European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - April 27, 2007, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Friday april 272007 stars and stripes Page is opinion dont forget evil at Core of a tech killings the purpose of our mind is to fit things into a larger meaning that s the mental feature distinguishing us from animals so since we jam6s Pinkerton Are smarter though not always Gen Tler than critters we can All at tempt to an Werthe ques Tion whats the larger meaning of the Virginia tech shoot Ings who or what is to blame one who stepped Forward with an explanation was sen Joe Biden Del last thurs Day the associated press reported Biden ascribed the shooting to the of polarization As practice by republicans since 1994 with the Gingrich revolution just take a look at Iraq Venezuela katrina what s gone Down at Vir Ginia tech Darfur Imus this didst happen accidentally All these and Biden words didst come by Accident either after 35 years of holding Forth in the Senate Biden obviously feels that not enough people Are listening to him that he needs a larger National audience so he is running for president spewing blame for Domestic blood shed on half of his countrymen that s his idea of a larger meaning for Virginia tech if s a great Opportunity to Advance his own per Sonal political ambitions others have dug deeper and found other factors James Lewis blogging for the american thinker web site examined some of the course materials being taught at seun Hui chos school if s been widely reported that students at Virginia tech saw such movies As the Slasher horror Pic Friday the 13th As part of their curriculum but Lewis took note of other works being taught such As Tex Tual androgyny the rhetoric of the essay and the politics of Iden Tity in composition or the Strug Gle to be a girly Man in a world of Gladiator Deadpan Lewis just the thing for a disoriented Young male suffering from massive culture Shock on the by per sexual american Campus Lewis concludes English studies at it Are a postmodern Disney world in which nihilism moral and sexual Boundary breaking and fantasies of marxist revolutionary violence Are celebrated Lewis is onto something Here but in the end this sociopathic act of mass killing cant be blamed on the Polit ical left just As it cant be blamed on the right Why because Cho obviously Evan a Mourner visits the makeshift memorial on the Campus of Virginia tech in Blacksburg a on monday the first Day of classes since a student killed 32 people then killed himself at the University on april 16 was disturbed in a Way that transcends any ideological category and so the search for meaning for explanation must travel past poli tics into the deepest recesses of a blackened human heart to a place where we confront an unfashionable but enduring existence of evil but dont take my word for it Lef s consider the testimony of one who was there at Virginia tech Garrett Evans a student shot in the leg on april 16 Abc news asked him Why were you spared this was his answer Good lord Only know maybe one reason is to Tell you and the world what happened and what did Evans see i saw satan at work and god at work at the same time evil evil spirit was going through that boy that shooter i know i Felt it now theres an old fashioned concept Cho was overcome by evil like a character out of the Bible like How wild is that i mean what do we need psychiatrists and social workers for or for that matter newspaper pundits if we Start going Back to Basic ideas of Good versus evil sceptics of course will scoff at Evans witness but his testimony in a Way offers us Hope Hope that there is a deeper meaning to a tragedy such As the one at Virginia tech even if we Here on Earth cant quite figure it out the Christian writer is Lewis offered a partial explanation in 1940 pain is gods megaphone to a deaf world that s surely a hard concept to grapple with but maybe the alternative that theres no meaning to Virginia tech or to anything else that we Are just random particles in motion is the most horrible Prospect of ail James Pinkerton is a new York new Day columnist pages and pages of evidence of society demise Kathleen Parker people who read books Are differ ent from other people there smarter for one thing there More sensual for another they like to hold touch and smell what they read they like to carry the words around with them tote them on vacation take them on train rides and then most heavenly of All to bed there also a dying Breed and newspapers apparent signatories to a suicide pact Are playing taps the news that the Atlanta journal con Stit ution has eliminated its Book editor much storm und Drang throughout the Southern literary Community High rights the continuing demotion of books and literature in american culture while an internet Peti Tion circulates to reinstate Teresa Weaver As Book editor writers Are expressing con Cern that there losing their Best vehicle for recognition soon who knows maybe Well be Burn ing books in the town Square chanting we dont need no a Adown books we got inner net porn n satellite Steeveel of so maybe the end of civilization int nigh but the systematic gutting of culture from newspapers is symptomatic of a broadening illiteracy that bodes ill for the Republic from a practical standpoint it also makes no sense clue people who read newspapers Are also Likely Book readers so Why do newspaper editors and publish ers think that killing one of the few Fea Tures that readers big word Here read is a smart move in an Era of news paper decline whereas 10 years ago there were 10 to 12 standalone Book sections in the coun try today there Are Only five the washing ton Post san Francisco chronicle Chicago Tribune the san Diego Union Tribune and the new York times other Large papers such As the los Angeles times have folded Book pages into other sections of the paper ironically Book publishers Are partly to blame for the disappearing Book sections As Treyve Cut advertising in print Media instead they prefer to spend on front table Book placement in stores that costs As much As per volume and reportedly de livers More bang for the Buck but where there Are no ads there Are no Book sections where there Are no Book sections there Are no reviews to Send readers to the Bookstore where curiously there Are More books than Ever 50000 published annually something Doest quite compute judging from the sheer number of vol Umes a visitor to any Barnes Noble would think that Homo Sapiens America Nus has his nose buried in a Book most of Bis waking Day in fact a 2004 report by the National endowment for the arts Nea found that fewer than half of Ameri cans read literature total Book Reading is also in decline not at the rate of literary Reading Between 1992 and 2002 the percentage of american adults who read any Book dropped 7 percent while literary Reading Nonor related Reading of novels Short stories poems or plays dropped 14 per cent according to the Nea Book reviews also Arent Only about the Book there about the conversation the cultural dialogue and the marketplace of ideas there part of the human Exchange that tells us who we Are and that cant be duplicated on a Book blog a television inter View or even by a tet Patete with Oprah yet As newspapers have lost advertising revenues and circulation has clipped corporate owners have Cut costs by eliminating the nonessential parts first went the cartoonists then the sunday magazines and now the Book sections All parts of the newspapers soul it May be arguable that the soul is notes Sencial to a body functioning but if s critical to what makes us human and that once made newspapers vibrant repositories of a Community values the loss of yet another Book editor and the homogenization or possible loss of an other review Section May not cause the Earth to shift on its Axis but it is symbolic of the devaluing of american letters it is also symptomatic of a corporate culture that cares Only about the Bottom line and owes no allegiance to the immeasurable value of a Community uniqueness or the profit of an educated populace Kathleen Parker is a member of Washington Post writers group prickly City by Scott Stantis