Murder at Maharishi University

[Brown]

From the Des Moines Register:

Jefferson County authorities said Levi Butler, 19, a first-year Maharishi University of Management student from La Quinta, Calif., was fatally stabbed in the chest while eating dinner in the campus's Annapurna Dining Hall about 7:15 Monday evening.

Police charged another first-year student, Shuvender Sem, 24, with first-degree murder in the attack.
...
Jefferson County Attorney Tim Dille said hours before Sem stabbed Butler, he stabbed another student in the face with a ballpoint pen during a class at about 2:30 p.m.

The "school" had prided itself on its history of non-violence. Of course, many other colleges of comparable size in the Midwest had an equally good track record, but they didn't attribute their track record to spiritual mumbo-jumbo. Now that violence has struck Maharishi University, is this evidence that "meditation creates peace" is really nonsense? Not at all!

[University executive vice president Craig] Pearson said the incident served as a reminder to the school of why the school's teachings were so important.

 

[Grammatron]

You missed the part where the executive vice president figured out where violence comes from.

"These kinds of random acts of violence that happened to us . . . happen day after day all over the world," Pearson said. "Where does it come from? It comes from the stress epidemic that infuses our society."

Doesn't this kind of find warrant a Nobel prize?

 

[Ed]

Maharishi University of Management

Anyone from this program would be fast tracked in my company.

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

I think he saw the guy levitating and was trying to let the air out.

 

[Brown]

The meditators are still trying to make sense of things at Maharishi University. Here is one of the working theories, according to the Des Moines Register:

Some in the meditating community wondered whether the alignment of the planets signaled potential troubles. The campus has long believed in such signs: In 1994, southern entrances were closed because TM founder Maharishi Mahesh Yogi thought bad karma came from the south.

I wonder which planets the meditators think have "aligned," and why people weren't on guard after being warned by the helpful planets. The "school," of course, is in "CYA mode":

But school officials contend they could not have foreseen [the] violence....

It appears that the accused had "psychiatric problems." One wonders: (1) whether the accused had been prescribed medication for his condition at the time he went to Maharishi University (the article suggests he had been taking medication in the past) and (2) whether some idiot at the University suggested that the accused could discontinue his medication and use transcendental meditation as an alternate remedy.