Does anything really happen "out of the blue?"

From one perspective, it can certainly seem so, as we watch the unexpected hurtle towards us, strike and stun. But in truth, what is unexpected from one perspective was a long time in coming from another.

This will be Columbine all over again, it appears, as more and more information emerges and we wonder, "How could someone not see?" "Why wasn’t this or that done?"

What we know about Cho Sueng-Hui is only gradually coming to light, and beware of armchair analysis – we see how wrong that go early. But honestly, when you first heard about this, and even the early accounts of what happened and of this demeanor, didn’t you think, "Sick?" And not just the level of sick that would be behind this anyway, but something even more organic.

What interests me are the responses of those around him, especially in the administration. I do think that one of the issues that will come up very soon is the whole issue of universities, students and parents. Speaking from general impressions here, it is my sense that most colleges and universities are committed to treating students as adults, which means that there is no obligation of a university to inform parents of anything – and it may even be forbidden, for all I know. We can go round all we want about what university administrators did and didn’t do in terms of the university itself, but the question I would like to know the answer to is…were his parents informed of his problems? That a professor had been so spooked by him that she’d had him removed from her class..and that students were refusing to come to class because of him?

As it happens, my son David was an English major at Tech – he says Cho was in none of his classes, but he did have one memory that came to him as he read this article from the WaPo. He took a poetry class from Nikki Giovanni, and he says at one point she said to the class something along the lines of  "You can write about anything you want – I’m generally not bothered by anyone’s writings – except once." And she went on to tell them, in veiled terms, without naming names or being specific about content, about Cho, David is now certain.

Signs, signs..everywhere signs. What do we see? What do we not? What motivations, both worthy and unworthy, tie our hands?