ANOTHER Shooting Spree - Northern Illinois University — Page 2

JoeK, I've been in the mental-health profession for over 25 years. I know exactly what I'm talking about. And JustAGuy, I speak in broad generalities, because that's how I meant it. Generally speaking. I know nothing about the specifics of this particular case, but my guess is that this person was suffering from a mental illness about which his family could do nothing, because of the mental-health laws.

point and shoot.

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joe i am sick and tired of you taking every thread as your own personal soap-box against the underwear industry!

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Those eyebrows.

Was he cut from a college production of LA CAGE??

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Anyone else just stunned by the almost ritualistic ... sameness ... to these horrors? The same damn shots -- gurneys with the wounded, grave EMR folk, shot-thru windows, the sea of young, candlelit faces at the inevitable candlelight assemblage, the hugging through veils of tears, then the 1st airing of the killer's mug, the overview panorama of the campus on the day classes are suspended, the parents on the cell phones ...

And then the commentaries, the windy gun debate, then the police and medical news conferences with stony-faced civil servants and inarticulate doctors forced to comment on survival chances and overtaxed staff.

The almost robotically offered, cliche-ridden rhetoric only makes it all more grim. It's now a tragic soap opera played out in different states with interchangeable players who have different faces but the same expressions, the same questions, and always the lack of answers. We're left with a promise to "investigate" so that "we learn from this" so that it doesn't happen "next time." Then everyone congratulates themselves that everything possible was done and we go back to waiting until the next episode. I'm sad and soul weary of all the predictable drama that's created from the unpredictable without a glimmer of fresh insight.

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Updated On: 2/15/08 at 07:43 PM

What does your never having met family rights advocates of the mentally ill have to do with anyting, Namo? If you actually know mental-health professionals who don't have issues with the laws governing the rights of the mentally ill, then you haven't met people who are very dedicated to their clients and their families.

And, what was JoeKv saying?

JohnBoy--for a mental-health practitioner, you certainly seem to have more than your share of conflictual relationships. At least you do here on BroadwayWorld...

Perhaps you ought to examine that with your mental-health supervisor.

I thought it was only with me, due to your repressed homoerotic impulses toward me and the resulting resentment, but clearly you create similar conflict in ALL your encounters.

Surely you couldn't be equally attracted to Namo and Joe and JustaGuy...or could you?

What's up with that, honey? Why do you create so much conflict?

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Updated On: 2/16/08 at 05:59 PM

Psssst, Joe. He's straight. He was only gay when he was Brendan Stryker.

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