Father of the century: Pete Lanza

[cybrxkhan]

I don't know if any of us really have enough information to assign definitive "blame" for any actor here, outside of the actual shooter.

Have to agree with this here. I think it's important not to jump to conclusions too quickly based on a media report; sometimes you really don't know these people and don't know whats going on inside their heads.

 

[trader/warrior]

What's next? An interview with Anders Breivik's parents?

A book called "The Mother" based on interviews with Breiviks mother is out and was on the top of the Norwegian best-seller list. Apparently she tried to stop the book being published before she died... I think it sounds stupid as hell but I see no reason to stop it (disregarding the issues with the mothers consent in the breivik book which was definitely fishy).

 

[peter grimes]

And the columbine kids' parents have done plenty of attention-seeking interviews, too.

https://www.google.com/search?q=int...arents&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&spell=1

Seriously, you cynics are really not seeing the humanity here.

 

[Kyriakos]

I don't see any humanity in his father, no. Doesn't have to do with the son, cause (as i mentioned) other fathers of serial/mass killers showed a human stance (eg Dahmer's father etc). This one seems fake and quite creepy in my view..

 

[Farm Boy]

I don't see any humanity in his father, no. Doesn't have to do with the son, cause (as i mentioned) other fathers of serial/mass killers showed a human stance (eg Dahmer's father etc). This one seems fake and quite creepy in my view..

Back to my original questions: Why does he seem fake? How is he creepy? What do you want him to say? He hasn't said "he never loved his son." He's said "he wishes his son had never been born." That's different. Not a translation issue, is it?

 

[Kyriakos]

Hm, he also said that his son was "a normal weird kid".

The love there is palpable

 

[Farm Boy]

I think it's a translation issue. That isn't a pejorative, to my understanding. I grew up feeling like I was "a normal weird kid." I was friends with a lot of normal weird kids. Some of them got less weird with age, some of them didn't, some are now on medication, to varying degrees of success. But none of them have done anything like Adam Lanza. None of them have turned out to be that terrible a person. And I would be flummoxed if at some point one of them did turn out to do something monstrous. And it would then sound trite when I said it.

 

[Kyriakos]

^It is one thing for you (or others) to self-identify that way, and quite massively another issue for a father to say this of his kid, moreso when the kid is linked to a massacre.

It comes off rather dumb, or even a bit on the surreal side of things.

 

[Formaldehyde]

This is the part I think is particularly revealing:

Since the shootings, Peter has avoided the press, but in September, as the first anniversary of his son’s rampage approached, he contacted me to say that he was ready to tell his story. We met six times, for interviews lasting as long as seven hours. Shelley, a librarian at the University of Connecticut, usually joined us and made soup or chili or salads for lunch….An accountant who is a vice-president for taxes at a General Electric subsidiary, he maintains a nearly fanatical insistence on facts, and nothing annoyed him more in our conversations than speculation—by me, the media, or anyone else. He is not by nature given to self-examination, and often it was Shelley who underlined the emotional ramifications of what he said.

As Peter Lanza told the New Yorker, "With hindsight, I know Adam would have killed me in a heartbeat, if he'd had the chance. I don't question that for a minute. The reason he shot Nancy four times was one for each of us: one for Nancy; one for him; one for (his brother) Ryan; one for me."

No, no "speculation" there from a father who cared so much about his son that he didn't see him for two years. But he did occasionally call his ex-wife who supposedly didn't want him to see his own son.

And then he contacted the New Yorker for an "exclusive interview" near the anniversary of the incident which took over 6 sessions, some being as long as seven hours. I wonder how much he was paid and when the book will be announced.

 

[Farm Boy]

This whole thing isn't surreal? I think it's surreal and I'm not living it!

I've always felt "normal weird kid" would should come off as a term of endearment. Saying somebody was the "perfect son" or "perfect wife" dehumanizes them and attempts to cast them in bronze. And it probably isn't very accurate. If your son happens to be a "normal weird kid" you can love him for exactly how he is, warts, issues, unhappiness and all. Calling his son a "normal weird kid" is actually what made it so horrifyingly sad that's this man has reached the almost inexorable conclusion that he wishes that he'd never had a son at all in hindsight. Do bear in mind mental and emotional traits can be inherited. What makes you think the father of Adam Lanza doesn't come biologically to struggling with some (hopefully quieter) mental demons himself?

 

[peter grimes]

Farm Boy is saying almost exactly what I'm thinking here.

And I'm surprise Formaldehyde isn't using his usual journslistic-exagerration detector to sniff out the typical embellishments a writer will add to a piece like this.

I'm not saying Peter Lanza is incapable of inconsistencies, but at least you're usually very good at recognizing selective quotes and the dangers of drawing Hard & Fast conclusions from them.

 

[BenitoChavez]

Off topic here but I find it fascinating that 2 (or more) people can read the same article and come to different conclusions about what is said.

 

[downtown]

FWIW, unless they changed their policy very recently, the New Yorker doesn't pay interview subjects.

 

[Formaldehyde]

FWIW, someone who spends six sessions with a reporter in an "exclusive interview", some taking 7 hours, is usually either getting paid to do it or is expecting to be paid in some other way.

This should have taken 15 minutes on the phone if he just wanted to finally get "closure".

 

[downtown]

FWIW, someone who spends six sessions with a reporter in an "exclusive interview", some taking 7 hours, is usually either getting paid to do it or is expecting to be paid in some other way.

This should have taken 15 minutes on the phone if he just wanted to finally get "closure".

Nah, people do that ALL THE TIME for free. The subject may still feel that they're getting "compensation", but that doesn't have to be monetary gain. Maybe the guy felt that talking it over with a reputable reporter would help assuage his guilt. Maybe he thought it might repair his image. Maybe he's egotistical. Who knows?

 

[Formaldehyde]

Like I said it is likely fame or monetary, or both.

But either way I think what he said certainly wasn't worth all this time even discussing it, much less spending so much time detailing it with the New Yorker, being hypocritical speculation he supposedly hates so much.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Off topic here but I find it fascinating that 2 (or more) people can read the same article and come to different conclusions about what is said.

I think that's perfectly on-topic.

The topic being that some people seem to be able to make a judge of character by nothing else but reading a selection of quotes from a yahoo article.

Now for any occasion that would have been pretty spectacular, but in this instance we are talking about a parent who has to deal with the fact that his son turned into a serial killer at a mass shooting. That is a pretty intense fact to deal with. I for one couldn't imagine the kind of emotions that are involved in dealing with such an issue.

This thread basically is about that parent dealing with that issue is not being up to par with his answers or quotes he provided. The irony here is when the judge of character is asked to outline why the quotes illicit the kind of reaction as seen in this thread, the answers given aren't exactly crystal clear either. Apart that he didn't live up to the universal standards some other serial killer's dad set. Keeping in mind that the judge of character is not in the same kind of emotional situation as the parent. Keeping in mind the judge of character has the final say in the way his quotes are represented.

I think you hit the on-topic nail on the head with regard to what this thread is really about. At least what I have been wondering throughout the thread.

 

[Kyriakos]

^Why do you refer to me with that title? What would be wrong with Isohyacinthos or something of that variety?

 

[Borachio]

Donk!

*hit on head by discus*

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Ah, you see, that is my poetic spirit gone wild. I grant I was a little too flowery to be clear. I'll walk you through it. See, you were judging the man's character, so through my infinite wittiness I labelled you a Judge of Character.

Yeah, I was showing off. You got me

What exactly is wrong with Isohyacinthos? I'll tell you. I never heard of Isohyacinthos. Is it a flower?