Package for NBC

Tags: Cho Seung-Hui, Ismail Ax, Virginia Tech

Why NBC? Materials Cho Seung-Hui sent to NBC appear to have been mailed in the two-hour window between the first burst of gunfire in a high-rise dormitory and the second fusillade, at a classroom building, according to the time stamp on the package, NBC reports.The package included digital images of Cho holding weapons and a manifesto with sentiments similar to the dorm room notes. The document “rants against rich people and warns that he wants to get even,” according to a law enforcement official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the case.MSNBC said that the package included a CD-ROM on which Cho read his manifesto.NBC said it immediately turned the package over to authorities on Wednesday. The package was sent to NBC News head Steve Capus.The package does not include any images of the shootings Monday, but it does include "vague references," including "things like 'This didn't have to happen,' " Capus said in an interview late Wednesday afternoon.

Michelle Malkin: If you haven't already read the December 2005 temporary detention order for VTech maniac Seung-Hui Cho, you should.

For Algerian student Nouri, who studies in the US, the shooting at Virginia Tech is too close to home for comfort. He links to this photograph, ripped from the Washington Post, which features one of his acquaintances, who goes to school there.

“The brown fellow to the right, just above and between the two girls in headscarves is a fellow named Khaled, who is also an Algerian. While 30 people were killed (including two Arab-Americans), it is good to know he is not hurt, and that the ordeal’s bloodshed is done with,” he writes.

Arabisto bloggers are also giving the incident blanket coverage, especially that three of the victims are Arabs - two of Lebanese origin and an Egyptian Phd student.

Blogger Rima Abdelkader updates us on victim Reema Samaha’s last dance here:

“Virginia Tech student, Reema Samaha, was murdered on Monday, April 16th along with a total of 32 other Virginia Tech students and faculty. Her family last visited her the weekend before this tragic shooting to watch her perform in a festival at Virginia Tech. A passionate dancer, Reema performed in a debka performance, a traditional Arab folk dance, with her classmates. Here are three clips with her and her classmates in show from YouTube.

Two Virginia Tech student groups, Palestinian Awareness at Virginia Tech and the Cedars of Lebanon, sponsored this fair, called the International Street Fair 2007,” she explains.

The other victim of Lebanese origin is Ross Abdullah Alameddine, 20. Lebanese blogger Jounoune updates us about how the two Lebanese families are dealing with the shock in this link to a newspaper report.

Nadia Gergis , who also writes for Arabisto, links to an interview with Reema’s father.

"Ismail Ax". Two words, in red ink, adorning the arm of mass-murderer Cho Seung Hui. Several students and professors described Cho as a sullen loner. Authorities said he left a rambling note raging against women and rich kids. News reports said that Cho, a 23-year-old senior majoring in English, may have been taking medication for depression and that he was becoming increasingly erratic. Cho sparked a Netscrubbing by the public, the likes of which has never been seen ! People went searching for clues to what might havetriggered the nation's worst mass killings.

Almost as soon as the Chicago Tribune's website reported "Ismail Ax", it was picked up by news bureaus around the world and the blogosphere blossomed with theories about it's possible meaning. Some bloggers speculated on a link to Islam or to literature. Thousands offered opinions; millions read the commentaries.The rapid search and response of that term offered another snapshot of just how swiftly the web disseminates information and connects people.

The Meaning of Ismail Ax

For those of you still searching for meaning in this phrase, written in ink on Cho Seung-Hui's arm and also how he signed his infamous note, it starts with the story of Ibrahim's Ax (Ibrahim = Abraham):

After making sure that nobody was left in town, Ibrahim went towards the temple armed with an ax. Statues of all shapes and sizes were sitting there adorned with decorations. Plates of food were offered to them, but the food was untouched. "Well, why don't you eat? The food is getting cold." He said to the statues, joking; then with his ax he destroyed all the statues except one, the biggest of them. He hung the ax around its neck and left.
--The Koran

Ismail was Ibrahim's son. It was Ismail that Ibrahim wanted to sacrifice for Yahweh (with an ax).

A reader pointed out that "Ismail" is also a variant on the narrator in Moby Dick, and although Cho was an English major, the relationship between Moby Dick's Ismail and an ax/e is less clear.

*totally ripped from someone else's blog*

Yahoo reported that "Virginia Tech shooting" was the most searched term on its site. Traffic at news organisation sites also surged. At Facebook.com, hundreds of impromptu memorials to the victims were posted, many adorned with a black ribbon circling the school's logo. Technorati.com said that by late afternoon Tuesday, there were nearly 300 blog posts regarding Ismail Ax.

The phrase was the 10th most popular search counted by Technorati. With two other terms related to the Virginia Tech killing in its top 10, that meant that millions of people got online to search.

It is not yet known if Cho kept a weblog. Professors and classmates were alarmed by his class writings -- pages filled with twisted, violence-drenched writing.

"It was not bad poetry. It was intimidating," poet Nikki Giovanni, one of his professors, told CNN Wednesday.

Giovanni said her students were so unnerved by Cho's behavior, including taking pictures of them with his cell phone, that some stopped coming to class and she had security check on her room. She eventually had him taken out of her class, saying she would quit if he wasn't removed. Lucinda Roy, a co-director of creative writing at Virginia Tech, said she tutored Cho after that. "He was so distant and so lonely," she told ABC's "Good Morning America" Wednesday. "It was almost like talking to a hole, as though he wasn't there most of the time. He wore sunglasses and his hat very low so it was hard to see his face." Roy also described using a code word with her assistant to call police if she ever felt threatened by Cho, but she said she never used it.

Ian MacFarlane, a former classmate of Cho's has posted two plays Cho wrote for a drama course they took together last fall at the news blog at AOL. MacFarlane, now an AOL employee, paints a chilling portrait of Cho:

When we read Cho's plays, it was like something out of a nightmare. The plays had really twisted, macabre violence that used weapons I wouldn't have even thought of. Before Cho got to class that day, we students were talking to each other with serious worry about whether he could be a school shooter. I was even thinking of scenarios of what I would do in case he did come in with a gun, I was that freaked out about him. When the students gave reviews of his play in class, we were very careful with our words in case he decided to snap. Even the professor didn't pressure him to give closing comments.

It is MacFarlane's next words some have found most troubling:

While I "knew" Cho, I always wished there was something I could do for him, but I couldn't think of anything. As far as notifying authorities, there isn't (to my knowledge) any system set up that lets people say "Hey! This guy has some issues! Maybe you should look into this guy!" If there were, I definitely would have tried to get the kid some help. I think that could have had a good chance of averting yesterday's tragedy more than anything.

Yet it seems Cho did more than write disturbing plays. The Chicago Tribune reports an anonymous source that says that Cho had recently set a fire in a dorm room and had stalked some women. If these allegations are true, why wasn't Cho sanctioned for it?

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