blog, diversity, news, race

Goh profile expands; He wanted his money back from Oikos U.

As more information is revealed about the Oikos University shooting suspect One L. Goh,  a conflicting profile emerges.

Is he an awkward but failed would-be womanizer?  An angry consumer who wanted his money back ? A crazed gunman?  Or a cold-blooded execution-style killer?

At a media conference on Wednesday, Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley offered a new twist when she said Goh  was not kicked out of Oikos, but had left voluntarily  last November.

Earlier reports said Goh left at the beginning of the year for “bad behavior.”

But O’Malley indicated  a key reason for the voluntary departure was a disagreement over the return of admission costs. Goh wanted his money back. The school had refused any refund.  This may explain why a school administrator is believed to have been his main target.

Police had originally said Goh was angered because people made fun of how he talked, and his accent.

One instructor, Romie Delariman, told the Chronicle, that  Goh seemed to be looking to the school as a source of friendship and companionship, when he should have been looking to the school to learn.  He apparently wasn’t successful in making the personal connections he sought.  Some said it was how he talked to people as much as how he sounded.  Delariman went so far as to described Goh as “mentally unstable.”

When O’Malley was asked whether anything could have prevented Goh’s outburst, she dismissed any notion of mental instability.

Said O’Malley:”I don’t think this individual (Goh) particularly displayed any behaviors anyone saw that would have predicted the magnitude of his murderous rage.”

How can she be so sure? At least, one instructor appears to dispute that statement.

The case is being set up for the death penalty, with the special circumstance charges against Goh. 

O’Malley’s  got Goh’s voluntary admission, And her confidence level is high.

I wonder if anyone has advised Goh of his legal rights before he “confessed”?

For as much as O’Malley said at the media conference, she did show some restraint by not answering more detailed questions. Of course, she was protecting the “people’s interest.”

Someone should be protecting Goh’s. 

He’s charged with horrific crimes.  If he’s guilty, let’s let that come out after he gets his due—a fair trial.

blog, diversity, news, race

Should Oikos University take some blame in how it treated Goh?

One L. Goh, the Oikos University gunman gets his perp walk today. It’s not the nursing school graduation he hoped to have some day.

Hard to see how it could have been any different as more is revealed about Goh.

The Chronicle has an interview with Romie Delariman, Goh’s nursing instructor.

She calls Goh “mentally unstable” and “paranoid.”

 http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/04/04/MNLR1NU3F1.DTL

But if the intstructor was correct in her assessment, why didn’t the small school attempt to address the issue? 

In the Virginia Tech shooting, much was made of how the local mental health care responders did come in and make a difference in 2007, but it was all after the fact.

All the post-mortems of that tragedy still come to the conclusion that the overall access to mental health care at the school was lacking leading up to what became the most violent school shooting in U.S. history.

But that was big Viriginia Tech. This is small Oikos U.  It seems that given the more intimate setting of the Oakland nursing school there should have been a little better effort to connect Goh to the help he obviously needed.

Instead, it seems it help usher him out the door. Was Oikos Goh’s safety net that failed?

Go to my original piece posted on the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund blog:

http://aaldef.org/blog/no-model-minority-the-alienation-of-oaklands-one-l-goh.html

blog, news, politics

That odd SCOTUS health care debate: Do we really want what’s worst for all Americans?

My mom is an idealist when it comes to affordable health care. And she’s unassailable. She died years ago.

But she knew the secret about making sure people got the coverage they needed. It’s called Medicare, though it should be called what it really is: single-payer health care.

It works. It’s not unconstitutional. And it can withstand the Tea Party’s illogical attacks.

http://aaldef.org/blog/saving-justice-kennedys-blind-man-and-the-affordable-care-act.html

While driving the other day,  I saw I sign a Tea Party type put up on the side of the road. It said, “Obama–Hands off my health care!”

Who really likes it the way it is, besides the big corporations? Health care is a large bureacracy that’s too expensive and leaves out way too many Americans. The only way to make it cheaper is if everyone gets in  and all the bad costs are  spread over a wide pool of folks.

The Affordable Care Act took care of that. It may not be perfect, but it expanded the pool and made coverage more fair.

We should be heralding the coming expansion of the ACA in 2014.

But after listening to the Justices the other day, I worry if this court will do the right thing.

This is after all, the court that believes corporations are people.

http://aaldef.org/blog/saving-justice-kennedys-blind-man-and-the-affordable-care-act.html

blog, news, sports

Update: Farewell to HBO’s “Luck”

They won the race, but they lost the baby. And the show.

The first two are fake. But the show is real, as are the three  horse deaths sustained during the production of HBO’s “Luck.”

And that’s why last night’s “Luck” was far more than a “season” finale. It was the final final. it’s theme song was a dirge signalling the end of “Luck.”

Too bad. The show is really about the human interaction. The racing scenes were incidental. They could have easily been done in a way to prevent harm to the animals. The scenes that are more poignant are back at the stable anyway.  Yet pProducers were so quick to cancel  after PETA exposed the horse deaths. To satisfy PETA, the producers didn’t have to cancel. They merely had to assure that the animals would be safe.

Why couldn’t David Milch and Michael Mann do that? Instead, they went straight to the cancellation option.

If you saw the credits last night,  you may have noticed the disclaimer at the end was different.  It didn’t say “no animals were harmed.”

It simply said the American Humane Association “monitored” the production.

Exactly what this means isn’t clear, but whatever monitoring was done clearly wasn’t enough to assure safety for the horses on the show.

What’s amazing is that the horse racing industry continues to think “Luck” was good for business and continues to criticize PETA.

The organization that deserves the scrutiny is AHA.

But let’s not get hung up about the fake races in fictional drama.

As the New York Times reported yesterday, there are many more deaths and drama with real horses in real races.

The industry has found a way to bring cash to the races by bringing in casino-style gambling and slot machines to the tracks. But being flush with cash has not brought out the humane side of the horsemen. Instead, the race purses are so rich, even for the lowest quality horses, that greedy horsemen keep sending out their unfit stock to race for the money.

Unfit horses? Well, if not for the drugs.

Emil Guillermo's amok commentary on race, politics, diversity…and everything else. It's Emil Amok's Takeout!

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