To be honest, what's your point? I haven't seen anywhere mention of his race, nor have I thought about it. Did you use it just as a means to launch into your platform agenda -- running down the Bush administration?

If so, that's what you should title it. Poor race relations exist only if we drag them up, over and over again.

Austin,
Actually, the latest Times story talks about race. Some Asian-American students have left school, afraid of being targeted for revenge. People lash out at the wrong targets all the time. And a lot of people do cognitively group others by race.

Fox was mentioning his race quite a bit. Actually I was kind of surprised to see such heavy coverage of this tragedy on Fox yesterday. They often criticize the 'liberal media' for not covering the 'positive' things going on in Iraq. But I've never seen any coverage even approaching this level of any of the similar tragedies in Iraq.

Why does Fox hate America? Why aren't they focusing on the good things happening here? The DOW is up!

It's apparently become very racial on many of the social networking sites- lots of name-calling and the like.

what happened at VT is like 'welcome to Iraq.' this stuff goes down there EVERY SINGLE DAY. and we made/make it happen. when you think how much of our emotional world one incident like this takes out of us collectively, imagine what the people in Baghdad live with...

Former first lady Rosalind Carter was pushing mental health initiatives but Reagan cancelled them. Reagan also cancelled Jimmie Carters oil/energy initiatives and look where we are today. Where might we be had Pres Carters energy management initiatives been allowed to go forward. Those who supported Reagan, namely, Pope John Paul II are directly responsible for what is happening in the world today. The so called pro-lifers are killing us. They really are pro-death, in their narrow shortsighted way.

Totally off topic, but our Internet is much worse now that TimeWarner has taken over Adelphia, as well.

You would think that a former addict would not want to cut funds for substance abuse.

$ spent on mental healh mean nothing if you dont admit you have a problem

I think a major issue regarding this tragedy is being overlooked. and it is not mental health spending.

I have become aware through personal experience that there is great shame in mental illness in Korean culture. Immigrant parents are often are in denial about the seriousness of mental illness of family members. In conversations with professionals I have learned that when mental illness issues come up in Korean families, family members tend to try to place blame as opposed to solving the problem. What this means is that even if some of the shooters teachers saw problems and tried to help him, he very well might have been told by members of his family that "there is nothing wrong with you, you are working too hard, you should pray more, something is wrong with the school etc..." As one psychologist told me "the family becomes enemy of the treatment.' If you try to adress this problem are you racist?

Psychotic mental illness doesn't just pop up because a kid is having a bad time at school. It is cased by a chemical imbalance in the brain( like bipolar) or trauma during childhood , almost always before the age of 13. Yet I have hear from school professionals that initial reaction when talking to Asian immigrant parents of mentally ill young adults is either denial or to blame a girlfriend, job, school, or spouse. I talked wit psychologist who said the parents blamed him. That their kid was fine until the psychologist convinced him he was crazy.

ITeachers and fellow students felt the killer had problems and recommended treatment. WHAT ABOUT THE FAMILY!! Why weren't they aware of his problems and trying to get him help. I think this denial of mental illness within the culture may be to blame .