosni Mubarak
Cairo, Egypt.
I love it, it really speaks to me, but more than that, it makes me laugh.
For those who don’t know, Mercury Men is a great Sci-Fi serial that is chugging along being awesome. They are having a contest to design a digital prop for the show. Since I suck at creating things of a digital nature, my entry is a description of an item that would rock.
My entry:
My idea for a prop is actually several props that combine to form one prop.
A seemingly normal set of items anyone would have on them, like a watch, keychain, cuff links, ring, tie clip, rank/insignia/service ribbons, etc.
Items that by themselves are just items of a decorative fashion. Items that anyone frisking the wearer would just ignore, how are they going to break out of their prison hold or whatever with a watch?
Ah, that’s where the hidden features come in. The watch is really the central mechanism for a small futuristic gun, like a Derringer, good for firing only one or two energy blasts.
The jewel in the ring is the power source, it clicks into the back of the watch. a small tube on the keychain could be the barrel. The metal holding the ribbons in place, or a piece of insignia or badge could contain the trigger.
The cuff links, when combined are an excellent lock pick.
These should be enough to get anyone out of a sticky situation.
From Hell’s Heart, I Stab At Linksys
Posted in Commentary, Uncategorized on July 6, 2012 by Bradley HallI wrote this as an email to my brother several years ago about the trouble I was having with a Linksys Wi-Fi router. I eventually got it configured and it still works to this day…
Following a recent spate with someone who doesn’t know the difference
between DSL and LSD (well, they are both drugs), I stepped up the date of acqusition of a Wi-Fi router to today. I settled on a Linksys
WRT54G 802.11G Broadband Router, partially because it looked cool,
partially because my laptop has a G card, and partially because it was on sale.
I read up on it online and saw 1 bad review and like, a hundred
glowing reviews. I didn’t check to see if the sites offering the
glowing reviews were owned by Linksys or not, but I’m guessing now
that they were.
I bought the thing, fondled it a bit, and followed the instruction CD
to install it (the CD was designed so a 3-year-old could understand
it, it had pictures and arrows and shit).
The line from the modem goes into the hole marked INTERNET, one end of the other wire goes in any one of four holes (you get to pick!
Customer’s Choice!) on the router and the Ethernet port on the back of your desktop computer. Then after some kind of magic spell, and
powering it up, a 2.4 GHz radio beam launches itself throughout your
house, irradiates you for a few grays of exposure and somehow finds
its way into the Wi-Fi 802.11G card on your laptop, causing you to see stuff online faster than you used to could.
All the wires went where all the wires go. The thing was up and
running and emitting some kind of signal my Wi-Fi card picked up, yet
the install wasn’t complete. I still had to configure it.
Configuring was nothing more than pressing “next” and “next” and
sometimes, “continue” worked its way onto the screen. It did whatever
it said it was doing, no way I could figure out if it did. Eventually, it said it could not find the Internet (!) so I made sure the Internet was still where it was (it’s still here). Checked the connections, re-checked the drawings and arrows, everything was where it was supposed to be (even checked to make sure the wires still worked).
Still no Internet.
I looked at the troubleshooting guide that came with it, and all it
said was “check to make sure wires are connected” so I’m like, “I did
that” so then I decide to give tech support a call.
I rig up my laptop in the living room and hook it up on the phone line splitter and dial into the Internet. After a few minutes of loading, the Linksys support page pops up. The Ever Helpful tech support guy (who actually seemed interested) talked to me for a bit and directed me to download their special install program.
I installed and ran it, and found that it was dumbed down further than the one that’s packed with the router. Yes. It’s made for a newborn, or a high-functioning autistic chimpanzee. Not only does it have arrows and pictures, it’s got Flashing Lights.
I go through the Rainbow Lite Brite Install Sequence and it too can’t
find the Internet (oh, what a surprise!). So, then the tech guy tells
me to go through this sequence of accessing the router via Internet
Exploder and changing its IP address from 192.164.1.1 to 10.10.10.1
which, as I thought, does nothing more than make me have to remember a different series of four digits.
So now, I have a $55 wireless router paperweight until I figure out
how to make it find the Internet. If starving kids in Africa have no
trouble finding porn on the Internet within minutes of first turning
on one of those XO One Laptop Per Child doodads, then this thing
should have no trouble finding the same Internet.
Amen and pass the aspirin,
Brad
Leave A Comment »