SILENCE MOMENTARILY BROKEN BY BLOODSHED

Everyone knew. Everyone who came in contact with Cho, a slight, quiet Asian college student, knew. They knew he was a time bomb waiting to explode. Bullied in high school and desperately lonely, this young kid replaced the voices of what should have been childhood friends and loved ones with the sick and twisted voices inside his head.

Shyness and loneliness became anger and mental illness, and everyone knew. Cloaked in sunglasses, and completely non-communicative, this young boy became what he ultimately wanted to be, an infamous mass murderer, much in the same vein as the kids in Columbine. And everyone knew it could happen. Few came to his aid. Some did, and failed. They knew it could happen, and valiantly tried to prevent it, to get through. They knew it could happen. And this week, it did.

"Cho, of Centreville, the son of immigrants who run a dry cleaning business and the brother of a State Department contractor who graduated from Princeton, was described by those who encountered him over the years as at times angry, menacing, disturbed and so depressed that he seemed near tears. He often spoke in a whisper, if at all, refused to open up to teachers and classmates, and kept himself locked behind a facade of a hat, sunglasses and silence."

So Cho did what the voices in his head said to do. Reach out to the world he could never quite fit into. Reach out, and pay back. It is obvious he had planned this for quite some time. Plotted and planned. Planned and prepared, and purchased the arsenal he needed to follow in the footsteps of the Columbine students he respected and admired. And understood. And seen in the media a hundred times before. He was going to be famous and go down in a blaze of glory.

So he prepared a package of information and pictures and sent them off to the media. More fodder for the building of the marketing of yet another madman, another famous mass murderer. I think he relished the attention he would soon get, the attention he never got throughout his unfortunate childhood.

He knew. His act of madness, his upcoming act of desperation, his planned acts of violence against the unwitting victims of his vendetta against society would make him famous. He knew. The media would be whipped into a frenzy over him. Yes, the media knew better. The around the clock coverage of these unfortunates is what they crave. The media knew. But they cannot help themselves. They are ruled by ratings and the money the ratings create. So knowing that it's wrong, knowing the publicity they would create is what drives the mentally ill like Cho. And knowing all of that, they couldn't stop themselves from giving Cho really what he wanted. The attention and fame and martyrdom he thought he deserved. So Cho took self portraits of himself with guns and knives, dressed in garb that could only be described as a modern day Taxi Driver character. He knew. The pictures would make him famous. He knew. He was about to make history.

Everyone knew. But the story plays out in the media of yet another madman who gave plenty of warning. Who gave every indication that he was ready to go off. The only question was, when? Now WE know. It was this week. And a nation grieves. And the families of the unwitting victims of this desperate, angry and depressed young man gone wrong, are forced to witness the endless coverage of the murderer that everyone knew could go off.

And they are forced to bury and mourn the tragic loss of their children and loved ones who had so much promise, so much to live for. Cut down in the prime of their lives by a young man, a child really, who had nothing. No friends, no future, no potential, no promise, nothing to live for. So he ended his own life, but not until he took his revenge, exacted his vengeance for a troubled life so tragically gone wrong.

But what he didn't know...he had no one else to blame but himself.