Liviu Librescu

"We won't give pause until the blood is flowing
Neither the brave nor bold
The writers of stories sold
We won't give pause until the blood is flowing"
[Tool, "Vicarious"]

Liviu Librescu

Remember that name.  Honestly, I haven't the foggiest clue how to pronounce it, but I'll figure it out.  Maybe I'll catch it on a newscast if I can find one worth stomaching.  It'll have to be CBC.  I can't trust NBC.  Not any more.

In fact, I'm so thoroughly disgusted with NBC right now I plan to never visit MSNBC.com again, and to stop watching NBC television.  Anything they broadcast that's worth watching will someday be on DVD, I'm sure, and commercial free.  Perhaps you should stop watching NBC too.  One less person contributing to their ratings, and ratings, it seems, is what it's all about.

Liviu Librescu was born in Romania in August of 1930.  He was a Holocaust survivor.  He taught at Virginia Tech up until a few days ago.  Liviu Librescu.

Liviu Librescu was an accomplished scientist, a Ph D, and a professor.  By the age of 76, he had taught at universities in two countries an ocean apart, for a total of over 27 years.  Imagine that.  Twenty-seven years is a long time.  That's a lot of students.  That's a lot of developing young minds.  Think of how many lives he may have touched.  Think of how many people he may have inspired over the course of his life.

Liviu Librescu died attempting to save as many of his students as he could.  He attempted to barricade a door and hold off a rampaging shooter to buy them time to escape through the second floor windows.  Granted, I've never met the man, and since Rampaing Arsehole 2007-04-16 gunned him down a few days ago, I never will.  I'm not saying the man was an angel, because quite frankly, I really don't know.  I know what I can find and read.  I know what the media is telling me right now.  But from what I know he was an accomplished professor who attempted to save his students, and by that account alone, I think he was an incredibly worthwhile human-being.

I say "Rampaging Arsehole 2007-04-16" because I don't know the shooter's name.  Yes, it's been published and televised.  Yes, I'm sure it's been in at least a half-dozen articles I've read.  But you see, I keep skipping over it.  I don't want to know his name.

Liviu Librescu, on the other hand, is a name worth knowing.  That's a name worth remembering.  That's the name of a man brave enough to barricade a door to hold off a gunman while others escaped with their lives.  That's a heroic name.  That's the name of a man who dedicated his life to teaching.  That's the name of a man who tried to contribute, of a man who tried to give.  Liviu Librescu.

I keep mouthing the name every time I paste it into this page, trying to commit it to memory.  I'm sure I'll re-read this a dozen times over the next few days too.  Perhaps I'll put him in my MSN tagline too.  I'd shout it from the rooftop if I thought it would do any good.

Mohandas Ghandi once said "we must become the change we wish to see".  I wish to see a society where a shooting rampage is no path to fame, fortune, or glory, but a surefire way to become unknown, unnamed, unremembered.  I wish to see a culture where the story is about the victims and the survivors, and not only are the appropriate professionals the only ones exposed to childish ravings of the (hopefully) now-dead lunatic, but the only ones who want to be.

NBC has committed, in my humble opinion, an unforgivable offense.  It is not simply an offense to their viewers, but an offense to an entire culture struggling to contain such violence, when they would so quickly reward the actions of a Rampaging Arsehole by publishing his worthless diatribes.  They made a choice, you see, where they chose sensationalist "entertainment values" over journalistic integrity.  They chose full disclosure over the Harm Limitation Principle.

And while both scholars and layman will spend the coming weeks arguing over censorship over free speech, over gun-control, over whether or not we can find a musician or video-game to scapegoat, all the while doing nothing to actually stem the flow of blood or change the culture of fear and violence with helps create, mold, and motivate such pathetic loathsome creatures as Rampaging Arsehole 2007-04-16, in my mind, a decision to broadcast RA's video, audio, or "manifesto" was never about censorship.  It was about common sense (which they lacked).  It was about human decency (which was also lacking).  It's about responsibility.  It's about the future.  It's about becoming the change we wish to see.

Liviu Librescu was a Holocaust survivor.  I can't imagine what that means.  I don't know.  Not the foggiest.  Did he flash back to horrible images of the past with the sound of the first gunshot?  What went through his mind?  That, I'd like to know.  I don't care what went through the deranged mind of some Rampaging Arsehole.  It holds no value to me.  I don't wish to be like him.  But Liviu Librescu, on the other hand, perhaps I might like to be more like him: to spend a lifetime teaching, and to find courage under fire.

NBC made a bad choice.  CBC made a much better choice: to not broadcast numbnuts' ravings.  They made a good choice.

To anyone reading this, you get to make a choice too.  You get to choose what channel to watch or not to watch.  You get to choose whether or not to watch the NBC footage, or the YouTube footage.  You get to choose which or neither of many names to commit to memory, so that years from now, reflecting back on this tragedy, they may come to mind.

I choose "Rampaging Arsehole 2007-04-16" as the only moniker suitable for a man who should have his body cremated and the ashes placed beneath an outhouse on the Virginia Tech lawn for the enjoyment of the survivors.

I choose Liviu Librescu as a name worth remembering.

Liviu Librescu

string theory

"Underneath this smile lies everything
All my hopes, anger, pride and shame
Make myself a pact, not to shut doors on the past
Just for today... I am free"
[Pearl Jam, "Inside Job"]
 
A month overdue, with all apologies to the faithful who remember well enough to check.

It came and went, as it often does, quietly and without incident, a day like any other.  I did, as I have for 15 years, take some time for reflection.  I thought about the past, the present, and the future, about how inextricably linked they are and about the paradoxically fallacious nature of truth.

The best physicists in the world puzzle over a grand unifying theory that can bring together all the theoretical truths about the nature of the universe into one logical model.  They ultimately fail, of course, but in the grandest possible way, and I imagine they provide themselves endless wonderful hours of intellectual masturbation in the process.  Amidst it all there are some interesting ideas - the details of which I don't begin to profess to understand - and one such idea of which I once read was a notion that whenever any particle in the universe, however small, comes into contact with another particle, it leaves an indelible mark, a signature of sorts, which is also then passed on should it contact another.  Since, in the incredible expanse of time, every particle has at some point come into contact with another, and so on, ultimately, they'll all a part of one very large mass marriage, and so are we.

Or, put another way, a long time ago some sort of big bang may or may not have happened, and as a result nowadays everything may or may not be related, but even if we don't ever know the truth, it seems things keep on working anyway.

A long time before I was born something may or may not have happened.  To the end of my days, I can never and will never know with any more certainty than I do today if it actually occurred.  If it occurred, it may have been one of possibly few or possibly many (or possibly not at all) things that molded the history and formation of the family to which I was born, and the nature of the people and the environment by and in which I was raised.  Which in turn, of course, affected the outcome of who I am in the present time.  And who I am today will, of course, impact who Olivia grows up to be.  And should she choose to have or to raise children... And so on.  And so on.  I think that thing did happen, and I think it was perhaps the most impactful event in a young life, and I think it does in many ways form a linchpin that brings together so many disparate pieces of the past into one "grand unifying theory".  But since it's something about which I prefer not to speak and on which I prefer not to dwell, I'll save my intellectual masturbatory efforts for something else, and simply accept it as... "truth".

But just as the black and white dots of the Taiji represent the seeds of yin and yang amidst one another, from tragedy springs hope.

So what does this all mean?

That generations ago, the (possible) wrongs committed by people I've never met - let alone Olivia herself - formed a ripple in a pond that now sees me wanting to be the best possible guide I can for her.  She will choose her own destiny, just as I do mine, but somehow touched as I have been by events that transpired long before I was born, and, as much as I am able, in a positive way.
 
And she'll never know "the truth", just as I don't.  Neither will the best physicists of our time.  But none of that matters, because even if we shut the doors on the past, the marks have been made, the particles touched as it were, and what will be, will be, and all that remains:

The freedom to choose who we are.

And now, for me, that includes choosing to be the best archer I can.

"How I choose to feel... is how I am
How I choose to feel... is how I am
I will not lose my faith
It's an inside job today"
[Pearl Jam, "Inside Job"]