Bomb threats are apparently all the rage as the nation’s colleges and universities start a new academic year, ABC News reports:

At least 13 U.S. universities, including Princeton, MIT and Carnegie Mellon, have been targeted for anonymous e-mail bomb threats as students return to classes, federal law enforcement authorities tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com.

One of the schools, Clemson University, in Clemson, S.C., was targeted again today — the first day of school across much of the nation — and an evacuation was ordered, ABC News has learned. “We have had three in the last 10 days,” Clemson University spokesman Robin Denny said of the bomb threats. She said the university has been sending out e-mail alerts to students, faculty and other personnel, saying evacuations were in progress after each threat.

The FBI, regional authorities and university police are investigating the spate of threats, which include a set of difficult-to-track threats that use Internet remailer services to eliminate the sender address and render the threat anonymous and more difficult to trace, the FBI confirmed.

Obviously, school officials have to take these threats seriously, especially after last year’s Virginia Tech massacre. My strong hunch, however, is that these emails are the work of student pranksters trying to extend their vacations a wee bit longer.

Forbes’ headline, “Va. Tech Shootings Panel Seeks Reforms to an AP report jumped out at me. Not because I much cared about the recommendations that the panel issued to ward off a more-or-less unpreventable, one-off tragedy but because of the sheer foregone conclusion that it represents.

Has ever a panel been assembled to investigate anything that didn’t recommend reforms? Even if everyone involved had done the most admirable job imaginable — which, admittedly, is seldom if ever true — the mere empaneling of a study group virtually demands that they find some flaws that must be corrected.

The news that broke over the weekend that teachers from Murphreesboro, Tennessee’s Scales Elementary School “staged a fictitious gun attack on students during a class trip, telling them it was not a drill as the children cried and hid under tables” in order to impart lessons about what to do in the event of a Virginia Tech-style rampage has bloggers left and right united.

Your mission, should you chose to accept it: Write a compelling explanation as to why the teachers in question are not frothing idiots. The comments section or your own blog (trackbacking here so I see it) are acceptable forums. No blue books required.

David Grant reports for the Collegiate Times that nationally syndicated talk show host Neal Boortz’ show may be pulled from Pulaski, Virginia’s WFNR AM for some controversial remarks he made in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings.

Boortz echoed a theme expressed by many that the victims were “standing in terror waiting for (their) turn to be executed.” Station manager Scott Stevens was appalled, as were some Democratic members of the Virginia legislature. Delegate Stephen Shannon stated, “I feel (Virginia radio stations) have a sense of public responsibility in the immediate aftermath of this tragedy to exercise some restraint. What they did was let this broadcaster peel off outrageous assertions that somehow it was the fault of the students and the faculty members who were killed or injured…There’s simply no place for this out-of-state radio host to make such claims on Virginia’s airwaves immediately after this tragedy has taken place.”

Now, I find Boortz’ insinuations here outrageous because I don’t expect untrained, unarmed teenagers to do anything other than panic when confronted with such an unexpected and horrifying situation. Still, the point was well within the legitimate sphere of public debate, even if the timing was unfortunate.

I have only heard snippets of Boortz’ show, mostly by accident when scanning for something to listen to on road trips, and have no strong opinion of him as a commenter. Presumably, though, he’s interesting enough to draw an audience consistently not just in his hometown Atlanta but in a variety of stations that syndicate him across the land. And the idea that a show broadcast nationally can somehow be tailored to local sensitivities is just bizarre.

As with the Don Imus situation, it’s absolutely within the right of businessmen to decide what programs to air and hosts to employ. If Grant believes taking Boortz off the air and replacing him with another host is the thing to do, it’s his call. But I find firing people who are hired as controversial commentators for making controversial comments troubling.

Cross-posted from PoliBlog:

The AP reports: Professor fired over Va. Tech discussion

An adjunct professor was fired after leading a classroom discussion about the Virginia Tech shootings in which he pointed a marker at some students and said “pow.”

The five-minute demonstration at Emmanuel College on Wednesday, two days after a student killed 32 people on the Virginia Tech campus, included a discussion of gun control, whether to respond to violence with violence, and the public’s “celebration of victimhood,” said the professor, Nicholas Winset.

During the demonstration, Winset pretended to shoot some students. Then one student pretended to shoot Winset to illustrate his point that the gunman might have been stopped had another student or faculty member been armed.

The Boston Herald has a longer version of the story: Professor axed for VT stunt: Re-enacted tragedy to tout pro-gun perspective

The weird thing being (to me, anyway) is that Winset was fired via letter without any direct contact from administration and sans review. Further, the letter apparently cited issues of language (from the AP report):

The college issued a statement saying: “Emmanuel College has clear standards of classroom and campus conduct, and does not in any way condone the use of discriminatory or obscene language.”

It is unclear from the reporting that I can find on the story how obscene language is a relevant element of the story, although it is possible that he used such language and it was a pretext for the firing.

Back to the summary dismissal: such are the circumstances for adjuncts, but still it is odd that he was so summarily dismissed. One wonders if there was some kind of backstory that would explain the situation.

Another intriguing element to the story is that in the era of new media, Winset is able to get his side of the story out via YouTube. He has videoed and posted a four-part explanation of the events in question. If his version of events is accurate, then the firing makes little sense. Of course, he isn’t exactly an impartial source. One does get the feeling that he is a rather opinionated fellow who likely rubs some students the wrong way. Of course, if that was a firing offense, most colleges and universities would be faculty-less.

Here are the video clips in question:

If anything, it is an interesting exercise in the way the internet has changed news.

There is a move afoot in the blogosphere that declares April 30th a One Day of Silence. The move, as much as it is linkbait (the badges they give you link back to the One Day site), is a move that is not without controversy. It is a call for the blogosphere to remember the victims of the Virginia Tech massacre and to stand united with the families.

This day shall unite us all about this unbelievable painful & shocking event and show some respect and love to those who lost their loved ones.

On April 30th 2007, the Blogosphere will hold a One-Day Blog Silence in honor of the victims at Virginia Tech. More then 30 died at the US college massacre.

But it´s not only about them. Many bloggers have responded and asked about all the other victims of our world. All the people who die every day. What about them?

This day can be a symbol of support to all the victims of our world!

All you have to do is spread the word about it and post the graphic on your blog on 30th April 2007. No words and no comments. Just respect, reflect and empathy.

The reaction in the blogosphere is mixed.

Lorelle states:

I hope this day of silence will be extended to all those who die needlessly and for the ones who never get such tributes around the world.

She continues with this incredible personal story about being in Israel when the holocaust was remembered.

Vivian, from Vancouver, British Columbia thinks that silence should not drown out conversation:

Silence should be a part of the conversation, but it should not replace the conversation. It’s easy to be silent, it takes guts to talk, to express the outrage, to investigate what went wrong and how 32 innocent lives could’ve been preserved.

Bes, from California, states:

Blogosphere is not in deep mourning. Only people taking real action are in deep mourning.

It’s not all negative though. Cynthia offers her own prayer:

Typically, we celebrate the mighty works of God in our lives, proclaiming all His goodness, mercy, faithfulness and unfailing love for us. At other times we are confronted with the undeniable fact that the reason Jesus had to enter the world was because it was broken. It is a place where depravity can overtake a human heart and there are real situations where justice seems unattainable.

In silence may we salute the lives lost at Virginia Tech and use our day to seek the Comforter, recommitting ourselves to being lights in the darkness.

And of course, today has been declared a National Day of mourning and I’m wearing my Hokies colors at the moment. It seems like more than just the blogosphere is participating. For what it’s worth, Hitler was born today in 1889 – but I digress.

I ask what you think. Is this day of silence appropriate? If you’re a blogger will you participate?

Update: A portion of this entry was removed at a bloggers request.

Hugh Hewitt strenuously objects to NBC’s decision to air the video made by Virginia Tech mass murderer Cho Seung-Hi, implying in his title that it may have been “The Single Worst Editorial Decision In The History Of Broadcast News.”

Soon after the press conference at which it was disclosed that NBC had received a package of print, photos and video materials from the Virginia Tech murderer, I interviewed Howard Kurtz about how NBC should handle it. (The transcript will be here later this evening.) We quickly agreed that any video should not be shown, and while I think that Howard thought perhaps a picture could be aired, I and the live audience I was broadcasting in front of disagreed. I would have published –instantly– the text of the killer’s statement’s for the public to read, but I would have denied the killer the instant video glorification he so obviously desired, an immortalization which other deranged killers of the future will almost certainly seek to emulate. NBC decided differently.

He’s got a point. Then again, one could argue that about any footage of terrorist attacks and coverage of still-on-the-loose serial killers. Should the networks have not aired the collapse of the World Trade Center so as to deny the terrorists an undeniable propaganda victory?

I’d say not. While Cho obviously wanted the video run, it’s not NBC’s job to spite him; rather, it is to report the news to their audience. Undeniably, the content of the video is news.

Further, while there’s such a thing as copycat crimes, I’m skeptical of the claim that people who would otherwise have led peaceful lives are going to be inspired to mass murder by the lure of 15 minutes of fame.

UPDATE: Here’s the video in question via YouTube.

UPDATE: WaPo’s Howie Kurtz and Bill Carter of the NYT weigh in.

Kurtz describes how NBC agonized over the decision and cooperated with authorities:

After turning over the original documents to federal authorities, NBC News President Steve Capus said last night, he faced a “tough call” in deciding how much to air, if any, of the Virginia Tech gunman’s expletive-filled video and 1,800-word letter, along with photos of Cho and his guns and bullets.

“We tried to be sensitive to the families involved and to the investigation,” Capus said in an interview. While it is “possible” that some relatives of the 32 students shot to death Monday may say that the network is giving the killer the platform he wanted, “they also may say, ‘We want to know why. We need to know what was in his head, what drove him to do this.’ This is a portrait of a killer.”

Capus said Virginia State Police officials, in a conversation about noon, asked NBC to “hold off” on releasing the material until they had a chance to review the material. The state authorities gave NBC the green light about 4:30, saying it would not jeopardize the probe. The network aired portions of the video and note on “NBC Nightly News” at 6:30.

Anchor Brian Williams told viewers: “We are sensitive to how all of this will be seen by those affected, and we know we are, in effect, airing the words of a murderer here tonight. . . . So much of it is so profane, so downright gross and incomprehensible. We tried to edit carefully for broadcast tonight.” The segment was posted on http://msnbc.com.

Carter focuses on the mechanics of the process more so than the ethics, noting “NBC executives had no explanation for why the network was singled out to receive the package, and nothing in the materials explained the action. Nothing on the envelope or in the package cited a specific individual at NBC.”

While James travels, I agreed to do some posting at OTB. The following is cross-posted from PoliBlog:

Writes Michelle Malkin at RCP: Wanted: A Culture of Self-Defense

There’s no polite way or time to say it: American colleges and universities have become coddle industries. Big Nanny administrators oversee speech codes, segregated dorms, politically correct academic departments and designated “safe spaces” to protect students selectively from hurtful (conservative) opinions — while allowing mob rule for approved leftist positions (textbook case: Columbia University’s anti-Minuteman Project protesters).

Instead of teaching students to defend their beliefs, American educators shield them from vigorous intellectual debate. Instead of encouraging autonomy, our higher institutions of learning stoke passivity and conflict-avoidance.

And as the erosion of intellectual self-defense goes, so goes the erosion of physical self-defense.

What in the world is going on? First we have Derbyshire and Blake and now this. First, why do we have to find blame in places other than the fact that a truly disturbed individual simply did an unthinkable act and cracked. There is only so much that can be done in a free society to prevent such situations. This attempt to blame a general “liberal” attitude at universities and that this somehow has led to a culture of “conflict avoidance” that somehow, by inference, led to people not defending themselves on Monday–that is utterly ridiculous.

And I’m sorry, but this idea that we need to arm students is simply not a good one. How is that supposed to increase the level of intellectual debate that Malkin is allegedly so concerned about? That’s what we need: armed semi-adults failing exams–that’s a lovely image.

Yes, it is possible (though hardly a guarantee) that if there had been armed persons in the classrooms that Cho could have been stopped. However, given the degree to which Cho planned this attack, had he known that some students had been armed, one guesses he would have planned accordingly.

Need I remind Malkin and her ilk that Timothy McVeigh killed three times as many people as did Cho and he did it with fertilizer. So it isn’t as if arming students would guarantee that no mass murders would ever take place on a college campus ever again.

And the notion that good policy can be made based on one historical anomaly is not smart.

I am truly disgusted by this ongoing narrative by some that someone we have to blame those slaughtered for not exhibiting enough self-defense. And the notion that campuses would be improved by having guns in classrooms is simply off the wall.

And really, there is a segment of US conservatism that needs to get over its irrational phobia of college professors and their eeevil ways. Are there some off the wall ideologues out there? Yes, there are. However, Malkin, David Horowitz and crew have got to get over this notion that universities in America are some kind of bizarre radical brainwashing camps.

h/t: Michael J.W. Stickings

Cho Seung-Hi, the perpetrator of the Virginia Tech massacres, sent a press packet to NBC in between shooting sprees.

The Virginia Tech gunman mailed a package of photographs, video and writings to NBC News in New York before he killed himself in the massacre that left 33 people dead, authorities said Wednesday. NBC said that a time stamp on the package indicated the material was mailed in the two-hour window between the first burst of gunfire in a high-rise dormitory and the second fusillade, at a classroom building.

[...]

NBC said it immediately turned the package — containing what the network described as a “lengthy diatribe” from Cho Seung-Hi — over to authorities on Wednesday.

Quite bizarre.

UPDATE: CNN is running regular updates.

I just thought that after reading this story, the above needed to be said.

Another Scare Rattles Va. Tech Campus

BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) – Virginia Tech students still on edge after the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history got another scare Wednesday morning as police in SWAT gear with weapons drawn swarmed Burruss Hall, which houses the president’s office.

The threat of suspicious activity turned out to be unfounded, said Virginia State Police spokeswoman Corinne Geller said, and the building was reopened. But students were rattled.

“They were just screaming, ‘Get off the sidewalks,’” said Terryn Wingler-Petty, a junior from Wisconsin. “They seemed very confused about what was going on. They were just trying to get people organized.”

I understand that people will be jumpy and nervous after something like this, but in reality, school shootings are not at all a common occurence and it is even less likely for their to be multiple shooting incidents at the same school.

The Washington Nationals wore Virginia Tech baseball caps last night in a show of support for the nearby university.

The Washington Nationals fell behind against a pitcher bound for the Hall of Fame and predictably ended up losing to the Atlanta Braves last night, 6-4. But what otherwise would have gone down as a routine April defeat by a young team trying to find its way was given greater meaning when the Nationals came out of the dugout wearing Virginia Tech baseball caps.

At that moment, playing baseball took a back seat to remembering the victims of the shootings in Blacksburg, Va., as the 17,791 at RFK Stadium responded with a loud ovation.

[...]

[Nats 3rd baseman Ryan] Zimmerman attended the University of Virginia, Virginia Tech’s arch rival. But when team officials approached the players during batting practice to ask them about wearing Virginia Tech hats, Zimmerman didn’t hesitate. “I was honored to wear it,” he said.

The idea sprang from an e-mail that Nationals fan Dave Lanham sent to team president Stan Kasten. Lanham, a resident of Calvert County, suggested that the team don the hats in tribute. Kasten liked the thought but didn’t see the e-mail until after his afternoon meetings.

With about 90 minutes before first pitch, Harolyn Cardozo, executive assistant to General Manager Jim Bowden, was on the phone calling sporting goods stores. She dialed the number to the Sports Authority’s store in Alexandria, and when she heard a voice, she had one simple demand: “Give me the smartest guy in the store who can get something done fast.”

Paul Schneider, a department manager, soon was scouring the store for Hokies hats. Cardozo asked for 40 of them and they needed to be at the stadium before the Nats took the field. Schneider found about 20 on the rack and discovered a box full in a storeroom. He talked his managers into donating the 38 hats of various styles, then jumped in his car to cross the Wilson Bridge and weave through rush-hour traffic to get to RFK.

Fifteen minutes before the first pitch, Major League Baseball gave the team approval. Schneider arrived at the stadium during the first inning, and the caps made it to the Nationals’ dugout in time for the team to take the field with them for the second inning.

A nice gesture. Interestingly, Kasten was president of the Braves for many years.

Glenn Reynolds argues in a column in today’s NY Daily News that we’d be safer if only more of us carried guns.

In fact, some mass shootings have been stopped by armed citizens. Though press accounts downplayed it, the 2002 shooting at Appalachian Law School was stopped when a student retrieved a gun from his car and confronted the shooter. Likewise, Pearl, Miss., school shooter Luke Woodham was stopped when the school’s vice principal took a .45 fromhis truck and ran to the scene. In February’s Utah mall shooting, it was an off-duty police officer who happened to be on the scene and carrying a gun.

Police can’t be everywhere, and as incidents from Columbine to Virginia Tech demonstrate, by the time they show up at a mass shooting, it’s usually too late. On the other hand, one group of people is, by definition, always on the scene: the victims. Only if they’re armed, they may wind up not being victims at all.

“Gun-free zones” are premised on a fantasy: That murderers will follow rules, and that people like my student, or Bradford Wiles, are a greater danger to those around them than crazed killers like Cho Seung-hui. That’s an insult. Sometimes, it’s a deadly one.

David Kopel has a similar piece in today’s Wall Street Journal.

Last year the Virginia legislature defeated a bill that would have ended the “gun-free zones” in Virginia’s public universities. At the time, a Virginia Tech associate vice president praised the General Assembly’s action “because this will help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on our campus.” In an August 2006 editorial for the Roanoke Times, he declared: “Guns don’t belong in classrooms. They never will. Virginia Tech has a very sound policy preventing same.”

Actually, Virginia Tech’s policy only made the killer safer, for it was only the law-abiding victims, and not the criminal, who were prevented from having guns. Virginia Tech’s policy bans all guns on campus (except for police and the university’s own security guards); even faculty members are prohibited from keeping guns in their cars.

It’s virtually axiomatic that, in the incredibly rare scenario when a psychopath comes to shoot up a room, that potential victims would be safer if some were armed and trained to use their weapon effectively. On the other hand, it seems rather obvious that having millions of normally law abiding people carrying guns on their person at all times would increase the incidences of rage shootings that wouldn’t occur if those people had to take the time to retrieve a weapon and hunt down the victim, since they’d likely return to their senses in the meantime.

What seems obvious, though, isn’t always true. Despite a trend in the past twenty years or so towards concealed carry and open carry laws being enacted in most states, there’s no evidence of an increase in violence to others by those not otherwise engaged in criminal behavior.

Megan McArdle, guesting at Andrew Sullivan’s place, argues that the initial reaction to yesterday’s Virginia Tech massacre may be clouded by hindsight bias.

[E]ven if all mass-murderers did write scary prose, or make sweeping apocalyptic statements, or otherwise give some signal of their impending meltdown, the signal wouldn’t do us any good, because mass murderers are really, really rare. You’ll have a thousand false positives for one false negative. In hindsight, we can always pick out some clue to what was about to happen. That doesn’t mean that we can, or should, see those things beforehand.

Related is the criticism of administrators for sending students to class after the first murder, or of police for not locking the campus down immediately. This is a classic problem with recriminations: we tend to assume that the fact we had a bad outcome means we made a bad decision. But in an uncertain world, this is ludicrous. Good decision making concentrates on the most likely events, not the wild outliers.

The errors of a false negative (what social scientists call “Type II errors”) can be quite catastrophic. Had Virginia Tech officials sounded the warning bells the instant they knew of the first shootings, they may well have saved thirty innocent lives. Similarly, had everyone who had the slightest suspicion that Cho Seung Hui was emotionally unstable brought that to the attention of the proper authorities, thirty two innocent lives may have been saved.

As Megan suggests, however, the consequences of overreaction to the innumerable false positives (”Type I errors”) would be far more debilitating. Witness, for example, the millions of man hours wasted each year providing the illusion of security at the airports.

Do we want every odd teenager turned in to The Powers That Be for certification that he’s not a potential serial killer? Given what we know of bureaucracy, we can rest assured that a whole lot of people would be unnecessarily locked away in order to ensure that false negatives don’t occur. (Which is why it’s unlikely we’ll ever see a terror alert level below Yellow unless the system is scrapped.)

Several years ago, during the first year Steven Taylor and I were teaching at Troy State, a young student was driving recklessly in a severe rainstorm and was killed. Following that tragedy, university officials decided that they would shut down the university during heavy rain storms and, on occasion, even the forecast of same. Worse, if it was raining at all, the policy was to allow students an excused absence at their discretion if they did not feel safe driving. This applied, incidentally, even if the student lived on campus and was walking to class. There’s no way of knowing if this policy saved any lives. It did, however, deprive students of thousands of hours in the classroom for which they had paid.

Human lives are precious and people in leadership positions have a responsibility to ensure the safety of people under their care. But let’s not pretend that safety doesn’t come at a price. Protecting ourselves against infinitesimal risks may make us feel better but it almost certainly senseless.

UPDATE: I should add that I’m not arguing that the officials at Va Tech acted properly, just that we shouldn’t come to the knee-jerk reaction that they screwed up just because something bad happened. My inclination is that they should have notified the campus that shootings had occurred and perhaps even canceled classes while someone was on the loose. Still, they may well have been justified in thinking it was a murder-suicide situation. We simply don’t know at this point.

Via Jeff Jarvis, I see that the video Jamal Albaughouti captured with his cell phone of yesterday’s shooting spree at Virginia Tech has made it to YouTube.

Thankfully, this just captures the surreal nature of the event unfolding rather than the gore. CNN’s Sandy Malcolm claims this video has set a record for the network, with more than 2 million views.

Scarcely a day has passed since the murders at Virginia Tech and already all sorts of people are drawing all sorts of conclusions.

I’ve placed my own thoughts here.