The Smoking Gun has a copy of “Richard McBeef,” a play by Virginia Tech shooter Cho Seung-hui.
Early reviews are not particularly favorable.
For what it’s worth—and having taught creative writing myself—I agree with David Weigel (lord forgive me), who writes:
[the play is] incredibly stupid and the violence is cartoonish. Something to consider if the discussion evolves into “why didn’t authorities see the threats in his own writing and lock him up?”
There is simply no compelling correlation between writing about violence and committing it. Otherwise, Brett Easton Ellis would be locked away, while those who write purple-prosed romances might relax by, say, feeding “dissidents” into plastic shredders.
Until somebody strings them up by the neck, that is.
I read “Richard McBeef” yesterday, it was a relatively quick read. One thing that struck me was the relatively pidgin quality of the English in some passages. You would think that someone who had been speaking English for 14 years wouldn’t make these kinds of errors.
I didn’t think the violence was particularly memorable. Except the part about trying to stuff a cereal bar down the step father’s throat. That was a little weird.
I don’t want to be reductive but perhaps he would have been a happier person if he got laid once in awhile.
There is simply no compelling correlation between writing about violence and committing it.
Not to mention the writers of “Kill Bill” would be mass murderers.
That might describe most of humanity, Steve…
It was a weird piece but only in the sense that it appeared to be written in a hurry by a 9th grader bouncing on the back seat of the short bus.
This wacko has nothing on Stephen King.
s/has/had
Couldn’t help but think it was a Natural Born Killers knock off
IF it weren’t written by someone that just blew away a bunch of college kids, and IF it were read, perhaps, by the voice actors from South Park or Beavis and Butthead, it might be seen as almost humorous. Reading it, I was more under the impression that he was trying to be funny. I don’t think anyone could be faulted for not having him locked away for writing this, any more than Parker and Stone should be locked up for all the times they’ve killed Kenny.
By that kind of thinking Agatha Christie should have been in solitary.
So should Jessica Fletcher.
Agreed. But we’re going to start hearing about warning signs, etc.
It’s an easy emotional jump. Trick is to remind ourselves of that and not let opportunists looking to police our thoughts take advantage of it.
This guy was an English major, and was supposedly graduating soon?
I’ll spare the knock at the VT English Departmental standards due to the recent events, but the only way I can read this is with the voices of Terrence and Phillip.
So what to think of TROMA?
Don’t overestimate the writing ability of the average undergraduate student.
People! You’re wasting valuable time that should be spent brainstorming better justifications for locking up Bret Easton Ellis…
…or so I would say if not for this sort of thing, which is what writing by dangerous people actually looks like: http://tinyurl.com/yqw6gr
(Language warning: Includes elaborate fantasies of sexualized violence, threats of and incitement to same against Bret Easton Ellis, and other typical feminist stuff.)
So he’s accidentally kind of heroic. But still sucks.
It was bound to happen eventually, blind pigs, acorns, & all that. Now if you started agreeing with Weigel on a regular basis I’d start to wonder, but somehow I don’t think that’s going to happen :D
I’m pretty well amazed at the 20/20 hindsight of all the folks who think the VT administration should have seen this coming. If violent fantasies were grounds for “doing something” there’d be a lot of Doom players getting counciling.
Good Lord, regular expressions in comments. Somebody get me a beer. Please.
“â€â€and having taught creative writing myself‗
[Insert inevitable (however predictable) comment here]
No correlation? Dang. What then, is this verbal violence that Obama was babbling about?
I was hoping there was, due to this post:
http://curmudgeonlyskeptical.blogspot.com/2007/04/cho-and-webb.html
Osama’s remarks obviously go a long way in support of Imus’s larger point: there is no reason to expect anything of value from these “nappy-headed hos.”
OK, I know what you’re going to say, “handle Thor with chains! Shackle Thor and place him in the sun till he’s a fuckin’ raisin!”
On a certain level, I sort’a really, really liked it.
Whoa, mob, whoa, not saying what he did was anything but horrid and unforgivable but the budding yout had a way with unseemly themes of man-boy circumstance and his kitchen untensil tossing scene invoked an angular dimension to the typical battery-cable-nipple-clamp-Habitrail-tube-cum-buttplug literary canon.
I see raw potential, sorry. Then again I like that song Super Bon Bon.
I was thinking the same thing.
I figure all the average English major graduate needs to be able to write down is the type of dressing the customer wants on their salad.
1. I don’t think Cho should have been locked up for writing “Richard McBeef”, but the kid was clearly whacked and we can’t just ignore that.
2. Although VT now has an argument for not mobilizing the community for 2.5 hours after shooting #1, I don’t think it will hold: when you have a lot of dead bodies, somebody pays. And VT, and the state of VA, are the logical candidates. It may not be “right”, but I strongly doubt that these parents who lost their children will not be getting serious compensation. The dead faculty members: well, they’re screwed.
3. Osama’s speech was woolly headed nonsense (NB to self: if I say that again I will be accused of being a racist by some ignorant person of color).
4. Osama has also outed himself in L’Affair Imus as a race baiter, i.e., a person who puts his race ahead of the nation, just like Condi. Anyone who wants a POTUS who will spend his term groveling to the likes of Al Sharpton and Jesse, feel free to support him.
It’s amazing the similarites between the Virginia Tech shooter Cho Seung Hui and Virginia Senator, James Webb. Webb has written disturbing material containg graphic violence and pedophilia. Webb also owns at least one handgun and extra magazines.
Most disturbing of all, Webb has a history of being an anti-social, violence prone hothead.
Handle thor with chains! Handle thor with kid gloves! thor might bash! Bash, thor, bash!
cranky-d saw plenty of “experimental” stuff when he was a writing minor, and was sometimes amused by it. Now, cranky-d finds most of it to be krep.
Such is life.
Steve, are you purposely confusing Obama’s name? I would think that would be more offensive than the woolly headed nonsense comment.
Alice, yes, I am purposely mispelling Barack’s surname, when I think of it. Not to be brusque, but, that’s how I feel.
To be pefectly honest, “woolly headed”, which is a venerable descriptor for the kind of gas leak involved in Obama’s speech, was the first term that came to my mind, however,almost instantly I could see someone construing that as race-specific, sort of like “tar baby”, and “niggardly”. However, it is not. But facts have nothing to do with taking offense, and if I hazarded the term here, hey, I’m just visiting.
Then again, I might be wrong about game players needing a hairy eyeball cast on them: Seems “Ismail Ax”, found written on Cho’s arm, was his screen name in the online version of the game Counter Strike. Still, how many millions of people play these games? When one goes off the deep end there’s got to be more to it than involvement in a role-playing game.
SGT-
That’s why they always feel “over-qualified” for their jobs…
McDonalds has buttons with little pictures on them – and change dispensers so they don’t have to count!
On the drive home, newsies were saying Cho had been declared “a danger to himself and others” a couple of years ago. Dunno how reliable those reports are.
If this is true, I suppose it should have shown up during the background search required to buy the gun(s). Is then possibly that the gun control measures already in place failed.
Someone over at Rantburg said HIPPA is as much to blame as anything else. Namely, his medical history wouldn’t have been available.
That’s the thing, ain’t it? It seems like nearly everyone who had contact with this guy could see that he was going off the rails on the crazy train, and some of them even took some action to steer him into the head checkers or at least get some distance from him. But even when you see it coming, where is the point where you can take forcible action in the absence of criminal or clearly insane behavior?
It’s a tough question with no clear answer.
I think Condi’s take on Imus was not based on race.
He’s said some very harsh stuff about her. She was given a chance by the media to kick him back under the bus… too bad for him.
Nice review of the Saddam novel by the way… for some reason the state purchases and reviews sounded like they were mirroring local school districts take on Al Gore’s movie….
He was working on a sequel, you know: Beef Strokinoff.
The kid wants to be famous so he mails this crap to NBC and they splash it all over.
Would it have been so hard to say “The killer sent us some material for the purpose of increasing his air time and we’ve decided to resist.”
Well, he did send it to NBC, so that shows he still had some of his wits about him.
Gotta love NBC.
Package comes from Cho…. safely dead Cho. And they call the feds.
Package from jihadis? Roll it. Make the feds get a subpoena to even look at it, maybe wipe it down before giving it to the feds to protect sources.
I said Strokinoff, dammit! Laugh, you bastards!
I might have tittered if you’d gone with something like “Who Framed Roger Brisket”. But the low brow stuff….
Perhaps you could hire yourself out to antisocial students as part of an anger management program.
Cho wrote better and with more originality than Ward Churchill does.
He was about as coherent as Rosie.
Then he took those final steps into the abyss….
The videos are unbelievable, and sad. To get worked up into that kind of state, it’s kind of hard not to believe that he was treated like shit. Yet, at the same time, it seems like he wasn’t really letting anyone “in”, if you know what I mean.
Sometimes violent criminals have motives like this, and it is saddening because if only they had been able to connect it would have been worked out in a positive way. It’s hard not to think he wasn’t fucked with because he was an Asian dude with acne. Which of course is wrong.
It reminds me of Columbine, too. Same things at work. Chips on shoulders, isolated from cliques, etc. etc. Years ago people like that either suppressed it or committed suicide. Now they kill their peers. There’s gotta be more outreach.
…it could land you the role of “Man who can’t sit down” in his next movie – Sore Butt Porkchopsky
Tsk, tsk. You first.
Yes Steve. He was a victim, just like the Columbine guys. He killed people because rich, acne-free people wouldn’t get past his antisocial behavior and befriend him. They should have tried harder. Girls should have been willing to sleep with him, because that would have stopped him from killing people and writing poorly.
Seriously. He stalked two girls. If instead of calling the cops on him they would have just had sexwith him, they could have stopped this thing from happening. Bitches.
Also, he was raped by the Duke men’s lacrosse team.
Maybee, I don’t get the hostility. Perhaps you have never known anyone like this kid, or the Columbine kids, in your life.
Clearly, if this dude was involved in a meaningful relationship with someone he would have been less angry at the world around him, less disconnected from it, and thus less liable to lash out at it. That was the point of my first comment, some six hours ago.
On viewing the video, it’s clear that that sort of thing still obtains, but it was aggravated by a severe chip on his shoulder. I don’t know why it was there, but I’m sure it didn’t just materialize out of thin air.
To turn that into some kind of “ought” in the sense that coeds should put out for him is absurd.
I can understand that no one is not interested in sympathizing with a mass murderer. I’m not. I’m interested in addressing these TYPES of people, who are actually more common than the Klebolds, Harrises, and Chos.
Personally, I have known several people like these guys. Sometimes, the problem is so severe that it degenerates into schizophrenia and nothing helps but hospitalization and drug therapy. Sometimes, especially when I was young, I was very judgmental and even cruel to the various “outsiders.” Looking back, I regret that. On the other hand, other times, I have tried to get through to them, sometimes, it seemed, with some success. But you never know.
Um, I think you’re reading something into MayBee’s “get laid” comment that isn’t there.
Isn’t there a bit of a chicken and egg problem with your statement?
This guy didn’t talk, stalked women, wrote violent fantasies (poorly), took inappropriate photos of female classmates, saw promiscuity in women’s eyes, and wouldn’t even look directly at people.
He didn’t just need to get laid- women aren’t tools to improve some antisocial creep’s behavior. He needed to have a different demeanor, then maybe some woman would have been attracted to him enough to want to have sex with him.
McGehee: The “get laid” comment was my original comment. It seems borne out by the more we know. This guy was a classic virgin ticking time bomb, and I knew more than a few in university. It’s typically the brightest kids too, but it usually doesn’t manifest this early (in age.)
I recommend Nikki Giovanni’s description of Cho in her class. It is clear—two years ago—that the guy was suffocating in his armor. I’m not doing 20/20 here, but, whoa, how do you get through to someone this far gone?
You see how it’s a lose/lose. On the one hand, if you expel him, you feed the humiliation that is feeding him and driving the defensive armor. On the other hand, if you tolerate him, he will see through that. Something dramatic had to happen in his personal life, it didn’t, and he blew up.
Hey, did I ever mention that my son Aidan has childhood onset schizophrenia?
Jail time would have been nice.
Other Steve…
so someone should mercyf*** the socially and emotionally stunted?
OK it worked for me…. but
Thanks McGehee, but maybe it’s kind of there.
Maybee: Well, it’s about being able to let down your defenses to yourself and others and still feel some value about yourself after doing so. I’ve seen it, esp with teenagers. But clearly this guy was in a very bad space for a very long time before this week.
You are focusing on the bad aspects of his relations (or non-relations) with women. I see that. I am focusing on why he had those non-relations in the first place. So, yeah, if he had been getting laid by Suzy Sweetcrotch on a regular basis, he never would have done this. And he would have loved her dearly, BTW.
You know, in this respect, he was not unlike a lot of serial killers, who usually are men who are unsuccessful in establishing a good relationship with a woman. And, no, that doesn’t mean that the solution to serial killers is to get them all laid. It just means that if they were, they wouldn’t be so fucked up.
I think Steve’s point is that we ought to be more compassionate and solicitous. Can’t disagree with that.
On the other hand, I wouldn’t go so far as to blow the guy.
Actually, it wouldn’t have worked, unless he discovered himself as a proud gay man in stir.
Dan: I’m sorry to hear that. I don’t wish to intrude, but has there been any positive developments?
Uh, no. That was not the thrust of my earlier point. I’m not sure how to handle people who have that problem. There’s gotta be a way.
You did, Dan Collins.
I am operating under the assumption that Cho didn’t have schizophrenia. If I’m wrong about that, I’ll be wrong about a lot of what I think about him.
LOL!
My first point was that if he had had a satisfying relationship he wouldn’t have done this. I thought that kind of a no brainer. But it goes back to comments made to me over the years, in which the neurotic behavior of great men was explained by a lack of sex. That is why I used the word “reductive”. And, no, I am not saying Cho was “great” in any way.
My second point was a kind of “support your local outsider” kind of insight, brought on by viewing the video. I certainly always tried to keep track of my kids and their friends and make sure they were doing “ok.” Partly because I remember what it’s like to be a young person but also because I figure it’s good insurance. Like, mouse thorn lion’s paw.
I’m no hair-splitter, but jail time would have shown up on his background check.
Not where you were going with this, I know, but for me, compassion is what kept his rap sheet clean in the first place.
I just think it’s too early to pass judgment on the guy, aside from saying that what he did was hideous. There are aspects of his behavior that seem schizoid.
Yes, thanks, Steve. Aidan’s been stabilized for the past 3 years (thank God for modern antipsycotics) and is even well enough to attend a public school. He’s a great little guy.
Obviously, I worry about him, though. As the law stands, he will have lots of rights when he’s 18. Unfortunately, we’re still living with the fallout from the liberation movement of the seventies that posited that the mentally ill were merely “differently abled” and ought to be permitted to make their own choices, as a matter of law. People are asking why information wasn’t shared at Va. Tech. Lots of it has to do with privacy non-disclosure law.
Of course, those who want to blame it on the guns won’t acknowledge this portion of the equation.
Also, I think that your views aren’t all that different, for what it’s worth. It’s almost impossible not to be emotionally affected by something like this.
Alcapp: I would NOT have given this kid a pass, not by 2005. He was too far gone. I would have institutionalized him, and I would have put him on whatever list you can put people on to keep them away from guns. I think we are in agreement about that.
I’m trying to make that above point w/o at the same time taking the 20/20 hindsight route.
I DON’T think he engaged in any activity prior to this that I would call criminal enough to merit “putting in jail.” Maybe I took you too literally.
Unless they want help, no amount of outreach will work. Someone who has no clue that what they’re doing is wrong will simply not change their behavior.
Probably because he was an unpleasant, creepy guy. Or maybe because he wasn’t looking for a relationship, but a servant, and no one was interested in playing that role. Or maybe he was just horrifically shy but thought he deserved to be a Casanova. Or maybe he was just so full of himself he couldn’t understand why women weren’t throwing themselves at him.
Or maybe it had nothing to do with women as women, and speculation about his sex life (or lack thereof) is the wrong track.
Uh, no. Bundy (for example) had no problem picking up women. He just didn’t see a reason not to indulge in getting his rocks off by killing them. Lots of serial killers are able to get women; they just don’t believe other people (or those particular people) are worth any consideration.
And I don’t think my opinion’s radically different from alp’s, either. Just differently informed.
Dan: one of my daughters was born with epilepsy but that has stabilized over the years, many types of meds. She has a pretty normal life now.
I don’t want to romanticize anything but people whose minds function a little differently I see at least in my daughter’s case have many creative and useful things to contribute. I have seen the same with persons designated as “retarded.”
Good luck and god bless.
Likewise.
That would be an absolute first. I realize, I’ve taken the caveman-father approach on this. But Steve. Alcapp?
That goes for the both of you.
You know, alp–it’s not as though we were completely deprived of our children by some madman shooting up a campus, but thanks.
What Robert Crawford said.
I just think this whole idea that men are bad because women won’t give them sex is disturbing in so many ways.
MayBee,
If you go by what the women are saying behind my back, I’m bad because I won’t give them sex
……..straight face…………straight face………snicker
Al: Can’t read the names, they’re too small.
I think that’s a case of reading what you want to read rather than reading what was written, and then going from there.
I will handle Robert separately.
My God, will you not let up. As of this morning, some of the victims hadn’t even been ID’d. I say this to you, and all the slavering media: will you please use whatever ethical, decent, and responsible guidelines you lay claim to, to minimize the pain and reduce the outrage? Stop making this a political opportunity. Stop extending, at least until the dead are buried.
I can’t second guess this murderer. And I’m grateful for that. It’s a small, good thing.
I’m writing a musical about you– Alcapp McBrisket.
I saw “Al” and “puccino” and thought it was “Alcappucino” or something.
Robert: First of all, if you want to say this guy’s a creep, go ahead, he’s dead. If your attitude towards people you actually know in the real world who are like this is “he’s a creep” then obviously you are just going to be a disinterested spectator when he gets around to exploding, if he explodes. I’m still looking for ways to defuse people like this.
Going back to my first point, and this covers Maybee as well, if a guy is in a relationship, I mean a real relationship, not pros, (or is it “Ho’s”?) then the amount of connectedness and empathy involved would preclude mass murder. This applies to the Green River Killer, Joel Rifkin, probably Jack the Ripper, and some others.
All of this presupposes being sexualized normally. Some people don’t. Nearly all serial killers—this guy, Unabomber, Son of Sam, Zodiac (if he was ALA), Ed Gein, Klebold and Harris, even Ted Bundy, if you read his track record—did not sexualize normally. I don’t know how to address this, but, it’s clearly an issue.
Of course, in some of these cases copulation takes place but by the time it happens the guy’s defenses are so high that no empathy takes place. This appears to be what happened with Bundy after his *first* great love “rejected” him.
So, yeah, ideally, people should be sexualized normally. I don’t know how that can be “administered”, obviously we are dealing with hyper-sensitive people here, so it’s not like, take this, do this, and you’re cured. But clearly something has to be done about it, when you have people like this.
Criminals come in various types, even murderers. But people like the people I listed above, and this dude, are clearly people whose engine was sexual frustration tied up with abnormal or non-sexualization. I think that’s clear-cut. Again, I don’t know what to do about it, other than to point it out, and that covers my first comment.
As to my second post-video comment, support your local weirdo.
I should add that I have known women who totally objectify sex as well, and for the same reasons—defenses, self esteem issues, etc. etc. But except for that Florida prostitute they do not tend to homicide.
Sorry—I took this thread to reference Cho’s videos. My total bad.
It should be jaunty and light. Oh, and don’t forget to give me a sidekick or a Man Friday.
….Crouton Vans Deferins?
Cynn: I posted like two lines several hours ago, and I am responding to comments and media reportage. What’s wrong with that?
One of those kids killed could have been my child. By the same token, the killer could have been my child. That’s why I’m turning this over. I don’t want that. Either outcome.
Wow Steve. Thank you so much for taking all the mystery out of my little “play on words” alias. Well at least now maybe Al Pacino will lift the restraining order. No biggie dude.
Too much of nothin’
Can make a man feel ill at ease.
– Bob Dylan
The question is, “Will Puccinello lift the restraining order?”
You started saying he just needed to get laid, which doesn’t imply any kind of relationship at all. It implies sex as a tool to stabilize an emotionally unstable men, which wouldn’t be disturbing if some poor woman didn’t have to be involved.
If you mean he just needed to find love and he would have been emotionally stable, I’ll restate that you have a bit of a chicken and egg problem. Did he not have a relationship (and sex) because he was unable to connect and empathize, or was he unable to connect because no woman would have a relationship with him?
Any fulfilling relationship requires mutual attraction. I would say the fact that he stalked women is an indicator that he had trouble relating to women in a way that would provide a fulfilling relationship for her. Perhaps he could have found some Suzy Sweetcrotch that agreed with him that all women had promiscuity in their eyes.
Finally, I deeply believe in compassion. I also believe that not all people are good at heart.
I absolutly agree. I have been celibate for eight years or so, unwillingly, and haven’t killed a single person in all that time. And I further agree; there is pure evil in the world, and those of us who are benign cannot possibly understand or predict it.
Excuse me if I rant just a bit
From beyond the grave, Cho is playing you (and the rest of the “god, if only we could have seen what a troubled boy he was” quarterbacks) for chumps. It is the last turn of the knife.
No one who is truly “mentally ill” could have kept the facade so perfect. He had his run in with the cops in 2005…then? Oh some disturbing fiction, but not enough to really get him in trouble…glowering enough and anti-social enough that fellow students were creeped out, but not his roommates … Get’s himself 5150’d because an acquaintance thinks he’s suicidal, but he’s able to orient to time, place and person, so psyche eval recommends outpatient services…
This thing held it together enough that he murdered two people, only a few doors down from his room … wrote/taped his “manifesto”, walked off campus to mail it undisturbed, then came back for the final act.
Cho wasn’t mentally ill, he was evil.
I’m f**king tired of the abdication of MORALITY in favor of a standard of “healthy/unhealthy”
It is no wonder that Liviu Librescu acted as he did. As I state here
Cho knew exactly what he was doing, what buttons to push, what “incoherent” clues to leave so we keep pointing the finger of blame everywhere but where it belongs…at him.
Remember, the Columbine things Cho cites as “martyrs” claimed they, too, were “picked on”. They weren’t.
This thing chose to do evil. We can face it like Librescu did, or we can continue to make excuses for it by trying to shove it into a “mental illness” pigeon hole.
And, btw, the prof that described Cho as one of the most disturbed she had ever taught?
I heard a further clip of hers… she stated she had taught troubled students before, but what alarmed her about Cho was his streak of meanness.
Darleen,
Excellent points. One wonders what terms today’s equivocators would use to describe Hitler.
I mourn for the victims.
I have not one iota of sympathy for Cho. None.
Do you think that I equivocate? I live with “evil” in one whom I love, every day. I do not excuse Cho, but your speech is passion.
These are all issues that have been asked and answered. So he was “troubled?” How is that actionable? I mourn for the victims as well, but would you want to be targetted as a spooky creep? Could happen; never know.
Well, yeah, happens all the time. But I don’t shoot anyone because of it.
Dan – my aunt was just diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia last month, and finally confined to a type of “halfway house” for the mentally ill. This only happened after my mom finally went to court and got legal guardianship over her.
But I’ve seen this sort of mess firsthand: what do you do about someone who is clearly a ticking time bomb, but hasn’t actually hurt anyone yet? Social services can’t do squat about it! And you can’t force the person to take medication or see a psychotherapist….
I just don’t know how to avoid these kinds of mass murders unless we change some of these medical privacy laws.
I agree with you, PC.
Though I admire the optimism it takes to want to understand why someone would do something like this…I see no point. It serves nothing. Some people choose to do evil things. And anyone who has the presence of mind to create and mail video and an essay to the media knows exactly what he is doing. The people who deserve understanding are the survivors. Not Cho.
That may be so, Lyndsey, but have you ever watched someone watching an episode of Seinfeld, who feels that it is all a coded communication about him?
For me, the key point arguing against psychosis is that he had the presence of mind, such as it was, to kill himself before the police nabbed him. Personally, though, I haven’t waded through all the video and stuff yet, so I haven’t fully formed my judgment.
My aunt thought she was having an affair with Tom Brokaw, and it was only after my uncle got a call from Brokaw’s OFFICE, telling him to “knock it off”, that he realized she was actually calling his office and harrassing him!
So schizophrenics can certainly act out on their delusions – mailing a package of crap to NBC doesn’t surprise me at all!!
I’m so sorry Dan. My aunt has the “news broadcasts are actually secret codes that I only I can decipher” delusions as well.
It’s nice to hear that your son is able to attend school – the psych doctor for our aunt said her prognosis is poor, but I don’t know why exactly.
Dan
I’m not saying mental illness doesn’t exist. I have the utmost respect for those who unfailingly toil in an effort to help the poor souls whose brains are misfiring or are chemically unbalanced.
I just don’t believe Cho is one of that group.
Hahaha! Crazy delusional woman! Tom Brokaw is MY boyfriend!
I guess he is hot. In a pasty, distinguished sort of way…
I’m not going to disagree with you, Darleen. You may very well be right. I’m just saying that I have a peculiarly vested interest in suspending judgment until I have sifted through as much evidence as I can get.