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NEWS
COLUMBINE
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
MONDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2009
Shooter's mother writes about son in 0 magazine
ASSOCIATED PRESS
DENVER — In the first detailed public remarks by any parent of the two Columbine killers, Dylan Klebold's mother says she had no idea her son was suicidal until she read his journals after the 1999 high school massacre.
Susan Klebold's essay in next month's issue of O. The Oprah Magazine, says she is still struggling to make sense of what happened when her son and Eric Harris killed 12 students and a teacher in the shooting rampage at Columbine High School in suburban Denver. Twenty-one peo-
ple were injured before Klebold and Harris killed themselves.
"For the rest of my life, I will be haunted by the horror and anguish Dylan caused."
"For the rest of my life, I will be haunted by the horror and anguish Dylan caused," she wrote. "I cannot look at a child in a grocery store or on the street without thinking about how my son's schoolmates spent the last moments of their lives. Dylan changed everything I believed about myself, about God, about family and about love."
The killers' parents have repeatedly declined to talk about the massacre. They gave depositions in a lawsuit filed by families of the victims, but a judge in 2007 sealed them for 20 years after the lawsuit was settled out of court.
In her essay, Susan Klebold wrote that she didn't know her son was so disturbed.
SUSAN KLEBOLD Mother of Columbine shooter
"Dylan's participation in the massacre was impossible for
me to accept until I began to connect it to his own death," she wrote in excerpts released by the magazine ahead of Tuesday's publication. "Once I saw his journals, it was clear to me that Dylan entered the school with the intention of
dying there. And so in order to understand what he might have been thinking, I started to learn all I could about suicide."
In a statement with the essay, Oprah Winfrey wrote that Susan Klebold has turned down repeated interview requests but finally agreed to write an essay for O. A spokeswoman for the magazine said Klebold was not paid for the essay, and there were no plans for
her to appear on Winfrey's television show.
A spokeswoman for the Klebold family said there would be no further statements.
In the essay, Klebold said her son left early for school on the day of the shootings.
"Early on April 20, I was getting dressed for work when I heard Dylan bound down the stairs and open the front door. Wondering why he was in such a hurry when he could have slept another 20 minutes, I poked my head out of the bedroom. 'Dyl!' All he said was 'Bye.' The front door slammed, and his car sped down the driveway. His voice had sounded sharp. I figured he was mad because hed had to get up early to give someone a lift to class. I had no idea that I had just heard his voice for the last time."
She said she had "no inkling" how sick her son was.
"From the writings Dylan left behind, criminal psychologists have concluded that he was depressed and suicidal. When I first saw copied pages of these writings, they broke my heart. I'd had no inkling of the battle Dylan was waging in his mind."
NATIONAL Landslide blocks highway in central Washington
NACHES, Wash. — A massive landslide in central Washington state has blocked a highway, diverted a river and heavily damaged a home.
No injuries have been reported, but authorities tell the Yakima Herald-Republic that residents near the sparsely populated community of Nile were being evacuated because of flooding fears. Several homes received water damage as the Naches River sought a new course around the slide.
The state Department of Transportation says the slide
estimated to be a half-mile long, covered State Route 420 with at least 20 feet of dirt and rocks. about 10 miles west of Naches. Department photos also show large sections of road carried down to the Naches River.
INTERNATIONAL Taliban holds strong on Pakistan-Afghan border
ISLAMABAD — A week of terror strikes across Pakistan, capped by a stunning assault on army headquarters, show the Taliban have rebounded and appear determined to shake the nation's resolve as the military plans for an offensive against the group's stronghold on the
Afghan border.
The 22-hour attack on Pakistan's "Pentagon" in the city of Rawalpindi, which ended with 20 dead Sunday, was the third terror attack in a week to shake this nuclear-armed nation. It demonstrated the militants' renewed strength since their leader was killed by a U.S. missile strike in August and military operations against their bases.
The U.S. has long pushed Islamabad to take more action against Taliban and al-Qaida militants, who are also blamed for attacks on U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan.
Associated Press
Ex.C.E.L.lent halftime show
Ashley Moser, Topeka senior, reacts after being named the female winner of the 2009 Ex.C.E.L. Award at halftime of the football game on Saturday. The Ex.C.E.L. Award is given annually to one male and one female as part of homecoming festivities. The award recognizes excellence in community, education and leadership. Matt Enriquez, Topeka senior, was the award's other winner.
Ryan Waggoner/KANSAN
ENVIRONMENT
As trash piles up, Chinese city turns sour
What used to be a peaceful, pristine village is swiftly becoming a large landfill
Workers take a rest while they wait to load computer stocks into a truck in Beijing Sept. 15. China's economic growth rise to 7.9 percent over a year earlier in the quarter ending June 30, up from 6.1 percent the previous quarter, and analysts say the recovery is gathering strength. Retail spending and industrial investment are rising.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ZHANGLIDONG, China Visitors can smell this village long before they see it.
More than 100 dump trucks piled high with garbage line the narrow road leading to Zhangldong, waiting to empty their loads in a land-fill as big as 20 football fields.
In less than five years, the Zhengzhou Comprehensive Waste Treatment Landfill has overwhelmed this otherwise pristine village of about 1,000 people. Peaches and cherries rot on trees, infested with insect life drawn by the smell. Fields lie unharvested, contaminated by toxic muck. Every day, another 100 or so tons of garbage arrive from nearby Zhengzhou, a provincial capital of 8 million.
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The amount of paper, plastic and other garbage has more than tripled in two decades to about 300 million tons a year, according to Nie Yongfeng, a waste management expert at Beijing's Tsinghua University.
Americans are still way ahead of China in garbage; a population less than a quarter the size of China's 1.3 billion generated 254 million tons of garbage in 2007, a third of which is recycled or composted, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
As more Chinese ride the nation's economic boom, a torrent of garbage is one result. Cities are bursting at the seams, and their officials struggle to cope.
"Life here went from heaven to hell in an instant," said lifelong resident Wang Xiuhua, swaiting away clouds of mosquitos and flies. The 78-year-old woman suddenly coughs uncontrollably and says the landfill gases inflame her bronchitis.
"Trash was never complicated before, because we didn't have supermarkets, we didn't have fancy packaging and endless things to buy," said Nie. "Now suddenly, the government is panicking about the mountains of garbage piling up with no place to put it all."
But for China, the problem represents a rapid turnabout from a generation ago, when families, then largely rural and poor, used and reused everything.
Wang Ling, a spokesman for the Zhengzhou Ministry of Environment, said the landfill has a polyethylene liner to protect the ground beneath.
Residents say the liner has tears and only covers a fraction of the landfill.