The shootings never mean anything. Forty years later, what did the Charles Whitman massacre “mean”? A decade later, do we “know” anything about Columbine? There is chaos and evil in life. Some people go crazy.

James Fallows is a fine journalist but this is just really wrong for me. It’s true that the media chatter after these events is often a grab bag of cliches and trite observations and bad information. I’m sure there is some of that out there this time too. But there are explanations and ways to get at the truth. Good journalism can bring together an accurate narrative behind such events through a close study of law enforcement, science and medicine, the insights of those close at hand and so on. Columbine is a good case in point. The initial narrative about Columbine was almost entirely wrong. The explanation had to do with outcast kids getting revenge on their more popular peers. It seemed to make sense and, as far as I can tell, it stuck. But it’s wrong. Dave Cullen wrote a book after spending years investigating the Columbine massacre. I haven’t read his book, only this part on Slate, and I’ve listened to him speak about it so I’ve gotten the gist of it. Eric Harris was a psychopath, in the clinical sense, and Dylan Kleibold was a depressive who was suicidal and homicidal, not an unusual combination. There is much about the human condition that can be learned from Columbine. So, yes, it has meaning. I think the same applies to Virginia Tech, the Killeen Texas cafeteria murders, and etc. That’s not to say that there is one all-encompassing observation that can be made. There isn’t and I won’t try to make one. The meanings are various and multiple and will be fought over. But they are out there.

Update: And, by the way, Marty Peretz is still a stupid fucking racist and stark raving crazy too.

TOKYO, Aug. 30 — Breaking a half-century hammerlock of one-party rule in Japan, the opposition Democratic Party won a crushing election victory on Sunday with pledges to revive the country’s stalled economy and steer a foreign-policy course less dependent on the United States.

Of course, this is incorrect.
From Japan Zone:

The LDP lost its parliamentary majority in the 1993 elections, but continued to exert influence and soon returned to power in a coalition.

Yes, they were in the minority before. The Social Democratic Party’s leader became the Prime Minister. He is most remembered for his bushy eyebrows but, still, he was Prime Minister and he was not from the LDP. The LDP didn’t regain the majority until 1996!

Doesn’t the Washington Post know of Wikipedia???

Also, it’s worth mentioning that the party that won this election, the Democratic Party, was started by Ozawa Ichiro, who led an LDP faction that split and created the Democratic Party although he is no longer its leader. He’s an insider’s insider in Japanese politics.

Mr Page said the less data companies like Google were able to hold the “more likely we all are to die”.

What?! Here’s Larry Page suggesting that it was Google who first spotted the swine flu epidemic in Mexico. Is this even remotely true? Well, here’s what they say. So, search terms can be used to highlight trends. OK, I’ll buy that. But what about the massive spikes whenever there is a media frenzy about anything? Or does this only work for the flu? And besides, what good would it do to have flu data more than six months old?

Google is a brilliant company and I’m sure they are thinking about these things. But I call bullshit. In fact, I only wanted to write something about this because I found it so laughable. That is, I actually laughed when I read it. I’m still laughing. Make it stop Google.

I think they should be able to keep data around for a reasonable amount of time. There are lots of useful things that could be done with it. But, damn it, Google has no incentive to serve humanity with its data mining. They do have a profit motive however. Google saves the world vs. Google makes a shitload of money. Only one of these hasn’t happened yet.