I just finished reading a magnificent new book by Dave Cullen called “Columbine”. All I can say is nothing is as it seems.
The book is an in depth piece of journalism about what happened at Columbine — what motivated the carnage — but most importantly — how the media misreported the story — and how bad facts had been implanted on our collective brains — how we mislabel and misunderstand what really happened. Click here for Dave Cullen’s web site.
Columbine was the first real time mass murder performance art in our history — we had students watching the show on tv while they were participants in the shootouts within the school building at Columbine — they were calling tv stations and reporting what they were seeing — reaching out on their cell phones; they gave unfiltered reports — many that were wrong. We had Trench Coat Mafia — wrong; we had jock bullying issues — wrong — we had Marilyn Manson blamed — wrong. And on and on and on.
Columbine was perhaps the most over reported episode in recent history that had basic facts and motivations that were just plain wrong. How can we learn from history if the facts sets are wrong? And it appears that the true motivation for the murders was recognition — and feeding the media monster — so on that count — mission accomplished; so sad to say!
The book is very compelling — very well reported — but what leaves us empty is that there was no reason for this episode to have happened; perhaps there is just evil in the world — or some kind of psychosis that is not well understood — as a parent — the story is a true tragedy — as a citizen — we must make sense of this episode in our history and try to learn something meaningful from it. This book is important – I teared up reading parts of the story wishing all of this had never happened — what a stain on our collective soul as a country.
I heard the author on a Catholic Radio show and was fascinated by his analysis. I guess “trench coat mafia” sells more for the media than actually discussing the real issues at work. I can’t wait to read the book.
Hi Ted,
I have not yet read the new book by Dave Cullen, but I plan to. I just wanted to say that here in Colorado we just passed the 10th anniversary of the Columbine Tragedy a few weeks ago. It seems like it was yesterday. There were many things that happened around the tragedy that were not reported. It was like throwing a stone in a pool & the ripples are still out there, spreading.
I am in law enforcement & know that there are police dispatchers & police officers that had to give up their careers because what happened that day was too much for them to bear.
I think it is more of a scar than a stain, it is such a deep pain that it will never go away. We do have to learn from the past & make the lives of our children safer.
I know that in my law enforcement training, the tragedy was used as a teaching tool. We are still learning from what happened at Columbine and what has been learned has already been implemented.
The lives of those that died will always be remembered and cherished by their families, friends, Colorado and the Nation.
Enough American guilt already! There have been school shootings all over Europe recently, because teenagers are humans and therefore can be twisted and violent. The stain is on humanity, not on the country.
Ted,
I worked in downtown Denver for quite a few years, and I just thought I would share an observation that I had during/after the Columbine incident. The entire community was in somewhat of a stunned silence. I remember walking around downtown the next day and it seemed silent. People were just going about their business, but there were no horns honking at each other, no shouting, and in fact, it seemed like people were barely even talking. It was actually kind of eerie in its own way.
This is “well done.” It will stay with me this day, rumbling. I keep most poems in my 501s these days but hsave big file on this subject never started After reading this, plan to get book I might humbly try. Thank you. Sincerely, JEF