Columbine

[janjo]

Brilliant Dave. Well done!

[Desecra]

Congratulations, Dave. 

[Dave Cullen]

thanks. it's nice to feel the love here, at home.

[janjo]

You're welcome, Dave. None of us would be here without you.

[Melby]

Huge award!! So deserved! Many congrats, Dave! Enjoy!!

[Dave Cullen]

short piece about it in today's NY Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/03/books/03arts-EDGARAWARDSG_BRF.html?ref=books

[Nikki]

short piece about it in today's NY Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/03/books/03arts-EDGARAWARDSG_BRF.html?ref=books

What a thrill that must have been for you, Dave!

[chuckyv]

Next on your "to do" list: the Pulitzer prize.
Excellent to read of your successes. Congratulations Dave.

[Tonkatodd]

What can you say? Dave is the shizz.

He reinvents nonfiction as we fiddle and the forum burns.

[KittyHawk]

Dave heads to Chicago this week. If you're in the area, join him for a discussion of COLUMBINE and a book signing.
Thursday, May 13, 6:00 PM
DePaul University, McGowan South 105
1110 W. Belden, Chicago, IL 60614

[Dave Cullen]

The chicago trip was great. but i am beat. i did my first middle school yesterday, though, which was cool.

[killersmom]

FROM DAVE:

FYI, I'll be on SpikeTV tomorrow morning, Saturday, July 24, 2010

It's 9am ET, 11 MT--I'm not sure about west coast.

For Immediate Release: July 22, 2010

This week on the groundbreaking ‘Don’t Be a Victim’ block on Spike, we’ll hear from Columbine High’s Principal Frank DeAngelis on the events that day that forever changed the way Law Enforcement and civilians should handle an active shooter situation.  We will also hear from famed author, Dave Cullen on what students and others should learn from the massacre to stay safe.  Is the 9mm, .40cal or .45cal best for you?  Trained experts will weigh-in on the great caliber debate on Beretta’s, ‘Because Lives Depend on It’.  We will also head to Los Angeles to take a tour of the world’s safest home and see what features you can adopt in your home.  Do you know what to do if someone threatens your life?  Danny Coulson will tell his story of how he evened the odds against potential attackers.  We’ll also review why the Sig Sauer 556 may be your choice for home defense.
 
‘Don’t Be a Victim’ airs Saturdays, 9am-11am Eastern (check local listings for times in your area).
 
For a preview of this week’s block, and to tell us your story of survival against violence, click here: www.dontbeavictimtv.com[/i]

[michaelflanagansf]

Dave, I was recently reading Michael Kimmel's book 'Guyland:  The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men' and came across his very different theory on the Columbine killings, one which your book pretty much refutes (regarding bullying and the attacks).  I actually found other parts of the book interesting, however, and was wondering if you've come across him and his theories regarding young men or perhaps have discussed your differing viewpoints regarding Columbine.

[Dave Cullen]

Linda, thanks for getting the word up. Sorry I found out about the timing so late.

Michael, I've not heard of that author/book. Does he include endnotes on where he got his info/conclusions about bullying? When was it published?

Unless he traveled to Colorado to independently report that part of the story--or culled through thousands of pages of evidence--it's likely he got them the same place as everyone else: the major media reporting on the crime. It's well documented now (by me, and others) that the media got most of Columbine wrong, beyond the basic facts of what happened. But that was not widely known in the general public.

It's perilous to rely on media reporting, but that's what most people, including many scholars do. That's why it's so awful/dangerous when the press botches a major story so badly: we leave a trail of misinformation, which goes round and round for eternity.

[michaelflanagansf]

Linda, thanks for getting the word up. Sorry I found out about the timing so late.

Michael, I've not heard of that author/book. Does he include endnotes on where he got his info/conclusions about bullying? When was it published?

Unless he traveled to Colorado to independently report that part of the story--or culled through thousands of pages of evidence--it's likely he got them the same place as everyone else: the major media reporting on the crime. It's well documented now (by me, and others) that the media got most of Columbine wrong, beyond the basic facts of what happened. But that was not widely known in the general public.

It's perilous to rely on media reporting, but that's what most people, including many scholars do. That's why it's so awful/dangerous when the press botches a major story so badly: we leave a trail of misinformation, which goes round and round for eternity.

'Guyland' was published in 2008, Dave.  The reference to Columbine takes up a little over one page - pg. 89-90.  He refers to it after Luke Woodham (the Pearl, Mississippi student) and Michael Carneal (Paducah, Kentucky).  Interestingly enough he ties both of those cases to accusations of homosexuality by other students.  Here's what he says about Harris and Klebold:

'Columbine High School has become the touchstone case, the case to which all observers must eventually refer.  And even here, the connection between being socially marginalized, picked on, and bullied propelled Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold deeper into their video-game inspired fantasies of a vengeful bloodbath.  Athletes taunted them: "Nice dress" they'd say.  They would throw rocks and bottles at them from moving cars.  The school newspaper had recently published a rumor that Harris and Klebold were lovers.  Here's the way one of their friends described his experience with the jock culture that ruled the school:

'Almost on a daily basis, finding death threats in my locker...It was bad.  People...who I never even met, never had a class with, don't know who they were to this day.  I didn't drive at the time I was in high school; I walked home.  And every day when they'd drive by, they'd throw trash out their window at me, glass bottles.  I'm sorry, you get hit with a glass bottle that's going forty miles an hour, that hurts pretty bad.  Like I said, I never even knew these people, so didn't even know what their motivation was.  But this is something I had to put up with nearly every day for four years....'

On April 20, 1999, Harris and Klebold brought an arsenal of weapons to their high school and proceeded to walk through the school, shooting whomever they could find.  The entire school was held under siege until the police secured the building.  In all, twenty-three students and faculty were injured, and fifteen died, including one teacher and the perpetrators.

To this day, Americans remain shocked and horrified by the tragic shooting at Columbine.  In a way, it defies explanation.  At the same time, it demands it.  Efforts by those who would preserve the bully culture--to make the story of Harris and Klebold a case of psychologically unhinged but rational and conscious moral actors--fall sadly short.  New psychiatric analysis offers a more complex portrait of Klebold, a depressed and troubled boy, and Harris, a coldblooded, remorseless psychopath.  But the effort to substitute an image of evil or 'simple' psychopathology for an image of aggrieved entitlement of the victims of bullying and relentless torture reveals a psychological myopia that could only come from one who had never experienced it.  If Harris was indeed so deranged, then it begs the question of why no one in the entire school ever seems to have noticed.

School shooters are malicious because they are miserable and angry.  Tormented by their peers and marginalized from the mainstream culture, they use violence as a way to restore their manhood which has been challenged.  Though certainly psychologically troubled, even insane, many of the rampage school shooters carry their sence of aggrieved entitlement like a badge of honor.  They are fervent subscribers to the Guy Code, particularly the belief that real men don't get mad, they get even.  In fact, of all the students at Columbine High School on that sunny morning in April 1999, it's possible that none was a more passionate true believer in the Guy Code than were Klebold and Harris."

As you can see, Mr. Kimmel didn't know about the harassing that Harris did to another student prior to the attack (which, as you detail, had been pointed out to the police) or the incident where Klebold and Harris broke into the van.

Here are his references:

'rumor that Harris and Klebold were lovers', N. Gibbs and T. Roche, "The Columbine Tapes: In Five Secret Videos They Recorded Before the Massacre, the Killers Reveal Their Hatred--and Their Lust for Fame" in Time, December 20, 1999, p. 40

'put up with nearly every day for four years', Ralph Larkin, "Comprehending Columbine" (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2007), p. 91

He's a professor at SUNY Stony Brook - here's his website:

http://creativepromotionsagency.com/mk/

And the website for his book 'Guyland':

http://www.guyland.net/