Cullen's book

bradt93 wrote:

I think the mystery can finally be solved as to why they did it if they release the basement tapes.

Unless Eric and Dylan spelled it out for us, I very much doubt that. The true motive wouldn't be known even if we had all the evidence laid out in front of us, because quite frankly, we aren't Eric and Dylan, and therefore will never totally understand them (assuming of course they even understood themselves, which is doubtful as well).

Screamingophelia wrote:

Two questions. Would you say the bullying is factually wrong since in the 11k and interviews with people like Chad, Devon and Sue confirm it to some extent?
Also there was an old forum member who has a blog and she did a chapter by chapter debunking of the book.. I can PM you if you have not seen it.

I want to look into what things are wrong according to Randy Brown and Ann Marie Hochhalter. Ann Marie especially since she is one of the only survivors that I have heard speak about the book to be honest.

The bullying was real. Certainly. I'm not saying it never happened. It happened. However I only think it is a smaller factor. How does bullying, all by itself, make you want to shoot people who didn't bully you? I'm not even saying there isn't an answer to that question, but I am saying that I believe much larger factors must be the reason behind a senseless massacre being perpetrated by two kids who weren't seriously mentally ill.
The kid they threatened the most was Brooks, and look what happened there. They let him go. They let Evan Todd go too. I think it was dumb of Cullen to ask why they didn't just go blow up a football game if jock bullies were the primary reason, but I don't think it's dumb of him to point out how much time Eric spent threatening Brooks Brown and then did nothing to him, or to point out that no one they named in the basement tapes (like Brandon Larson) would be killed. I want to know why the people they hated the most weren't victims of what they did. And if Eric and Dylan weren't ladies' men, they were hardly two antisocial dorks, they took part in stuff like RNN and crap like that, they took part in school activities.

Cullen is unlikely to be mostly correct, but he is also not totally wrong, either. Glomming onto Dwayne Fuselier was a bit pathetic of Cullen, but I don't think it's any more pathetic than you guys automatically disqualifying Fuselier because his kid was there that day.

Lunkhead McGrath wrote:

Screamingophelia wrote:

Two questions. Would you say the bullying is factually wrong since in the 11k and interviews with people like Chad, Devon and Sue confirm it to some extent?
Also there was an old forum member who has a blog and she did a chapter by chapter debunking of the book.. I can PM you if you have not seen it.

I want to look into what things are wrong according to Randy Brown and Ann Marie Hochhalter. Ann Marie especially since she is one of the only survivors that I have heard speak about the book to be honest.

The bullying was real.  Certainly.  I'm not saying it never happened.  It happened.  However I only think it is a smaller factor.  How does bullying, all by itself, make you want to shoot people who didn't bully you?  I'm not even saying there isn't an answer to that question, but I am saying that I believe much larger factors must be the reason behind a senseless massacre being perpetrated by two kids who weren't seriously mentally ill.    
The kid they threatened the most was Brooks, and look what happened there.  They let him go.  They let Evan Todd go too.  I think it was dumb of Cullen to ask why they didn't just go blow up a football game if jock bullies were the primary reason, but I don't think it's dumb of him to point out how much time Eric spent threatening Brooks Brown and then did nothing to him, or to point out that no one they named in the basement tapes (like Brandon Larson) would be killed.  I want to know why the people they hated the most weren't victims of what they did.  And if Eric and Dylan weren't ladies' men, they were hardly two antisocial dorks, they took part in stuff like RNN and crap like that, they took part in school activities.  

Cullen is unlikely to be mostly correct, but he is also not totally wrong, either.  Glomming onto Dwayne Fuselier was a bit pathetic of Cullen, but I don't think it's any more pathetic than you guys automatically disqualifying Fuselier because his kid was there that day.  

I can see that. From the Basement Tape Transcripts it is interesting when they talk about the people they want killed (namely Brandon Larson who Dylan wanted to stab and carry around his head) yet the actual "plan" was more impersonal.

I do agree with you about how E and D were somewhere in between, Eric wasn't a ladies man but even seeing them talk in various videos, they had inflection and personalities. They made people laugh. They weren't like Brooks described them as monosyllabic and monotone bores who couldn't string a sentence together.

Lunkhead McGrath wrote:

Tommy QTR wrote:

What pissed me off the most is that he claimed they were never bullied.

While I believe the primary mistake of Cullen's book is that he uses something that is probably only partially true (psycho/depressive) to explain the entirety of the massacre, I'd like someone to list all the things he says in the book that can be proven false, since he did take out the Brenda Parker story in a later edition.  

When he took out the Brenda Parker story in the later edition, did he explain that it was because it was blatantly false or did he just omit it without comment?
The main problem I have with Cullen is that Brenda Parker was a known liar before Cullen's first book was published. So, either he is a terribly sloppy researcher (which I don't respect) or he intentionally tried to mislead (which I respect even less). When he was writing his book he had no way of knowing that the police would later release all of those documents and everyone would be able to figure out Parker was lying.

I have only read the first edition so honestly don't know if he did a mea culpa and said, "Yeah, I was wrong about Brenda Parker." or if he just took it out and hoped no one would notice.

the columbine shooters were actually chads that were in the national football league and fucked girls every 2 seconds, they had the nerds buy guns for them.

Lunkhead McGrath wrote:

Screamingophelia wrote:

Two questions. Would you say the bullying is factually wrong since in the 11k and interviews with people like Chad, Devon and Sue confirm it to some extent?
Also there was an old forum member who has a blog and she did a chapter by chapter debunking of the book.. I can PM you if you have not seen it.

I want to look into what things are wrong according to Randy Brown and Ann Marie Hochhalter. Ann Marie especially since she is one of the only survivors that I have heard speak about the book to be honest.

The bullying was real.  Certainly.  I'm not saying it never happened.  It happened.  However I only think it is a smaller factor.  How does bullying, all by itself, make you want to shoot people who didn't bully you?  I'm not even saying there isn't an answer to that question, but I am saying that I believe much larger factors must be the reason behind a senseless massacre being perpetrated by two kids who weren't seriously mentally ill.    

I found this interesting, do you not think Dylan and Eric were seriously mentally ill? I personally think that Dylan displayed serious chronic depression at the very least, but I think we would find out more things if he had been able to be properly diagnosed. Eric we don't have many writings from which discusses how he feels other than how he feels regarding politics and other people in the world, which in turn does give us a hint about his mental state but he never details it the way Dylan does (although he does fill out that form with the checks)

Or maybe your definition of serious involves it showing more?

Just curious on what you think of Dylan and Erics mental state, and why it wasn't serious

23september wrote:

Lunkhead McGrath wrote:

Screamingophelia wrote:

Two questions. Would you say the bullying is factually wrong since in the 11k and interviews with people like Chad, Devon and Sue confirm it to some extent?
Also there was an old forum member who has a blog and she did a chapter by chapter debunking of the book.. I can PM you if you have not seen it.

I want to look into what things are wrong according to Randy Brown and Ann Marie Hochhalter. Ann Marie especially since she is one of the only survivors that I have heard speak about the book to be honest.

The bullying was real.  Certainly.  I'm not saying it never happened.  It happened.  However I only think it is a smaller factor.  How does bullying, all by itself, make you want to shoot people who didn't bully you?  I'm not even saying there isn't an answer to that question, but I am saying that I believe much larger factors must be the reason behind a senseless massacre being perpetrated by two kids who weren't seriously mentally ill.    

I found this interesting, do you not think Dylan and Eric were seriously mentally ill? I personally think that Dylan displayed serious chronic depression at the very least, but I think we would find out more things if he had been able to be properly diagnosed. Eric we don't have many writings from which discusses how he feels other than how he feels regarding politics and other people in the world, which in turn does give us a hint about his mental state but he never details it the way Dylan does (although he does fill out that form with the checks)

Or maybe your definition of serious involves it showing more?

Just curious on what you think of Dylan and Erics mental state, and why it wasn't serious

I have to honest, I think there is a disconnect and some sort of mental health (or brain health) issue in someone that decides to commit a massacre like that. Dylan was not diagnosed and did need professional help. I think he needed to find someone really good that he connect with. Someone he could respect.

I think things built up in Eric over time and they fed off of each other, and what may have started off as a joke turned into something more serious. That would be something that I would love to go back in time and see, the conversation that started it all... because HOW, and how do you come and trust someone so much to do a murder/suicide mission with. It is fascinating.

Screamingophelia wrote:

That would be something that I would love to go back in time and see, the conversation that started it all... because HOW, and how do you come and trust someone so much to do a murder/suicide mission with. It is fascinating.

100% Agreed!  I would love to hear how that very first convo went, also the one that took it from merely venting into the start of what NBK became.

23september wrote:

Lunkhead McGrath wrote:

Screamingophelia wrote:

Two questions. Would you say the bullying is factually wrong since in the 11k and interviews with people like Chad, Devon and Sue confirm it to some extent?
Also there was an old forum member who has a blog and she did a chapter by chapter debunking of the book.. I can PM you if you have not seen it.

I want to look into what things are wrong according to Randy Brown and Ann Marie Hochhalter. Ann Marie especially since she is one of the only survivors that I have heard speak about the book to be honest.

The bullying was real.  Certainly.  I'm not saying it never happened.  It happened.  However I only think it is a smaller factor.  How does bullying, all by itself, make you want to shoot people who didn't bully you?  I'm not even saying there isn't an answer to that question, but I am saying that I believe much larger factors must be the reason behind a senseless massacre being perpetrated by two kids who weren't seriously mentally ill.    

I found this interesting, do you not think Dylan and Eric were seriously mentally ill?

I think it depends on how you define mental illness.

Obviously Eric and Dylan were not schizophrenic for instance.

QuestionMark wrote:

23september wrote:

Lunkhead McGrath wrote:

Screamingophelia wrote:

Two questions. Would you say the bullying is factually wrong since in the 11k and interviews with people like Chad, Devon and Sue confirm it to some extent?
Also there was an old forum member who has a blog and she did a chapter by chapter debunking of the book.. I can PM you if you have not seen it.

I want to look into what things are wrong according to Randy Brown and Ann Marie Hochhalter. Ann Marie especially since she is one of the only survivors that I have heard speak about the book to be honest.

The bullying was real.  Certainly.  I'm not saying it never happened.  It happened.  However I only think it is a smaller factor.  How does bullying, all by itself, make you want to shoot people who didn't bully you?  I'm not even saying there isn't an answer to that question, but I am saying that I believe much larger factors must be the reason behind a senseless massacre being perpetrated by two kids who weren't seriously mentally ill.    

I found this interesting, do you not think Dylan and Eric were seriously mentally ill?

I think it depends on how you define mental illness.

Obviously Eric and Dylan were not schizophrenic for instance.

Sure, but having an mental illness such as depression and having it be as serious as theirs, I do think it was serious. But I agree, they weren't Lanza mentally ill.

Didn't Eric have that quote in his rebdomine aol, "It's fun being schizophrenic"? I feel like I've read that

23september wrote:

QuestionMark wrote:

23september wrote:

Lunkhead McGrath wrote:

Screamingophelia wrote:

Two questions. Would you say the bullying is factually wrong since in the 11k and interviews with people like Chad, Devon and Sue confirm it to some extent?
Also there was an old forum member who has a blog and she did a chapter by chapter debunking of the book.. I can PM you if you have not seen it.

I want to look into what things are wrong according to Randy Brown and Ann Marie Hochhalter. Ann Marie especially since she is one of the only survivors that I have heard speak about the book to be honest.

The bullying was real.  Certainly.  I'm not saying it never happened.  It happened.  However I only think it is a smaller factor.  How does bullying, all by itself, make you want to shoot people who didn't bully you?  I'm not even saying there isn't an answer to that question, but I am saying that I believe much larger factors must be the reason behind a senseless massacre being perpetrated by two kids who weren't seriously mentally ill.    

I found this interesting, do you not think Dylan and Eric were seriously mentally ill?

I think it depends on how you define mental illness.

Obviously Eric and Dylan were not schizophrenic for instance.

Sure, but having an mental illness such as depression and having it be as serious as theirs, I do think it was serious. But I agree, they weren't Lanza mentally ill.

Didn't Eric have that quote in his rebdomine aol, "It's fun being schizophrenic"? I feel like I've read that

I believe so. I think he was trying to be funny.

QuestionMark wrote:

23september wrote:

Lunkhead McGrath wrote:

Screamingophelia wrote:

Two questions. Would you say the bullying is factually wrong since in the 11k and interviews with people like Chad, Devon and Sue confirm it to some extent?
Also there was an old forum member who has a blog and she did a chapter by chapter debunking of the book.. I can PM you if you have not seen it.

I want to look into what things are wrong according to Randy Brown and Ann Marie Hochhalter. Ann Marie especially since she is one of the only survivors that I have heard speak about the book to be honest.

The bullying was real.  Certainly.  I'm not saying it never happened.  It happened.  However I only think it is a smaller factor.  How does bullying, all by itself, make you want to shoot people who didn't bully you?  I'm not even saying there isn't an answer to that question, but I am saying that I believe much larger factors must be the reason behind a senseless massacre being perpetrated by two kids who weren't seriously mentally ill.    

I found this interesting, do you not think Dylan and Eric were seriously mentally ill?

I think it depends on how you define mental illness.

Obviously Eric and Dylan were not schizophrenic for instance.

This is pretty much what I meant, yes. Depression and or whatever the hell was wrong with Eric is not the same thing as hearing voices or cuckoo stuff or whatever Adam Lanza thought he was doing when he blew away those poor first graders. E&D knew what they were doing.

I get the impression people either think its complete trash or completely accurate. I read only parts of the book. I dont think its nearly as bad as people want it to be. Eric did have a number of dates, but Cullen goes to the extreme end.


Also, I dont think they were really that upopular. I believe that they were both liked and disliked by many. Some people disliked them because they were Troubled, or because they were perceived as outcasts. Others liked them really well. I dont think they were the most upopular students at the school, but, rather, it depends on who you are asking. Dave Cullen has been credited by some experts for hes book and critisized by journalist Jeff Kass.
This makes me think that the book is worth a trie, but thats my opinion