Yes, the Ever-lasting contrast. Since existence has known, the 'fight' between good & evil has continued. Obviously, this fight can never end. Good things turn bad, bad things become good. My fav. contrasting symbol, because it is so true & means so much – the battle between good & bad never ends… Here we ponder on the tragedy of Dylan Klebold.
Month: February 2016
I speak out firmly against following in the footsteps of Eric and Dylan and will continue to do so for as long as I live. Not a hair on my head would consider voicing support of their actions or affirming their godlike delusions. They need to topple from their pedestal and be seen for who they were: scared, angry, insecure, awkward, petulant children. Not heroes. Not monsters. Just human beings.
I thought that I would share this here as well! It’s the first part of a very long and quite detailed look at our community here on Tumblr, which has none of the usual bias we have faced before and therefore hopefully provides a nicer view of us than is customary. I responded to the request for an interview myself and am therefore also featured in the article! I was surprised to see that I was its only in-depth responder, but very pleased to read that my own words remained unaltered throughout. Go take a look, you guys! It’s worth the read. =) (And nah, I’m not just saying that because I’m in it.. haha.)
Dyl intently focused on possibly origami, legos or some sort of toy that intricately fastens together.
I think often of watching Dylan do origami. Whereas most paper folders are meticulous about lining up the edges, fourth-grade Dylan tended to be more slapdash, and his figures were sometimes sloppy. But he’d only have to see a complicated pattern once to be able to duplicate it.
I loved to make a cup of tea and sit quietly beside him, watching his hands moving as quickly as hummingbirds, delighted to see Dylan turn a square of paper into a frog or a bear or a lobster. I’d always marvel at how something as straightforward as a piece of paper can be completely transformed with only a few creases, to become suddenly replete with new significance. Then I’d marvel at the finished form, the complex folds hidden and unknowable to me.
In many ways, that experience mirrored the one I would have after Columbine. I would have to turn what I thought I knew about myself, my son, and my family inside out and around, watching as a boy became a monster, and then a boy again.
Origami is not magic. Even the most complex pattern is knowable, something that can be mapped and understood. So it is, too, with brain illness and violence, and this mapping is the work we must now do. Depression and other types of brain disorders do not strip someone of a moral compass, and yet these are potentially life-threatening diseases that can impair judgment and distort a person’s sense of reality. We must turn our attention to researching and raising awareness about these diseases—and to dispelling the myths that prevent us from helping those who most need it. We must do so, not only for the sake of the afflicted, but also for the innocents who will continue to register as their casualties if we do not.
One thing is certain: when we can do a better job of helping people.
Eric jumped right in with the kills and slowed down mid way through the library. while conversely, Dylan spent time slowly warming up at the start of the massacre so by the time he made it into the library, along side Eric, he had psyched himself up to full-on killing. Once the two stepped into the library together, the dynamic was a sold force combined. For a very brief point in time hey were sympatico as the two encouraged one other while shooting randomly in tandem and mocking people with racial slurs and insults. They essentially played off each other almost as if they were doing a live action version of Doom, detached and amused by the acts they were actually committing at last. After Eric broke his nose while shooting Cassie Bernall, he began to lose momentum and wind down while Dylan, who was uninjured. was feeling fine and in top form and the in the killers mood that he initially slowly acclimated to. He was even ballsy enough to encourage Eric to shoot Bree Pasquele as Eric was having a verbal confrontation with her but by then Eric had lost the thrill as he was wonky and in pain and declined as he preferred the bombs do the job for them.
Though, I have to ask: why would you expect Eric to be more of a showman at NBK than Dylan?
They both set out to ‘have fun’ and each were both sadistic in their own way. Let’s not forget that these two boys chose this date to kill, planned for months with the specific goal to maim and kill people for the enjoyment of revenge? So, It should not be all too surprising that Dylan appeared to have a good time doing what he did either. Why would anyone plan a massacre that long and have a miserable time shooting people along side their buddy? No. The two meant for it to be them together having the last laugh with this foul school and it’s obnoxious, stuck up culture which messed them up and ruined them. They would ruin back and enjoy doing so before they pulled the plug.
Yes, I believe that author Ralph Larkin entertained the possibility of Dylan being bisexual but not at all a very strong case for it as I seem to recall that Larkin bases his information off the sketchy, questionable claims given by Mike Connors
I tend to think that it’s blatantly obvious that, yes, Veik, secretly looked up to Eric and that’s why Eric is in focus and always on the receiving end of Veik’s camera. Veik hung out with the boys and he was always enlisted by E & D to do their video filming for them but he was never really a part of their inner circle even though he spent time around them. In Hitmen for Hire, he plays the bullied, wimpy kid that gets to interact with tough guy trenchcoat mercenary REB Harris and in Radioactive Clothing, Veik plays that extra blurry faced character usually standing between E & D and watching them vicariously. When the massacre happened, Veik seemed so shocked, distraught and beside himself that the two actually went ahead and made good on all what he assumed was just idle, big talk of their plans of destruction. Eventually, by October of ‘99, Eric Veik himself was leaking to students that he was planning to ‘finish what they started’. Veik was arrested and probably sent to a juvenile rehab for his violent intent. Imo, yes, short, nerdy (and likely also bullied) Eric Veik secretly admired Eric Harris and what he had the balls to pull off.
No, I don’t think so. What I mean by that is I don’t think Eric observed his friend and reflected observantly with a ‘hm..Dylan seems kinda sad and maybe he’s depressed’. I tend to think Eric understood that Dylan was radiating bottled up angry from what leaked out of him and that he needed to be reminded of that fact so he would express his anger and hate more often and regularly as he himself had been partaking in. This was Eric’s remedy to make himself feel better and more empowered and so why wouldn’t it do the same for Dylan? For Eric, admitting or giving the impression of being sad and depressed would be like appearing in weak, emo state of being. Why wallow in passivity when you can be full of hate and loving it ? He’d make his best friend feel a shitton better by way of pumping him up to express his oppression and rage, taking his power back as just as the REB had discovered was the best anecdote to feeling like crap. So, essentially I think Eric viewed Dylan as far more mad than he ever was sad.
The entire evolution of your thoughts is the kind of cognitive dissonance feedback loop many of us go through especially on a daily basis now with the release of Sue’s book. There’s so much mixed, conflicting emotions yet at the dismal end to which your thoughts have led you, the decision is that we tend to come to the same conclusion; that we still care, despite the grave, permanent mistake he’d chosen to take in an act of violence which radiated the expression of his personal pain . That somewhere at the end of our grappling and processing of emotions, we ultimately choose love and compassion over fear and hate. Understanding the tragedy of his past is the key to saving others like him in the future.
It is and never well be a clear cut answer in how to feel about him: as he was beautiful (..as the sun) for who he once was and all that he could have become but then made ugly int the last hour of his life for what he’d done.
Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold walked into Columbine High School in April 1999 carrying guns and homemade pipe bombs. Within an hour, 12 students and a teacher were dead, and […]
PBSNews video interview:
The mother of a Columbine shooter on the son she thought she knew
Brooks Brown is incorrect and that’s most likely the source that Larkin used for his book. If you watch the video you can clearly see from the very start of the clip that the boy filming behind Eric and Mike V is essentially the same height as them and so the camera pov is level with two as they’re walking down the hallway in a group. You’ll then see the jocks appear and shove the cameraman at :20.
That said, Brooks is not the most reliable source. His timeline was completely off in his book as to when he and Eric had their falling out. He’s also stated he tends to believe that Eric shot Dylan.
So.. yeah. Not everything he says is accurate. Plus, Brooks is not in the video above so how would he even know? Brooks watched it and extrapolated that it must be Dylan with Eric when in fact it’s not. Dylan was not into following dudes around with the camera. Veik had a thing for filming/observing everyone safely behind the lense and most especially focused on Eric. ahem.
Dylan wasn’t on any prescribed SSRI anti-depressive medication. On the autopsy report, the results came back with no drugs present in his system either. However, he did medicate in secret with the natural, herbal mild anti-depressive known as St. John’s Wort. Per the book ‘A Mother’s Reckoning’, his mom not only had no clue that he was depressed but also that he was trying to muster his usual self reliant attitude attempting to fix his low mood and motivation all on his own. In the book, Sue describes spending time in Dylan’s bathroom upon his death and after bothering to take a peek inside his medicine cabinet, she discovered a half used bottle of St. John’s Wort. The authorities also found another half used bottlewhich they confiscated when they tore his room up on 4/20 and they also found another bottle in his BMW. Based on the number of bottles he had with him at home and on the go, I’d say he was popping them a few times per day hoping for the best. St. John’s Wort works best for mild forms of depression.
No, that’s not Dylan doing the filming in the ‘Eric in Columbine’ video. That was Eric Veik that did all of their filming as Eric and Mike V. are walking down the halls and also sitting/chatting in the Commons. It was Veik that gets himself and his camera shoved aside as the jocks brush past Eric and Mike V. However, at the very end of the video as Eric and Mike V. say goodbye to Brandi, and are walking into a classroom, you’ll see Dylan sauntering over to them af the very end of the clip.
Which brings to mind that Sue was misinformed by Ralph Larkin’s book ‘Comprehending Columbine’ as she regurgitates Larkin’s incorrect information that it was her son filming that scene and getting roughed up by the jocks with the camcorder. No Sue, sorry, that was Eric Veik. See video here
I don’t even know how Larkin can think that was Dylan as the dude filming is rather short in stature. lol I rolled my eyes and *SIGHED* when I read that bit and wondered if Sue herself had even watched the video on her own to determine it, in fact, it was Dylan getting shoved or not. I would sooo love to set the record straight for her on some of the blatant misinformation she’s gotten from some of the author experts while collecting research for her book. Larkin’s book has a lot of errors in it so taking his verbal or written word that it was Dylan being shoved while filming just to drive the point about the bullying culture in Columbine is just incorrect in this particular instance. It’s like grasping at straws using someone’s poor research.
p.s. Of all the Columbine books out there, and there are not to many, Comprehending Columbine is not a very accurate read.
Any which way he could? Older friends, permissive parents of friends, his bro, he would not be above obtaining a fake id. When there’s a will, there’s a way. 😉
Simply put, Nate pretty much left Columbine right after the massacre and went to Florida. His plan was to go to college and work for Microsoft. Only problem is he needed help paying for college and he saw nothing wrong with selling the Morning Ritual tape he’d made with Dylan (which they’d made to show his real dad in Florida what ‘A Day in a Life’ was like at High School for them) to pay for his tuition. No hard feelings Dylan, but hey after all, look what Dylan did to him? 😉 I would imagine the only thought in his teenage brain was that he was pretty much kicked out of HS and it was like ‘how can I make some money fast to pay for college?’ Nate coped by cutting his ties with Colorado, got out of dodge and moved to Florida with the hopes of trying to move on with his future, as shredded up as it presently was by Columbine. Others saw it as blood money, he did not. And I do not think he sold the tapes out of spite to Dylan, in all honesty. He was just doing what he needed to to get by. Probably even figured Dylan wouldn’t give a shit. Not that he should have a say in the matter anyway.. Still, Nate remembers all the good times he had with his friend Dylan, it’s hard to somehow forget all of those good times. Nate has apparently been very cooperative with Sue since he cannot quite forget his good friend Dylan and all the sleep over fun they had at the Klebolds as mentioned in the book. He is probably just as boggled and unreconciled today as to the bomb Dylan dropped on them all.
Nathan was paid $16,000 by ABC for an innocuous videotape he and Dylan Klebold had made. He also said an ABC producer called their home and offered them money for an appearance, and suggested they might make “$2 (million) or $3 million” from a book deal later on.
Good said they weren’t interested.
He said the media’s luck changed after Nathan left his Colorado home. Reached at his father’s home in Florida, Nathan tells a different story.
“I was broke. I had to leave my truck in Oklahoma where it broke down,” he said. “Now my college tuition is paid for. I’ve been criticized enough for this. What was it I did wrong? I know at least a dozen people who were offered money from the media.”
Nathan says he wasn’t paid for an interview, but for the videotape that Klebold and he made of a trip to school.
He did enter into an agreement with the National Enquirer, which he now says distorted, mischaracterized and misquoted what he said. [Source]
The Everlasting Contrast 