Sunday 070422 - Virginia Tech Tragedy and Federal Drug Records Database; Hibernation /leaf raking / breaking glasses

In my initial reading of stories about the Virginia Tech tragedy, I thought I came across a reference to a national database of people who take antidepressants, which indicated that Cho was not listed in the database.

Well. this certainly gives one pause for thought. There's a national database of people who take antidepressants!!!

However, there is a clarification at Boing Boing: VA Tech shootings: Wikipedia, federal drug records database.

So the database applies to "schedules II-V controlled substances (spam-email things like ritalin, valium, xanax, adderall, vicodin, and oxycontin) but the most commonly prescribed antidepressants like prozac, lexapro, zoloft, effexor, etc are schedule six and thus not considered controlled substances.

But even that is scary. Especially since I take two II-V controlled substances: G.E. Alprazolam (xanax) and G.E. Clonazepam (klonopin).

The Wikipedia article is indeed very thorough. "It is the second deadliest school-related killing in U.S. history, behind the 1927 Bath School disaster which claimed 45 lives, including 38 school children, through the use of explosives." Never having heard of the 1927 Bath School disaster, I looked it up. And in a thousand years, you would never guess who the killer was - school board president Andrew Kehoe.

There's another article at Wikipedia - School Shooting. It in turn mentions the THE FINAL REPORT AND FINDINGS OF THE SAFE SCHOOL INITIATIVE: IMPLICATIONS FOR THE PREVENTION OF ATTACKS IN THE UNITED STATES. - UNITED STATE SECRET SERVICE AND UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION"

There has to be a systemic policy for dealing with school violence including a zero tolerance regulations dealing with bullying, an elimination of the the "jock mentality, extensive diversity training. Far too many principals are former coaches, so there's "a boys will be boys" attitude. Diversity training needs to extend from student to school board level.

" Then we have "Former House Minority Leader Tom DeLay says gun control laws caused the Virginia Tech massacre, adding, "We need to remove the ban of guns on the Virginia Tech campus and allow people to defend themselves." "

I slept a lot Sunday, because I felt very, very tired. Hence, I did not leave the premises.

But I think late in the afternoon, I raked up two trash containers of leaves and pine straw. Then I must have done the same Monday, for late Monday when I took out the household garbage, there were four containers of yard debris.

Sometime Sunday evening, I managed to break the temples off the left side of my glasses. I know what the lenses are, and the frames, and nose piece, but I don't think I'd ever heard a word for the frames to the ear. Well, the official name is the temple.

I remember from reading "The Name of the Rose" by Umberto Eco,which takes places in 1327, that the main character, William of Baskerville, had a pair of glasses which eventually were stolen. So they have been around far longer than you would ordinarily think.

According to Wikipedia's article of Glasses, "The earliest pictorial evidence for the use of eyeglasses provides Tomaso da Modena's 1352 portrait of the cardinal Hugh de Provence reading in a scriptorium."

I also remember the fact there was an early painting of someone wearing glasses for Kenneth Clarke's TV series "Civilization." I also remember that not much attention was paid to the significance of the painting. So now I now know who, when and where.