Best of the Web Today - April 23, 2007
By JAMES TARANTO
Was Cho an 'Imminent' Threat?
Sixteen months ago, Cho Seung-hui, who was to carry out last week's Virginia Tech massacre, had an encounter with Virginia's mental-health system. As we noted Friday, after Cho spent a night in "temporary detention," a psychiatrist evaluated him, finding that he was "mentally ill" but "did not present an imminent threat" to himself or others.
We characterized the latter conclusion in passing as having been mistaken--it seemed obviously so to us--but several readers took issue, including Barton Branscum, who is a psychiatrist:
Having performed literally hundreds of emergency psychiatric evaluations within the Virginia mental-health system and in other situations, I can tell you that the psychiatrist who documented in 2005 that Cho did not pose an "imminent threat" was absolutely correct. The meaning of that phrase can be stated thus: "If we let him out right now, he likely will not hurt anyone in the reasonably foreseeable future." That he did not until some 16 months later proves the psychiatrist correct. The medico-legal duty of advising the courts about which citizens to deprive of their liberty is a very serious business for psychiatrists, one we do not take lightly.
This may be correct as a matter of Virginia law, but it flies in the face of common sense. Merriam-Webster defines imminent as "ready to take place; especially : hanging threateningly over one's head." A threat can be "ready to take place" and never actually take place. If someone holds a gun to your head, that is an imminent threat even if he never pulls the trigger.
If a threat can be imminent without ever being realized, surely it can be imminent even if takes place after a delay. Imagine a bomb set to explode at a random time during the next two years. The likelihood of its going off in the next week is quite small, less than 1%. There's a 75% chance it won't blow anytime in the next six months. But it is "ready to take place" at any time, and thus is an imminent threat.
It would be facile to make too much of this analogy--to say that Cho was a bomb waiting to go off, and the psychiatrist should have defused it. It is possible that Cho's mental state was healthier 16 months ago than last week, and of course the civil-liberties concerns Dr. Branscum raises are not unimportant. But it is also fatuous to say that the threat was not imminent merely because it took months, rather than days or weeks, to turn deadly.
Zero-Tolerance Watch
Well, this was predictable. The South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports that the nation has been "shaken to the core by a gunman at Virginia Tech who took the lives of 32 people and then himself." Not only that, but last Friday was "Hitler's birthday[*] and the anniversary of the Columbine High School killings."
So naturally, when a student in Boca Raton behaved unusually, folks were on edge:
Spanish River High School phones were clogged on Thursday with calls from parents concerned about security. . . .
The 18-year-old student was removed from school Wednesday and will not return, said principal Constance Tuman-Rugg. . . .
School police searched the home of the student, who is a senior, with the cooperation of this mother. Police found no evidence of danger at the home, the principal said.
"Nothing was found, no letters, no lists, nothing," Tuman-Rugg said.
Parent Crystal Palmquist of Boca Raton said her two sons begged her not to attend school on [Thursday] because they fear for their safety. She said Allan, 16, and Harrison, 15, both ninth-graders, believe a threat against students is real. . . .
"You can't take these things lightly," said Palmquist, who decided to keep her children home. She wants more assurances from the school that there is no danger to the students.
Extra school police are on duty at Spanish River [Thursday and Friday], the principal said.
So what did the student do to set off all this fuss? He "pointed out people in the yearbook he liked and didn't like."
Run for your lives!
Such foolery isn't limited to elementary and secondary schools. The Yale Daily News reports that "in the wake of Monday's massacre at Virginia Tech in which a student killed 32 people, Dean of Student Affairs Betty Trachtenberg has limited the use of stage weapons in theatrical productions":
According to students involved in the production, Trachtenberg has banned the use of some stage weapons in all of the University's theatrical productions. While shows will be permitted to use obviously fake plastic weapons, students said, those that hoped to stage more realistic scenes of stage violence have had to make changes to their props.
"Fub," a commenter on the Volokh Conspiracy, has a perceptive analysis:
What makes these ritual bannings of depictions or imitations of real weapons politically effective (among those for whom they are effective) is a very primitive human thought process: belief in sympathetic magic.
The actual object, the weapon, is imbued with magical power. Its very presence magically causes harm. It causes people to behave in evil ways. The rationale commonly offered is that the mere presence of a weapon makes people more prone to violence.
Sympathetic magic is the belief that what one does with an imitation of the thing with magical power will affect the actual thing. For example, in a magical religious context we see the image of a deity addressed, or given gifts or sacrifices. The magical deity is affected through the treatment of its image, and so performs its magic for the one who gives the image a gift.
In the imitation weapon banning context we have first the belief that the object, the actual weapon, is magic and causes those in its presence to behave in an evil manner. The sympathetic magical belief is that by banning the image or the imitation weapon, the magical power of real weapons to cause people to be violent will be lessened, or the real weapons will stay away from the presence of the faithful.
Betty Trachtenberg, do do that voodoo that you do so well!
* While we're at it, a belated happy birthday to Justice John Paul Stevens.
Good News for les Vétérans de Bateau Rapide
John Kerry won't be the next president of France either. The haughty, not-quite-French-enough-looking Massachusetts Democrat, who by the way served in l'Indochine, failed to attract enough votes in yesterday's first round of presidential balloting. The top two finishers, center-right Nicolas Sarkozy and Socialist Segolene Royal, face off on May 6 (or, as the backward French call it, "6 May").
The BBC describes the two surviving candidates in a way that reveals something about the Beeb:
Both are controversial figures who have divided the French.
Mr Sarkozy is hated by the left as a reformer who many fear would change the French way of life by making the nation work harder and longer and by cutting back on its generous welfare state.
Ms Royal is also regarded with suspicion, seen as too authoritarian and conservative by some Socialists.
So according to the Beeb, you're controversial and divisive if leftists hate or distrust you.
Kerry, meanwhile, isn't letting grass grow under his feet. Yesterday he sent an email to supporters that began as follows:
A quick note from me to you on this Earth Day[**]--a day on, not a day off as they say.
Earth Day brought me into activism in the first place--and I still find it empowering because it's not a day for the politicians, it's a day that began to pressure the politicians--a day that was built from the ground up.
That's funny, the day before yesterday wasn't it Vietnam that brought Kerry into activism in the first place?
Back to France, we were amused by this Associated Press headline: "Tiny Island Voters Kick Off French Polls."
Apparently the French can't even stand up to tiny island voters!
** While we're at it, a belated happy birth to Vladimir Lenin.
The Old Green Lady
The New York Times, defending congressional Democrats' efforts to promote surrender in Iraq, editorializes that spinach isn't pork, because it's a vegetable, or something like that:
Relatively little of the extra spending is targeted to lawmakers' home districts--a precondition for labeling something pork. Mr. Bush invariably chooses to mock $25 million allotted for spinach growers in California. But that money is intended to mitigate growers' losses from their voluntary recall of spinach during a bacterial contamination last September, which is the type of emergency that supplemental spending bills are supposed to address.
We yar what we yar. The New York Sun, meanwhile, elaborates on our description Friday of Sen. Harry Reid as a latter-day copperhead.
Reid, meanwhile, now says the war is won! From the Associated Press:
Reid drew criticism from [President] Bush and others last week when he said the war in Iraq had been lost.
The Nevada Democrat did not repeat the assertion in his prepared speech, saying that "The military mission has long since been accomplished. The failure has been political. It has been policy. It has been presidential."
Haven't we been hearing for years that President Bush was an arrogant fool for appearing on a ship with a banner saying "Mission Accomplished"?
Infanticide: The Glue That Holds Civilization Together
Yet another hysterical statement in response to last week's partial-birth abortion ruling, this one from Sara Gould of the Ms. Foundation for Women:
Wednesday's ruling was, under the guise of jurisprudence, nothing short of a political and quasi-religious referendum on the rights of women to make decisions about their own lives. In finding for the ban, Justices Kennedy, Scalia, Thomas, Roberts and Alito have not merely endangered the health and well-being of women who seek to exercise their autonomous rights as citizens of this nation; they have also endangered the health and well-being of our democracy as a whole. . . .
The right to a full range of reproductive choices is only the beginning of what we, as a society, have lost in the Court's ruling. By entrenching ever more deeply into our society a belief that women are not due equal rights under the law--not even when it comes to deciding the fate of their own bodies--Justices Kennedy, Scalia, Thomas, Roberts and Alito have put the lives of all women--not just those seeking abortions--in jeopardy.
In little over a week, the depth of misogyny embedded in our culture, and its violent consequences, have been writ large. The Imus incident once again laid bare the pervasive devaluation of women (not to mention blacks and gays) billed as "entertainment" by the very industry that creates and promotes racist, homophobic and misogynist messages. And, as New York Times columnist Bob Herbert wrote yesterday in his column on the shooting at Virginia Tech, the consequences of misogyny can be murderous indeed. The worst forms of violence in this country, Herbert reminds us, have "some debilitating form of misogyny . . . [as] a 'central component.' "
It would seem that on Wednesday, our highest court in the land proved that very point.
But wait a minute. When Imus made his obnoxious comments, and when Cho Seung-hui went on his murderous rampage, the court hadn't yet handed down this decision. Under the appeals court ruling the justices overturned last week, it was still perfectly legal to kill a baby by partially delivering it and then crushing its skull--the "procedure" Sara Gould seems to view as a sine qua non of liberation.
Clearly, partial-birth abortion isn't enough. The only hope for civilization is to recognize a woman's constitutional right to total-birth abortion in the fourth trimester and beyond!
'The Ruffles on the Door and the Flower-Box Dividers Are Just Perfect'
"Plan for Female Inmate Stalls"--headline, Los Angeles Times, April 20
Don't Take Investment Advice From This Guy
o "John Edwards: I'd Invest Billions in Michigan"--headline, Detroit Free Press, April 22
o "Michigan's State Budget Problems Among Nation's Worst"--headline, Associated Press, April 22
Talk About Meddlesome In-Laws!
"Daly City Mom Seeks Damages After Coroner Keeps Her Son's Heart"--headline, San Jose Mercury News, April 20
No Wonder St. Louis Won the Series
"At 75, a Battle-Tested but Unwavering Cardinal"--headline, New York Times, April 23
Good News for Would-Be Caribbean Dancers
"Pope Approves Report on Teaching Limbo"--headline, Associated Press, April 20
It Went Extinct Looking for Sharks in Utah
"Shark-Eating Dino Fossil Found in Utah"--headline, Discovery News, April 20
That's a Groovy Missile Plan, Comrade
"Gates Gets Cool Russian Response Over Missile Plan"--headline, Reuters, April 23
Snow Tires Might Help
"Review: 'Frost/Nixon' Slick and Showy"--headline, Associated Press, April 22
This Is Too Liberal Even for Us
"Liberal MP Makes Gay Sex Visit"--headline, Australian, April 20
News You Can Use
o "Clearing Animal Carcasses From Roads Not a Pleasant Job"--headline, Mount Vernon (Ohio) News, April 19
o "Stop Coming to Work and Save the Planet"--headline, Sunday Telegraph (London), April 22
Bottom Stories of the Day
o "Trachtenberg Won't Deliver Commencement Address"--headline, WTOP-FM Web site (Washington), April 20
o "NH Retiree a Rock, Paper, Scissors Ace"--headline, Associated Press, April 22
o "New Movies Probably Not Worth Seeing"--headline, Chicago Tribune, April 22
o "Intoxicated Man Taken to Jail, Not Sure Where He Is"--headline, Dayton Daily News, April 23
o " 'Hulk' Actor Eric Bana Uninjured After Car Crash"--headline, FoxNews.com, April 21
This Really Makes Us Take Global Warming Seriously
From the New York Times:
Put celebrity environmental activists in a room with top Bush administration officials and a meeting of the minds could result. At least that is a theoretical possibility.
The more likely outcome is that an argument will break out, as it did at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner on Saturday night between Karl Rove, the president's deputy chief of staff, and the singer Sheryl Crow and Laurie David, a major Democratic donor and a producer of the global warming documentary featuring Al Gore, "An Inconvenient Truth."
Rove isn't telling his side of the story publicly, so we'll let the ladies give their version, from a Puffington Host post:
In his attempt to dismiss us, Mr. Rove turned to head toward his table, but as soon as he did so, Sheryl reached out to touch his arm. Karl swung around and spat, "Don't touch me." How hardened and removed from reality must a person be to refuse to be touched by Sheryl Crow?
Unfazed, Sheryl abruptly responded, "You can't speak to us like that, you work for us." Karl then quipped, "I don't work for you, I work for the American people." To which Sheryl promptly reminded him, "We are the American people."
At that point Mr. Rove apparently decided he had had enough. Like a groundhog fearful of his own shadow, he scurried to his table in an attempt to hibernate for another year from his responsibility to address global warming.
How, you may wonder, did these people end up in the same room together? The Times explains:
Ms. Crow was at the dinner as a guest of Bloomberg News. Ms. David and her husband, Larry David, a creator of "Seinfeld," were guests of CNN. Mr. Rove was a guest of The New York Times.
New Mexico recently outlawed cockfighting, leaving Louisiana the only remaining state to uphold this rather barbaric tradition. For those who like blood sports, it must be good to know there are alternatives.
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