Norway shooting suspect profile

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43857267/ns/world_news-europe/t/rural-town-norway-attacker-seemed-city-loner/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/26/norway-killer-breivik-surprised-stopped

He has been called a terrorist, and his extreme right-wing views and choice of target suggest this, but Anders Behring Breivik shows equal signs of a narcissistic mass murderer. By his own account, and police theory, he acted alone, and authorities have strong doubts about his alleged ties to and boasts about a network of right-wing anti-Muslim groups in Norway.
Terrorism is defined as ideologically motivated violence, and by this definition, Breivik's attacks would be classified as terrorism. He chose a Labour Party (the liberal faction of Norway's political system) camp and a government building as his targets, in an aim to, as described in his online manifesto, eliminate European multiculturalism. A former classmate said that Breivik had a tendency to get "extreme" when he believed in something, but still expressed surprise over the attacks. Like many violent criminals, Breivik appears to have had an unstable family life, if his estranged relationship with his father (who said in an interview that he had not spoken to his son since 1995) is any indication. The reason for the estrangement was not given. In the small farming town where he lived, although he was perceived as a "loner," he stood out for his "urban" dress and mannerisms. While living in a small town could be perceived as an attempt to fly under the radar (something residents of Rena say is "easy to do" there), he still felt the need to draw attention to himself, to not blend in.
By definition, being a terrorist, particularly one who acts alone, requires a certain amount of bravado not found in most people. The perpetrator believes that his actions will bring about revolution, as Breivik claimed in his manifesto, which he called a "declaration of independence" for Europe from the recent tide of Muslim immigrants. The manifesto heavily quotes the Unabomber, and includes the line "It is better to kill too many than not enough." Exactly what would constitute "too many" or "not enough" isn't clarified; Breivik just wanted to reign destruction, as much as he could, in what he saw as the first act in a revolution. Breivik's attorney said in an interview that his client took pride in his actions. Unlike serial killers, who murder in the shadows to fulfill an urge and take pains to conceal their tracks, terrorists want the world to see their crimes, and they want full recognition. Unlike mass murderers, who have reached their boiling point and feel the need to unleash their rage on a world they think has wronged them, a terrorist's rage is focused on a specific cause, like ethnic integration.
Terrorists and mass murderers have one thing in common: they often end their attacks by either taking their own lives or being shot by law enforcement (suicide by cop). Mass murderers do this because they're depressed and wanted to murder as many others as possible before their planned suicide; terrorists do it in pursuit of martyrdom to a cause. There was no way Osama Bin Laden would have been taken alive, not with the promise of being a martyr, and definitely not by his sworn enemy, the United States. Breivik is unique in that he is still alive after his rampage. Although he left behind a lengthy manifesto of his beliefs and plans, it's possible he wanted to address the nation devastated by his violence, to find yet another platform for his message in his trial.

What if Asperger's was the norm?

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/aspergirls/201012/imagine-world-where-aspergers-was-the-norm

I can't say I agree with everything in here. Maybe not what's said, but the tone. Occasionally the author comes across as arrogant, even though she says people with Asperger's are not perfect, but it appears that she thinks she's superior to "neurotypicals." She's not. A poster on an Asperger's message board made the very astute comment that we shouldn't expect others to change for us any more than they should expect us to change for them. There is a disturbing trend I have seen in the Asperger's community, using the term "neurotypical" as an insult. Yes, those of us with Asperger's are often misunderstood, but that does not give us an excuse to be prejudiced.
My other issue with this post is that it glosses over the very serious problems that come with Asperger's: tunnel vision (which can be good, like when focusing on a project, but also bad, as in an inability to move on when something is done), lack of empathy, inability to recognize when someone is uncomfortable or even hurt by something we've said or done, and arrogance in our "superior" intellects. I have been guilty of all of these traits, and still am to some degree. If Asperger's was the norm, these problems would also become the norm.
That said, I do wish that more people understood what Asperger's is, and why I act the way I do. Among the people I've met in the course of my life, even those who pride themselves on being "open-minded," "honest" and wary of the "norm" have gone running when they encounter me, given me strange looks, avoided me or talked about me behind my back. Men who claim to prize my "individuality" have ditched me for someone more socially acceptable and adept. In my relationships (if they can be called that) with men, I've found, more often than should be the case for anyone, that I was nothing but a novelty, a "Check out the freak I hooked up with," a cautionary story to later tell his friends. No one told me how I was expected to behave in relationships, or friendships, or with anyone. They all thought I just knew, which I didn't. Maybe if they, and I, had known about Asperger's, things would have been just a little easier.
I wish that I was able to express exactly how I feel without having to conform to arbitrary social "rules." I really wish I wasn't expected to shake hands with strangers and hug everyone in my extended family (although my family, aware of my condition, has accepted that I won't hug them). I wish I wasn't told in vague pseudo-friendly terms or excuses that I'm not wanted. I wish I didn't have to be "polite" and "friendly" to people I don't like. I wish I wasn't expected to make small talk with coworkers, people I have to do business with, salespeople and strangers. And I really, really wish people wouldn't assume they know my mood based on my outward appearance. Even from a social retard like me, telling a stranger to "smile" seems to be poor social form.
Above all, I wish that people could understand that just because I don't make eye contact with them, it doesn't mean I'm ignoring them or I dislike them. I want everyone I meet to know that I need to "get used" to them before I can open up or be friendly. I realize now that my condition had a lot more to do in ending my past relationship (which ended over a year ago), than I had previously thought. My ex, while claiming to be sympathetic to my unique problems, wasn't prepared to make the effort needed to help me be more comfortable in the social situations he so loved. He could be described as "anti-Asperger's": a purely social creature who thrived in and, I think, needed the rules that so baffled me. We fought frequently because I "wasn't behaving properly" and I thought he was being "too polite." The breakup hurt deeply, but I see now that we were not a good match.
For the sake of getting a job and taking care of myself, I have had to hide a lot of who I am in order to "play the game" of functioning in a work environment (but I think that's something we all have to do, Asperger's or not), and I've had to disguise my true emotions for the sake of decorum. But it hasn't been all bad. I have found a few friends who let me be myself, and wouldn't want me any other way. And Asperger's advocates, through the spread of information, have been making things slightly easier for people like me. Most of my friends who know about my condition are extremely supportive, and I thank them for that. I don't expect them to be more like me, to think I'm better than them. I just want them to understand that this is how I am, because if they do, things will be much easier. But those who refuse to accept that there are things that make me very different from them, I have spent far too much time worrying about them. The most I can do is try to educate them, and if they still won't accept it, they're not worth the effort and don't belong in my life.

Bin Laden's death and logical empathy

As the entire world now knows, Osama Bin Laden, leader of terrorist organization Al-Qaeda and the man responsible for the attacks on the US on September 11, 2001, was killed by the American military. While I recognize that the world is a much better place without Bin Laden in it, I can't bring myself to celebrate his death, or even say that the news had any significant impact other than "One less bad person in the world, which is good."
To reiterate, it is good for the collective consciousness of the world that Osama Bin Laden is no longer among us. And his death was the only way that was going to happen. My own feelings about the death penalty aside, it was just not possible that an egomaniac like Bin Laden, the leader of a violent cult of fanatics, would be taken alive, particularly not by his sworn enemy, the "decadent west." But I could not join the celebrations outside the White House, in person or in spirit, and not just because I find rejoicing in an execution grotesque.
Long ago, I made peace with the fact that I am just not like the majority of the world. Much of this, though not all, is due to having Asperger's Syndrome. One of the traits of this condition is an impaired sense of empathy. All my life, it has been difficult for me to see things from someone else's point of view, although in the last few years, I have tried, and I think I'm getting better at recognizing that the feelings of others can be impacted by things I do or say that I may think are insignificant. But it took a lot of hard work, and it still requires a distinct effort.
On an Asperger's message board, someone posted that he has acquired what he calls "logical empathy," a term that I think describes my feelings quite well. I can recognize that something like the events of 9/11 were a tragedy, and that it shouldn't have happened, but it is still difficult for me to be personally outraged by any of it, or to feel any personal joy that the person responsible is now dead. I see Bin Laden's death as a benefit not because he attacked my country, but because he personified prejudice and fanaticism, two traits I find highly offensive, and expressed these traits through senseless violence. But even this offense is intellectual rather than personal. Asperger's generates a tunnel vision, something that has caused significant problems in several areas of my life, and part of my journey has been concentrated on widening the scope of my mind to extend beyond things that only directly affect me.
It has always been difficult for me to identify as part of a group. I have always just been me. I think this is why it was so hard for me to join the sense of fear and outrage on 9/11. Because my country of origin was not an important part of who I was. It's not easy to explain. I know I'm American, and whenever anyone asks what country I'm from, that's what I tell them. But I guess I just have no sense of the national American identity. When terrorists attacked America, I did not have the sense of empathy and national identity to feel personally attacked, and now that the perpetrator of those attacks is dead, I still can't feel personally relieved or happy. However, while I still find the celebration of death distasteful, I won't stop other Americans who do feel the national identity from acknowledging that a destructive presence is now gone. And, for the most part, the joy has been a solemn one, not counting a few who took the reveling too far. In a way, I envy them. To be able to step outside of themselves and come together, to feel that sense of community and national pride. As for me, all I can offer is a distant, purely logical empathy, a simple recognition that a dark era has passed. It isn't much, but I'm afraid it's all I have.

The deterioration of Jared Loughner

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2041878,00.html

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2011-01-11-1Ashooting11_CV_N.htm


Moving past all of the political implications of the January 8 shooting in Tucson, Arizona, these two articles discuss the mental state and life of shooter Jared Lee Loughner. The Time article opens with a story from Loughner's childhood friend, who remembers playing in her father's police car with him, when he liked to turn on the siren. But as they grew up through high school (until the day Loughner just stopped coming), she, and several other acquaintances, noticed drastic changes. He started having mood swings, and, when briefly attending community college, his strange pronouncements in class frightened both classmates and professors, until he was kicked out for "mental issues." A psychiatrist interviewed in the USA today article suggests that Loughner suffers from paranoid schizophrenia, which usually first manifests itself in the teen years and is marked by odd behavior and a dissociation from reality.
It was my feeling from first hearing about Loughner that any political motivation for his rampage was tangential at most. As more information about Jared Loughner came out, I saw a severely disturbed mind that could have lashed out anywhere, at anyone. Like Herbert Mullin (schizophrenic murderer who stalked Santa Cruz in the 1970s), Loughner was an intelligent, generally pleasant young man who underwent a drastic transformation in late adolescence. Like John Hinckley (who shot Ronald Reagan in a deluded, non-political attempt to capture the attention of a woman he had never met), and Mark David Chapman (whose love/hate for someone he didn't know led to the murder of John Lennon), Loughner had a history of drug use, which likely exacerbated his shaky mental state. Loughner's unrecognized mental disorder led to suspension from college, the denial of his Army application (which was directly related to his use of marijuana) and the loss of several jobs, likely causing him, in his troubled mind, to believe that the world was conspiring against him, and he decided to fight back. Reading political philosophy through the filter of his deteriorating mind, he targeted a convenient political figure, in the form of a local congresswoman. But Loughner's rampage was too disorganized to be a deliberate political assassination. He may have begun by targeting Giffords, but his rage and insanity took over, turning the would-be assassination into a mass murder. It is surprising that, unlike most killers of his type, Loughner did not end his rampage by taking his own life. Or maybe he was so deranged that he didn't even have an ending in mind.
Could Jared Loughner successfully plead insanity? The insanity defense rarely works, and considering the high-profiled nature of this case, the call for justice from victims' families and the outraged public could be too strong. It also appears that, at least in part, Loughner was conscious of his actions, from purchasing the gun to tracking down his intended victim. If he is schizophrenic, it's in the beginning stages (which makes sense, since at 22, the progression of schizophrenia has often just begun). The turnout of his trial remains to be seen, but, given precedent, it looks like he will be found guilty.

Virginia serial shooter profile

I finally have a full-time job, but my work schedule is wreaking havoc on my writing. So this post will be brief.
A serial shooter has been targeting military institutions in Virginia, the most recent attack occurring at the Coast Guard. Ballistics has linked the five shootings as being the work of the same offender. Since I am now seriously considering pursuing a higher education degree in the criminology/forensic psychology field, I have decided to take my first, however rudimentary and incomplete, attempt at a criminal profile. The suspect is most likely male, and was recently discharged from the armed services, probably the Marines (the first attack was at a Marine base). The circumstances of the discharge were most likely dishonorable, possibly mental health related. The suspect's ability to evade capture at high security locations indicates specialized training, like that received in the military. This is someone with a grudge against the institution of the military, and probably does not believe that his discharge was warranted. Now, to see if I'm proven right or wrong.
About Keith Olbermann's suspension from MSNBC: I saw a commentary in the local ultra-conservative paper The Examiner trumpeting that the Olbermann situation shows how "unfair and unbalanced" MSNBC is. Olbermann is at fault here, not the network. He contributed to Democratic political campaigns and did not disclose this to MSNBC. When the network executives found out, they suspended him without pay. While Olbermann has never made any secret of his left-leaning politics, there was no way for MSNBC to know that he was contributing to campaigns. But when they found out, they took appropriate action. Would Fox News suspend an anchor who had been contributing to Republican candidates? Considering how Fox advertised and enabled the Tea Party movement, I doubt it. But maybe they would. Keith Olbermann's actions do not, and should not, reflect all of MSNBC or whatever message they may have. Although MSNBC has gained a reputation as a "liberal" network, due to Olbermann and Rachel Maddow, it's not an entirely accurate label, considering that the network also employs (or employed) Joe Scarborough and Chris Matthews. If MSNBC was truly bent on pursuing a liberal agenda, they would have kept Olbermann on after his political contributions, and swept the story under the rug (essentially what the Catholic Church did before the child abuse stories came to light). But that's not what happened. Olbermann was punished for his actions, not congratulated.
In blog news, in the near future, I will be setting up a separate blog where I will write about movies, particularly the ones I see at AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center. Last weekend marked the opening of the 2010 European Union Film Showcase, and I will be posting a review of a fascinating Estonian film I saw as the inaugural post in the new movie blog, tentatively titled Films From the Fringe.

Christopher Hitchens on the Ten Commandments

I do not always agree with Christopher Hitchens. In fact, I find much of what he says infuriating or maddening, like his misogynistic comments about female comedians. He has said that female comedians are "unattractive" and that women in general are not funny. For the record, I have encountered several women, both in the public sphere and in my social circle, who are quite funny, and some are even physically attractive. But, of course, both "funny" and "attractive" are subjective labels. His comments about female comedians sound odd now, considering his complaint in this video about the sexist connotations of the final commandment, which, he says, wrongly equates women with property. Hitchens has also made the astute observation that women are the most frequent victims of religious tyranny.
That said, despite my problems with many of Hitchens' public opinions, like his support of the war in Iraq (which I'm not entirely sure isn't based on a personal animosity toward Muslims), I enjoyed his critique and revision of the Ten Commandments. After all, Hitchens points out, there is more than one version of the Commandments in the Bible, leading Hitchens to say, "If [Moses] can be a revisionist, then so can I." While some of the Commandments, like "Thou shalt not kill," are reasonable enough, Hitchens makes the point that, after passing down the commandments, Moses ordered the slaughter of a rival group. There is even one commandment that Hitchens says he likes, "Thou shalt not bear false witness," which condemns false accusations, something that the devoutly religious have done to other religions for centuries, as seen in "blood libel" myths once propagated by Christians against Jews, Muslims against Jews, and, if memory of history class serves me right, was also leveled against Christians at some point. He then indicates the problem with the final commandment, prohibiting "coveting." Where other commandments prohibit actions, like killing, stealing or lying, this commandment prohibits thought. This recalls the "thought police" of George Orwell's classic totalitarian nightmare 1984. In modern societies, it is wrong or immoral actions, not the thoughts that inspire them, that are punished. For example, prejudice, the base human emotion, is not illegal, but discrimination or violence based on prejudice is punishable by law. After the critique of the established religious commandments, Hitchens offers his own version, which is anti-violence (in his book God is Not Great, after criticizing just about everything about religion, Hitchens emphatically opposes church-burning and other violent forms of protest), and urges opposition of religions and other institutions (and individuals) who use violence. Of course, Hitchens doesn't need to use violent means to upset people and get his point across. His words are all the weapons he needs. He is the embodiment of the saying, "The pen is mightier than the sword." As enraged as I often am with him, maybe we all need to become enraged once in a while. Anger, while toxic when unleashed in the wrong forms, can be a conduit for creativity and thought when correctly harnessed.
In recent months, Hitchens had to cancel his book tour, in support of his memoir (which I have yet to read, but it sounds fascinating), due to a diagnosis of cancer of the esophagus, which killed his father. In an interview with Anderson Cooper, his head bald from treatment, Hitchens spoke honestly about his fight with the disease. He said that even he had the "Why me?" thought, adding that it's natural to think that, but it's just a thought that needs to be pushed aside. Hitchens also said though he is "not fatalistic" about his hope for recovery, his is also, "realistic," knowing that "my odds are not good." Indeed, the survival rate for esophagus cancer is low. While he maintained a calm demeanor, and still has a way with words, in this interview I saw, for the first time (maybe it also comes up in his memoir) a human being, with the same fears and vulnerabilities as those of us he agitates, behind the poison tongue and pen. I hope for his recovery, but, if the worst is realized, Christopher Hitchens will have left behind a unique legacy of eloquence, insight and outrage that will not be matched.

Increasing numbers of Russian police become criminals

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100831/ts_afp/russiacrimepolice

67 percent of Russians say they fear the police, and this article gives very good reasons why. Kidnapping, extortion, torture, doing favors for the mob, the police re part of Russia's culture of corruption. Officers who extort money from civilians are reported to earn 5,000 to 10,000 dollars per month, and an officer protecting a "criminal operation," aka the feared Russian mob, can earn up to 20,000 dollars per month. One Moscow police major even turned to attempted mass murder, killing two and wounding 22 after randomly opening fire in a supermarket. Although several senior police officials have been dismissed in the wake of the high profile cases, the Russian people, along with the rest of the world, have doubts that President Medvedev will, or can, do anything significant to counteract the out of control police force. In a country where journalists have been murdered after printing stories critical of the government, former spy Aleksander Litvenenko was poisoned after implicating Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and others in corruption, and the citizens are influenced and terrorized by organized crime, law enforcement is adding to, rather than solving, these problems.
While it seems that what the Russian police need is another Frank Serpico, the Litvenenko case illustrates how Russian officials deal with dissent. Two officers have publicized the wrongdoing that is routine within the force; one was fired, the other arrested on numerous, unpublicized charges. The fired officer, in addition to revealing chronic corruption in his force, also complained about working conditions, saying officers were treated "like cattle." The officer who was arrested claimed that police fabricated evidence that led to convictions. He was arrested shortly after posting the video making his charges.