The Thinking Blog is more than just a frequently-updated source of amusing facts and interesting information. It is a stream of consciousness intended to be succinct and thought provoking. A cornucopia of eclectic topics aiming to examine a range of exciting ideas, inspirational technologies and cultural curiosities. There is something for everyone; from serious to humorous, for deep and light-hearted thinkers alike.
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24 thoughts:
I shall
will do
I already am :) My site is the quickest to get an update on VA tech news directly from the students.
http://www.gonnaeatthat.net
hear me, I beg!
Some people are trying to make you believe that we should all observe one day of silence, no blogging and entire day because of what happened in Virginia. Even if the cause seems to sound noble I have to urge the the people of the cyberworld to walk away from this and not let yourselves be deceived by those people.
Silence is already present in our daily life. People don't talk to each other, we are, most of us afraid of showing our feelings to the world around us. People don't talk about mental disease, it's just not something you can talk about neither do people talk about suicide!
I urge you to, not add an other day of silence in your life. Silence is easy, talking is hard. You want to pay your respect to the victims of Virginia? the victims of violence all around the world? I beg you, don't go running to the easy option, one that will not, in no way at all, make this kind of violence drop.
On April 30th 2007 I beg of you, for once in your life, TALK about it!
I will be posting this on 30th.
I hear what edgar h. says, but I feel that a silent acknowledgement of the loss, gives the friends and families of the victims a day when it wont be talked about, analysed, blame apportioned and everyone using this tragedy to justify their arguments.
By all means discuss it beforehand and afterwards, but lets give it a break for this day.
Regards, Ian
I agree with Edgar...
What is the point of being silent?
The event is already widely known around the world and this blog silence thing will not do anything to help the victims families.
And I don't think it has to do much with 'school violence' beyond it being violence that happened in a school.
It has to do with attitudes towards life, how we value ourselves, and how we value others.
I just want to stress something, I have nothing against the people taking a blogging day of silence I show my respect to the one who came up with this, he will be getting a lot of traffic so he should rejoice.
What I am frustrated about is that most of those people who will be taking a day of silence actually think that this is all it takes and won't do anything the rest of the year.. Until the next shoot out of course.
I'm tired, I've already preached way beyond my capability so I will retire myself and hope that the human race won't keep at being it's own predator and that one day people will realize that they are not alone in the world..
I think EDghr want´s to use the situation to promote hisself but it could be wrong what I think. He schould give us some examples what we can do or what he would do beside complaining. Regards Halil
Isn't that a bit twisted message? "Speak up" and "silence" doesn't go well together.
I say speak up. Silence doesn't do any good!
Edgar I understand your position but I have to agree with Ian. After reading the news I didn't feel like posting anything today and finding this site allowed me to show my respect to those who died innocently in the tragedy. There will be a time when I will speak up about the events, if I haven't already stated my position about violence in this post, but not today. Just not today.
So what if the website gets hits? It's a separate website, and I don't see any links promoting someone else's website/blog. I don't see any advertisements on the page. I don't see anyone's name on the page claiming that it was their idea.
When YOU do speak up, tell me and I might boycott this day of silence.
Until then, don't tell me what to do. Let the day of silence be whatever people want it to mean for them.
You should read about Silence Day. We call for silence because words can do the greatest deeds or do the worst. In this case, I'm pretty sure words did the worst. Although we know not the motives of the gunman, I'm guessing that this was caused by words spoken to him, and actions done to him.
Take 1 day of silence. Mourn for the loss. When somebody dies you're not meant to have a party. You can have the rest of the year to speak up against the causes of these shootings.
I'm sorry for writing something so long in a comment but I just had to speak out.
I can see both sides - Speaking about it causes the exchange of ideas, leading to a solution; moment of silence gives respect to those who died and an opportunity to think about those ideas so you can exchange them. Perhaps they should go hand in hand - one day of silence, then the next day, blogging about ideas to fix this situation so it is less likely to happen again.
Actually I meant to post Day of Silence. I didn't know they were different things.
But if you read the quote near the end of Silence Day, it's a good explanation of why silence is used.
And here are my thoughts on this whole issue. Sorry for the double comment.
Aren't there thousands of people dying every day in other countries? If people cared this much to be silent about people in other countries that are dying every day all day, then nothing would get done.
Yea I was just going to mention that too...
People die every single day, all over the world. It is a fact of living, that you die.
In an unfortunate event like this, you have mourning. Giving a moment or day of silence is noble and well. Each person has their own way of being.
I think what might be better is something that takes much longer than one day, and aims to change the way we think, as people, individually.
Lax gun laws, gun culture, unfortunate massacres of many. These are only pieces of the fractures that lay within our minds.
ilker, I don't know where to start but I am tired of preaching so I'll end with this, blogging about it IS doing nothing, people need to take actions in REAL life blogs won't make guns go away! Blogs don't have any super power!..
2Perfect, your pathetic! Tracing back that site to it's original owner took me about a minute so did all of the other people who commented on that blog because there is no where else to show the world how much of a good person you are and being a good person is useless unless other people notice
it, right?
And I would never think of telling people what to do but rather try to inspire them to do more and yes more is a chore but life demands sacrifice.. Or you could spend it in front of your TV.
Repeating myself once more, I have NOTHING against taking a day of silence it's the hypocrisies and inaction of the people who "show respect" to the victims and victims family that disgust me. How much of an effort does it take you not to blog for one day? And if for you not blogging for one day is a hard thing to do maybe you should turn off your computer and walk outside for more then one day.. and while you're at it, try to do something meaningful!
I guess that, in the end, people will only do the minimum required to feel good about them self and the rest of the world can take a hike..
Hmmm.. I was not sure if allowing comments on this post was a good idea.
Edgar, what do you expect us to do? If you are speaking idealistically then no problem but in reality, as you said, we don't have power either. Average people can only write on a blog or a website or something similar but taking action to change the problems of a society doesn't come instantly no matter how powerful you are, what you do, who ever you are.
Besides, what can I do sitting in a dark room in Turkey? I protest weapons wherever possible (did when I found out a university in UK was supporting a weapons manufacturer) because they serve no peaceful use but that is all I can do really.
Finally, what are you doing - for REAL?
What an idiotic idea.
Interesting how a post about silence leads to such controversy.
Anyway, imho it's never a bad idea to allow people to express their thoughts freely. What's wrong with discussion? Just try to keep it cool and not get too hot and bothered about it. ;)
Contrary to what has been said, I feel that blogs and the internet are important means of allowing people to express themselves and contributes somewhat to shaping the way people think, or changing perceptions, so blogging about it may be a small effort but is not "doing nothing".
Diverting a bit, I've always felt that allowing people to own guns is a really stupid decision. People get angry too easily, and having such an easy to use weapon that can do so much damage at hand just makes it too easy to cause such grievous harm.
Just my 2 cents...
Yes, people die every day, but not 30 students killed by their fellow student. And an educational building is a place you're supposed to feel safe.
Blogging is a minimum? Blogs influence the internet, and the internet influences the world.
Here's an example of the bare minimum: Only inspiring people and not actually doing something
You traced the author. They didn't put their name out there for everyone to see. But you actually went tried to trace it. Obviously you will find out one way or another. Why would they try to secure their identity?
Sorry Ilker for arguing on your blog.
Don't you think arguing about how we should react, given that we all have good intentions, a mockery of the deaths of these students?
And with that, this will be my last comment on this topic.
We all must!!!
M.
Yesterday I found I couldn't post my normal humorous comments but I did take time out to comment on the senseless shooting. As an ex-teacher, I was saddened and I wanted to speak out.
That was my choice. On the 30th April I'll make another choice. Perhaps, one day, the US Government will choose to do something about the guns in their society.
Meanwhile, peaceful bloggers should unite, in whatever way they see fit, rather than rail against each other.
Sincerely,
T4td
Only today I heard about gunman's family breaking there silence. I know things happen for a reason. I wished he had told us his own reasons of doing such crime. It makes my heart cry out loud for the death of innocent people.
I think we could all use a break from the constant media storm. How many more times do they need to show the video of the gunman? How much longer do they need to make the students relive the day? Let them be in peace.
I posted this on my site too.
What do you think? Post your thoughts..