define: Jared Barden

Yesterday a horrible tragedy took place on the campus of Virginia Tech, when a 23-year old senior English major brutally killed 32 people.

It’s still a little bit shocking and overwhelming at the moment. It’s been a lot to take in in a short amount of time. I just keep thinking, “why would someone do this?” How can you get to the point where you are that angry/hopeless/depressed, etc. that you brutally gun down 32 innocent bystanders? How does one get to that point? It’s just shocking.

The sad thing is that you can already feel politics working its way into this situation, which isn’t even 48 hours old. That’s really a shame. These people haven’t even had time to cope with the situation, let alone grieve, and we’re already hearing about renewed calls for gun control.

I’ve heard a couple things that bothered that I thought I’d address.

1.) This incident could have been prevented by extensive use of security cameras.

While the following statement probably has some truth to it, you know how people are when it comes to their privacy. People bristle at the thought of that privacy being invaded in any way, shape, or form. My guess is that if there had been calls for greater amounts of security cameras on the campus, it would have met with much protest.

Of course, now everyone thinks this would be a great idea.

2.) Stricter gun control could have prevented this tragedy.

Sorry, that’s simply not true. When someone has reached the point that this young man did, there isn’t anything anyone can do to keep them from their “mission” (except for a miracle). If the shooter hadn’t been able to get a gun, he would have constructed some sort of homemade bomb, or come up with some other way to carry out this horrific act.

It may sound cliché, but guns don’t kill people – people kill people. We as a people have a constitutional right to bear arms. Now, that also means that we have a responsibility to bear those arms in an appropriate way. I think people don’t understand that sometimes when they get on their “ban all guns” campaigns.

I feel horrible for the families that lost loved ones in this tragedy, but taking away peoples’ guns is not the answer.

Hopefully something can be done to help prevent this kind of situation in the future. However, that action needs to be something that does not infringe on inviduals’ constitutional rights.

The scary thing, as I mentioned earlier, is that it is hard to stop someone who is bent on carrying out this sort of act. I think it goes to show that people can have a positive impact on other people’s lives. Keep your eyes open. Keep your ears open. Be that person that someone can turn to – that someone can confide in. Share Jesus’ love with people. That doesn’t mean that you shove Christianity down someone’s throat, but that you be there for them, like Jesus would be. You listen to them. You love them. You pray for them. Perhaps if more people had been able to be that kind of influence in this young man’s life, this tragedy might have been avoided.

I’ve wanted to post on the whole Don Imus situation for a while now, but I wanted to wait until I was able to put my thoughts together in a coherent fashion. This is that attempt.

Let me start out by saying that I think what Don Imus said was totally inappropriate and he most likely deserved the punishment he received. I do have a problem with how hypocritical we as a society are on this issue.

I would like to present an idea on this whole situation. What Don Imus said wouldn’t have even been considered racist had he not been a white male and the subjects of his remarks not been African American women. The first word he used describes a hair style, and the second word describes a “loose” woman. Hardly words that are racist, except for the context of this particular exchange.

But I digress. My main point I want to get across is that our society is so hypocritical on this issue. All sorts of hip hop artists use this kind of language in their songs all the time, and somehow that is ok for whatever crazy reason. That just doesn’t make sense to me. If it’s not ok for one person to say something, then it shouldn’t be for another, but maybe that is just my crazy, narrow-minded opinion.

As I listened to people talk about the subject again tonight, a couple people asked where the forgiveness was in this story, and I think they make a valid point. We’re so quick to nail people when they’ve done wrong and not even give them a chance. Then one of the panelists responded with the oh so logical answer that we as a people should only forgive Don if the Rutgers women’s basketball team forgives him. I’m sorry, what kind of nonsense is that? You should forgive, period. It should be attached to some kind of string. How can you even call that true forgiveness?

The whole situation just makes me shake my head. We live in a crazy world.

I learned this afternoon how incredibly important it is not to be rude. I know, I know, pretty common sense, but I had some first-hand experiences today that led me to believe that it’s not quite as common sense to some people.

My friends were catering a wedding where my wife was the photographer. I wasn’t planning on going to the wedding, but my friends were in a pinch and needed a hand. We were able to successfully pull the whole thing off in the nick of time, but I couldn’t get over how rude some people were.

I was tasked with putting out the napkins and silverware for the guests. It went pretty well, until people actually started showing up while I was placing the silverware. I tried to stay out of peoples’ way for the most part. I hate bothering people if I don’t have to. Call it social anxiety or whatever, but it just makes me uncomfortable. It was while I was trying to place the silverware around people that I had an experience that pushed my blood pressure to the boiling point.

When I first wrote this post, I went on to expound on the situation, but after a couple days of thinking, I thought it best to just delete what I had written. I shouldn’t have gotten so worked up about the situation in the first place, no matter how rude people were.

There were other little annoying things that happened along the way, and I got to see just how demanding and rude people can be firsthand.

So, the next time you’re at a restaurant and something isn’t going your way, or someone is waiting on you, try being polite and understanding. That way  everyone will be better off.

A school in New Jersey recently staged a hostage situation to see how their school would handle the situation and work with local authorities. However, they made an interesting choice for the gunmen in the scenario.

Apparently, the school wanted the drill to be as realistic as possible, so they chose Christian gunmen, including, “one who was upset that his daughter was expelled for praying before class.”

What bothers me, among other things, is this quote from the school’s superintendent.

“You perform as you practice. We need to practice under conditions as real as possible in order to evaluate our procedures and plans so that they’re as effective as possible.”

Ah yes this is a very realistic scenario, because we can all think of a time where Christian gunmen took school children hostage in an American high school because they didn’t believe in the separation of church and state. Come on, give me a break. I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried.

It’s also funny, because I don’t believe it’s a crime for a student to pray before class, so the reason for the supposed attack really is no reason at all.

The funny thing is that you won’t read much about this in the mainstream press, which doesn’t make it any less true, which people are wont to think sometimes. However, if the shoe were on the other foot – if these were Islamic terrorists, or homosexual gunmen, or maybe even “Gunmen for Global Warming” (that’s my phrase, I claim it!), there would be such a firestorm that the superintendent would most likely be forced to resign by the end of the week.

Some might say this isn’t a big deal, but why do we have to label Christians as hostage takers, in a supposedly “realistic” scenario? Why can’t we just leave it at gunmens with no association at all?

This past weekend we travelled to Sunbury, PA to visit some friends of ours. One of the highlights of the night was going to be everyone getting a chance to play the Wii – or so I thought.

Whenever we leave on these Friday trips, their is usually a sense of urgency to get things packed up and loaded as soon as possible, so we can get to wherever we’re going sooner rather than later. Why I don’t just pack things up on Thursday night instead is beyond me.
So I packed everything up, including the Wii, and we drove off. After we arrived, we spent some time chatting, and then went to set up the Wii. To my horror and embarassment, everything was there – the remotes, the sensor bar, the games, etc. – except for the power cord!

I felt so bad, since our friends’ kids were excited to play the Wii. If we hadn’t been so far away, I would have turned back around to get the cord.

In the end, we had a great time just visiting, watching some TV, and just generally hanging out. Plus, now we have an excuse to visit again sooner rather than later.

So, as the saying goes, “Don’t leave home with out it.”

Posting has been a little slow lately. Let me try to explain why.

1.) I’ve been working a lot on a web design project for the Endless Mountain Music Festival. This has been eating up a fair amount of my free time.

2.) Danielle and I have been ridiculously busy. Between church, PowerKidz, photography, birthday gatherings, other gatherings, etc. etc. etc. our free time seems to have dwindled.

I’ve finally gotten to the point where I’m going to have to start saying “no” to certain things, which I really hate to do, but I refuse to run myself ragged. That doesn’t do me any good, or Danielle, God, or anyone else for that matter.

3.) Anything not covered by #’s 1 and 2.

A lot of great stuff is going on in our lives at the moment. Danielle has been experiencing a lot less jaw pain, which is awesome! Things at work are going well for both of us. We have amazing friends, an amazing church family, 24 is getting crazy, March Madness is here, and the list goes on.

I hope to pick up the posting pace at some point, but that remains to be seen.

I ran across an interesting story about a polar bear named Knut over the last couple of days. One animal rights activist’s suggestion of how the bear should be taken care of shocked me.

Over at Reuters, they have more information regarding Knut, a baby polar bear whose mother abandoned him at the Berlin Zoo. I don’t mean to make a general remark about all animal rights activists, but one Frank Albrecht’s comments that the bear should be killed rather than raised by humans was quite shocking.

It just seems to me that if your are in the business of looking out for animals, that you would want to save them, not kill them. I understand that a polar bear being raised in captivity is much different than it would be if it were to be raised in the wild, but why not let the little guy live? I don’t think it’s going to hurt anyone. At least he has a chance in captivity.

So, I say, Save Baby Knut!