Godless Liberal

Norway shooting suspect profile

2011-07-26T07:57:00.000-07:00

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?

2011-05-18T17:04:00.000-07:00

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

2011-05-04T19:06:00.000-07:00

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

2011-01-25T17:22:00.000-08:00

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

2010-11-08T17:31:00.000-08:00

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

2010-10-15T16:56:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-04T10:11:00.001-07:00

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.

Grim Sleeper and BTK; Hostages taken at Discovery Building

2010-08-28T16:07:00.000-07:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100823/ap_on_re_us/us_grim_sleeper_killings_6

Grim Sleeper suspect Lonnie Franklin plead not guilty in court last week.
Between the 14-year rest the Grim Sleeper took and the fact that Franklin was convicted with familial DNA (Franklin's son was arrested and swabbed, leading police to the father), strongly recalls Dennis Rader, aka Kansas' BTK killer. Rader was convicted, in part, due to a DNA sample obtained from his daughter, which was compared to DNA from an old murder case ascribed to the BTK killer.
Franklin's attorneys argue that the DNA evidence is "not as concrete" as it seems. Familial DNA is not as exact as DNA from the suspect himself, but, in Rader's case, the DNA compounded on top of other evidence, including records of him using the church computer on which a BTK letter was composed. I don't know what other evidence LA police have against Franklin, other than that he lived in the area where several of the murders took place, and I don't know Franklin's background, leaving me unsure whether he fits the serial killer profile. Of course, no one would have expected Dennis Rader as BTK before he confessed.

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2010/09/01/gunman-reported-in-discovery-building/

In my area, a gunman has taken hostages in the Discovery Building in Silver Spring, Maryland. Most of the employees, as well as the building's day care center, have been evacuated, but, according to the last update I read, a few hostages remain. The suspect, James J. Lee, from San Diego, previously protested Discovery over objections to their environmental programming. The Washington City Paper published an unverified list of Lee's demands, and, as seen in the article, they can only be described as insane. We can only hope that Lee is captured and everyone in the Discovery Building is safe.

Night of campy fun at AFI

2010-08-28T12:26:00.000-07:00

Joshua Grannell (also known as San Francisco drag queen Peaches Christ) brought his debut feature film All About Evil to his home state of Maryland, to AFI Silver Theatre in Silver Spring. Before the screening, the audience enjoyed a cabaret performance by Peaches, with singing, backup dancers dressed as classic movie monsters, jokes about the teabaggers coming to DC for the Glenn Beck rally, and a special appearance by John Waters regular Mink Stole, who also appears in All About Evil.
The film itself was a campy, over-the-top homage to slasher films, which delivered some genuine scares all its own. When Deborah (Natasha Lyonne) accidentally shows security footage of her killing her mother at her late father's dying movie theater, the short "film" becomes a hit, and she keeps going, filming real murders with a creepy cast of characters that includes a homeless man and a pair of evil twins just out of the insane asylum (the twins also made an appearance at the pre-screening show), and passing them off as movies. When teenage horror fan Steven (Thomas Dekker, who underplays his role in the sea of theatricality) discovers the truth, everyone is so deep under Deborah's spell that, when he issues a warning at a screening, the audience think it's part of the show. Of course, it's the "realism" of Deborah's films that keeps the audience coming back, combined with their theatricality. Deborah, a former wannabe actress, is now a local celebrity giving the performance of her life. Lyonne affects a Bette Davis-style vocal elocution, giving the sense of a continual performance. She, like her movies, is straddling a line between reality and theatre, just as Steven goes from a horror fan to the hero of his own slasher flick. The finale, without giving too much away, is something to behold, with frantic trapped theater-goers and a final showdown where Deborah makes a quite astute comment about the appeal of horror movies: "The audience is always secretly rooting for the killer." Yes, in horror, the killer is the star, the reason the audience comes back for sequels.

Brief movie reviews

2010-07-02T10:52:00.000-07:00

At AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center's Silverdocs festival, I saw three documentaries that were very interesting and memorable. While I haven't had time to post in-depth reviews, I can now write down what I remember about them.
The Invention of Dr. Nakamats: This film follows a Japanese inventor with over 3,000 patents (compared, he says, to Thomas Edison's approximately 1,000), and his quest for immortality. This quest is both figurative (he places his name on the front of his house and places in his house, and during his 80th birthday celebration, is quite upset with the hosting hotel that will not change the name of the ballroom to be named after him) and literal (he invented a method of monitoring what he eats in order to, he says, determine what foods will add the most longevity to his life). Dr. Nakamats is portrayed as a lovable, though somewhat egotistical, eccentric, and he is an engaging character. While the overall tone of the film is lighthearted, there are some touching emotional moments where Dr. Nakamats talks about his late mother. He says he still talks to her, and this is one of the ways he gains inspiration for his inventions. He recalls that his first invention, a kitchen appliance, was designed when he was 14 to help his mother prepare dinner. One of the reasons he invents, he says, is out of "love."
Camera, Camera: While a bit slow-moving, this film is, as revealed in a post-screening discussion with the director, writer/interviewer and producer, about tourists and what the pictures they take say about them. It is, as one viewer said in a question she asked, "almost an anti-documentary," a film about the art and practice of documenting. The film is set in Laos, and the country as it is seen through the eyes of Western tourists. Some came for an adventure, some came, as one British man says, for an "escape." There are some arresting images in the film, such as a tourist couple being interviewed while a Lao woman walks right into the shot and hangs her laundry, with both parties oblivious to each other, and a line of Lao men in traditional dress (while it's not directly stated, they looked to be monks or other religious figures) walking down the street with a row of tourists taking their picture, recalling the lines of paparazzi on the streets of Los Angeles. The film was preceded by a short, Between Dreams, where passengers on a sleeper train in Siberia recall their most memorable dreams, the interviews intercut with sleeping passengers.
Marwencol: Mark, a 38-year-old man who suffered severe head trauma and, as a result, amnesia, no longer able to afford therapy, he creates a WWII-era village out of dolls and props. Still plagued by demons from the beating from four young men that caused his injury, he sinks deeper into his imaginary world, the stories of Marwencol, the name he gives to his made-up Belgian village, become more involved, and more violent. Mark names the dolls in his village after himself and people he knows, and his own alter ego is captured by Nazis and tortured, as if he is reliving his own attack. Along the tour of his imaginary world, Mark reveals more about himself and his pre-amnesia self. An alcoholic in, as he calls it, his "first life," he no longer drinks, since, he says, he can't remember alcohol, and therefore doesn't miss it. This film made me think like few I have seen. I started thinking about the nature of identity, starting over, the imaginary vs the real, and how trauma affects us all in different ways. This film was preceded by a short, They Are Giants, about a man who has designed an eight feet by four feet library with hundreds of miniature books bound in leather and mahogany shelves.
Aside from Silverdocs, AFI offers other excellent film series, such as the annual Korean film festival, showcasing the latest films from South Korea, a country that is currently producing some of the most interesting movies in the world. The film I saw in this year's series, Thirst, is a vampire story from the director of Old Boy, Chan-wook Park. While not quite as gory as Old Boy, Thirst is equally unsettling. A priest, having volunteered for a medical experiment, is injected with a vampiric germ and briefly dies, then comes back to life, making him a legend in his hometown. But the adoring town does not know his secret, that he is now a vampire with a thirst for blood. Through the family of one of his followers, he meets a woman who will become his partner in his new life after death. While this woman's murderous inclinations don't come to light until after the priest turns her, the director gives early inclinations that she is not someone to be trusted. In one scene, while her husband is dying of cancer, she looks bored and annoyed by her mother-in-law's grief. The sex scenes between her and the vampire priest are some of the most uncomfortably erotic I have seen, sexy and disturbing all at the same time. The scene where the priest turns his new lover into a vampire is also compelling, starting out with him wanting to kill her, then, overcome with remorse, hurriedly tries to save her by giving her his infected blood. The one major flaw is a climax that drags, in contrast to the rest of the well-paced film, and though it's a generally satisfying ending, the long scenes dilute the intended punch of the end.

Work in Progress: The Breakup

2010-06-29T20:08:00.000-07:00

For the last six months, I have been writing out my anger, frustration, sadness, and all of the other conflicting emotions that I felt after my boyfriend of two years abruptly dumped me. The whole work is still a mess of scribbles in my journal and stream-of-consciousness typing, but, as I think I'm finally approaching the day where I'm finally over my ex, I'm starting to develop it into something I can share. In that spirit, this is a preliminary introduction of sorts, and part of the conclusion, to my as yet untitled breakup saga:

I went through every imaginable emotion after the breakup. First I was sad. I cried constantly. I didn’t want to go to sleep because it would just be me and the dark, and the last thing I wanted was to be alone in the dark with my sadness. There were nights I stayed up until 4 am, only shutting off my computer and turning off the light when fatigue pressed my eyes closed. I was angry at my ex for abandoning me, especially since so much of my life was a mess. I was out of money, in debt, unhappy with my job and couldn’t find a path for my life. I was stressed already, and losing him just added to my emotional weight. But for him, everything seemed fine. He went back to his job, always his first and only love, and his life without me was hardly the empty hole that my life was without him. At least that’s how it felt. I wanted him to hurt. I wanted him to cry. I imagined him asking me to take him back, only to have me reject him. At that point, part of me wanted him back, but the part of me that wanted him to suffer and cry was far stronger. As I concentrated on getting my own life together, even the frustrating process of trying to find a decent job, I slowly stopped thinking about him. I wrote, threw myself back into my serial killer obsession (the emergence of England’s “Crossbow Cannibal” about six months after the breakup helped my recovery immensely, however troubling the presence of a serial killer is for any community), and started going out and seeing friends again. I had the requisite rebound fling (more than one), which gave me immense pleasure and confused me at the same time. I enjoyed my brief flings, but I wasn’t anxious to date again. The thought of being vulnerable to emotional intimacy frightened me. I had to get a lot stronger and more confident in myself to be ready for that. But I was slowly getting better, and, when the time came, I would be ready to open myself up to another person again. I had to fully heal myself before I could be prepared to possibly get broken again. If I was strong and solidly put together, maybe I wouldn’t break into as many pieces the next time.
While going through the breakup, my emotions flowed back and forth. Some days, my ex was far out of my mind, and I was focused on my own life and my own desires. But other days, I couldn't stop thinking how much I missed him. It was particularly frustrating because these bad days often came after good days. I'd think I was over him, but then I'd catch a glimpse of him in a store window and, for the rest of the night, I'd think about what I had lost. As the months went on, I could bounce back from these bad days far faster than I did before, but I wanted to get to a place where I wouldn't have any of those days. How long would that take?
One constant through all of the pain was my friends. After one dinner with a good friend, I felt better than I had in weeks. As we talked and laughed about our past relationships and our lives, I realized that there were people out there who liked and appreciated me for who I was, and those were the people I should be concentrating my energy on, not someone who had left me and was now nothing but a negative influence on my life and well-being. I forgot this realization many times, and sunk into post-breakup despair, but it became easier and easier to remember.
While getting over the breakup, I turned, as I always had, to music. On one of my bad nights, I was listening to Radiohead, and "Fake Plastic Trees" started playing. The line "She looks like the real thing, she tastes like the real thing, my fake plastic love," hit me hard. My ex, and our relationship, were fake. It all looked real, and felt real, but in the end, it wasn't. He was never going to give me the commitment I needed from him, because he was perfectly happy keeping our relationship superficial and incidental, only seeing each other once or twice a week to have fun. He wanted us to stay friends, because if our relationship was so shallow anyway, why shouldn't we just immediately go into an even shallower, platonic one? But I couldn't do it. I felt the love between us far deeper than he could ever be capable of feeling. I wasn't about to hide or deny my feelings of resentment and pain toward him in the interest of civility, or whatever he was trying to achieve. He was always so polite and smiling to everyone, even if he told me later that he didn't like them. That was something that annoyed me horribly. This led to another realization, another one I frequently forgot as the sadness temporarily overtook my rationality. He was fake. Our relationship was fake. I despised falsehood. Therefore, maybe I despised him, even though part of me still loved him. There weren't, and still aren't, any simple solutions for me to get over him. But out of this mess came a wealth of self-discovery, which would ultimately help me not only in attempting to get over the breakup but also in figuring out my future. Even if I forget it while suffering through another relapse, the knowledge of myself remains inside me, as a guide to steer me back out of the depths.

A general post about my favorite topic

2010-06-18T18:43:00.000-07:00

While I am currently following the trial of England's suspected "Crossbow Cannibal" Stephen Griffiths, I don't feel ready to post a complete opinion on the case. Like Dennis Rader and Missouri serial killer Timothy Krajcir, captured in 2007, Griffiths was a student of criminology, which is interesting since many factors of his case recall previous killers. The Crossbow Cannibal's hunting ground was the same area plagued by Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe in the 1970s. Also, the law firm that represented Sutcliffe is now representing Griffiths. Griffiths' lawyers are also petitioning for Griffiths to be moved to a mental health facility, and Sutcliffe's attorneys pursued an insanity defense, which succeeded. The only difference between Griffiths (if he is the Crossbow Cannibal) and Sutcliffe is that Sutcliffe's victims were not dismembered. Last week, Griffiths attempted suicide in the same prison where Harold Shipman, possibly the most prolific serial killer in history, killed himself. As I said, my examination of Griffiths here is extremely preliminary. Knowing little about how the victims were killed, or Griffiths' upbringing, except that he reportedly hadn't spoken to his mother in several years, I don't have much to say in the way of psychological examination.
That the Crossbow Cannibal targeted prostitutes is hardly unusual. From Jack the Ripper onward, prostitutes are frequent victims of serial killers. While some psychologists suggest that prostitutes represent the depravity and evil of women that the killers loathe, criminal profilers say that prostitutes are merely available targets. Most women will not get into a stranger's car, but a prostitute's livelihood depends on doing just that. Also, to a woman-hating serial killer, all women are whores, regardless of occupation. All the killer wants is a woman to destroy. Prostitutes are simply the most convenient.
One question I've been asking myself lately is: Why do we focus our fear on serial killers when there are so many other dangers facing us, like car crashes, domestic disputes, on the job accidents, war, and other random dangers. As crime writer Harold Schecter wrote, a person is far more likely to be killed driving home than by a serial killer. Those dangers are scattered, and a serial killer on the loose in a community gives a face and, later, a name to the general fear we feel in an often scary world. The apprehension of a serial killer, although only making us marginally safer, because all the other ills of the world are still out there, is still considered a major victory in the fight for public safety. We feel powerless against all the dangers that face us, because we never know when or how, or which one, will strike. Our own bodies could develop disease and kill us, as could family members and the morning commute. Bringing a serial killer to justice is a symbolic control over these ills, since the killer has become the personification of all that is bad in our world. Locking up, or killing, the killer is a minor victory. But in a world full of uncertainty, it's still a victory, a triumph over the evils that haunt us.

"Dating Game Killer" sentenced to death

2010-03-31T19:56:00.000-07:00

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/dating-game-killer-rodney-alcala-sentenced-death/story?id=10242131

Rodney Alcala, called the "Dating Game Killer" because of an appearance he made on the game show in the 1970s, after he had allegedly already taken several victims, was sentenced to death yesterday for the murder of a 12-year-old girl. Alcala was also convicted of three other murders in Los Angeles and New York. After being charged with assault of an 8-year-old girl in LA and serving only a 34-month sentence, Alcala fled to New York and allegedly took more victims. Facing police scrutiny in one of the murders, Alcala returned to LA, where the 1979 murder of a 12-year-old led to two convictions, both overturned on technicalities. But in recent years, police had DNA evidence to link Alcala to the killing, resulting in yesterday's sentence. A possible element of the trial that led to the conviction? Alcala, apparently not learning anything from fellow death row convicts Ted Bundy and John Muhammed, represented himself.
One of Alcala's California victims was first thought to be a victim of Hillside Stranglers Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono, due to the location of the victim and the method of strangulation. Some of Alcala's alleged victims were both strangled, often with their pantyhose like victims of the Boston Strangler, and had their skulls cracked, most likely with rocks found near the scene. Since either method would have been sufficient to kill on its own, the overkill seen is an interesting aspect of the murders about which I have yet to hear any theories.
With the conviction, authorities in every part of the country where Alcala has lived is trying to link unsolved murders to him. While it makes sense that missing persons could be tied to Alcala, there is a danger in trying so hard to close cases with the convenient scapegoat of an already convicted killer. When Ed Gein was arrested in the 1950s, police tried to link every unsolved murder to him, a task which ultimately proved fruitless. Gein had only killed two women, and the remains of both were found in his house of horrors. All other body parts, a fact confirmed by a visit to the local cemetery, were from recently deceased corpses. Henry Lee Lucas, with police desperate to close cases, confessed to just about every unsolved murder that was placed under his nose, and several of his "confessions" were later proved false. While it makes sense that police could make logical connections between unsolved murders and Alcala's MO, I hope they don't get overzealous in their quest, as other officials have done in the past.

My not-so-surprising results in an Asperger's quiz

2010-03-30T16:37:00.001-07:00

Courtesy of Clint's blog, an Asperger's quiz. I was officially diagnosed with this condition at 19, and as expected, I scored rather high on the Asperger's side.

[img]http://www.rdos.net/eng/poly12c.php?p1=98&p2=71&p3=97&p4=89&p5=94&p6=97&p7=87&p8=94&p9=79&p10=49&p11=99&p12=79[/img]

Some of the questions on the quiz, like "Do you notice patterns in things all the time?" "Do you sometimes lie awake at night because of too many thoughts?" "In conversations, do you need extra time to carefully think out your reply, so that there may be a pause before you answer?" "Do people think you are aloof and distant?" (the one that has provoked those oh-so-annoying comments from guys like the dreaded "You don't look happy") and "Do you tend to get so absorbed by your special interests that you forget or ignore everything else?" (three guesses on my "special interest") seemed so normal to me that it's hard to conceive that they may be seen as "unusual." But that narrow view, that self-focus and inability to sense how others feel and that someone else may see things in a different way, is also part of Asperger's. It has led to many problems in my personal and professional life, but, with time, it has improved, and I find that I can now interact with some people with few complications. Like learning a foreign language, I had to gradually learn the language of social behavior, with all the nuances and subtle shades indistinguishable to my Asperger's-tinted mind, which others innately know. It's been a long, hard road, and I'm still traveling it, but compared to the hellish years of middle school and high school, things are much better now, and I'm grateful and quite proud of the progress I've made.

Conviction in abortion doctor's murder

2010-01-29T12:28:00.000-08:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100129/ap_on_re_us/us_abortion_shooting_trial

In Kansas, Scott Roeder was convicted of killing abortion provider Dr. George Tiller and sentenced to a life sentence, with the possibility of parole after 25 years. Dr. Tiller's family was grateful for the verdict, calling it "just," and asked that Dr. Tiller be remembered for the services he provided to women and as a good man. In the family's statement, they sounded remarkably level-headed and not at all bitter about the trial of the murderer who took their loved one.
The words of Roeder's defense attorney, on the other hand, were hardly level-headed. He said that Roeder should not be convicted based on his "convictions." He even had the nerve to bring up Martin Luther King in comparison to his client as someone who also bent the law to act on his "principles." The major difference, of course, is that Martin Luther King never killed anyone, and Scott Roeder shot Dr. George Tiller while he sat in church. However, Roeder's attorney didn't have much else to go on in his case. Roeder, like many other men who feel they are acting on God's will, was proud of his actions, claiming to be defending "the children," and held nothing back in his trial statements. At the end of this sad story, I prefer to recall the words of George Tiller's family, that justice was done, and the request to remember the victim fondly.

I've been away

2010-01-22T13:10:00.000-08:00

I have been going through a lot of personal issues, so I have not had the energy to post anything new. But I'm still here, and a recent mass shooting in central Virginia could lead to my first real post in over two months. I hope so.

Final review in EU Film Showcase

2009-11-25T20:58:00.000-08:00

The final film I saw in the European Union Film Showcase was I Am Not Your Friend from Hungary, which I was highly anticipating, because I saw director György Pálfi's Taxidermia at the 2007 festival, and was very impressed by its blend of grotesque imagery and emotional depth. Palfi's new offering is far less graphic but just as emotionally intense. It revolves around several residents of Budapest and their deceitful, manipulative relationships with each other. In a bar, a woman, Rita, tells bartender Sophie that she is planning to divorce her husband, but doesn't know that Sophie has been having an affair with the husband she is about to leave, an affair which the husband, Andras, treated as almost a joke, letting his friend Mark (who turned out to be Sophie's husband), listen in on her telephone seductions of Andras. Mark is also having an affair with his employee Sara, who has been cheating on her boyfriend, and it goes on like this. Every relationship is shrouded in lies and weighed with infidelity and distrust. There are no clear cut heroes and villains, everyone gets hurt and hurts others. The film is preceded by a short documentary set in a kindergarten classroom, where the children, with typical fickleness, switch who they call friends and leave others out of their groups. The short is meant to illustrate how early we use relationships to manipulate each other, but at least the kindergarteners are honest about who they like and dislike at the moment, where the adults in the feature take to lying and manipulating. Although they are the "grownups," they can't be honest about what they want with each other, and may not even know what they want.

Two more from the EU Film Showcase

2009-11-24T13:51:00.000-08:00

Over the weekend I saw two documentaries in the European Union Film Showcase. The first, Citizen Havel from Czech Republic, was a look at the political life of former Czech president Vaclav Havel. Although I know very little about Havel and his policies, I very much enjoyed the film. It provided a look at political meetings and strategy rarely seen in the public media. Havel was seen meeting with his advisers about conflicts with the Czech premier (in the Czech Republic, the president is elected by the Parliament, not directly by the people), preparing for speeches with advisers telling him how to stand and his wife checking his suit for dandruff, and discussing upcoming meetings with other leaders. Two highlights include a trip to a Prague jazz club with former US president Bill Clinton, where Havel presented Clinton with a custom-made saxophone, and Havel attending a Rolling Stones concert and later inviting the band to the Presidential Palace. The film offers an unparalleled look inside the structuring of a new nation, and the triumphs and trials of its leadership. Havel even gives a glimpse into his private life, and, in an emotionally charged interlude, shows him looking out onto the Palace grounds at the state funeral for his late wife. After he remarries (which is also shown), he recounts the 30+ years of his first marriage. The portrait of Havel is multidimensional, private and public lives, achievements and setbacks. The only downside is that the film offers little history of the Czech republic or background on its government, which could leave some viewers lost among the policy discussions. Clarity issues aside, the viewer gains an unprecedented look inside the life of a world leader.
The other documentary was Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno, a look at the legendary French filmmaker's abandoned project Inferno. Film restorer Serge Bromberg collected Clouzot's footage and shows it with readings from the script (the sound had disappeared from the decades-old footage) and interviews with crew members, trying to restructure the film and determine why the project didn't make it. It's hard to tell whether Clouzot's intended film Inferno would have been any good. With odd dream sequences that took a lot of technological wrangling, and Clouzot's obsession with getting the scenes exactly right, it was a highly ambitious endeavor, and a few of the crew members interviewed suggest that it was this over-ambition that led to the project's demise. As a look in the creative process of the renowned director, however, Bromberg's film is invaluable. Through behind the scenes footage and interviews, Clouzot's film-making techniques are revealed, including his preproduction storyboards that also used color coding to indicate the moods and emotions of the characters in the particular scene. The crew also reveal that Clouzot was particularly invested in Inferno, spending hours and hours trying to create the perfect scenes. Clouzot, called the French Hitchcock, was equally demanding on his actors, up to the point where his lead actor left the project midway through. The crew interviews alternately suggest that the actor had contracted a rare illness or that he had just had enough of Clouzot and his demands. Though the film itself was never made, Bromberg used the dead project to create a masterwork of his own, a look into the film-making process and a profile of one of film's most renowned artists in one of his less renowned periods.

Crime hysteria

2009-11-19T10:32:00.000-08:00

Monday night I saw another offering in the European Union Film Showcase at AFI, a Danish film called Deliver Us From Evil. While some of the techniques used were questionable, like the portentous music and images of gathering storm clouds between scenes, and the odd presence of a strangely dressed narrator at the beginning and end, it told a strong story of how people can lose their heads in the quest for vengeance. Lars, a shiftless truck driver with a far more successful brother, runs someone over while on the job, hides the body and other evidence, and plants more evidence on a Bosnian immigrant, who is later besieged by the dead woman's husband, who is also Lars' boss, and other employees who get caught up in the exciting prospect of violence against a supposedly violent offender, although all evidence, and the scene itself, indicate that the woman's death was an accident. While the film is at times a bit too ambitious in attempting to explore multiple issues of class and race (and a rape scene with ensuing battle at the end that is totally superfluous), the illustration of how crazy people can become in pursuing justice is a powerful one. In the climax, the husband, with his employees, has tracked the Bosnian, Alain, to the home of Lars' far more successful brother Johannes, a friend of Alain's who has decided to protect him from the mob. But, as Johannes' wife notices, he becomes just as zealous and violent in his struggle as the mob outside, using a nail gun to staple the arm of an intruder to the door. Johannes himself says that he wants to show up the "proletariats" outside. Ingvar (may not be the exact name), the grieving widower, has an assistant who ultimately refuses to get the bullets for Ingvar to reload his shotgun after shooting into Johannes' house, a doctor Johannes had brought in to examine Alain and police responding to a call. At this point, Lars, shocked at the extremes to which Ingvar has gone, has confessed to running over Ingvar's wife, and Ingvar is unable to harm him. The scene of the angry mob searching ostensibly for justice but in reality to serve a base desire to harm a perceived enemy, recalls Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs, where a retarded man wrongly accused of rape is chased and, though I don't remember exactly, is either killed or almost killed, and Fritz Lang's Fury, where an accused criminal (also innocent) is murdered by a mob that has surrounded the jail where he is being held.
This doesn't just happen in the movies. In a book I just read about Italy's still unsolved case of serial murder, the Monster of Florence killings, after a composite sketch is released of the suspected killer (seen by witnesses near the crime scenes), anyone who vaguely resembled the sketch was terrorized by angry citizens, their businesses suffered, and one man committed suicide as a result of the barrage of threats he received. This was hardly the only problem encountered in the Monster of Florence case; the litany of power struggles among officials, the refusals of investigators to admit fault in accusing ultimately innocent men of the crime, and the terror they inflicted on a journalist who dared to question the official path of the investigation, all of which led to the killer remaining free and unknown (though the terrorized journalist has a convincing theory as to the killer's identity) to this day, warrants its own post, which I will write at another time. I mention it here as an example of the kind of hysteria that can grip a community that has seen a crime wave or suffered any significant loss; they want to blame someone, and when their anxieties finally have a human face, they set upon that, whether or not an official investigation has been conducted and whether or not that person is guilty, and their fear and rage often turn violent. Common sense, logic and everything that separates humans from other animals, except a disturbing organization of brutality, disappears.

Ft. Hood, respect and menstruation

2009-11-15T15:45:00.000-08:00

Since I don't know all the details of the case, I'll keep the discussion of Ft. Hood brief until I read more. But I will say, for the moment, that I do not believe the shooting was an act of terrorism. Although the shooter had embraced a radical sect of Islam, it seems unlikely that the shooting was motivated by ideology, which is the definition of a terrorist attack. More likely, since the shooter was also dealing with personal issues, including possible mental problems, it's far more likely that he was another troubled man with violent, possibly psychotic tendencies that reached his breaking point. It's happened many, many times before, and will happen again, maybe on another military base.
On a related topic, I read a post on Facebook from a friend saying that he would defriend anyone who said that the military was unnecessary and never did anything for anyone. It received a flurry of comments denouncing "elitists," which I took to mean "liberals." While, as the title of my blog clearly indicates, I do not mind being called a liberal, but I do resent when liberals are called elitists. On a recent episode of 30 Rock, Jack told Liz that she needed to get in touch with the "heartland," where people are "kinder" and "simpler." A trip to a rural Georgia comedy club proved that the people in small towns can be total jerks as much as those in big cities. However, in big cities, since more people interact more often, the animosity comes to the surface more often in a more concentrated area. And while California, the bastion of liberal elites in the eyes of dogmatic conservatives, shot down the legalization of gay marriage, the very middle America state of Iowa has passed pro-gay marriage legislation. There are good and bad, liberal and conservative, people everywhere.
Where the military is concerned, I can vaguely recall a routine from the late great George Carlin where he is arguing against the automatic respect that those in certain positions, like police or military officials, have come to expect, which is encouraged by society. Carlin says that, for him to respect someone, they have to earn it through actions. I do not automatically give someone my respect just because they're wearing a uniform or served in a war. As the case of Steven Green in Iraq illustrates, there are soldiers in our military who abuse their power and enlist for entirely the wrong reasons. The recently executed Beltway Sniper John Allen Muhammed served in the first Gulf War, Charles Whitman was a former Marine, and serial killer Arthur Shawcross served in Vietnam. There are respectable people, even heroes, who have served in the military, and, on the other side, I don't automatically hate someone who has been in the military. But just because someone enlisted in the army does not make them a hero, or even a decent person.
The second installment of my reviews of the European Union Film Showcase: Slovakian documentary The Moon Inside You, which examines the myths and perceptions surrounding menstruation. In interviews with pubescent girls and boys, the stuttering comments of squeamish men, psychologists, gynecologists, and the incoherent babble of New Agey types, the director examines views of the natural, but hidden, phenomenon. The point made frequently, which got to me too, is that even modern women do not talk about their menstrual cycles, and, for many women who grew up in more traditional families, it became shameful as a result, making the mere fact of openly creating a film about it a brave act. While the film could have gone into more depth, particularly in examining the ways that governments and social scientists have tried to impede the progress of women by publishing "studies" that the hormones of the menstrual cycle deter women from fully functioning in the workplace. One of the more illuminating, and disturbing, interviews was with a (male) Brazilian doctor who has given women implants to stop them from having periods, and calls menstruation "unnatural" because it's so painful. It recalls the organic fetishists who seem to think that anything "natural" is automatically good, although this is not at all true, considering all the poisonous substances that occur naturally in plants (the cyanide in apple cores is an excellent example). Luckily, the director of the film was available for questions after the showing, and she mentioned that the implants offered by this doctor have been under investigation for causing severe health problems. The symptoms connected to menstruation can be so severe and so shameful that women are willing to have an experimental object implanted inside them to keep it from happening. On the other side, there were psychologists from Australia who advocated embracing the natural rhythms of the body, and, while a bit New Agey for my tastes, it still seemed more reasonable than implants to prevent the very natural, though annoying, process of menstruation. The director told the audience that, because of the topic, she's had trouble finding distributors, particularly in squeamish America, although an American education foundation has expressed interest. The element that put of American public television was a comment by a Spanish gynecologist that masturbation can relieve menstrual cramps (which, through research and personal experience, I've discovered is true except in extreme cases). The most illuminating part of the film was a discussion with pubescent boys, describing their impressions of a woman's period, mostly describing how awful and creepy it sounds, a view which, unfortunately, does not change as boys get older. Although I thought the images of blood that pepper the film were a bit much while watching, an audience member made the point that we see blood in action and horror movies and think nothing of it, but when images of blood are connected to a woman's reproductive process, we automatically recoil. Because menstruation is still considered a taboo, shameful subject. But hopefully a film like this one, where the subject is openly discussed, will trigger more discussion and thoughtful examination.

Disclaimer

2009-11-12T21:25:00.000-08:00

I realize that on my post about the Roman Polanski arrest that I may have come across as condoning his crimes. That was not my intent. I know full well that he raped an underage girl, fully conscious of what he was doing. My concern with the case being brought to trial after all these years is that it's not what the victim wants. She's a grown woman now, and wants to put it behind her. I am not defending Polanski's actions, from the rape to fleeing the country. But I hope the California courts keep the wishes of the victim in mind in their zealous quest for "justice."

John Allen Muhammed executed tonight

2009-11-10T19:12:00.000-08:00

Yes, Beltway Sniper John Allen Muhammed was executed earlier tonight, and I was, as always, extremely dismayed at the sense of celebration I've seen from press releases and even among my friends. For the record, as I've stated many times before, I oppose the death penalty. I can't see that it's about anything but revenge. The most disturbing comment was a post on Facebook wishing that not only Muhammed but his accomplice Lee Malvo got the chair. The electric chair was a terribly cruel method of execution, and I've stated before how I feel about Malvo's involvement in the crimes. But, of course, I didn't support the death penalty for Muhammed either. All that happens is, as Camus wrote in his essay "Reflections on the Guillotine," is the barely cloaked sadism of the masses, relieved that the usually hidden part of their psyches finally has an outlet against a "bad" person, and the chance to revel in the thought of a now-dead criminal burning in hell, and wishing that he had a more painful death. There is something extremely troubling about otherwise decent human beings wishing pain and suffering on another human being, even if that person is a murderer. There is a very simple saying, but it's so true: two wrongs don't make a right.

A Serious Man review

2009-11-10T07:44:00.000-08:00

A Serious Man, the latest offering from Joel and Ethan Coen, is brilliant in many respects, such as the revelatory performance by Michael Stuhlbarg in the lead, which deeply deserves recognition come award season, and the Coens’ trademark quirky humor. What makes the film stand out is how it expertly blends broad comedy with biblical tragedy, causing the viewer to think that the two inevitably go together. Small in scope where the Coens’ other recent masterpiece, No Country for Old Men, was wide, it centers on the fall of one ordinary, self-described “serious” man.
Larry Gopnik, the protagonist, is cursed with an insufferable family; a bratty teenage daughter whose shrill whining fills the house the second he comes home, a pothead son in debt to a local bully who gets high before his bar mitzvah, a wife who reveals that she’s having an affair and, with the assistance of her new lover, forces Larry out of his house into a motel, and a brother who compulsively gambles and ends up getting arrested. Larry’s job as a physics professor doesn’t offer much comfort; there, he’s being bullied and bribed into changing a student’s failing grade by both the student and the student’s father, and has to jump through legislative hoops to get tenure. On top of all of this, he’s low on money (meaning he can’t afford a lawyer for his divorce), his neighbor is building over the property line, and his quest for spiritual enlightenment is more frustrating than enlightening. He is also plagued by nightmares, which form some of the more entertaining and disturbing dream sequences in recent film history.
Larry’s trips to three ineffectual rabbis form a frame in the middle of the story. The first is a young, inexperienced one who can only offer empty platitudes. The second, while more experienced, only offers an odd story (it must be seen to be believed) that has no relevance to Larry’s problems. On the trip to the third, most revered, rabbi, Larry has reached his breaking point. He is clearly exasperated as he begs the rabbi’s secretary for an appointment. She then walks into a book-filled office where the rabbi is sitting quietly. She shortly comes back, and tells the frustrated Larry, “The rabbi is busy.” When Larry shouts that he doesn’t look busy, the secretary, in the same deadpan voice, says, “He’s thinking.” The spiritual quest, which his soon-to-be ex-wife was convinced would help, comes up empty.
Larry’s story does not have a neat ending. A tornado approaches a school as a group of students, including Larry’s son, hides in the basement. At the same time, Larry receives a call from the doctor he saw for tests at the beginning of the film, and the doctor is clearly bearing bad news, but the screen fades to black before the news is revealed. There is no redemption in Larry’s suffering, as there was, of sorts, in the Biblical story of Job, whose story Larry’s symbolically resembles. Unlike Job, Larry finds no solace in faith, and, the viewer can infer from the grim voice of the doctor and the black tornado clouds overhead, will not gain back what he has lost.

In the first installment of a series during the European Union Film Showcase at the AFI Silver Theatre, a brief review of the Bulgarian film Zift. This film could best be described as an Eastern European homage to American film noir. The story centers around a thief who goes by the name Moth, just released from prison in Communist Bulgaria, and is told both forward and backward, in what happens after his release, and how he ended up in prison. While occasionally Moth's voice-overs lend too much exposition, and explain things that don't need to be explained, the film is a classic noir, full of twists, including the subtle but jarring ultimate twist at the end, and moody cinematography. The lead actor, whose name escapes me at the moment, is coolly charismatic and gives a stunning and nuanced performance, particularly while Moth, in the second half, is walking the streets after being poisoned by a former partner in crime. The bleakness of Communist-bloc Eastern Europe proves an excellent setting for a film noir.
While there is no way I will get to see every film in the showcase, or even every one I want to see (I unfortunately missed a very interesting-sounding Polish movie called Piggies this past weekend), I will mention the ones I do get to see here.

Edmund Kemper: fact and fiction

2009-10-20T18:19:00.000-07:00

I just saw a movie about Edmund Kemper I found on Hulu. Considering that I found it online, I wasn't expecting much, but even so, I was severely disappointed by its inaccuracies. First of all, although Kemper committed his crimes in the 1970s, the movie featured contemporary accouterments like laptops and cell phones. Edmund Kemper was 6'9" and weighed 300 pounds, but the actor who played him was shorter than the actors playing the detectives. He looked more like Green River Killer Gary Ridgeway than Kemper. Even worse than the anachronism, it took dramatic license with the story to the point that it was barely recognizable. While Kemper spent time at a bar frequented by police officers and befriended a few of them, he did not have a detective as a close friend, much less help the detective solve other murders, as portrayed in the movie. When the detective learns, through a phone call from Kemper, that he is the killer the police have been tracking, the movie turns into a cat and mouse chase that never happened. In the process, it loses the already fascinating true story, and one of the most interesting aspects of the Kemper case is lost. Edmund Kemper is the only serial killer that I know of who turned himself in, and waited for the police to come get him.
While Kemper is not as well known as the likes of Bundy, Gacy and Dahmer, I've always considered him one of the most interesting serial killers. Like many other killers, he grew up in an abusive home. His mother, embittered by having been left by his father, and because her son looked so much like his father, hated Edmund and didn't try to hide it. Because of his size, and because she hated him, she assumed he would molest his sister, and made him sleep in the basement. She also, an aspect only hinted at in the movie, constantly belittled him, telling him, among other hateful things, that no woman would ever love him. At fourteen (not ten, as depicted in Kemper: The Coed Killer), Edmund's mother sent him to live with his father's parents, and, one day, he shot them, saying "I wanted to know how it felt to shoot Grandma." At a juvenile facility, he learned how to manipulate psychological tests. In his adult killing career (after, in an exceptionally stupid move, being released to his mother's custody), he once passed a psych test administered during a parole meeting, while the head of his latest victim was sitting in his car. A true cinematic moment, but it was left out of the film version of Kemper's life. As the psychologists who later interviewed Kemper realized, the young women he killed were a substitute for his mother, who he was metaphorically killing each time. But one night, he decided to actually kill the woman he hated most. In the film's one saving grace, it included what Kemper did to his mother's dismembered corpse, such as using her head as a dartboard. Also, in what I've heard described as one of the more symbolic gestures in criminal history, he shoved her larynx down the garbage disposal, which he considered appropriate, "seeing how she bitched at me over the years." Kemper then invited his mother's friend over, and, after she saw what he had done, killed her too. Then, either to gain attention for his crimes, or because, having killed his mother, his demons therefore fully exorcised, he drove to a pay phone, called the police and told them to come get him. He stayed until they came to arrest him. That would have been an excellent ending for a film.
While the close friendship Edmund Kemper had with a local detective never happened, FBI agents who later interviewed him admitted, uncomfortably, that they liked the killer. He was intelligent, articulate, and fully aware of the impact of his crimes but stopped short of true remorse. Former FBI profiler Robert Ressler recalled an interview with Kemper where the hulking serial killer told Ressler that he could "screw off his head." When Ressler pointed out that Kemper would get in trouble, the prisoner serving consecutive life sentences replied, "What will they do, cut off my TV privileges?" Thoroughly shaken, Ressler signaled for the guard. When he was about to leave, Kemper told him, "You know I was just kidding, right?"

Roman Polanski arrested in Switzerland

2009-09-28T15:52:00.000-07:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20090928/wl_time/08599192650800

As a fan of both crime stories and film, this case is intriguing, even though it's a fairly standard case of statutory rape. France doesn't want to extradite Polanski, and while I don't feel that his artistry holds him above the law, as some of the French seem to, the charges are over 30 years old. Also, his victim, now a grown woman, has said for years that she wants to drop the charges and get on with her life. Now, against her wishes, the grim details of her ordeal are once again being dragged into public scrutiny. If, as many in the American justice system claim, the search for "justice" in these cases is for the benefit of the victim, then why are they going directly against what the victim has said many times that she wants to happen? It leads me to believe that it is not about justice for the victim, but a personal vendetta against any type of sex offender.
Recently, The Economist had a story titled "America's Unjust Sex Laws." One of the related stories was of a man who had been convicted of statutory rape, served his sentence, and later married his "victim." Despite all of this, he is still listed as a registered sex offender and considered a potential threat to his community.
An adult having sex with a 13-year-old girl is wrong, no one is disputing that. But when the victim herself has moved past the troubling incident, she deserves to have her wishes in regard to the case honored. But the American justice system, in an urge to appear "tough on crime" for "the sake of the children," and an American public that is alternately appalled and morbidly fascinated by any sex crime news, it's unlikely that United States officials will let this quietly go away, which, I must say this again, is what the victim wants.

Edward Kennedy: RIP

2009-08-30T15:05:00.000-07:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090830/ap_on_re_us/us_kennedy_fortune

Read the last quote of this article. It's a moving, eloquent assessment of the need for health care reform. As many of us know, Edward Kennedy recently died after a long battle with brain cancer. He lasted far longer than any experts predicted, who thought he'd be dead within six months of diagnosis. While that's usually the case, Ted lived for over a year.
Despite the unfortunate Chappaquiddick incident, which left an innocent woman dead, and Kennedy a reviled figure and symbol of how the rich and powerful protect their families from actions that would land the rest of us in jail, Kennedy was a tireless fighter for the left. And, among conservatives, he was as hated for this even more than Chappaquiddick. Right to the end of his life, he fought for health care reform. I heard someone say, after Kennedy's passing, that, although President Obama will likely honor the late senator with a moving eulogy, the best way to honor Kennedy's memory would be to finally get health care reform passed. And I agree. There would be nothing that would have made Ted Kennedy happier than to see every citizen of the United States have access to affordable health care. In his memoir, soon to be published, Kennedy expresses his regret and remorse for the woman who died as a result of the car he drove off the Chappaquiddick Bridge, and his later drinking problem. Even in his tormented personal life, he held nothing back at the end.
It's odd to think of a world without Ted Kennedy. While his brothers John and Robert died far too soon to fulfill their promise, Ted spent his long life crusading and getting laws passed for working wages, affordable health care and social programs for the poor. I never thought Ted would die. After Chappaquiddick, campaigning for Obama despite the cancer eating away at his brain, and living with the cancer longer than anyone expected, he seemed indestructible. But, in the end, he was just as human as the rest of us, and fought to make the human struggle a little easier. Rest in peace, Ted.

Evil children

2009-07-23T19:04:00.000-07:00

http://movies.yahoo.com/news/movies.ap.org/evil-children-subgenre-can-chill-moviegoers-ap

One quote in this article, about how children were "easier to control" before television "exposed" them to the "world of adults," is pure bullshit. Ask any parent or teacher, from any era, and they will tell you that any child is a challenge. In my experience working with children, I know that they can be demanding, unruly and even vicious (particularly toddlers and toddlers with hormones, aka adolescents). Anyone who's read The Lord of the Flies is familiar with the fear that, if left to their own devices, meaning outside the influence of television, children will devolve into pre-civilization savages.
This is probably one of the reasons the "evil child" is such a compelling narrative device. Children, with still developing senses of empathy and morality, feel they can act without consequence and, as a result, are very self-centered. The evil child is a regular child's selfishness and occasional cruelty taken to its logical extreme.
The portrayal of the young Lord Voldemort in "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" is mentioned, and, connoisseur of evil and deviance that I am, while watching, I noticed the signs of a psychopath in training in the portrayal of young Tom Riddle. As a child, he is cold, unfeeling, with an inflated sense of his own self-worth and a tendency to bully other children and torture animals. Animal torture is, of course, one sign of a future serial killer. As an adolescent, he uses careful flattery and superficial charm to get what he wants, the psychopath's mask of sanity.
My obsession with crime began with Columbine, a mass murder perpetrated by two teenagers. In a new book on the subject, the author interviews a forensic psychiatrist who concludes that Eric Harris, one of the killers, was a fledgling psychopath, a cold, manipulative egomaniac who considered everyone else inferior and, therefore, deserving of their fate. His partner, Dylan Klebold, was suicidally depressed and angry at the world, but with the inertia that comes with depression, was unable to act on his feelings by himself. When the psychopath with something to prove collided with the depressed boy with a death wish, they exploded.
The scariest "evil kid" I've read about is Jesse Pomeroy, the "Boy Fiend" of Boston in the late 19th century who, at 14, was sentenced to life in prison for two torture murders. At an age where most serial killers are still dismembering dead dogs or tormenting family pets, Pomeroy, the product of a poverty-stricken family and a viciously abusive father, had already graduated to human victims. He tortured several children before killing a four-year-old boy and a ten-year-old girl. Most teenage killers fall under the categories of school shooters, going into their school with guns to let out aggression, or thrill killers, bored kids who kill for profit or out of twisted curiosity. But Pomeroy was disturbingly focused on his own sadism as his motive, his murders matching the savagery of adult murderers like Jeffrey Dahmer or Andrei Chikatilo. Even before television, the moral watchdogs of the time found a sinister pop culture object to blame for Pomeroy's crimes, in this case the lurid dime novels popular among the nation's youth. When he was captured, Pomeroy was originally sentenced to death, but, because of his age, this caused a public outcry, and his sentence was changed to life in prison.

Patrick Burris: the South Carolina spree killer

2009-07-09T14:19:00.000-07:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090708/ap_on_re_us/us_sc_killing_spree

Patrick Burris, suspected as the killer who had been terrorizing a South Carolina community for the last couple weeks after being killed by police during a burglary investigation, has been linked by ballistics to the shooting deaths of victims in five different murders.
The article doesn't reveal much about Burris' motives or background, but neighbors recall him as "scary" and "someone you didn't want to cross," unlike the "nice, ordinary" men who later end up in handcuffs after opening fire at their workplaces or with bodies in their basements. Burris had been in and out of prison for burglary-related offenses for much of his adult life, and he reportedly intimidated a victim he tried to extort money from to the point where the victim wouldn't testify, and the case was thrown out.
A former FBI profiler commented on the case, saying that Burris didn't have the "mentality" of a serial killer, noting the random victims and shooting method. Most serial killers have at the very least a gender or age preference for their victims while others, like Ted Bundy, had specific physical characteristics in mind. But Burris' victims, like those of the Zodiac or the Night Stalker, were random, victims of opportunity. The relatively short span of time between Burris' crimes indicates that he was a spree killer, not a serial killer. Serial killers usually kill one victim, have a cooling-off period, then get the urge to kill again, sometimes with an "escalation period," where they kill in quicker succession. But Burris often claimed more than one victim at one crime scene, and killed in rapid succession, suggesting a man on a rampage, not a calculating murderer, as does his method of shooting. Serial killers usually prefer the more personal methods of strangulation or stabbing, where spree and mass murderers, who want to get their rage out fast, are inclined to use firearms. With Burris dead, we may never know the motives for his rampage.

Connecticut man burns down house with ex-wife inside

2009-07-08T08:22:00.000-07:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090708/ap_on_re_us/us_divorce_hostage

Yet another man who couldn't accept that his wife wanted to leave him. The list of men who murder or attempt to murder their wives, or kill their wives and others in one blow, or lash out at strangers after being left by their wives, is far too long, especially since, according to popular psych theories, women are the ones who become emotionally clingy and can't let go. I think that sending an ex-wife threatening messages saying, "We are not getting divorced...we are married until death do us part," constitutes not being able to let go. There is an interesting twist to this rather standard crime story; the disgruntled ex-husband got a priest to perform last rites on his wife before setting their former home on fire with her inside. Another odd element: the man gave himself up, instead of taking his own life or goading the police into shooting him, as often happens in cases like these.
Personal news: I have a new boss at the learning center where I work, and she is taking her new position of authority way too seriously. She sent an email about the teacher meeting last night, saying at least twice in three sentences that it was "mandatory," even though, with all the changes happening in the three weeks since last being reminded of the meeting, many of us forgot and had made other plans. Plans which, of course, we now had to rearrange. And, after I had emailed her telling her that I had to make an effort to arrange my schedule to be at this "mandatory" meeting, which ended up covering the same old bullshit at least four times over in slightly different wording, taking almost an hour of our time, when I showed up for the meeting, my new boss said, with false gratitude, "Thank you for being here." She also has an annoying habit of smiling whenever she speaks, which she probably thinks sells her "sincerity."
I bring this up because, this morning, it took said boss almost one hour after the center opened to post the schedule for the day, meaning that the teachers who came in on time (which she self-righteously reminded us to do at last night's meeting), had no idea where we were supposed to be, and had to divide the tasks among ourselves. The core of this is, bosses rarely feel the need to hold themselves to the same standards as their employees. Employees are raked across the coals for being five minutes late or not properly filling out forms, but when the directors are an hour late posting the schedule, or schedule employees for times when employees have said they're unavailable, or ask us to stay an extra hour, or, worse yet, just expect it, because they've screwed up the schedule and don't have the balls to tell parents to stick to their kids' previously determined schedules, the employees are just supposed to accept it. It's not right.
Some good news: a friend offered to give me a chance to review albums for his music site, ReGen: www.regenmag.com I just sent in my first review, and am waiting to hear if I made the cut. It gave me something to do while waiting to get a job and for my boyfriend to stop working and my so-called friends to acknowledge my existence.

Holocaust museum shooter identified

2009-06-10T18:47:00.000-07:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090610/ap_on_re_us/us_holocaust_museum_shooting_suspect

The suspect is a Holocaust denier who once tried to kidnap members of the Federal Reserve Board (something he calls "citizen's arrest"). James Von Brunn managed to kill a guard before being shot himself, and is currently in critical condition.
He is described as a "frustrated artist," who angrily stomped out of a gallery that wouldn't show his work. On his website he describes a childhood bully, service in World War II and many problems he blames on Jews and other minorities.
Because he was caught early in his rampage, and is currently in no condition to explain himself, it's difficult to tell exactly what Von Brunn's motives were. His rhetoric and choice of location suggest an ideologically motivated assault, but, going into a federal museum with little effort to hide his weapons, and killing the first person he encountered with security everywhere guaranteed that he would be caught almost immediately. The sheer amount of his arms also guaranteed that security would feel impelled to use force, so was this an attempted "suicide by cop," as many mass murders have ended? In addition to racist anger that the Jews are "undermining" the white race with the "browning of America," Von Brunn's website describes various perceived personal hardships, the kind that can lead an unstable mind to mass murder culminating in suicide. I think psychologists have said that this level of hatred in an individual can be traced to a projection of self-loathing, at least in some cases. But Von Brunn isn't talking right now, and at the moment, all we have to go on is his self-aggrandizing website and the details of an appalling but poorly executed crime.

Suspect in Dr. Tiller's murder held

2009-06-01T11:48:00.000-07:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090601/ap_on_re_us/us_tiller_shooting;_ylt=AjSM8xOQdCHG6BZAkb560Nqs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTJrM3Iwams1BGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMDkwNjAxL3VzX3RpbGxlcl9zaG9vdGluZwRjcG9zAzMEcG9zAzEwBHNlYwN5bl90b3Bfc3RvcnkEc2xrA3N1c3BlY3RqYWlsZQ--

A man tangentially affiliated with the disgusting anti-abortion group Operation Rescue has been arrested, but not formally charged, with the murder of abortion provider Dr. George Tiller. Dr. Tiller was shot in church, which makes the crime particularly appalling. While I'm not fan of organized religion, someone goes to church (usually) to achieve a certain type of peace and spiritual solace. Also, if these "prolife" types are all about upholding the laws of God, wouldn't shooting someone in a church violate the sanctity of "God's house"? Under Kansas law, the man who reportedly made veiled threats against Dr. Tiller on Operation Rescue's website can be held for 48 hours before charges have to be filed.
I have been of mixed opinion on Barack Obama's presidential actions so far, but I felt his response to this event was appropriate and, as is characteristic, quite eloquent (paraphrase): "No matter how we differ on the complex subject of abortion, these conflicts cannot and should not be resolved through heinous violence." While one Operation Rescue spokesperson condemned the killing as "vigilantism," the group's founder, the truly reprehensible Randall Terry, refuses to show any sign of sympathy for a man killed while sitting in church, referring to him as a "mass murderer" and "evil." I thought these people were trying to support every human being's "right to life." I guess those principles don't apply to killers who act on the anti-abortion agenda, at least to Terry, who has openly advocated hate and intolerance. Check some of his past speeches if you don't believe me.
Meanwhile, Dr. Tiller's family and friends remember him fondly as a good man devoted to the right to choose for women, and he will be another victim of assassination who, instead of furthering the assassin's cause, becomes a martyr and rallying symbol for the values the killer wanted to destroy.

Refusing medical treatment on "religious grounds"

2009-05-20T10:22:00.001-07:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090520/ap_on_re_us/us_forced_chemo;_ylt=AsmHA6BZbrBE2.Y_HVvRh6tvzwcF

Shortly after a girl died of diabetes after her religious parents refused to seek medical treatment, believing that "God would heal the child," a mother has gone on the run with her cancer-afflicted 13-year-old son in the face of being threatened with legal action after refusing to continue her son's chemotherapy due to religious objections. The child's father, while baffled as to why the authorities have gotten involved, said that he supports chemo in this and other "extreme" cases.
The mother is part of a fanatic Roman Catholic sect that advocates "natural" healing. Her son, in addition to having Hodgkin's disease, is also learning-disabled, leading doctors and authorities to conclude that he didn't fully understand the process and effects of chemotherapy. He did fear that it would "kill him," but who knows if he came to that conclusion on his own or if he was influenced by his mother.
The question is, can parents refuse to treat their children? The obvious answer appears to be yes, since, if the government orders "conventional" medicine to parents who may not support it, this is a slippery slope in government intervention of civil liberties and freedom of choice. If they force chemotherapy in one extreme case, what will stop them from continuing to enforce specific treatments? Another, almost as obvious answer, is that the government has a duty to protect its citizens, including children when parents fail to do so. The state where the chemo-dodging mother lives has a law enforcing medical treatment for children, and states that "alternative and complementary medicine are not enough." "Alternative" medicine, consisting of homeopathy, herbs and "natural" medicine, have not been proven effective. Even less effective is the method of prayer and divine intervention, practiced by the religious zealots who most frequently refuse medical treatment.
Further complicating this issue is the fact that religious fanatics are not easy to get through to in terms of crime and punishment. If a suicide bomber is willing to die for his god, how is a court on earth going to punish him so it will make an impact? Similarly, religious fanatics who believe that God will heal ailments and, if he doesn't, than it was due to some divine plan. If a religious parent is convinced that they were acting according to God's will, no earthly judge or jury will convince them otherwise. They will go to their prison cell, or to their execution, confident they are still good in the eyes of God, and, to them, that will be the only thing that matters.

Louisiana middle school shooting

2009-05-18T18:13:00.000-07:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090518/ap_on_re_us/us_louisiana_school_shooting;_ylt=AsSQkHD_j2uBDoNbLfTQatVvzwcF

An angry but immature and insufficiently armed 15-year-old went on a rampage at a Louisiana middle school, a crime that officials say was planned far in advance, as evidenced by journals kept by the gunman. With the exception of the all too real body count and injuries, this almost felt like a childish playacting of a massacre. It fit the mold of the mass murder, through the angry journal entries to the shooter's attempt on his own life, which left him in "critical but stable condition" but alive.
He "geared up" in camoflauge, dressing up for the part, and told a teacher to "Hail Marilyn Manson," an odd and very immature statement. But someone who thinks they can solve their problems in a hail of bullets is hardly a role model of humanity. His journal reveals phrases like "y'all will die."
This shooter was 15, with a still developing and still immature mental capacity, and, most likely, ruled by hormones rather than logic. Regardless of age, once a man (usually) has come to the decision to run rampant with a firearm as retribution for perceived injustices, he has ceased to be a rational human being and is ruled by overactive emotions, like any teenager.
The serial killer, in emotional processes, is also, in a way, a perpetual adolescent, demanding that what he needs is more important than anything else in the world, even if what he "needs" is to commit murder. The vast majority of teenagers are not violent, although their demands for possessions and an independence for which they are not ready can border on insistent and almost violently pushy. Killers, like addicts and teenagers, need instant gratification, and are easily bored and need higher levels of stimuli to keep them interested. Ted Bundy's college girlfriend dumped him (this was the trigger on his festering hatred of women) because, among other factors, she thought he was "immature." Gainesville Ripper Danny Rolling was also called immature by a police psychiatrist. Ed Gein had a childlike inability to cope with the outside world after the death of his domineering mother, which lowered him into insanity. Somewhere along the way, the emotional development of these men stalled, while they physically grew into adult men and, in most cases, developed higher mental capacities that allowed them to trick their victims and outsmart law enforcement. Physical and mental strength, combined with an adolescent selfishness and demand for instant gratification, took men damaged by biology or abuse down a murderous path.
Adolescence is also, particularly for men, a hypersexual period, which doesn't taper off until the early to mid 20s (or, an argument can be made, for the rest of their lives). Older men, with some exceptions, don't often begin serial murder careers (angry men of this age are more likely to go on shooting rampages) because, possibly, even if the crimes themselves have no sexual element, most serial killers gain a sexual satisfaction from murder. In the first episode of the second season of Dexter, after commiting his first murder in several weeks, as Dexter plunges the knife into his victim, his face looks like one in the midst of an orgasm. That many serial killers choose the phallic knife is potentially significant to the Freudians among us, and, while Jack the Ripper's victims were not sexually assaulted, profilers theorize that the stabbing was the Ripper's substitute for sex. Male serial killers usually begin their careers in their late teens or early 20s, where they are legally adults but still hypersexual adolescents. Female serial murderers, on the other hand, if they are not acting as accomplices to male killers, tend to begin their killing later in life, as Aileen Wuornos did in her 30s; women reaching their sexual peak in mid-adulthood rather than adolescence.

John Allen Muhammed appeals

2009-05-12T05:48:00.000-07:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090510/ap_on_re_us/us_sniper_appeal;_ylt=Asa1MntilrAtqc95sGpuQy9bIwgF

John Allen Muhammed, the dominant force in the Beltway Sniper attacks, is appealing his conviction, claiming ineffective counsel and withholding of evidence on the part of the prosecution. Muhammed chose to represent himself. As an old saying goes, "Ignorance of the law is no excuse." Muhammed's decision, which I'm sure his co-counsel advised against, was a stupid one. But at least, in a way, he's now acknowledging that, in the court's refusal to stop him, that it was a bad idea. Still, Muhammed is an egomaniacal sociopath, and I doubt his ego would have allowed anyone to stand in the way of what he felt was his right to represent himself. Now that he's been convicted, like so many before him, he's trying anything, no matter how futile, to get out.
Muhammed also claims that the prosecution violated terms by withholding an early police profile of the suspected shooter, indicating that it was likely a "loner," not a duo like Muhammed and Lee Boyd Malvo. He and his new attorneys neglected to mention that the profile included a brief mention of the possibility of an accomplice that was acting under the direction of the primary shooter, an accurate description of Muhammed and Malvo.
According to Muhammed, there were also letters written by Malvo in prison that were not admitted, letters which illustrate that Malvo was an active, not passive accomplice. Malvo was 17 at the time of the sniper attacks, having been taken from his native Jamaica by Muhammed. While Malvo is no innocent, it's clear that he was operating under the influence of a much older and domineering authority figure.
John Allen Muhammed was, in terms used to describe mass murderers, a time bomb. Two failed marriages, a string of failed businesses, a discharge from the Army (where he was court martialed twice), combined with the sociopath's sense of entitlement, were waiting to erupt. Muhammed was angry at his ex-wife (who had a restraining order against him) for taking his children away, and at the world in general. He had motive, opportunity, sharpshooter training from the military, and a willing and naive accomplice.
Final note: Muhammed's lawyers also say that testimony from a psychologist stating that Muhammed suffered brain damage due to years of abuse from his parents was not admitted, but prosecutors say this was because Muhammed refused to cooperate with the psychologist.

Craigslist killer and Alabama shooter

2009-04-28T12:07:00.000-07:00

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/04/22/2009-04-22_source_craigslist_suspect_philip_markoff_had_items_from_victims_.html

Phillip Markoff, the "Craigslist Killer" still has his fiance by his side, who sounds too typical of a suspected killer's loved ones who are still in shock. She says "he couldn't have done this" and that this is "not the man I know." It never is. If Markoff is the Craigslist killer, he's hardly the first to duck under the cover of a "normal" life to cover his deviant desires. No one suspected devoted family man and Boy Scout troop leader Dennis Rader of being Wichita's feared BTK killer, or attractive law student Ted Bundy of murdering 30-plus women, but both turned out to be true. With surveillance video showing Markoff leaving the scene of the murder and an earlier robbery, a victim also contacted on Craigslist, and items belonging to the victims found in his apartment, there is a strong case against Markoff as another Jekyll/Hyde killer, despite the understandable reluctance of his loved ones to believe it.
Phillip Markoff is the one at fault here, not Craiglist. Even though the site offers services that some may find distasteful, not all people who use the service turn out to be murderers. Just because many serial killers target prostitutes does not mean that prostitution is the cause of serial murder; killers target prostitutes because, unlike other women walking down the street, prostitutes are willing to get into a stranger's car. There are no men who suddenly become murderers because they see a prostitute on the street or an ad for erotic services on Craigslist. Markoff, if he is the Craigslist Killer, was intently looking for victims, and thought Craigslist would be a good place to find them. While this should make people who advertise on Craigslist more cautious, it should not place the blame on the site itself.
Markoff is not the first killer to look for victims through personal ads. The "Want-Ad Killer" got his name because he targeted his first victim by placing an ad for an employee at his gas station. The "Lonely Hearts Killers," or "Honeymoon Killers," found victims through the dating mail-order services popular among aging singles in the 1950s. Albert Fish found his last victim, Grace Budd, after placing a help wanted ad for a farm he didn't have, but took the applicant's sister after her 18-year-old brother, who answered the ad, turned out to be far too strong and adult for the aging sadist and pedophile's tastes.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090423/ap_on_re_us/us_south_alabama_shootings;_ylt=AmnO810bf3L9iodOIId29sVbIwgF

The man who killed 10 on a shooting spree in Alabama last month, starting with his mother, before setting her house on fire, sent a letter to relatives explaining his crime. It seemed like another case of a down on his luck, angry young man who thought he could restore some kind of balance to the universe through murder, except for one factor. In his letter, he said his mother had cancer, which was not found in the autopsy. His mother had recently been laid off, and in his letter, he says he wanted to make people pay for how he and his mother had suffered. Why this involved killing his mother and burning her corpse, I can't say. The mental processes of these offenders are never easy to navigate. He had also trained to be a Marine, but was discharged from basic training after failing to mention on his application that he had chronic shoulder displacements. His commanding officer also said that he "didn't seem too bright." Unlike the more sophisticated serial killers, who can go for years without getting caught or even suspected, the mass murderer, who commits his crimes out in the open with only self-destruction and the destruction of others on his mind, appears to be on the lower end of the mental spectrum of the criminal.

Joseph Fritzl: Austria's "Dungeon Dad"

2009-04-09T14:42:00.001-07:00

http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/criminal_mind/sexual_assault/josef_fritzl/1.html

This featured story on Crime Library caught my attention. An Austrian man, who had been raping his daughter since she was 11, constructed a dungeon in his basement to keep her prisoner. Not surprisingly, he himself grew up under the iron fist of a violently domineering mother.
Next to the US and Great Britain, Germany has produced an unusually high amount of serial killers and sexual sadists. The "Dungeon Dad" was technically Austrian, but there are strong cultural similarities. Among Germany's contributions to the hall of infamy are Fritz Haarmann, the "Vampire of Hanover"; Georg Grossmann; Peter Kurten, the "Monster of Dusseldorf"; and, most recently, Arwin Meiwes, who made headlines for killing and cannibalizing a willing victim. Cannibal killers are also oddly prevalent in Germany. Although the country has also given us Albert Einstein and other great minds, German history often recalls the Inquisition, the Holocaust and sadistic killers.
I haven't posted in a long time. Things haven't been great in my life. Along with the rest of the country, I'm having money troubles and can't find a job. This has forced me to move out of my apartment and into a house that I have to share with someone else. It will be a tough adjustment, after living on my own for so long. And I can't bring my cat. But this is a time for sacrifice.

57 victims of mass murderers in past month

2009-04-08T12:26:00.000-07:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090407/ap_on_re_us/month_of_shootings_glance;_ylt=AsbstHt5.yub3ZYOx524u6VbIwgF

A while ago, I wondered if the economic crisis would spawn a spate of mass shootings. And many of the gunmen responsible for the high body count had recently lost their jobs, along with the men whose wives had left them. In one case, a man in Georgia had not only lost his job but was lashing out at Obama's supposed plan to ban gun ownership. What better way to prove that every citizen should be able to own a gun than by proving just how dangerous guns can be in the wrong hands, murdering police officers because of a predicted amended gun law?
Cases like this illustrate the mentality of the mass murderer, a man (usually) who has a predisposition to violent behavior combined with recent stresses, like losing a wife or a job. Which makes times like this potentially conducive to more homicidal outbursts. These men likely felt wronged by their circumstances, and were for whatever reason unable or unwilling to deal with their problems in a rational manner, like most of us respond to stress. One more reason this economy needs to be put on the road to recovery as soon as possible.

California arson killer on trial

2009-03-17T13:20:00.000-07:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090317/ap_on_re_us/arson_firefighters_killed;_ylt=Agdq5gVQKACRy1o5MMMuFfhbIwgF

While the biggest crime story of the past week is disgraced financial wizard Madoff going to jail, white-collar crime is not my area of interest. But the story of an arsonist-mass murderer of firefighters in California captured my interest. As those who have studied the worst serial killers attest, pyromania in childhood is considered a "warning sign" of future violent behavior. David Berkowitz set over a thousand fires before going on his shooting spree in the streets of New York, documenting each arson in a journal. Australian spree killer Martin Bryant also had an obsession with fire as a child, landing him in the hospital, where he told local reporters that, despite his life-threatening injuries, he would continue to play with fire. The California arsonist chose to combine his lust for murder with his obsession with flames, and, in an ironic twist, killing firefighters in the process. The arsonist said he felt "powerful" while setting fires. Many serial killers and other criminals speak with awe about the sense of power their crimes give them. Ted Bundy said that a person in his position, about to take a human life, is "God." I don't know anything about the California arsonist murderer's background, so I have no idea how he got to this point. However, I'm sure he grew up feeling powerless, either because of rejection by his peers or an abusive home life, like so many others of his type. The rage at the people who hurt or rejected him, combined with a feeling of powerlessness, led him to think, in a mind warped by hurt, that the only way to assert himself was through random violence.
While I'm not covering it extensively, the devastation caused by the financial manipulation of the likes of Madoff cannot be underestimated. Although he didn't physically harm anyone, he conned those who put faith in him out of hundreds of thousands of dollars, and caused misery among them and their families in the process. I don't know if his motive was greed or a lust for power similar to that of more physically violent criminals, but, either way, the damage was done, and he's now, thankfully, answering for his crimes.

Search for LA serial killer still cold

2009-02-28T14:20:00.000-08:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090226/ap_on_re_us/california_serial_killer;_ylt=Av.lJnNC1A4kMuS8NmZpElxbIwgF

Police tracking a Los Angeles serial killer nicknamed the "Grim Sleeper" have very few leads in the 24-year-old case. The killer first struck in 1985, and took a 14-year hiatus between before striking again in 2007. One witness who called to report a suspicious man dumping something in a trash bin, then speeding away in a van, refused to give police his name, saying that he "knows too many people." The killer, like many American serial murderers before him, kills prostitutes and minorities, likely knowing that the general public and police won't pay as much attention to such crimes. But the killer made a mistake that is almost always fatal: he left a living victim, who has given a description to police after being picked up by a man, then shot and left for dead.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/02/26/new.mexico.bodies/index.html?eref=ib_us

In New Mexico, at least ten bodies have been found in one section of desert. The ones that have been identified are young women, one of whom was pregnant. The article didn't say how long the bodies have been there, but while reading it, I thought of New Mexico torture killer David Parker Ray, who claimed many victims whose bodies were never found. Ray, with a female accomplice, kidnapped, tortured and murdered a young woman, and was arrested when his partner turned him over to police, and because he left a living victim who identified him. When asked in an interview why she went along with Ray's sadistic activities, his partner recalled a sick fascination with Ray, along with a fear of him. Are the new bodies more victims of David Parker Ray, or is New Mexico plagued with another killer targeting young women?

US court dismisses anti-vaccine suits

2009-02-13T10:52:00.000-08:00

http://tinyurl.com/c27z94

US scientists and courts have made official what the legitimate scientific community has known for years; there is no concrete link between childhood vaccinations and autism. This absurd and potentially dangerous claim was publicized by a small but very loud group of confused parents looking for something to blame in the face of their ignorance of a child's disorder, and misguided members of the medical fringe. Their argument was based on hearsay and the perceived surge of diagnosed autistic children in recent years. Although responsible doctors and scientists made clear through studies that there was no clear link, this group of the misinformed tried to convince the world of their baseless theory, using the typical "alternative medicine" argument that the medical establishment is purely profit-based, and therefore wants children vaccinated. Children are vaccinated because it works. When I was a kid, I never knew anyone with measles, mumps, rubella or meningitis. In one publicized case, parents of a little girl who died of meningitis revealed that they never had the girl vaccinated because they bought into the anti-vaccine hysteria.
I was skeptical of the supposed vaccine-autism connection from the start, for two reasons. One, while it appears that there are currently more autistic children than ever, most likely there are no more than there have ever been. The reason it appears that way is because of the publicity and increased knowledge of autism in the last five to ten years. Whereas before, if a child had autism or Asperger's Syndrome, there was no name for it, and very little knowledge of what that name would mean for the child. When I was growing up, no one, including me, knew why I didn't fit in with the rest of the world. But now I know what it is, and can recognize the signs if I see them. It's not that there are more cases of autism, it's that now we know what to look for, and when we know what to look for, we can see more clearly. Another possible reason why there may be more cases in recent years could be that, with the advent of autistic-friendly professions like computing and engineering, those with autism spectrum conditions are more likely to marry and have children, and scientists are looking into the possibility that autism may have a genetic component.
The other reason I never bought the vaccines cause autism argument is that it seemed improbable. Millions of children are vaccinated, and only a small percentage show any sign of an autism spectrum disorder. My sister, brother and I were all vaccinated, and only I ended up with Asperger's Syndrome. My brother could even be described as "anti-autistic" since he's highly social and has a comfort around other people that I could never attain or understand. Also, my grandfather, a retired IBM engineer, has all the signs of Asperger's, but he grew up long before the diagnosis existed, therefore was never identified as such. Also, I don't think he was given the now common childhood vaccines. In conclusion, this ruling marks a victory for medicine and a blow to the lunatic fringe who, for whatever reason, feel compelled to attempt a reversal of medical advances and go back to the age of common childhood illnesses.
Tomorrow, I have an interview for a temp job. The hostile environment of gossipy moron coworkers at my current job has me at the breaking point. Job interviews have always been tough for me, because they require eye contact, quick thinking in response to questions, and cloaking the truth in more friendly and palatable language, things I and other with autism spectrum disorders cannot do easily. But this time, Anthony, who regularly conducts interviews, offered help, and now I know what kind of answers are expected and how I can give the interviewer what they want without having to lie. It will still be a hellish 20-30 minutes, but being coached might help me get a job that I desperately need.

A new era in America

2009-01-21T13:34:00.000-08:00

For better or worse, America has a new face and brain trust. President Barack Obama and his colleagues have a big mess to clean up: Iraq, economic crises, and the faltering opinion of the US on the world and domestic stages. I don't think that anyone could live up to the expectations heaped on Obama, due partly to his own speeches and partly to the media coverage, but I do believe that he will do what he can to help the country through this rough time. Conditions won't improve overnight, there's a lot of hard work to do. But, to use one of Obama's favorite words, for the first time in eight years, I have hope that the state of the nation has a chance of improving. Although the anti-abortion protestors I saw on the Metro today, who likely mobilized their fanatic forces due to the swearing in of a pro-choice president, will disagree, I am looking forward to the new American era. The Obama/Biden team has a lot of work to do as an emergency rescue force after Hurricane George devastated America and the rest of the world, and I'm sure they're feeling the pressure. But I have a message for them: Millions of people voted you into office hoping you would make a difference for the better. Don't let us down, or you'll feel it in 2012.
On a happier note, the tide has shifted, new faces and minds are in the White House, George is off to his ranch, which he never should have left in the first place, and Dick Cheney will return to his underground pod to plot his next evil move.

A new year

2009-01-01T14:17:00.000-08:00

And more Darwin Awards to come: http://www.darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin2002-08.html

Today is not only the first day of 2009, it's also the 7-year anniversary of a Darwin Award "winner" from Croatia trying to open a grenade with a chainsaw. It didn't end well.

Anthony and I had a great time at Bound's annual New Year's party last night, even though the venue had possibly the worst bar staff in DC. They didn't accept credit cards, they carried bills around in their hands, took several minutes to fulfill orders and make change, and appeared to spend more time arguing with each other than working. The awesome bartender at Club Liv can do more as one person than the staff at Asefu could with three people. And that's just sad. Still, it was great to ring in the new year with my guy and our friends, including some we hadn't seen in far too long. With the full crowd at the New Year's party, I'm hoping this means a comeback for Bound in 2009. It's already looking like a good year for me; in addition to a great relationship, I've also heard about a few job opportunities. And few things would make me happier in the next year than to say goodbye to my current coworkers and take a more positive direction in my career. Also, with a brand new replacement for my piece of crap laptop, I hope to be posting more in the coming year. I didn't update my blog nearly enough last year.

Walsh murder "solved"

2008-12-19T13:27:00.000-08:00

Before getting into the main part of today's post, I had to comment on the disgraced governor of Illinois (I will not attempt to spell his name without it written in front of me). He vows to "keep fighting." You were caught on tape threatening to rescind donations to a hospital over campaign contributions and trying to sell President-elect Obama's abandoned Senate seat. It's over. No one in the media or political sphere is offering any words of defense for your actions. Again, it's over. You're on your way out of office and, if there's any justice, into prison.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081217/us_nm/us_usa_murder_florida;_ylt=AoF3Yyq2A2UQQ6UaRy1GLStbIwgF

Hollywood, Florida police have declared the 27-year-old murder of young Adam Walsh "closed," officially linking it to Ottis Toole, the now-deceased former partner of Henry Lee Lucas. Walsh's father John, the sometimes annoyingly indignant host of America's Most Wanted, has trumpeted for years that Toole committed the crime. Toole, like Lucas, confessed to hundreds of murders, only to recant his confessions or be proven wrong by forensic evidence. Speaking of evidence, the police have not mentioned the type of evidence they have against Toole in the Walsh case, which leads to some skepticism on my part. John Walsh has been extremely insistent that Toole murdered his son, based on clothing "similar" to Adam's found among Toole's possessions and Toole's numerous confessions, later retracted. Toole's niece has also reportedly said that her uncle confessed to the Walsh murder on his deathbed. I understand that sometimes police feel pressure to close a high-profile case, especially with such a publicly grieving father all over the media. But the lack of concrete evidence, or evidence of evidence in the police's silence, and Toole's reputation as a self-aggrandizing liar, say to me that Adam Walsh's murderer could either be dead and not known as a child-killer, or is alive and still among us. Ottis Toole may have killed Adam Walsh, but maybe he didn't. As in the case of JonBenet Ramsay, the tunnel vision that some investigators get in focusing on one suspect can block out clues that could lead to the real perpetrator.

The holidays are upon us yet again, and those of you that survive, I wish you all the best for the new year.

Remembering the victims of Jim Jones

2008-11-26T18:14:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted in a long time, because my computer's a piece of shit and I've been so depressed by my busy schedule and my pain in the ass coworkers, but I heard a couple weeks ago that it was the 30th anniversary of the mass suicide at Jonestown. Jonestown was the creation of cult leader Jim Jones, preying on the young and idealistic as disciples for his "church," the People's Temple. When the San Francisco press and city officials started sniffing around Jones' financial and other misdeeds, he moved his followers to Guyana to start a pseudo-utopian community he called Jonestown. After a congressman went to investigate the community, where he and his aides were shot and killed by Jones' loyal soldiers, Jones, his cancerous ego bruised, ordered his followers to drink tainted Kool-Aid. Almost one thousand died that day, following the orders of a cold, calculating egomaniac. That's the saddest part about the whole tragedy. Jim Jones preferred to kill his loyal followers than be found out by the authorities. He ended the slaughter by shooting himself, like so many madmen before him.
As one former People's Temple member said in a documentary about Jonestown, "No one purposely joins a cult." It's a common misconception that the victims of cults somehow deserved it for being stupid enough to join in the first place. But the members of the People's Temple were like anyone else, searching for a belief system and a place to belong. Unfortunately, in their case, they were lured in by the manipulations of a man who didn't care about them or their well-being, only the power he could wield over them. Cults can overtake anyone. We've all had our moments of self-doubt and desperation. Manipulative cult leaders sniff these things out like bloodhounds, and then move in for the kill. Witnesses who miraculously escaped the mass poisoning at Jonestown relate stories of parents forcing the Kool-Aid down their children's throats. These were otherwise decent human beings, under the dangerous spell of a man they thought cared about their best interest, but was only interested in preserving his sense of power. He killed himself after his followers, most likely not out of remorse, but because his ego was so swollen that he saw his followers as extensions of himself, and had to die with him. This dark moment in our history has a valuable lesson in it: blind faith is not the virtue religious types want us to believe it is. It could kill us.
I haven't posted since October, and I had an amazing Halloween. I was a zombie in Todd's haunted house, jumping out of the shadows and screaming at passersby. Then at the parties, Anthony and I were Bonnie and Clyde. In the second week of November, Anthony and I celebrated our first anniversary. One year is a huge record in my very disappointing history of relationships, and at least I have one good thing in my life right now. And he's in Kansas City for Thanksgiving, while I'm stuck here with my family waiting for him to come back on Sunday.

Illogical affection

2008-10-19T11:43:00.000-07:00

On an Asperger's Syndrome message board, someone recently posted about the problem that he called "illogical affection." He was referring to feelings that people with AS can develop toward others who may not be true friends, but are just being polite and socially friendly. The problem we face is that we usually can't tell the difference. I know that, for a while, I became so closed off to any sign of affection that I was totally alone, because I had just learned that not everyone who was nice to my face was really my friend. It's still something I struggle with. For a long time I latched onto any guy I liked who showed a bit of interest, and, even when he made it clear that he just wanted a casual relationship, if I liked him and he gave me an indication that he also liked me, I got very attached very fast. It took a long period of reflection for me to realize that, not only did these guys not want to be with me in the long term, I probably wouldn't have liked them at all if my head hadn't been sent in a haze at the first show of affection. But now that I have Anthony, I don't worry about that as much anymore. However, since I still can't always tell who's being genuinely nice and who's just being polite, and what guys are just trying to get my pants off (although that one can be painfully obvious), it's still hard for me to trust people. It's so easy for me to get swept up by someone being friendly, after years of being alone and an inability to understand social cues, that I don't always recognize who is a true friend and who might be talking about me behind my back. Of course, as a result, middle school and high school, where false friendship and backstabbing are common practices, were when I fell into my deepest depressions and developed a severe mistrust of others that bordered on paranoia. Luckily, due to some good recent experiences, my social barrier is starting to fall down.
In other social craziness news, Rapture got shut down by the cops last night. One of the officers told us that it wasn't because of our activities, but because of regulations for residential areas. In my conspiratorial mind, I tend to think that one of the more squeamish neighbors got wind of what was going on (or has an overactive imagination) and called in with a bogus complaint. Because we've never had anything like this happen before. But I'm not about to go all Timothy McVeigh and start bombing government buildings because I feel this is an infringement of my privacy, though it does seem a bit silly. And it didn't help that one idiot at the party was following an officer around, asking questions. Like that wouldn't make things worse. But all in all, it wasn't too bad. No one got arrested, we weren't rushed out of the building, and only the owner of the property will be charged. The lead officer joked that he and the other cops were just "hired muscle" and that, if he took out his handcuffs, he'd be there all night. At least now I can say that I was at a party that got busted by the cops.
With Halloween coming up, very few things can dampen my spirits. Still, I don't know what my costume will be yet. And with Anthony accompanying me to the Halloween festivities, I need a costume that will include him. Bound will be having their annual Hell Ball on Halloween night, with a haunted fun house beforehand. I hope I can make it to both, but I will be at Bound that night to see all the crazy outfits, including Maverick's Charles Manson costume. Halloween: the greatest time of the year.

Nick Cave, the once and future king

2008-10-08T15:48:00.000-07:00

Despite my financial troubles and career identity crisis, one part of my life is now complete: I have seen Nick Cave live. Now in his fifties (older than my father), Cave is better than ever. The tracks from his latest album, including the epic title track "Dig Lazarus Dig," were performed at high energy by Cave and the Bad Seeds at the 9:30 Club on Monday. The opening band, whose name I didn't catch, was decent, a melodic and 60s garage rock-influenced version of Cave's early band The Birthday Party (at least that's what I thought), but the audience came to see a legend, and he didn't disappoint. The live performance of "The Mercy Seat," which I was anticipating all night, was almost too intense to bear. Cave's baritone voice is as strong as ever, on classics like "Your Funeral My Trial" and "The Weeping Song" and newer tracks. On "God is in the House," while not one of my favorites, Cave told his audience of the importance of one line, "Moral sneaks in the White House," and asked the crowd, "What do you want to hear?" The show closed with a hard-rocking rendition of "Stagger Lee," a sick update of a traditional song, from "Murder Ballads." A brilliant songwriter as well as a charismatic performer, Nick Cave will always be the king of my music collection and of the dark music scene.
I saw a headline on Yahoo News for a video of Vladimir Putin doing judo (I think that's what it said). Apparently the "Prime Minister" of Russia is a black belt. Like the world needed another reason to be afraid of him.

Another school shooting in Finland

2008-09-25T14:05:00.001-07:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080925/ap_on_re_eu/eu_finland_what_s_wrong;_ylt=Ak8Zq5uYyuympZKlE.xUDAZ0bBAF

The Scandinavian country suffered another attack on a school from a lone gunman. Both shooters posted videos on YouTube, both were obsessed with Columbine, and both ended their rampages by shooting themselves in the head. The last detail is a common occurrance in mass murders, and the Virginia Tech shooter shared these traits, although he sent his video to NBC News instead of posting it on YouTube. Finland officials are unsure if the latest attacker had a history of mental illness, but the shooter in the 2007 massacre had been treated for depression.
Finland has the second highest teen suicide rate in the European Union (behind Lithuania), and alcoholism is rampant. It is also one of the few European nations where civilian gun ownership rivals that of the US, although the recent shootings have caused some lawmakers to reexamine their gun policies. After the 2007 shooting, the goverment pledged to raise the legal age for buying a gun from 15 to 18, but never did. A 15-year-old in Finland can legally buy a gun. That doesn't seem right, but I'm sure rural Finns, as well as rural and Republican Americans, would disagree. The Finnish tradition of hunting is sure to be a spoke in the wheel of joining the rest of the EU in tighter gun control. Still, guns are not the only problem here. Compared to the US and the rest of Europe, Finland still has a relatively low violent crime rate. Maybe it's because Finland is an empty, cold country, but why is the teen suicide rate so high? As I've said before, mass murders are essentially suicides with a higher body count, and the two students who turned their rage on the schools were two more teen suicides in Finland, with innocent victims.

Sinclair Lewis: forgotten prophet

2008-08-30T10:57:00.000-07:00

Before I get to the main body of today's post, some quick comments on the big political news. If I was the paranoid type, I'd think that John McCain's out of left field VP nominee, female Alaska governor Palin, was a ploy to bring disenfranchised Clinton supporters over to the Republicans. But, knowing almost nothing about Palin, I really can't comment at this time. Another note about McCain: I know he's a war hero, but does that mean he can run a country? He's a popular Republican senator, but it seems everything I read about him mentions his military service and little else. I don't want to diminish how much he and many other soldiers suffered in Vietnam, but a war hero does not necessarily make an effective political leader. That was the point of Beowulf. Also, having fought in a futile war, shouldn't McCain know another futile war effort when he sees one? Yet he continues to justify the mess that is Iraq. Onto Obama/Biden. While I wish the two names were reversed, and still think that Obama should have waited and gotten more experience before running for President, I think the two will balance each other out, with Biden's solid Washington experience and foreign policy knowledge will counter Obama's freshness in the political arena. Also, I hope that Biden will prove a sobering influence on the optimistic but often hollow rhetoric of Obama.
Speaking of American politics, the book I'm currently reading, It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis, describes an alternate dystopian history where, in the wake of the Great Depression, America elects a president who becomes a fascist dictator, stomping on free speech, the rights of women and minorities (with particularly venemous rhetoric toward Jews), and the checks and balances system. The major tenet of this fictional president's platform is taking power away from Congress and giving it to the Executive branch. His other platform promises economic security to millions of impoverished citizens, which fails to materialize. Instead, he sends unemployed citizens to labor camps. Doremus Jessup, the book's protagonist, is imprisoned for publishing a disparaging editorial against the regime. Even the Fox News crowd could appreciate this book, because President Windrip is a Democrat who starts out offering support to labor unions and the poor, and the Republican candidate who runs against him is an honest, upstanding politician (an oxymoron, I know). But, as Jessup concludes, the promised government aid to the poor is just a way for Windrip to gain more solitary power over the American people, and he instead gives the money he promised for economic aid to the big businesses that supported his campaign. Colleges in Windrip's America become little more than military training grounds, full of young men whose only aim is to prove how tough they are. Academics become marked men, and women. Christianity becomes the country's official religion, with the expression of any other faith grounds for imprisonment. Women are gradually driven out of the workplace, forced to assume what Windrip considers their "natural" function, as wives and mothers. In terms of artistry, this is hardly one of Lewis' better works, but the America it describes, its anti-intellectualism, politicans saying one thing then doing another upon election, the strangely reversible process of women and minorities gaining then losing rights, the urge to prove its dominance on the world stage, is still resonant today. Jessup, examining American war efforts, reflects on the Phillipines, which he recalls as a war to help a society that didn't want America's help. That sounds all too familiar. The gradual, unnoticed slide into fascism makes me think of something I once heard. A frog, when thrown into a pot of boiling water, will immediately leap out, but, if placed in a pot of warm or cool water, will allow itself to be boiled alive if the temperature is gradually increased. That's why all fascist governments, from Hitler to Stalin to Mugabe, start out slow, gain the trust of the citizens, tell them exactly what they want to hear, then, one by one, taking away their rights, coating it in justification that the citizens often believe. I can't say for certain if things will improve when Bush leaves office, no matter who takes his place, but after the Patriot Act, the shift of power from Congress to the President, and the tragedy of Iraq, are we being boiled alive?

Solzhenitsyn's comments on violence

2008-08-16T14:17:00.000-07:00

Aleksander Solzhenitsyn, recently deceased Russian writer and thorn in Stalin's oversized paw, once said, "How can a man who is warm understand a man who is cold?" This is exactly why so many so-called examinations of the criminal mind fall short. Most members of the human race feel some level of empathy toward others, in varying degrees from person to person. But a murderer, serial killer or any other violent criminal does not. Like Dexter Morgan, protagonist of the greatest TV show in history (and I have learned that Season 2 will be out on DVD this Tuesday), says about himself, they feel nothing. Like Patrick Bateman in American Psycho, they're not "fully there." Bateman is conscious that he's putting on an act in his daily life, and the shallowness of his personality just happens to go unnoticed in 1980s era Wall Street. The question is, visible in the film but lost in the book among Brett Easton Ellis' heavy-handed writing style, is whether Bateman was driven to violence in the course of his empty materialistic life as a primal escape, or if he was born or made in childhood into a monster, and he found the shallow world of Wall Street an inconspicuous hiding spot for his superficial disguise. The rest of us, with our emotions and empathy, cannot fully understand what goes on in the heads of someone who can easily kill another person just for the thrill of it. When police interviewed Gary Ridgeway, the Green River Killer, and asked him why he killed, they were unsatisfied with his unsubstantial answer. Ridgeway said that he couldn't explain why he killed 49 women, and the best he could come up with was that he did it "because I wanted to kill them." The police wanted a more concrete response, because they couldn't understand that someone could kill so many innocent people without having thought about it. But to someone like Ridgeway, it may have been as natural an impulse as hunger or libido. And that is, fortunately, an incomprehensible impulse to the rest of us.
A side note: I was watching American Psycho last night, and found myself getting turned on. Either Christian Bale is so fucking hot that he can turn me on no matter what he's doing on screen, or there is something seriously wrong with me. Or maybe it's because I won't see Anthony again until next weekend; with our vacation schedules overlapping he will be returning from his 10-day trip to Kansas City the same day I leave for a week in Cape Cod with my family. I hope to be out at Rapture next Saturday, or seeing Dharmata 101 at Midnight.

What's worse than a violent sociopath?

2008-07-23T10:38:00.000-07:00

A violent sociopath with power: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080723/ts_afp/warcrimesictyserbiabosnia

Serbian-Bosnian military man Karadzic, who hid for years in plain sight as a self-styled "alternative health" guru, is going on trial for war crimes, stemming from attacks of ethnic cleansing that left hundreds of thousands dead. And, like the late Yugoslavian tyrant Milosevic, he will be serving as his own attorney. There is an old saying, "A man who acts as his own attorney has a fool for a client." In the past, infamous criminals like Ted Bundy (who dropped out of a Washington State law school before his first prison term), Beltway Sniper John Muhammed, and Long Island Railway shooter Colin Ferguson have represented themselves at trial. And all walked away with long prison terms or death sentences. Why do they do it? I'm sure there are several reasons, but the one overwhelming motivation is most likely egomania, a trait common among sadistic serial killers, mass murderers, military criminals and bloodthirsty dictators. These men (usually) consider themselves so superior to others that they think the rules of the past, like the bad luck of defendants who have represented themselves, don't apply to them. Maybe they don't trust an outside lawyer to properly speak for them and their often complex and incomprehensible motives. Maybe they're just so full of themselves that they think they can do it all. Colin Ferguson, while questioning witnesses at his trial, referred to himself in the third person, an added touch of grandiosity. John Muhammed's opening and closing statements were barely coherent. I'm not familiar with Milosevic's trial or the defense he presented, but I know how it ended; he was convicted. And I'm sure the same is in store for Karadzic. Ferguson and Muhammed killed around a dozen people between them, but Milosevic and Karadzic, or those acting on their orders, murdered hundreds of thousands. These are men with a serial killer mindset who wormed their way into powerful positions, and the result was devastating.
In the case of Ted Bundy, although there was substantial forensic evidence against him in the Chi Omega murders, it was one statement to a witness that sealed his fate at trial, according to the attorney helping with his case. While questioning a police officer about the crime scene, Bundy asked for specific details and a thorough account of what the police found at the sorority house. To the jury, and others watching, this question appeared to be designed to allow Bundy to relive his crime, and the jury later sentenced him to death. This wouldn't have happened if Bundy could have let a professional handle his case, but a narcissist like him would not have accepted that. The judge at Bundy's trial remarked that this notorious murderer could have become a great lawyer, but he "went another way." But even the best attorneys, should they find themselves on the other side of the law, shouldn't defend themselves. They have the right, but that doesn't mean they should do it.

Review of The Dark Knight

2008-07-21T10:51:00.000-07:00

Anthony desperately wanted to see the latest Batman movie, and while I'm not usually into the superhero/comic book genre, I had heard enough good things and wanted to see what Christopher Nolan's take on the story would be. While the movie was a bit long, which I felt acutely since I saw it late at night, I did enjoy it. I thought that the praise heaped on Heath Ledger's Joker was just posthumous ass-kissing, and though I still doubt it would have received the same rave reviews if the actor was still alive, Ledger created a memorably sinister character. Using a voice that switches at will from a high-pitched taunt to an evil growl, this Joker is far creepier than Jack Nicholson's. The makeup is less clownlike and more faded and grotesque, with the scars around the mouth visible under the painted smile. Of course, after John Wayne Gacy, anyone in clown makeup assumes an evil stance. The Joker appears from behind masks and from the shadows to surprise and torment his victims. His only goal, he says, is to create chaos. When Batman (when did Christian Bale get so fucking hot?) is at a loss at how to capture the Joker, Alfred the butler (what a perfect role for veteran upper-crusty Brit Michael Caine), recalling a mission to Burma searching for a criminal, says "Some men just want to watch the world burn." The Joker, in the climactic scene, daring two boats of evacuated citizens to blow the other boat up to avoid both boats being destroyed, wants the world to burn. But when the passengers are unable to cause harm to the other boatload, he's left with the surprising (to him) fact that not everyone is as destructive and callous as him. While he tells several different stories of how he got his smile scars, the first one alludes to a drunk, abusive father torturing the young Joker's mother. Though I haven't seen Batman Begins, and I don't know if the Joker's identity is revealed there, I liked that the true identity of the Joker was left unknown. It added to his personification of evil, a nameless man whose only role is to bring misery, the man we wish all our criminals were. The Joker, with an abusive childhood and an urge to create destruction, is a cartoonish embodiment of violent criminal behavior, a miserable nonentity who, through the creation of a sinister alter ego that won't be ignored, aims to make the rest of the world suffer with him. He laughs while others are in pain, giving him the power he likely never had, turning life into a cruel game where he thinks he will be the sole winner. And it's a character Heath Ledger portrays brilliantly. He deserves the praise, although I wish Aaron Eckhart received more notice for his portrayal of Harvey "Two-Face" Dent, a crusading District Attorney with a lust for power and, as revealed in one scene, a tendency to violent behavior long before a trick of the Joker turns him into Two-Face. The Two-Face makeup, with burned flesh and exposed bone and tendon, is enough to make anyone wretch. Christian Bale's Batman/Bruce Wayne is more complex than previous incarnations, a vigilante, not a traditional hero, driven by a personal mission to right wrongs in his own way, which sometimes includes breaking the law. As Alfred notes, Bruce is unwilling to face his human limitations when the superhuman alter ego overtakes him. He's arrogant and insecure, lovesick for Dent's girlfriend but unable to let go of his power as Batman. The brilliant acting, combined with spectacular stunts and battles, and evocative camera work, make the latest Batman installment worthy of the hype.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200807170005?f=h_top
Michael Savage, apparently a syndicated radio show host, claims autism is just another outpost of the supposed "sissyfying" of American men. Naturally, he neglects to mention that women can also have autism spectrum disorders. He claims all autism symptoms can be cleared up by stern fatherly discipline and appears woefully unaware of neurological breakthroughs that have occurred since the 1950s. He's not worth a lot of space, but I had to point out that this type of disgusting ignorance is out there, and that we desperately need to combat it to advance as a society.

Commitmentphobia

2008-07-15T11:35:00.000-07:00

When Anthony and I first started dating, the concept of a commitment was terrifying. What if I wanted to be with someone else and screwed it all up for a quick meaningless fling? What if I got annoyed by being with him all the time? But now, it's been almost eight months, we've spent entire days together, he's met my family (and now hopefully my mom will shut up about it), he's teaching me martial arts, he's started taking time off of work to be with me (and he's a total workaholic) and I can't imagine my life without him. I will still need my space, but at least he seems to understand that. I can talk to him about how I feel without worrying about how he will react, because I know he will at least make an effort to understand. A healthy, satisfying relationship, with the great job interview I had this morning, and I'm dangerously close to being content with my life.
Now for the crime story of the moment. John and Patsy Ramsay have been cleared by DNA evidence in the death of their daughter, JonBenet. This was a muddled mess of an investigation from the start, with many law enforcement officials so fixated on implicating the Ramsays that they may have ignored crucial evidence. True, when a child is killed, particularly in his or her own home, the parents are the first suspects, but that the police in this case seemed determined to arrest the Ramsays. Former FBI profiler John Douglas, after interviewing the Ramsays and studying the evidence, came to the conclusion that John and Patsy did not murder their daughter. But Boulder officials continued to think they did, and some crime watchers, despite the DNA, still think the Ramsays were involved. The reason for this? John and Patsy's "demeanor." Few things annoy me more than when someone is implicated in a crime because their reaction doesn't "seem right" for someone whose loved one has been killed. Not everyone wears their grief on their sleeve. John Douglas described John Ramsay as a proud and stoic man, not the type to cry in public. That doesn't mean he killed his daughter, just that he could be dealing with his pain in a more private manner. While those who have studied crime and police procedure know that family members are intensly investigated when a murder has taken place, the Ramsays may not have known that, and felt offended when police questioned them, stonewalling the investigation for the worse in the process. It wasn't a smart move, but understandable. In a TV show about Arthur Shawcross, who terrorized prostitutes in Rochester in the 1980s, a sister of one of the victims did an interview next to her dead sister's grave. I found this far more disturbing than the behavior of John and Patsy Ramsay, almost like she was advertising her sister's death and her own grief. Clearly, John and Patsy Ramsay were not perfect parents, since they put their daughter in those very creepy child beauty pageants. But that doesn't mean they killed her. The killer of JonBenet Ramsay is still out there, if he isn't dead or in prison for another crime.

Two crime stories

2008-06-20T16:27:00.000-07:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080619/ap_on_re_us/lansing_killings;_ylt=Am.DG83fS4AbgFP9HNUc2ONbIwgF

A Michigan man on trial for murdering two women, and suspected of many more, claims to be innocent. A line in the article alludes to DNA evidence, but doesn't go into detail about the case. One family member of a victim says they hoped to see remorse from the killer, which, to anyone who has studied these types of offenders, is asking way too much. It's understandable for someone grieving to want the killer to grieve too, but these killers have no sense of empathy for their victims. That's how they're able to kill again and again. Most of us, who do feel at least a shred of empathy for others, could never do what killers like this do. The suspect reportedly stabbed one woman and beat another to death with a toilet tank lid. That's a new one. It could indicate an impulse killing; the suspect didn't intend to kill the victim, but got angry and used whatever was available in a fit of rage.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080620/ap_on_re_us/horse_farm_murder;_ylt=AtrG9MnEF6QE0lJDAYoVE7FbIwgF

Over in New Hampshire, a woman who killed two boyfriends has pleaded insanity, a plea rejected by the jury. The defense claimed that their client had a delusion where she judged all men to be pedophiles, and was told by God to kill them. If that's true, why did she date them before killing them? Insanity pleas are rarely successful, especially since the defendant was seen burning the remains of her victims, indicating an awareness of the possible consequences. But even Richard Trenton Chase, the so-called "Vampire of Sacramento," a confirmed paranoid schizophrenic, was judged sane and fit for the electric chair. One victim's mother went off on a tirade, calling the woman "evil" and other victims' rights buzzwords, saying she "took advantage" of a poor, innocent man. I know it's considered poor form to speak ill of the dead, but why are the victims of violent crimes always the nicest, greatest people in the world, according to those who knew them? Why aren't bitches and assholes ever the victims of serial killers? Maybe the deaths, and the often gruesome circumstances, make the family members feel they have to show the victim in the best possible light, for whatever reason.

Artomatic

2008-06-12T10:16:00.001-07:00

Bound's DJ Panic was among the performers at Artomatic's goth/fetish show last night, as well as Wormcult (whose set I unfortunately missed), Madame Klawdya Rothschild and Dharmata101. One of the best parts of the show was, since the only bathrooms on the first floor were at the Electric Stage, tourists and other yuppie types coming through and witnessing something they hadn't expected. It almost could have been part of the show. Klawdya and two cohorts did a piece that could only be described as bondage ballet, a representation of a wedding ceremony with literal knots. Panic kept the atmosphere going between acts, and Dharmata101 sounded better than ever. One of their best shows, at least of the few that I've seen. It's a shame more people weren't there to see it. Klawdya will be at the Erotic Art showcase in Baltimore July 18-19, along with Julie Simone and the legendary Annie Sprinkle, and I hope to be there.
I also had time to go to some of the other exhibits at Artomatic. Adrienne Lynee Harris' series of quiet moments captured in photographs stood out, as did Vincent M. Faravharson's paintings and photography exhibits by Serge Batyrshin and Kate McGovern. Other artists that made an impression were MJ Volpe, Brett Davis, Kelly Guerrero, Pat Flynn, Paul Seegars, Bryanna Millis, Gregory Watson, Ericca Riccardelli, the "Tiny Ghosts," Paivi Salonen, Scott Speck, Angela Kleis and Jack Whitsitt. And there's so much more there that I have yet to explore. And it's closing after this weekend.

Stalin's Russia seen from two sides

2008-06-09T10:10:00.000-07:00

Two recent books, Martin Amis' novel House of Meetings and Pete Early's account of conversations with a former KGB spy Comrade J, tell two very different stories from inside the Soviet Union. The central character of Amis' novel is a gulag prisoner, forced into a labor camp for "fascist" views, or dissent from the Communist party line. Amis describes the excruciatingly cruel conditions in which these prisoners were forced to live for many years of their lives. Many of the prisoners were there because of "Western sympathies" or other forms of challenges to the Communist state. But I read House of Meetings while also reading Comrade J, where Sergei Tretakov (the name is probably misspelled since I don't currently have the book in front of me) details his life as an elite member of the KGB and SVR, the new name given to the KGB after the fall of Communism. Tretakov describes the living and working conditions of KGB operatives, which were much better that those of ordinary Russians and included access to Western luxury goods, a blatant hypocrisy that was never questioned. While reading about the suffering of gulag inmates under Stalinism, I also read about the special treatment given to the spies and secret police dedicated to keeping conditions dour for the Russian people. It's hardly surprising that Soviet officials were such self-serving hypocrites, but reading about it next to accounts of the gulags makes it all the more glaring and unforgiveable.
Tretakov also reveals the duplicitous and often cruel training that every KGB hopeful had to endure. In several interviews, his loyalty to the Soviet Union is tested, as well as his personal conduct. One interviewer tries to engage him in friendly discussion about "French girls" (make of that what you want) and mocks Sergei when he says he's married and has no experience in that area. Sergei also, in keeping with his loyalty to the state, backs up a recent controversial diplomatic move and is again mocked by his superior. Thinking he has blown the interview, Sergei later hears that the superiors were actually very happy with his performance. This is only a minor example of what KGB spies had to go through, including meticulous background checks and covert missions that potentially involved turning over friends and family to Soviet officials. Sergei was praised for lying to colleagues and ratting them out, which Amis' Russian protagonist describes as a characteristic unique to Russian criminals, in that they don't see betrayal as a crime. The fact that Amis includes future president Vladimir Putin with "Russian criminals" is likely why Amis joked that if he went to Russia, he'd end up getting a dose of polonium like the unfortunate Alexander Litvenenko.
As a member of the SVR, Sergei was sent to America to find state secrets to send back to Russia. During this time, Sergei became a double agent, also giving Russian secrets to the US government. After his retirement, he contacted true crime writer Pete Early to tell his story. Early was skeptical about Sergei's motives, but since the US government had taken care of him and his family financially, it wasn't about money. Sergei said that the reason he came forward, knowing that it could lead to his death, was to warn Americans that just because the Soviet Union has fallen doesn't mean that Russia is now their friend. The KGB still exists under a different name, and has infiltrated American soil. Sergei Tretakov is a skilled liar and double agent, so his motives may not be entirely honorable. But still, he tells an intriguing and often frightening story.
One of Sergei's best stories is his shock at discovering that Vladimir Putin had become president of Russia. Putin was a low-ranking member of the KGB who had never distinguished himself in a remarkable way. Even after serving as a member of Boris Yeltsin's cabinet, he was not a favorite to win the upcoming election. Until an attack on a Russian state building that was blamed on Chechan rebels (I really need to look into this story further, so it's not as complete in this post as I'd like). Putin vowed swift justice on the perpetrators, which made his popularity among Russian voters skyrocket. It's all a bit suspicious, and would set the course for more suspicious acts to come. Included in Comrade J is a collection of photos, such as one of Sergei Tretakov with other Russian spies, one who would later become Vladimir Putin's chief of private security.
In House of Meetings, the protagonist, looking back on his time in the gulags, has one wish: an apology for how he and millions of other prisoners were treated by Stalin and his minions. The damage can't be undone, but for the officials to acknowledge their wrongdoing might make his suffering a little easier to take. In the mess that the Bush administration has made, again the damage has already been done, but somehow I feel that an admission of guilt, an acknowledgment that mistakes had been made, might make it slightly easier to forgive them. But the League of Evil has refused to admit any mistakes in Iraq, the economy, 9/11, or anything. Condeleeza Rice tried, during a visit to England when she said that the administration had made "thousands" of mistakes in Iraq, but she and/or her co-conspirators promptly ate her words and tried to convince the world and themselves that they had been right all along. Backing down and admitting defeat isn't always a sign of weakness. Sometimes that's what takes true strength. I've learned that myself, that it's often hardest, but best in the long run, to admit that I've made a mistake and to learn how to fix it and avoid the same behavior in the future.
In a side note to my last post: Sirhan Sirhan, who assassinated Robert Kennedy, was a Palestinian radical who objected to the US's support of Israel and thought that he could somehow start a revolution (or something) by shooting an American politician. It may not have mattered to Sirhan who he shot, as long as it was an American public figure.

Remembering Bobby Kennedy

2008-06-06T14:32:00.000-07:00

Forty years ago today, Robert F. Kennedy died after being hit with an assassin's bullet. He didn't have the opportunity to fulfill his political promise, but he won many admirers for his stance against the Vietnam War, against poverty and the imbalance of wealth, and for equal rights for all Americans. That Kennedy, a popular figure in the black community for his support of the civil rights movement, was killed shortly after Martin Luther King illustrates the status of black Americans forty years ago. Back then, a politician saying he or she supported civil rights for blacks was like a politician today coming out in favor of gay rights; it was a very polarizing issue. I can only hope that in another forty years, rights for gays will have reached the status of civil rights for blacks, as a right that no hopeful leader would dare question without committing political suicide. Robert Kennedy was ahead of the curve, aligning himself with the civil rights movement and the efforts of leaders like Martin Luther King, and he was killed for it. Kennedy was only human, and he was far from perfect, but at least he tried to make a difference.
On the subject of assassinating political figures, it always seems to have the opposite effect the assassin intended. With the exception of John Hinckley, who had no personal beef with Ronald Reagan and would have shot anyone who happened to be President at that time, Sirhan Sirhan, James Earl Ray, John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald (or whoever you happen to think killed JFK) and anyone else who killed or attempted to kill a public figure probably hoped to enact a counter-revolution by killing the revolutionary figure of their choosing. But that's never what happens. All the assassins do is turn their victims into martyrs for the cause, giving them an aura of near-saintliness that they may not have been able to hold had they lived out their lives in full. Assassinating the perceived enemy doesn't achieve anything but giving the murderer a brief feeling of satisfaction, and public notoriety. It rarely, if ever, helps the assassin's cause.

Scott McClellan and the psychology of dissent

2008-06-05T09:49:00.000-07:00

There was nothing in former White House press secretary Scott McClellan's comments about the Bush administration and the war in Iraq that didn't just confirm suspicions I already had. They were lying to the American people about the reasons to go to war, Karl Rove is an amoral opportunist (honestly, who didn't already know that?) and the whole administration is a corrupt mess. But now the Bushites are left to do damage control, and their first instinct was to call McClellan a bitter former employee. I don't know the circumstances of McClellan's exit from Bush's league of evil, but since I already had an inkling of what he said happened behind the league's closed doors, I'm inclined to at least listen to what he says.
The "he's just bitter" argument was also leveled against Mark Felt, the former Number Two in the FBI recently revealed as Woodward and Bernstein's informer Deep Throat. Supposedly, according to the Nixon faithful, Felt had a grudge against Nixon for passing him over as head of the FBI, and wanted to take him down. With both Felt and McClellan, I feel that while they had personal conflicts with the powers that they spoke out against, they ultimately broke their silences because of a crisis of conscience. Having that information about the powers that be screwing the people they're supposed to serve grated on their minds. McClellan could have spoken out sooner, but at least he did. McClellan and Felt may or may not have been trying to exact revenge on their former bosses, but their personal problems with them probably made their decisions to come forward easier, that any thought that they might be hurting those they accused vanished with the knowledge that the bosses had committed terrible wrongs, and that they they themselves had felt betrayed.
As illustrated in Putin's Russia, dissent sometimes comes with a heavy price. Alexander Litvenenko, a former KGB spy who had accused other KGB officials, including future president Vladimir Putin, of corruption, was poisoned with polonium, and the top suspect, another former KGB spy named along with Putin in Litvenenko's testimony, has been hiding out under the protection of the Kremlin ever since.

Does being ethical pay?

2008-05-12T12:40:00.000-07:00

That's the headline on the paper someone's reading in this coffeeshop, and in my experience, I'm inclined to say that no, being ethical does not pay. Particularly in the fields of business and politics, even those who go in with the best intentions often find that in order to succeed, they have to sell their principles to the highest bidder. There are exceptions, as there are to every rule, but I personally have found that sticking to my ethical tenets has had mostly unfavorable consequences. By ethics, I don't mean the religious right's definition of a "virtuous lifestyle," I mean basic human decency: don't lie, don't cheat, don't steal. And as much as I believe in this way of life, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who wants to make a name for themselves or a lot of money. Someone with strong morals would have second thoughts about serving their own self-interest at the expense of another, or compromising their beliefs in order to succeed. But a psychopath, one who by definition has no sense of ethics or empathy, would have no problem doing whatever it took to help themselves, and those are the people who rise to power and flourish in life. I left a well-paying job because I couldn't reconcile my principles with those of my employer. Then I went into debt. And now that I'm doing something I like, I'm still in debt, even though I feel ethically sound. Sticking to my principles might be good for my overall well-being, but it hasn't been good for my career.

Gaining perspective

2008-05-06T14:09:00.000-07:00

Good news, at least for me: I'm very slowly crawling out of debt. I have a second job, doing boring clerical work for a nonprofit, nothing I'd want to do long term, but it'll help. And it's quiet, so I have time to think. And what I was thinking about today was how my current relationship has helped me gain a new perspective on the brief wastes of time that I once called relationships. I used to fall apart and vow revenge on a guy who dumped me after two or three dates, or who just stopped talking to me after we hooked up a few times. I used to be very alone, and these were the closest things to relationships that I'd ever had. But now that Anthony is in my life, I know what a real boyfriend is supposed to be; someone who calls while he's out of town because he misses me, someone who makes plans to see me, someone who I can introduce to my friends without having first to analyze what to introduce him as, and someone I can be honest with when he does something that annoys me. There are things about Anthony that annoy me, which happens in any relationship, but this time, unlike the other guys I used to think were my whole world, I felt comfortable talking to him about it, because I actually thought he would listen. And he did. Now I see my former relationships for what they were, guy try-outs to prepare me for meeting someone special, but, I now see, nothing special themselves. Now I wonder why I made myself crazy over people who were so obviously not worth the trouble, but I guess I didn't know any better at the time.
And now for more good news: Bound is coming back on May 30th. Anthony and I saw the new space for both Bound and Entre Nous last Saturday, and it's a very cool spot for Bound. There's a glassed-off area that's perfect for both playing and voyeurism, a decent dance floor, great deconstructed atmosphere, although the bar leaves a little something to be desired. I do not want Bound to have to move again, so I'm urging everyone in the DC area interested in the goth/fetish subculture to come out on Fridays for the only dark alternative club event that night.

Pope tries to atone for priest sex crimes

2008-04-17T15:06:00.000-07:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080417/ap_on_re_us/pope_abuse

On his visit to America, Pope Benedict has met with victims of molestation by priests, attempting to heal wounds that had been inflicted repeatedly for years. While it's refreshing to see that the church has finally formally acknowledged the wrongdoing of its priests, the prescription of prayer and trying to keep pedophiles and homosexuals out of the priesthood doesn't feel like enough. First, homosexual does not equal pedophile. Second, prayer is not a proven method to prevent problems. Third, pedophiles are by necessity crafty and duplicitous, and are rarely filtered out through a preemptive strike. There's a reason so many pedophiles become teachers, clergymen, or marry into other families, because they know that in those positions, they will be trusted by children and parents. The Catholic Church has just about as much hope as the rest of the world of rooting out pedophiles in their community, and prayer and their "holy" status will not help.
The sex abuse scandal that the church claims has ruined their reputation could have been prevented. It all started in Boston back in the 1960s, with Father John Geoghan. The despicable way his case was handled singlehandedly opened the vault on how the church responds to scandal. When parents told church officials about Geoghan, instead of turning him over to the police, Bishop (later Cardinal) Bernard Law sent Geoghan to another parish after undergoing church-approved "counseling," where, of course, Geoghan victimized more children. This time, when parents voiced their outrage, Law sent the priest in for another round of counseling and moved him to another parish. This continued for 30 years, until the Boston Globe broke the story, and Geoghan and later Cardinal Law were forced out of the church. Still, with all the evidence, although Geoghan was eventually put in prison on a dubious charge which had apologists rallying to his side despite what he had done in the past, another priest interviewed for an American Justice episode about Geoghan said he preferred to remember Geoghan as a "saint" and martyr. Geoghan was not sent to prison and defrocked just because of his beliefs, he was a pedophile who used his status to prey on innocent children entrusted to his care. If Geoghan had gone through the proper justice channels the first time around, many children would have been spared, the Catholic Church would have been applauded for appropriately dealing with a criminal who had snaked into their ranks, lifelong Catholics wouldn't have had crises of faith and formed their own factions or abandoned the church altogether, and the church's attitude toward the sex crimes of priests would not be called into question as they are now. Of course, this is assuming the church and Geoghan didn't try to circumvent the rules, and there would be repercussions from something like this no matter how it was handled. One thing probably would have happened whenever Geoghan went to prison; he was murdered by an inmate who didn't want to be in the presence of a child molester.
As everyone in DC knows, the pope had a mass in Nationals Stadium today. That meant crowds of the faithful, curiosity seekers who just want to see an iconic presence without thinking about what it means, and men of the cloth clogged the metro, and probably will until the end of the day. I saw a monk, in a brown robe, getting off at the Takoma station. When do you ever see monks, except around old churches in Europe? As far as I know, there aren't any monasteries in the Takoma/Silver Spring area. And on my way to work, for two stops, I was surrounded by six priests. I was tempted to take out the copy of Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not a Christian, but, after thinking about it, I decided I didn't want to create an incident or, worse, cause a descent of priests desperate to "save" another immortal soul.

The faith race

2008-03-30T14:04:00.000-07:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080330/ap_on_re_eu/vatican_muslims

One outdated, misogynistic faith, Catholicism, has been surpassed in worldwide followers by another outdated, misogynistic faith, Islam. The Vatican spokesperson lamented that Muslims have been having more children in recent years than Christians, not including the fact that the children are no more Catholic or Muslim than their parents tell them to be, and should not be counted among the faithful. The spokesman (and of course it's a man) made it all sound like a competition, which it clearly is. Every religion wants to take over the world and force the entire earth's population to their knees, and now Catholicism's alpha-male position has been usurped by Islam. As the likes of Jim Bakker, Peter Popoff and their fictional counterpart, Elmer Gantry, have made clear, faith is a business, and a highly profitable one, and each sect wants to have the most customers to gain headway in the world faith economy.
Now for a personal disappointment. In addition to still sinking in debt, I just found out that the job I recently applied for that I very much wanted will not be given to me because I don't have enough experience. It was for a teaching assistant at Ivymount School's Model Asperger Program. Along with teaching being the only job I've ever had that I can tolerate, I felt that my own experiences with Asperger Syndrome would be of special benefit to the children in the program. I never heard that I needed any kind of certification for this job, and I got my current teaching assistant job with the same amount of experience, so I stupidly thought that it might be enough. But, as the vicious circle of employment continues, I need more experience to get the job I would be great at, and to get the other jobs that would qualify, I'll need yet more experience, and so on. This isn't just another job and paycheck that I feel I've lost, but I really thought I could make an impact in this program. But I guess my tutoring sometimes very difficult kids and my 25 years of living with, and overcoming, Asperger's Syndrome don't make me qualified for anything more that a pseudo-polite form letter telling me I'm not experienced enough to be a teaching assistant for the type of child I once was. With one golden opportunity passing me by, I'll have to go back to finding a way to sell my soul for rent money.

The brilliant disguises of serial killers

2008-03-25T13:37:00.000-07:00

One thing I've always found interesting about Dennis "BTK" Rader is just how well he managed to blend into his community while hiding his murderous impulses. He isn't the first figure in criminal history to have a double life, but Rader never even got arrested before his crimes as BTK were linked to him, unlike another vaunted pillar of the community, John Wayne Gacy, who spent time in prison on a child molestation charge before he began burying the bodies of his teenage victims in his crawlspace. Some experts have credited Rader's ability to carry on his double life to an ability to compartmentalize his environment. One forensic psychiatrist who spent time with Rader believes that he was capable of genuine affection for his wife and children, who by all accounts he never mistreated, but anyone else, those who would become his victims or "projects," was not seen as human, but an object for him to achieve his goals of murderous fantasies. Rader's cold tone during his court confession shocked the members of his community, who had previously known him as a friend, church council member and Boy Scout troop leader.
Still, even Rader's facade started to crack before he was linked to the BTK murders. While working as a community "compliance officer," patrolling the community to make sure everyone's pets were on leashes and enforcing other community policies, he made several enemies with his lust for power and arrogance. Most often, as with BTK, the victims of Rader's arbitrary flexing of power were women. One woman says that Rader filed a report that her dog was off her leash, then had the dog put to sleep, just because the woman wouldn't get rid of her boyfriend, which Rader had told her would solve the problem. While Rader was working as a compliance officer, the BTK murders stopped. The forensic psychiatrist believes that since Rader was able to exercise his need for power and control as a compliance officer, he didn't feel the need to exercise control over life and death. A non-entity like Rader, who a former classmate said was remarkable in how unremarkable he was, with a need for power simmering under the surface had to make a name for himself in some way, to show the dominance he felt he had. Like many other serial killers, Rader was undone by his arrogance. After eluding capture for almost 30 years, a book written about the murders named someone other than Rader as the prime suspect, something that Rader clearly could not stand. He wrote a letter to a local TV station on a computer in his church. When forensic investigators linked the letter to the computer, and surveillance cameras placed Rader at that computer at the time the letter was written, BTK was captured.
Herb Baumeister was another midwestern serial killer who expertly kept his murders a secret from his wife and children. When his wife Julie thought Herb was out of town on business, he was trolling Indianapolis' gay bars, searching for victims. But Herb made the fatal mistake of leaving a surviving victim, who helped police identify the man responsible for the murders of several gay men around Indianapolis. After Julie found bones in their backyard, Herb gave a convincing, though false, explanation that they were animal bones one of the children had found. When police actively searched for Herb after finding human remains on his property, Herb fled, and eventually committed suicide. With the killer himself dead, the families of the victims, still desperate to blame someone, turned their rage on Julie, claiming she must have known what was happening in her house. But in an interview, Julie indicates that she was just as ignorant of Herb's true nature as their friends and community. And she probably was. Dennis Rader's wife didn't know her husband was BTK before the rest of the world found out. But because Dennis Rader was taken alive, his wife didn't face the accusations that Julie Baumeister did. The families and surviving victims of BTK could face the man who had terrorized them, but Herb Baumeister killed himself before the police could capture him, so the grieving families had to turn their need for revenge on the one who was closest to the killer, his wife, who must have known something living in the same house as the now dead killer. If Herb Baumeister was as convincing a liar as Dennis Rader or any other Jekyll and Hyde serial killer, Julie probably didn't know anything about her husband's true nature until the police told her, and was left with the knowledge that a man she trusted and built a life with was responsible for the deaths of innocents.
A similar situation happened when Wayne Henley, the accomplice of Houston serial killer Dean Corll, shot Dean to protect his friends. With Corll, the Svengali, dead, Henley and David Brooks, Corll's other accomplice, were left to answer for the crimes. Both Henley and Brooks received multiple life sentences for their roles in the murders, but, as one investigator noted, if Corll had been alive, he would have taken the brunt of the punishment, and Brooks and Henley would have only been tried as accomplices. But with their ringleader already dead, and questions arising as to how strong Henley's role was in the murders, Henley and Brooks were tried as the killers, with only their stories about Corll to defend them, although they both confessed readily to their roles in finding victims for Corll. An investigator in the case said that shooting Corll was either a smart move in self-defense, or the stupidest thing Wayne Henley could have done.

New bodies at Barker ranch?

2008-03-18T12:10:00.000-07:00

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/03/15/america/CSI-Manson-Ranch.php?page=1

An investigation of the former home of Charles Manson's "family" could turn up evidence of other victims of Manson and his followers. There are reports of hitchhikers who came by the ranch and were never seen again, and one of two women who came to the ranch and fled in the night to go to the police, claiming Manson had threatened them.
It is entirely likely that Charles Manson and the Family had more victims than the Tate-LaBianca murders indicated, but, as a former investigator says, those were the only murders they could solidly link to the Family. A criminal enterprise like the Family would have readily killed outsiders to keep them quiet, or the other victims could have been early casualties of "Helter Skelter."
Serial killers are frequently only charged with a portion of their crimes. Ted Bundy was charged with one murder in Utah, an abduction in Colorado, and five murders in Florida, for which he was executed. But according to other victims discovered and Bundy's own confession, he likely murdered at least 20 women. Gary Ridgeway, the Green River Killer, is believed to have killed 49 prostitutes and runaways, but he said, "I've killed so many women I've lost count." Russia's Andrei Chikatilo has one of the highest confirmed body counts in the history of serial killers, at 53 known victims, but his count could also be higher. As we all know, serial killers are known liars. The reverse of this is also sometimes true. The hundreds of victims Henry Lee Lucas once claimed has since been scaled to a confirmed three; his mother, his girlfriend, and his former landlady. And there's no way to know how many of his patients Dr. Harold Shipman murdered, although some estimates place the number in the hundreds.
Happy belated Saint Patrick's Day. I hope you spent the evening like I did, getting drunk with my significant other while listening to a classic Irish rock band at an American version of an Irish pub. I also hope your hangovers are gone.

Missouri serial killer faces charges

2008-03-13T15:46:00.000-07:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080312/ap_on_re_us/cape_girardeau_killings;_ylt=Aie2maeLIvsaVnH8Yn7cyUdbIwgF

A man who has confessed to murdering nine women in the 1970s and 80s is scheduled to go on trial for five of the murders. The murderer is described as frail-looking, now in his 60s. When he wasn't out killing women, he spent most of his adult life in prison on sex crime charges. The county sherriff views him as an "animal." But he's not an animal. Despite what he's done, he's human, which makes him and those like him even more frightening. When Richard Speck, murderer of eight student nurses, was captured after days on the run, as one journalist said, "We expected him to have horns growing out of his head." But all the public got to see was a poor alcoholic who had just attempted suicide. It's what's commonly called the "banality of evil." The monstrous deeds committed in a society are not committed by supernatural evil beings, but by those who look just like us. Who could have picked former law student and Republican party insider Ted Bundy or church council member and loyal family man Dennis Rader out of a crowd as vicious murderers? In the book I'm currently reading, The Human Stain by Phillip Roth, the narrator talks about the wish of societies to "put one face" on evil. But that's impossible. Evil comes in many faces, often those we trust. One of the most dangerous people in the world is a man whose wife has just asked for a divorce, at least if crime statistics are taken into consideration.
On the same topic, it's also almost impossible to predict whether a child is a future serial killer. Even if they come from an abusive family or enjoy hurting animals, this isn't a guarantee that the child will be violent as an adult. Most little boys grow out of burning ants with magnifying glasses and don't escalate to human targets. At the learning center where I work, there's an eight-year-old boy who appears to have many signs seen in the childhoods of violent criminals. I can't say for certain if his parents are abusive, but my boss told me that the kid's father dropped the f-bomb several times during a conference, and the mother seems to keep him on a short leash. He's unruly, often disruptive, makes threats (which we don't take too seriously) and appears to be obsessed with fire. If he also tortures animals and wets his bed, he would have the violence preindicator trifecta mentioned by John Douglas and Roy Hazelwood of the FBI's Behavioral Sciences Unit. Still, none of this means that this little boy will grow into a serial killer. As my boss and my coworkers have told me, this kid can sometimes be nice and quite charming, which also calls to mind the more cunning of serial murderers. Supposedly, he has a manipulative streak, which could just mean he'll turn into another clever narcissist, often found in the otherwise prestigious law, political and business fields.
More sad news for my favorite club Bound; Felix has kicked us out. The exact reason isn't clear, but according to some reliable sources, one of the owners got freaked out by the gay/lesbian vibe he saw the last time Bound was there. If they were hosting a fetish club, they should have known what to expect. Or maybe they expected some glamorized porno version of a fetish club, hot girls getting spanked with their boobs hanging out. Of course that can be seen, but it's not at all representative of the diverse Bound crowd, which includes gay, bi, lesbian, transgender, and many others that defy categorization. If that's too much for the owners of Felix, we can't force them to change, but we can let the DC club-going public know what happened, and let them decide if they want to support a venue run by this philosophy.

The demon parents of Cromwell Street

2008-02-29T13:51:00.000-08:00

http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/weird/west/index_1.html

The Biography Channel recently did an interview with Mae and Stephen West, children of notorious British murderers Fred and Rosemary West. They consider themselves lucky that they survived, since their sisters Anne Marie and Heather were murdered by their parents. Throughout their lives Mae and Stephen were told that if they misbehaved, they would end up under the house "like Heather." After the police raided the house, the children found out that this was not an idle threat. The body of Heather, along with several other young women who either worked for or were acquaintances of Fred and Rose, was found under the house.
Predictably, Fred and Rose were abusive parents. Fred frequently sexually assaulted his daughters, and they brought home their other sex partners, and Rose never hid the fact that she was a prostitute from the children. Both parents physically abused the children, and Anne Marie's death was likely the result of a beating gone too far. Hearing Mae and Stephen speak about their childhood, they show little emotion, but Mae frequently looks down, and both speak softly as they relive their experiences and how they wished for "normal" parents. Sex was so out in the open, they say, that they felt like they weren't allowed to be children. Add to that the horrific abuse, and it's surprising that Fred and Rose West's surviving children didn't become murderers themselves, although Fred's cousin was arrested shortly after the Wests for sexually assaulting young women.
Teresa Knorr was another sadistic parent that frequently turns up in the backgrounds of serial killers. Teresa killed her first husband and drove away at least three others with her possessive and jealous nature. After claiming self-defense in the murder of her first husband, saying he was abusive, a claim that may or may not have been true, she was found not guilty. She had several children with her many husbands, and was abusive to all of them, especially her daughters. When her daughter Susan died from a gunshot wound inflicted by Teresa, the mother ordered her two sons to help her dispose of their sister's body. Susan Knorr's body was discovered, and Teresa was charged with murder. On a TV show about Teresa, her surviving daughter wonders what kind of person she will be after having a mother like Teresa Knorr. While not all children of parents like the Wests and Teresa Knorr end up violent criminals themselves, coping with this type of trauma is never easy, as seen on the faces and heard in the voices of Mae and Stephen West.
It's rare to hear about a serial killer's children, because most of them don't have any. If they can't sustain a relationship, as most psychopathic killers can't, they usually don't get as far as having children. But the ones who do, either because they are experts at hiding their secrets from their families, or, like the Wests, have found a kindred evil spirit, inflict untold damage to their children, either physically or when the child discovers that their father (or mother) has been keeping such a horrific secret.

Muslim misogyny and theocracy reaches new lows

2008-02-22T14:15:00.000-08:00

http://mikesweeklyskepticrant.blogspot.com/2008/02/well-she-turned-me-into-newt.html

This just in from my blogger buddy Big Heathen Mike: a woman is facing execution in Saudi Arabia (which for some reason is still considered a "key ally" to the US) for being a witch. Apparently in Saudi Arabia, the Middle Ages never ended. For all their oil and wealth, they still believe in the evil nature of women and the existence of witchcraft, and their government is backing them up. Only intervention from the Human Rights Watch could possibly stop this innocent woman from being executed for a nonexistent crime. Even if we eliminate the ridiculous charge, this woman wasn't even allowed to face her accusers or hear the specifics of the charges against her. But I guess the Saudis don't consider women complete citizens, so they aren't entitled to the same rights as men. There's so much bullshit here I need a shovel and a protective mask.

Profile of NIU shooter

2008-02-18T11:02:00.000-08:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080216/ap_on_re_us/niu_shooting;_ylt=AgymPcpjhy0n8HwsONEU3lxbIwgF

Less than a year after the rampage at Virginia Tech, another American university suffers an attack by a pissed-off young man toting a gun. As expected, those close to the shooter described him as "happy" and "stable," but unlike many other mass murderers, he revealed a darker side long before he picked up his gun. He was reportedly abusive toward his on-and-off girlfriend, and had a history of mental illness. The exact type of illness isn't identified, but it was reported that in the weeks before the shooting, the gunman had stopped taking his medication. An untreated mental illness can have tragic consequences, particularly if the disorder in question is paranoid schizophrenia. Plagued by hallucinations, a schizophrenic is so detached from reality that they sometimes do the unthinkable. Herbert Mullin killed random victims in Southern California because he heard the voice of his father telling him to "sing the die song." In northern California, Richard Trenton Chase murdered three people, including a mother and her child, and drank their blood because he believed that his own blood was turning to dust, and by drinking the blood of others, he could replenish his own veins. And in the twisted world of Scientology, Jeremy Perkins, whose schizophrenia went untreated due to the cult's hatred of psychiatry, stabbed his mother to death. But even if the NIU shooter wasn't schizophrenic, stopping his medication could have led him to take extreme actions. Since, like most other mass murderers, he ended his shooting spree by taking his own life, he very likely had a history of depression, and, with his mind inflamed and his rage level high, he wanted to take others with him when he ended it all.
In older crime news, a forensic anthropologist is examining the remains found in Belle Gunness' Indiana home over 100 years ago to determine whether the body could have belonged to this infamous black widow. I saw a documentary about Gunness a few years ago, and in the annals of black widows and female killers, she had a unique savagery. Most female murderers prefer the delicate administration and clean, and excruciatingly slow and painful, method of poison, or, like Aileen Wuornos, the quick and detached method of gunfire. But Gunness' victims were chopped up and burned, either in lieu of or in addition to being dosed with poison. The controversy surrounding her own death came after her farmhand confessed on his deathbed to helping Gunness dispose of her victims. When authorities arrived at the house, they found it burned to the ground, with 20 or 30 charred corpses buried in the ground. Three relatively fresh bodies were also found, supposedly those of Belle and her two children. But some found it difficult to believe that Belle was actually dead. The corpse that was supposed to be hers was decapitated, removing the distinctive facial features. Also, Belle was a large woman, and the corpse seemed to indicate a lighter build. While the new forensic evidence indicates that the body could belong to someone of Belle's height, it remains unclear whether the truth will come out. But Belle Gunness was nothing if not crafty, and self-serving, so no one would put it past her to fake her death to elude prosecution.

Two sexual predators

2008-02-15T10:16:00.001-08:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses_Sithole

The first in the Valentine's Day recollection of vicious sexual predators is Moses Sithole, responsible for the murders of 37 women and one child in South Africa, a nation plagued with violent crime. In a post-apartheid South Africa, Sithole conned impoverished women into his company by offering them employment, then led them to an isolated field, raped and strangled them. Sithole was the African Ted Bundy, deceptively charming to those who met him, and unspeakably cruel to his victims. Sithole, like Bundy, blamed all women for the wrongs inflicted on him by his mother. Also, when a woman accused him of a rape he swore he didn't commit, Sithole began his murder spree after being released from prison. In his mind, yet another woman had screwed him over, and he wanted revenge on all women. In the minds of the more rational, murdering women to correct a supposedly false rape accusation appears counterintuitive. If any authorities thought Sithole might be innocent, that feeling evaporated when they saw how brutally Sithole murdered his female victims. "I was wrongly accused of rape by a woman, so I'll kill 37 women and one woman's child to get back at women and prove my innocence." It makes no sense, but that's just the warped logic characteristic of serial killers.
On Investigation Discovery a while back (one of my favorite cable channels), I saw a show about a serial rapist who, right before his arrest, went by the name Ian Thorne-Green. His real name, which I don't remember, was revealed when Thorne-Green's crimes were matched to a string of other sexual assaults. As far as I know, he never killed anyone, except his domineering mother, who he beat to death with a baseball bat during an argument, but his female victims were left in critical condition. Like Ted Bundy and Moses Sithole, Thorne-Green was charming to the point where he could lure unsuspecting women to their doom. Even the arresting officers were disarmed by Thorne-Green's pleasantness and intelligence. I wish I could remember more about this case, or find something about it, but all my searches have come up empty.

Crime stories

2008-02-12T10:57:00.000-08:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080208/ap_on_re_us/teacher_stabbing;_ylt=AhQI9dIA.TqZ1aimzKykL3dbIwgF

A West Virginia police officer stabbed his wife because she wanted a divorce, one of the major reasons for her decision being his violent tendencies. If that's not crazy enough, the officer chose to stab her in front of her fifth-grade class. So he not only caused his wife critical injuries over a request for a divorce and traumatized their son, but he also traumatized several other children in the process. Often in my life, I wonder what's wrong with most people, and stories like this just reaffirm that many members of the human race are beyond reason and undeserving of being a member of our species.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080207/ap_on_re_us/mafia_arrests_glance;_ylt=AvaXZgbmuSI66oIBDcIooftbIwgF

Many years after the death of John Gotti, the Gambino crime family faces indictment in several unsolved murders. Some cases are 20-30 years old, and a few are even older. I'm always thankful for an excuse to keep the ever-declining world of organized crime and La Cosa Nostra in the headlines.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080206/ap_on_re_us/mafia_cop_vegas;_ylt=AvABZ9VjNJspNZc6S1fEl6ZbIwgF

An even better mob-related story; a former New York cop who allegedly served as a mob hitman faces tax evasion charges. A lot of people with violent urges look to careers in law enforcement, from serial killers to more mundane rageaholics. They enjoy the power that comes with such a position, and it provides an excuse to act on their impulses if the opportunity arises. But for this particular cop, the life of a police officer wasn't satisfying his bloodlust, so he went to the other side of the law to get his fix. I'm sure the mob loved having such dirty goods on a cop. Of course, this is all just speculation.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080206/ap_on_re_us/jonesboro_shooter;_ylt=AgsCmXa_qFQ3HVjViJ7o3ixbIwgF

Mitchell Johnson, who was 13 when he and a friend shot up their middle school, is now 23 and charged with another gun-related offense, namely possessing a gun while under the influence of a controlled substance. Johnson had been in juvenile and federal prisons until he was 21, and now, two years into his freedom, he's looking at another lengthy term.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080205/us_nm/usa_crime_judge_dc;_ylt=Ah5b97_ehRB.sVQnci_GhFlbIwgF

Over in Georgia, an accused rapist now faces murder charges after going apeshit in the courtroom, overpowering a security guard, stealing her gun and shooting four people. His defense team will try an insanity plea, but judging from the other similar cases I've studied, this defense is rarely effective.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080204/ap_on_re_us/hiker_killed;_ylt=AiSYPg9.JpZRZeduPEuxASRbIwgF

A man accused of killing a hiker in Georgia has been linked to a similar murder in North Carolina. The killer claims his motive was robbery, but who knows. From the photo, he looks like something out of Deliverance. But maybe that's the Southern prison doing its work.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080205/ap_on_re_us/machete_killing;_ylt=AoYVY0b5WwI8KDXLiEUtuYZbIwgF

Yet another man accused of killing his wife. This type of homocide is almost mundane to crime watchers, but this case gets notice for creativity. Like the man described in the first case, this killer stabbed his wife after she threatened to leave him. But this one, instead of stabbing her in front of schoolchildren, hacked her to death with a machete while she slept. It's different, and even the authorities were at a loss as to why this man kept a machete under his bed. What kind of person keeps a machete in the house if they don't live in Africa or South America? Maybe that's why his wife wanted to leave him.

Yes, it's been a busy couple of weeks in American crime. Too busy to provide substantial analyses of the various violent acts that occurred. But they caught my interest, and I love to share strange and crazy crime stories with my readers.

Scientific atheist

2008-01-30T11:08:00.001-08:00

What kind of atheist are you?
created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Scientific Atheist

These guys rule. I'm not one of them myself, although I play one online. They know the rules of debate, the Laws of Thermodynamics, and can explain evolution in fifty words or less. More concerned with how things ARE than how they should be, these are the people who will bring us into the future.

Scientific Atheist

92%

Apathetic Atheist

75%

Militant Atheist

58%

Spiritual Atheist

58%

Agnostic

42%

Angry Atheist

25%

Theist

17%

Science isn't my forte, but I have found that I am often logical to a fault. I always overthink things, sometimes to the point where I can't sleep. Occasionally I feel like a robot, because I don't understand human emotions: "What is this thing you call love?" I couldn't say if I've ever been in love, because I barely know what it is. So the concept of religion, unwavering devotion to an invisible being with violent mood swings, or even a benevolent one, isn't for me.

http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial/bryant/

Australia's former life as a penal colony is coming back to haunt the nation, with several serial killers and other dangerous types calling the subcontinent home. Martin Bryant, described as "a quiet lad and a bit of a loner," went on one of the deadliest killing sprees in the country's history. He fits the standard mass murderer/spree killer profile; history of abuse, IQ of 79, causing him to be ridiculed and isolated, diagnosed with schizophrenia. Australia also saw the brutal rampage of a killer known as "The Mutilator," a Scottish-born man who, after murdering his often homeless male victims, chopped off their genitals and left them in bags scattered around his home area. Leonard Fraser was another Aussie who set fear into the hearts of his countrymen with his streak of rape and murder, and, unlike most other serial killers, was described by law enforcement as "looking like a violent man."
Why are experienced law enforcement officials surprised when serial murderers show no emotion when describing their crimes? When Leonard Fraser maintained a stoic expression at the announcement of his murder conviction, they were surprised by his coldness. On a show about Joel Rifkin, the prostitute murderer who stalked New York in the early 1990s, the investigators recalled being shocked at Rifkin's flat tone in describing his brutal crimes. I'm a mere civilian, and I'm not surprised. These men, and in a few cases women, are all but incapable of "normal" emotion. Psychopaths are what a writer would call a flat character, with little emotional expression and even less understanding of their motives. Rifkin says that he didn't feel any unusual surge of rage before killing his first victim, he was just overcome with the desire to kill. In the excellent film No Country for Old Men, Javier Bardem plays a convincing psychopath, chilling in his stoic demeanor and violent actions.

Tom Cruise reveals his true intentions

2008-01-23T11:44:00.000-08:00

http://defamer.com/344987/the-tom-cruise-indoctrination-video-scientologists-dont-want-you-to-see

And those intentions include world domination through Scientology. The crew at Defamer has preserved the YouTube video that Scientologists quickly got taken down for all the world to see. Cruise, looking possessed as always, and adding a manic laugh to punctuate his diatribe, claims that Scientology is the sole authority on drug rehabilitation. Said program, Narconon, is an untested therapy that includes, if reports I've read are correct, vitamin saturation and saunas to, I guess, sweat the drugs out. If it sounds crazy, that's because it's Scientology. He also says that Scientology has unequaled success in rehabilitating criminals and curing mental ills. Until I see the evidence, from what I know about Scientology, I'm not buying it. This "religion," "therapy," "cult" or whatever it is was created by a failed science fiction writer whose sole motivation was to make money. This video was likely taken down by the cult brass because Cruise mentions "Suppressive Persons," a term that's supposed to be confined to the group's inner circles. "SPs" include anyone who questions or contradicts Scientology, and according to L. Ron Hubbard, these are people who need to be intimidated into silence. Scientology has ruined the lives of those who have spoken out against it, like Paulette Cooper, Jon Atack (whose book A Piece of Blue Sky I highly recommend) and the writer of a highly critical article in Time magazine. It's impossible to tell how deep Cruise is in the bowels of Scientology, whether he is a true believer or in on the scam. Atack, a former Scientologist, writes in his book that most Scientologists are not bad people and genuinely believe that their chosen religion or therapy is legitimate, but have been misguided. It's a cult trademark to take advantage of trusting lost souls. Charles Manson did it, Jim Jones did it, and Hubbard did it, with his successors continuing to take money from followers and ruin more lives.
Anyone who was on the Metro yesterday probably saw the sign-waving troops of the anti-abortion army. I guess it's not enough that anti-abortion group A Second Look has ads on the trains, now I have to look at more signs. One featured a picture of a baby with the words "Face it. Abortion kills." The word "life" is written on the back. It's not worth it to try to reason with these people, such as explaining that most abortions take place in the first trimester, when the fetus looks nothing like the picture they place on their signs to drum up sympathy and guilt. For the most part, their minds are made up. What really bothered me yesterday was seeing a little girl with who was probably her mother holding a sign. She looked about eight or nine years old. I find it hard to believe that a girl that age could make an informed decision about this issue without pressure from her parents. I always have a problem with parents who bring their children to political protests, because the child hasn't decided to come on their own, but was roped into it by their mother or father.
Scientologists and anti-abortion protesters: two things guaranteed to make me mad.

Russia: Mafia state?

2008-01-19T11:26:00.000-08:00

I was watching a show on the History Channel about the Red Mafiya, Russia's organized crime faction, and it revealed some disturbing news. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, most Russian businesses pay at least 30% of their proceeds to the mob for protection, while one-third of Russians make less than a dollar a day. The Red Mafiya, aside from striking fear in the hearts of even other gangsters (on The Sopranos, Tony tells an associate, "Don't fuck with the Russians"), is more intellectually sophisticated than the average criminal enterprise. One scam involved buying cheap grain alcohol in the US, dying it blue and shipping it in industrial tubs, claiming it was window cleaner to bypass the charges attached to shipping alcohol. When the "window cleaner" got to Russia, the coloring was removed and the cheap booze was sold as vodka. With a reduction in charges, and the large amounts of vodka consumed by Russian citizens, the Red Mafiya made millions of dollars in the process. First the tyrannical Czars, then the failed experiment and paranoid leadership of Stalinism, now an economy run by gangsters and a government run by an ex-KGB officer who is possibly offing his enemies with poison, as well as several active serial killers; Russia changes, but very little has improved for the people.
On US soil, a black man charged with raping several men is currently imprisoned in Texas. Though it wasn't addressed during the trial, his outlook isn't good. Rapists are low on the chain of command in prison, often raped themselves once behind bars, and a homosexual rapist would likely be even lower, especially in Texas. And while Texas has come a long way from the time when a black man was dragged to his death behind a truck, this rapist's race could pose another problem. I'm unfamiliar with the cultural reasons behind this, but I've heard that homosexuality is a particularly strong taboo among black men.
Personal news: For the last few nights, I haven't been able to sleep. When I go to bed, I can't stop thinking and just drift off. I think about what's happened, things I saw and heard that day, which lead to similar past events, and on and on until an hour has passed with no sign of my mind stopping. I've never done drugs, aside from antidepressants and sometimes drinking way too much, but on those nights, I think it might be nice to have something that will turn off my overactive brain. But there are a lot of reasons why I've never used drugs. Primarily, I'm already paranoid and hypersensitve. If I used any kind of mood-altering substance, I think my head would explode.

I am an island

2008-01-14T14:53:00.001-08:00

It's fun to think of myself as a tortured genius, even if it's not entirely true:

You Are 81% Tortured Genius

You totally fit the profile of a tortured genius. You're uniquely brilliant - and completely misunderstood.
Not like you really want anyone to understand you anyway. You're pretty happy being an island.

Are You a Tortured Genius?

A very sad story

2008-01-13T12:44:00.001-08:00

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Autistic-Girl-Killed.html

A woman killed her daughter because she couldn't handle the child's autistic behavior. That's depressing enough, but then the mother said she felt responsible for her child's condition because she had been vaccinated. The mother, as an MD, should know by now that the link between autism and vaccines has been thoroughly discredited. She said she loved her daughter but hated the autism, and wanted it out of her life. However it happened, the child came with the autism, and most parents in that situation do their best to help the child cope in whatever way they can, even though it may be difficult. Being a parent is hard, and I know I couldn't handle it at this point in my life. This mother took the easy way out, suffocating her very young daughter because she didn't think she could handle the child's condition, something hundreds of other parents deal with.
I have an interest in autism because a few years ago, I was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, a form of high-functioning autism. When I was younger, everyone knew I was different, something I never heard the end of from nasty kids and confused adults, but they didn't know what was at the root of it. AS didn't enter the DSM until 1994, when I was 12, and didn't gain public recognition until years later. I was diagnosed at 19, after I had developed the social skills that were lacking when I was a kid. AS is marked by social impairment, an inability to pick up on social cues that most people inherently understand. All my life, I've heard that my "tone" was saying something I never intended to say with my words, something I was totally unaware of. The casual terms of endearment that adults use with children, and sometimes adults use with other adults, like "hon" and the like, were intolerable to me, and still are. Someone who doesn't know me has no business calling me hon or darling. And in introductory casual conversation, I still hate being touched. Once in high school, a teacher tried to put his hand on my arm while conducting a condescending talk about one of my assignments, and I recoiled. When I object to these things, I have people telling me they're just trying to be nice, but I don't see it that way.
Because of my condition, it has always been hard for me to make and keep friends. But it has improved as I've gotten older, as I've gradually learned the social techniques that I previously didn't understand. On my new favorite TV show Dexter, as unsettling as it is to identify with a serial killer, in a flashback scene, a teenage Dexter is approached by a girl, asking him if he's heard about the spring formal. He says yes, but nothing else. When the girl leaves, Dexter's father tells him that the girl wanted him to ask her to the dance. Dexter replies, "But that's not what she said." I totally understood. There's so much work in communicating; not only listening to what's said, but deciphering body language, tone, context, it goes on and on. I shouldn't be too surprised that it took me so long to pick up on it, and why I still need work in perfecting it, even though it seems to come naturally to almost everyone else.

Major turnaround in my life

2008-01-11T14:34:00.000-08:00

After four long months of being unemployed and becoming broke, I finally have a new job. It doesn't pay too much at first, but I'm tutoring again, something I've always enjoyed, and I'll have a steady income and won't go totally broke and have to leave my apartment. This news, combined with my still-flourishing new relationship (though I'm still not sure if I should call him my boyfriend), has put me in a rare good mood, and I'm hoping it continues.
There has been some sad news though. Bound will not be open again until February 1st, due to moving to yet another venue. But from what I've heard, the new spot is a good one, so please, a call to the goth/fetish freaks out in the DC area, please come out on Fridays and support us. What else is there for our people to do on Friday nights? Also, my friend Juan, of the awesome band Baskorov (sorry if I misspelled that), is leaving for New York soon. I wish him the best of luck in NYC, and would like to make it out to the band's last DC area show for the time being tonight, but it's tough for me to get out there, and it looks like I'll already have plans for later tonight. Still, if anyone can make it out there, please support them.
For all the changes in my life, both good and bad, one thing remains constant: stupid guys who think they actually have a chance of having sex with me. Guys who can't spell, including one whose page on MySpace was a mess of near-illiteracy, and one who gave me his phone number. For the very few of you who don't already know, giving your number to a stranger you see online is a bad idea.

First blog of 2008

2008-01-07T11:09:00.000-08:00

A week into the new year, I'm cautiously optimistic. Although I just found out via form email that I didn't get one job I interviewed for, I have an interview tomorrow and a promising lead on another possible opportunity. I get to keep my apartment for another month, and Anthony and I are still seeing each other.
New Year's Eve at Bound was a great time, though I wish more people had shown up. I guess there was too much competition from Rapture. But Anthony and I had a great night, recorded in a photo taken by our good friend Phoebe. We also ended up at Bound last Friday, where attendance was down yet again. Bound has lost yet another venue, and I want more people out for the grand re-opening at Felix on Februry 1st. There was a decent crowd at Midnight last Saturday, so I know the market is there. And Bound is the only event of its kind on Fridays, so where is everyone? Angels on Acid, an awesome band, will be perfoming at Felix on Bound's first night there, so that should be a big draw, I hope.
At Midnight, I saw another awesome band, Mankind is Obsolete. Very goth/synth, but with a hard-rocking edge. A cool band made up of equally cool members. I wish I had the money to buy a CD or T-shirt, but being unemployed, I didn't. Maybe next time they come through town, and I'll be there when they do.
So I'm going into 2008 with a slightly improved mood that I hope doesn't turn around and bite me in the ass, as often happens when I get a shred of optimism. But a happy new year to everyone who has helped me through the hard times and joined me in celebrating the good times. Happy 2008.

New Jersey bans death penalty

2007-12-17T13:10:00.000-08:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071217/ap_on_re_us/death_penalty_new_jersey

This is an encouraging story, with one state in the union speaking out against capital punishment and setting an example. As expected, hardcore Republicans and victims' families call it "a slap in the face to the victims" and that "the punishment no longer fits the crime." The victims themselves have already suffered, and no amount of executions will reverse it. All it does is satisfy the base need for revenge. It doesn't help anyone but grieving families, and I can't see that it helps them that much. A member of their family is still dead. Although the momentary need for retribution might be satisfied, the void left by the initial death isn't filled by the death of another. I encourage anyone interested in this issue to read "Reflections on the Guillotine" by Albert Camus, which helped strengthen my previous on-the-fence view of capital punishment into an ardent opposition, along with what I've read about criminal profilers and the insights they've gained into the minds of murderers due to interviews that never could have been conducted if the killers had been immediately executed. Robert Ressler, a pioneering FBI profiler, also speaks out against the death penalty in his book Whoever Fights Monsters. The title of his book is taken from a famous quote by Fredrich Nietzche, which is good advice for all law enforcement officials and any wannabe vigilantes (this might not be the exact wording): "He who fights monsters should fight to make sure that he does not become a monster." When tracking the worst of humanity, it's easy to be swept up in revenge fantasies of causing harm to these human monsters, but laws regarding criminal prosecution are there for a reason, because it's so easy to get carried away, and possibly take out one's rage on the wrong person while blinded by rage. I know I'm very different from others, I've been hearing it all my life, and I might not understand "normal" emotions, but I feel that a life behind bars, with nothing but time with the memories of their victims, is punishment enough for a violent criminal. Also, as I've said before, I find the raging cries for execution, which differ very little from savage bloodlust, from many victims' families and the public in general, very disturbing. It's a reminder of the violent urges that lurk in all of us, that we usually manage to control, and need to control for the sake of our society.
Still no good news on the job front. The fact that I left my last job because I was stifled and miserable is very likely affecting my search, but I was thinking about that today, after again not hearing any news. If I left a job because I was unhappy and unproductive, then employers should see my interest in their company as genuine, because I'm not the type to just take any job to make money (although I'm starting to get to that point). But of course, there's very little logic involved in employers' standards, or everyday human interaction.

Colorado church shooting

2007-12-11T13:12:00.000-08:00

http://news.yahoo.com/fc/US/Colorado_Church_Shootings;_ylt=Ao6Pf39fYtjDy9EEh0h7IEdH2ocA

Despite Matthew Murray's anti-Christian diatribes posted online, his motive for opening fire in New Life Church and its youth group building was clearly something far baser and simpler: revenge. Murray was "asked to leave" the church's Youth with a Mission group for undisclosed reasons before his rampage. He wasn't acting on demonic influences or anti-Christian violence; it was just revenge, the motive for so many mass murderers and a familiar one that crosses racial and religious lines. Murray was, like Robert Hawkins in Nebraska, a typical mass murderer: young white male with a grudge and, it appears, mental problems. I just hope the general public remembers this while the nutjob Christians turn this incident into a rallying point for paranoia that the whole world is out to get them for their godliness. And they will; it's what they do.
An interesting side note: the church security guard who stopped Murray by firing a shot and deemed a hero, was reportedly fired from the local police force for lying during an internal investigation, if I read the bottom paragraph of one of the stories correctly. Another side note: New Life Church was founded by disgraced evangelical leader Ted Haggard, brought down by his hypocrisy and lust for male prostitutes.

Mass murder in Nebraska mall

2007-12-06T11:18:00.000-08:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071206/ap_on_re_us/mall_shooting_gunman;_ylt=Ah_BwsKfvqTvng7IepU8lLhH2ocA

19-year-old Robert Hawkins killed six people in a department store before shooting himself. Hawkins fit the prototype of the mass murderer; a history of depression, high school dropout, and a week before his rampage, he had been fired from his job. And of course, those who knew him never saw it coming. Although his friend's mother, who he was living with, found a suicide note the day of the shooting, she never thought Hawkins' suicide would reach the level it did. Hawkins left a note saying, along with expressing regret for the trouble he caused, "Now I'm famous." A depressed nobody trying to make a name for himself with an elaborate suicide; the textbook mass murder. Fifty years ago, Nebraska was the site of another teenager on a killing spree, Charles Starkweather. Starkweather was not on a suicidal mission, but still wanted to make a name for himself and find an outlet for his rage against society.
I have a job interview tomorrow, after showing up late to my interview today. Serves me right for thinking I could get to an address in Falls Church, an area I know nothing about. But tomorrow, I know exacly where I'm going, and will do my best to make the best possible impression. I've been jobless for far too long, and I'm starting to get paranoid about never having an income again. On a positive note, Anthony, the guy I met at Bound right before Thanksgiving, is coming back from his business trip tomorrow. He's been gone for almost three weeks, and I miss him. With the one good thing in my life now temporarily gone, no wonder I slipped into one of my depressions and tried to drink it away last Friday. But maybe it's good that he left for a while. It gave me a chance to miss him, to long for him. It sounds strange, but for most of my life, a guy had to be at least temporarily unavailable for me to be interested. If Anthony gets called out of town often enough, this might actually work, a concept that frightens me a bit because it's so unusual in my life.

Another bad night

2007-12-02T13:41:00.000-08:00

I have been trying to crawl out of a cavern of shame since Friday night. I went to the Black Cat for Cryfest (a Cure/Smiths night) and was having a great time until I had a bit of a fifth drink. There must have been something in that drink, or I was officially over my limit, because all of a sudden the staff was trying to throw me out. It wasn't until this happened that I started to get unruly, demanding that I be allowed to get my coat from upstairs. After telling them exactly where my coat was, that it was long black wool and had a Metro card in the left pocket, I get a short black coat with no pockets. I'm not saying that the staff of the Black Cat is stupid, but after giving the same description to a friend who luckily happened to be outside at the time, he quickly came back with the right coat (Thanks so much Joel, I owe you big). What's worse, after the staff tried to give me the wrong coat, they said I'd have to come back tomorrow and make my way home with no coat or Metro card. They'll have to forgive me for not exactly trusting them to hold onto anything overnight. Even when I was crying outside after being told to come back in the morning, and was not causing any more trouble, they refused to let me back in. I know it's all over now, and it worked out for the best, but I keep thinking; what if things hadn't worked out? What if Joel hadn't been outside? What if I had kept shouting and the staff called the cops and I ended up in jail? All I should be thinking about is how I narrowly escaped a disastrous moment, and what I can learn from it. Drinking has always been a social crutch of mine. I become more talkative and less reserved when I drink, and I try to keep it going. It's caused other problems in the past, mostly sex-related with guys I never should have even talked to, but never anything on this level. I was fine until I started on that fifth drink. A guy who was clearly trying to get in my pants bought it for me, so I have my suspicions, especially after I started acting like a maniac immediately after I took a sip. But it was probably just too much alcohol combined with the natural stress of having to explain myself to an unyielding staff who doesn't appear to be helping. I've told myself before, after yet another disappointing one-night stand, that I will drink less, but it never sticks. I'm hoping that, remembering my embarrassing Friday night, I'll make it stick this time.
Before I went out on Friday, I learned that my grandfather had died after a long, off and on struggle with cancer. It hadn't even hit me when I headed out that my grandfather was dead. He was among my favorite extended relatives, but I can't say we were exactly close. In a perverted way, maybe getting drunk and making an ass of myself was the best way to honor his memory, in the spirit his alcoholic Irish Catholic clan.

A rash of domestic murders in Maryland

2007-11-23T11:59:00.001-08:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071123/ap_on_re_us/five_dead

Domestic murder is the most common type of murder, and the type most often committed by women. The reason for this, why when a woman is murdered the husband is always the prime suspect and often the killer, is, as a friend told me a while ago, most of us have to have a strong emotional connection to someone to get to the point of even considering killing them. Only psychopaths or other emotional defectives feel the urge to kill a total stranger. Or someone so greedy or desperate who kills for money. As the article states, there have been several high-profile incidents in Maryland this past year, often with children as the victims. The murder of a child, especially by their own parents, is always disturbing. Children are almost always innocent victims, caught in the crosshairs of either a mother's severe postpartum depression, one spouse's desire for revenge against the other, or a parent's mental illness. And with most parents' will to protect their children against any type of ill, up to the point of sacrificing their own lives, when a parent ends their child's life, it's an exceptionally sad story, but all too common.
The guy I recently met, though currently out of town, is still calling me frequently, and I saw him again last weekend and had another great night. I'm almost to the point of forgetting the asshole who wanders in and out of my life, who until now I thought could be the love of my life, if he would only stick around. But now I see him for what he is, a coward who can't even tell me his whole story. But this new guy is different, at least that's how it feels at the moment. And I might have a new job soon, if I don't blow this interview like I often have the past few months, if I get that far in my job hunt, which has been rare.

The Democratic Presidential candidates

2007-11-17T12:02:00.000-08:00

The candidates for President on both sides leave much to be desired. But on the Democratic side, it's particularly distressing. Hillary Clinton, despite being reviled by the right, is displaying increasing levels of Howard Dean-style unfocused insanity, and appears to absolutely refuse to answer questions in a concrete manner. Barak Obama, despite his early promise, has now turned all God-warrior on us, allying with anti-gay ministers, and also refusing to answer questions with anything but empty optimistic phrases. I still hold out a shred of hope for Obama, but I feel he has overstepped his limitations by running for President so soon. And while John Edwards gained my respect with a very strong performance in the 2004 Vice Presidential debate against Der Fuhrer Cheney, after Bill Clinton, the nation is wary of another smooth-talking southerner. I have a soft spot for Joe Biden and his unrehearsed honesty, but unrehearsed honesty doesn't get one far in the political sphere, and it's not enough to hold up a successful Presidency. And while the borderline Marxist in me also has inclinations toward Dennis Kucinich, I don't see how his ideals will translate to the anti-Marxist American stage. But there is one faint beacon of hope: Bill Richardson, the very successful and popular governor of New Mexico. Richardson is a champion of civil rights, an advocate of the environment, opposes the Iraq occupation, supports tax fairness, and, most importantly, has made affordable health care and quality education his top priorities, recognizing the Bush administration's failings in both areas. For transcripts of his cogent and eloquent speeches and outlines of positions, go to http://www.richardsonforpresident.com/home Richardson also gets points for recognizing America's energy crisis, and as former Secretary of Energy, he should know. Richardson has also been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in the Middle East and Darfur activism. While all things are subject to change, for the time being, Godless Liberal is endorsing the Honorable Governor Bill Richardson for the next President of the United States.
Maryland's governor, Martin O'Malley, has made some promising strides of his own in his short time as head of the state. I heard him speak on Thursday at Progressive Maryland's awards banquet. While some called his speech a "downer," I found his honesty about the hard road ahead refreshing. O'Malley passed the nation's first living wage law, and is doing his best to close the state's deficit and undo Ehrlich's various damages. And it says something about O'Malley that he is willing to be identified with Progressive Maryland, a group Ehrlich called "wack-jobs." I consider the former governor's words an endorsement. In his pro-rich and pro-business eyes, I guess any group who advocates a slight tax increase for the super-rich is a wack-job. And we wear that tag with honor. Also, Martin O'Malley, unlike many politicians, has a good sense of humor. When one of Progressive Maryland's team members put on a George Bush mask and wandered by the governor doing an impression of our President in name only, O'Malley was, according to those who saw the incident, laughing his ass off.
Here ends my political rant. Not as informed as I would like, and I may come out looking stupid as a result of my lack of thorough research, but for now, I'm comfortable with my positions. And being a member of Progressive Maryland has not only increased my comfort in social situations, but I am also learning more about various social injustices and how to start solving them. But, American politics sure is depressing. No wonder so many of us prefer not to think about it.

Norman Mailer dead at 84

2007-11-10T14:19:00.000-08:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071110/ap_on_en_ot/obit_mailer;_ylt=Au_V2CYMWHJ9VUEGkk_n7Oes0NUE

He may have been a misogynistic asshole in his private life, married six times and almost fatally stabbing his second wife, but Norman Mailer was still a towering figure in American literature. I will always admire him for his iconoclasm and fighting into his last days with "President" George W. Bush, calling Bush on his "pre-fascist" regime.
Todd and I were talking last night at Bound about the very lackluster attendance. Where are all of you? We have a decent space, great music and people, but we're still about 100 guests short. Bound is the only goth-industrial event in DC on Fridays. We need you, and you need us. Still, I managed to have a good night, until I left. I met a great guy named Anthony, who I'm seeing again tonight, and we talked about movies and literature and stupid people, which are among my favorite topics. At the end of the night, around 2 am, he had to drive his friend home, and since he lives near me, he offered me a ride. This was very nice of him, and I wanted more time with him, so I accepted. Bad idea. Not because of Anthony, but because his friend brought some military friends who had to be taken back to base in Southwest. They didn't see the entrance at first, so we had to basically circle around the city to find our way back, which took a very long time. And on our way, we got stuck behind an accident, and had to wait until the ambulances cleared. Luckily, Anthony had some Dave Attell standup routines on his iPod, which helped lighten the mood. It was about 4:30 when we finally got the uniforms back to their barrack. They were lucky I didn't throw them onto the ground myself. To give an idea of how long the trip took, after finishing my fifth drink at the club right before we left, I was completely sober by the time we got to the barracks. Then after that long and painful trip, we had to go to Gaithersburg to drop off a girl at her car, then drive Anthony's friend out to Frederick. I got home at 6 am. By the time we got to my house, I had never had to pee so bad in my life. Still, I enjoyed meeting Anthony, and am looking forward to seeing him tonight. We're going to AFI to see "Taxidermia," a Hungarian film that's part of the European Union Film Showcase. The lesson to be learned in our drive around the circling highways of DC in search of a military base is this: I don't care how they've served their country, never give a soldier a ride home in the wee hours of the morning.
I've met a great guy (the great guy I saw again last week after months of not communicating has stopped communicating yet again, and of course I still can't stop thinking about him), started a not-great but still interesting part-time job at Progressive Maryland with some very cool people, and I have an interview on Monday to work as an SAT tutor. Is my life finally starting to turn around? Or is this just a mirage of a high before my inevitable fall? I guess I should enjoy the good times while they last.

School shooting in Finland

2007-11-07T09:18:00.000-08:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071107/ap_on_re_eu/finland_school_shooting

Finland is a surprising place for a school shooting, an almost entirely American phenomenon. While gun ownership is more common in Finland than in the rest of Europe, the article states, shootings are still rare. The gunman shot several people in the school, including the principal, after putting up a plan for his rampage on YouTube, calling it a "revolution." He then shot himself, but survived. No other information about the shooter or his motives was included, but I will, of course, be following this story.
Some odd political news: Pat Robertson, professional religious wingnut and swindler of the faithful, is backing Rudy Giuliani for president. This is surprising because Giuliani, while I'm not a fan, is at least pro-choice and pro-gay rights, making him a bit too socially permissive and, well, rational for the crazy Christians Robertson represents.
A bit of good news: I officially start training at Progressive Maryland today. Not only am I employed again, I'll be working for something I can be proud of. And when I explained my dissatisfaction with my previous job during my interview, the interviewer not only understood, he fully sympathized and shared stories of corporate bullshit of his own. I think I could be happy there.

A mob story from the old country

2007-11-05T10:52:00.000-08:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071105/wl_nm/italy_mafia_arrests_dc

There's not much here, just the latest mob boss arrest in Sicily, a guy who was nicknamed "the Baron." Gotta love those Mafia nicknames. His archrival was "the Lawnmower," due to his method of mowing down hit targets. There's also another great Mafia power struggle story, which makes me wonder just how different the mob is from any American government organization or corporation.
On the job front, after months of sending out resumes with no responses, I received two responses in the space of one hour today. I now have two interviews, one with a coffee shop and one with Progressive Maryland, a grassroots political organization. Not my ideal job, but still a good cause, much better than the corporate bullshit I was once subjected to.

Control review

2007-11-03T15:05:00.000-07:00

The Joy Division movie Control is definitely worth seeing, not just for the energetic recreation of concert footage that is the closest we will ever get to witnessing a Joy Division show. Sam Riley's performance as the band's tormented lead singer, Ian Curtis, deserves every bit of each glowing review it has received. From his epileptic seizures to his early romantic naivete and later depression to his passionate stage shows, Riley nails every facet of Curtis' complex character, all while having the slim frame, black hair and pale skin to make him every high school goth girl's dream. The final moments, with Joy Division fans knowing how this tragic story will end, when Curtis is facing his homemade noose, then a cut to a wide shot of his wife discovering the unseen body, are heartbreaking. As "Atmosphere" plays over the closing credits, Curtis' solemn voice and sad lyrics take on a new significance. Also, I was thrilled that my favorite JD song, "She's Lost Control," was featured in the film. After coming home, I had to listen to my Joy Division albums.
Personal news: Had a great time at Bound last night. A big thanks to whichever DJ played "Red Right Hand." I met some great new people, and saw a guy I hadn't seen in months, the one who has been slipping in and out of my life ever since we met, when I felt he could be the love of my life. Despite the uncertainty of our history, I was happy to see him, and we got a chance to hang out and talk on our way home. I just hope he doesn't slip away again. But with some of my friends going through nasty divorces and drama-heavy breakups and reunions, maybe I shouldn't rush into anything.

You'll be coming down

2007-10-29T13:34:00.000-07:00

Awesome Halloween weekend. The BUG party was a great time, anyone who was there probably heard me screaming. Entre Nous' Halloween bash wasn't as horribly crowded as last year, which made it more enjoyable. As always, there were some great costumes. My friend Scott showed major commitment to his Caesar outfit by wearing nothing but a cape and specially designed underwear, and cutting his hair to match. Holly looked very hot as Milla Jovovich in The Fifth Element, and I loved Jen's Princess Leia gold bikini. She's the only woman I know who could pull that off. But the best costume I saw was on the Metro Saturday night on my way to EN. A guy was wearing a Union blue Civil War uniform and hat, and was carrying a bottle. Yes, I'm guessing he was Ulysses S. Grant. Very clever. I wanted to make it to Cradle of Love last night, but I think I had reached my party quota for the weekend. I hope I can see Maverick's Charles Manson costume at an upcoming celebration.
I love Halloween, and celebrating with my friends, but, as is often the case, when I was out I started getting depressed in quiet moments and on the way home. Almost everyone around me was paired up, and I was alone. Sometimes I felt invisible, because I don't have the typical engaging personality, and I'm not exactly a flamboyant attention-grabber like some of my friends. I had a good time, and I'm glad I got out this weekend, but there's always a negative side. The fun passed, and yesterday I was left listening to the new Bruce Springsteen album (excellent, by the way), especially the second track, "You'll Be Coming Down." Something about it got to me, most likely the lyrics about fading youth and beauty, and everything good going bad eventually. After a fun weekend, I'm left listening to depressing music, knowing that for the rest of the week I'll still be unemployed and alone. I might have to leave the apartment I love after this month if I don't get a job soon, I'm too tired and depressed after doing nothing all day to go out or even write, and I never call the friends from the clubs because I assume they don't want to talk to me. I've made a lot of progress from high school, when I had no friends and hated myself to the point of hiding in my room and not talking to anyone, but I'm still too shy to go after a job I want or to develop a friendship, or to keep in contact with a guy who could be the love of my life. But please, don't let me spoil your Halloween fun. I'll figure a way out of this slump somehow.

YOU'LL BE COMIN' DOWN

white roses and misty blue eyes
red mornings, then nothin' but gray skies
a cup of coffee, a heart shot clean through
the jacket you bought me gone daisy gray-blue
you're smiling now but you'll find out
they'll use you up and spit you out now
your head's spinnin' in diamonds and clouds
but pretty soon it turns out

you'll be comin' down now baby
you'll be coming down
what goes around, it comes around and
you'll be comin' down

easy street, a quick buck and true lies
smiles as thin as those dusky blue skies
a silver plate of pearls my golden child
it's all yours at least for a little while
you'll be fine long as your pretty face holds out
then it's gonna get pretty cold out
an empty stream of stars shooting by
you got your hopes on high

you'll be comin' down now baby
you'll be coming down
what goes around, it comes around and
you'll be comin' down

for a while you'll go sparklin' by
just another pretty thing on high

like a thief on a sunday morning
it all falls apart with no warning
your cinnamon sky's gone candy-apple green
the crushed metal of your little flying machine

you'll be comin' down now baby
you'll be coming down
what goes around, it comes around and
you'll be comin' down

you'll be comin' down now baby
you'll be coming down
what goes around, it comes around and
you'll be comin' down

HIM and Bleeding Through rock the 9:30 Club

2007-10-20T13:19:00.000-07:00

Awesome show last night. Bleeding Through, a hardcore punk band with a dark edge, gave the goths a chance to blow off steam before swooning and moping to the romantigoth sounds of HIM. Not that HIM can't rock, the hard renditions of "Wings of a Butterfly" and "My Sweet 666" proved that they are one of the last great rock bands. Unfortunately, due to either sound problems or the instruments, I couldn't always properly hear the piercing guitar that gives so many HIM songs such a powerful edge. Still, a great night at the 9:30 Club, surrounded by my fellow goths and freaks.
The after party at Bound was fun too, even though I had to take a detour around a crime scene to get to it. All I know is that someone fired shots in the area of the 9:30 Club, at a cop according to some rumors, but it seemed to have died down by the time the show was over. I got drunk at Bound, and went downstairs with a guy I met before one of my friends came over and, noticing how drunk I was and couldn't remember the guy's name, dragged me away. I resented it at the time, since I later realized I did know the guy's name, but it is good to have friends, especially when you're trapped in a haze of alcohol and happy that any guy is paying attention to you. The next best thing to not actually making stupid mistakes is having a friend with the foresight to stop you from taking that stupid mistake too far. Also, a big thanks to DJ Rex for keeping the crowd dancing last night, coming all the way from the UK.

New evidence clears Dr. Crippen

2007-10-16T14:07:00.000-07:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071016/sc_nm/science_crippen_dc

A doctor who was accused of murdering his wife could be cleared by new evidence. Dr. Crippen protested his innocence all the way to the gallows, saying that the body found was not that of his wife, and this has been established by new DNA evidence, many years too late.
England, where Crippen was tried and hanged, has since abolished the death penalty, after another innocent man, framed by infamous "Monster of Rillington Place" John Reginald Christie, was posthumously pardoned. America is one of the few first-world countries hanging on to capital punishment, and is one of very few countries that executes juveniles (Iran and Pakistan are among the others). Will the Dr. Crippen case convince other governments to abolish this form of punishment? Probably not, at least while "Texas Justice" Bush is the figurehead of this country, with Dead-Eye Dick by his side. The Dr. Crippen case illustrates a fundamental problem with the death penalty. Death is definite, but human judgment is not. Judgment can be clouded by emotion, desire for revenge, prejudice, health, stress, and so many other factors. Which is a frightening thought when considering that someone else's life could depend on the quality of your judgment.

A night with the JCC

2007-10-13T13:55:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday, I went to my friend Steven Lee Beeber's reading/panel discussion at the Black Cat about his book The Heebie Jeebies at CBGBs (www.jewpunk.com for more info), sponsored by the Jewish Community Center. The reading was great, but the panel left something to be desired. In a previous discussion I had with Steve about the difference between New York punk and DC punk, we mentioned that the DC scene is humorless, and the two DC scenester panelists proved us right. They didn't look like they were having much fun. Maybe they were just afraid of the silent judgment of DC punk legend Ian MacKaye, who was in the audience after we received information that he wouldn't make it. Still, it was a great night. Good crowd, fun venue, and Steve sold a lot of books. I even got a shoutout before the reading began, since I helped him find the perfect outfit for his DC debut.
The Bio Channel's Notorious had a show about a murdered Oklahoma cheerleader the other night, and three teenage boys were the main suspects. One was from the wrong side of the tracks, the other two were good students and athletes. One of the investigators was positive that Randy Woods, one of the suspects, couldn't have been the ringleader because he was in school and "played football." Since when does being a high school athlete make someone incapable of murder? Another straight-A student and star three-sport athlete from Texas made his biggest headlines as part of the most infamous murder case of the 1960s; Charles "Tex" Watson, a member of Charles Manson's "Family." If there's one thing I've learned from studying serial killers and other violent criminals, it's that we never know what anyone's capable of, being rich or smart or attractive or athletic does not mean that there's no violence simmering under the surface.

The raising of a serial killer

2007-09-19T11:24:00.000-07:00

Yes, I'm back to my favorite topic. I was watching an episode of Notorious about David Berkowitz, and, unlike many killers, he had generally good things to say about his adoptive parents, but adds that their love "wasn't enough" to ease his violent mind. His troubles with meeting his birth mother is another, tragic story, but Berkowitz managed to have parents who cared about him. His adoptive father expressed surprise and distress at hearing the news about his son. Jeffrey Dahmer's father Lionel, who wrote a book called A Father's Story that I highly recommend, expressed his grief about his son's troubled mind, and his struggle to reconcile his rational mind with his son's irrational actions. Lionel's troubled marriage with Jeffrey's mother, which lead to constant fighting and an eventual divorce, likely caused some strife in the Dahmer house.
Nathan Berkowitz and Lionel Dahmer are the exception, not the rule, in the families of serial killers. Gary Heidnik, who kept women captive in his basement, killing two, had a father who said he "wasn't interested" in his son's trial and conviction, and when Gary was young and wet his bed, his father displayed the soiled sheets on the front lawn. The lives of serial killers are filled with stories of people who should never have been allowed to have children. As Berkowitz and Dahmer displayed, a traumatic upbringing isn't the only factor that creates a killer, but it's a common element in the lives of violent criminals. Edmund Kemper's mother ridiculed his appearance, told him no woman would ever love him, and locked him in the basement because she thought he would molest his sister. Kemper's crimes against women were seen as him lashing out against his mother, and when he killed her, he turned himself in. Ed Gein, the inspiration for Norman Bates, has a religious fanatic mother who drove away his few friends by telling him they came from less pious families, making him believe that a boy's best friend is his mother. Ted Bundy, despite appearances of an idyllic childhood, was primarily raised by his grandfather, a vicious racist and wife-beater. Charles Manson was born to a 16-year-old prostitute and was raised by his uncle, who beat him and punished him by sending him to school in a dress. Henry Lee Lucas' mother also punished him by putting him in dresses, and once hit him so hard with a two-by-four that he lost consciousness. Lucas launched his murder career by killing his mother during an argument. Albert DeSalvo, a serial rapist who was once thought to be the Boston Strangler, had an alcoholic father who beat his wife in front of Albert and his sister, and sold the two children into slavery. John Wayne Gacy's alcoholic father beat and belittled him relentlessly. But a troubled childhood isn't the only thing that went wrong with these men. Dahmer's brother and DeSalvo's sister didn't turn into criminals, although they were raised in the same environment as their infamous siblings. And as Berkowitz said, sometimes a loving family isn't enough to stop the violent thoughts. The origin of the criminal mind remains a mystery.
Although I still don't have another job, I'm in slightly better spirits these days. Bound has a new home, I know I have friends around, and finally, Prison Break is back. Monday's season premiere had me on the edge of my seat. The Company's latest evil plan had me shouting at the screen, and I'm hoping for a reluctant Michael/Mahone alliance in the shithole Panamanian prison they now inhabit. That rat bastard T-Bag has gotten in good with the gangster-like prison ringleader, in typical psychopathic fashion. I think this season is going to be a good one, with the stories set up in the premiere.

Bound's first night at Expo

2007-09-15T13:43:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted in a while, being in semi-hibernation after quitting my job two weeks ago, but I made it out to Bound for its debut at Expo, just off U Street. The bar sucks (they need more than one bartender) and the bathroom has a smell that would overpower any other public bathroom, and has a strange tumor-like mass in the corner. Other than those things, I had a good time. There's a nice dance floor, a small but effective play space, and tables to sit and hang out with friends, which is one of the major reasons I go to Bound.
Congratulations to Johnny (DJ Panic) and his wife Erin on their first anniversary, which we celebrated last night. I'm happy for them, but Johnny's announcement got me thinking about what's missing from my life, and got me depressed, forcing me to leave earlier than I would have liked. I went home, listened to the Smiths and wrote in my journal about all the guys who ignored, abandoned and rejected me. I met a guy last weekend and had a great time with him, but of course he hasn't called. They never do. I'm trying to figure out how I can learn how to interact with people so they'll want to seek me out to spend time with me, not just hang out when we meet up at the club. The socializing instincts most people are born with and can easily develop are missing in my mind, and it's caused a lot of loneliness and misery. Still, I've managed to meet some great people. I just need to learn more about friendship and relationships.

Is Bound in trouble?

2007-08-28T06:14:00.000-07:00

I have received very distressing news about my favorite DC club event, Bound. First, the on-premise SMB v2.0 was postponed due to lack of RSVPs. And now I hear that Bound will no longer be at the R&R Lounge, which is an awesome place in Chinatown and very Metro-accessible, most likely due to lack of attendance that failed to impress the club's owners. To all DC residents looking for a good goth club, go to Bound. Don't let the BDSM elements scare you, there's no pressure to participate. Until Bound gets a new venue, where will I go to satisfy my goth and BDSM cravings? I'd go to Chronos, but I'll have to take a cab home, and the cabs here can never find my place in Takoma without a lot of effort. And Midnight is circling the drain in terms of quality of attendance and music. I just hope the new Bound venue isn't back at Lime or somewhere else in the dark corners of DC, far from the Metro, where sometimes I don't bother taking the trouble to go out that far. If any club owner wants to give Bound a shot, I will do my best to bring up attendance to give this event a permanent home for anyone like me who needs this weekly gathering of cool freaks.

Another Bush official bites the dust

2007-08-27T07:48:00.000-07:00

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20459457/?GT1=10252

Alberto Gonzales, the controversial Attorney General, has resigned. "President" Bush just cannot hold on to his cabinet. Even the ever-loyal Karl Rove announced his resignation earlier this month, and now Gonzales, who steadfastly supported Bush's domestic wiretapping program, is leaving the administration amid allegations that he fired US attorneys under suspicious circumstances and that he lied to Congress about the circumstances of the firings. Who will be next in the Bush camp to defect? This is turning into a political version of Survivor: Who will be the last cabinet member standing by Bush's side?
Now to my favorite subject, violent criminals. I saw a show about Richard Speck (Notorious on the Biography Channel, the best show for people like me), who slaughtered eight student nurses in Chicago in one night in 1966. Like many violent offenders, Speck had a troubled childhood, his father died when he was very young, and his stepfather was a violent alcoholic. As a teenager, Speck began a career of petty burglary and was discharged from the merchant marines for erratic behavior. He married while still a teenager, and supposedly beat his wife. At the time of the mass murder of the nurses, Speck was broke and drinking heavily. Was he lashing out at the world that had not been kind to him, like so many mass murderers? But one of the victims was also raped and tortured before being killed, so it was a more personal crime that the blind rage of Charles Whitman and Cho of Virginia Tech. A commentator in the show said that Speck was not a monster, like we want all our criminals to be, but maybe he was "all too human." The thought that a serial killer or a mass murderer is "all too human" is a difficult one. It implies that we as a species are inherently violent, or have the seeds of viciousness in our genetic makeup, as a recent book (that I have yet to read) argues. But under conditions like those faced by Speck, a history of abuse and disappointments, who wouldn't at least think about lashing out? Most of us have better impulse control than to act on these feelings, but I can personally attest that the feelings exist.

Russian serial killer arrested

2007-08-15T08:16:00.000-07:00

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20247477/

As if Russians didn't have enough to worry about with its corrupt and possibly homicidal government, the murderer of at least 49 people has just been arrested. Alexander Pichushkin has confessed to over 60 murders, but there is only evidence in 49, which brings him short of Andrei Chikatilo's record of 53 confirmed killings.
Pichushkin's first murder was at 18, when he killed a classmate. The article doesn't say much about his methods, preferred victims or motives, but he says that he feels compelled to kill, that it was a necessity in his life. How this compulsion started, he doesn't say, and there isn't any information available about his past that would shed a light on this. With many serial killers, the drive to kill comes from fantasies that grow more intense, until they feel they have no choice but to act on them. But since fantasies are always perfect, and reality rarely is, the killer is left unfulfilled, and hopes the next time will be better, which leads to a string of murders before the killer is caught.
Pichushkin's bloated sense of importance, in his statement about being responsible for sending his victims "to the next life" as being a "father" to them, is also common among serial killers. Ted Bundy once said he felt like a god as he felt his victims die. He also echoed Pichushkin in his explanation of his motives, "I just liked to kill."
Pichushkin was caught when a videotape showed him with a victim right before she was killed. The victim also had a piece of paper with his name and phone number. Why would a killer give his victim his real name? Did he want to be caught? Was it a lapse in judgement? Or was it Bundy-style arrogance? A court psychiatrist has labeled Pichushkin as sane, and, from a legal standpoint, he probably is. His actions are inconceivable to most of us, but the level of thought and consideration he put into his crimes and his explanation of them indicates a sound, but diseased, mind. He knew exactly what he was doing when he did it, and enjoyed it.

Rove steps down

2007-08-13T06:07:00.001-07:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/rove_resigning

At least that's the official story. Who knows how much power he will continue to wield unofficially. Some insiders are claiming that the Scooter Libby trial was just a way to cover for Rove, the real leaker of CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity. A big show of a trial and conviction, later to be overturned by "President" Bush in a move that outraged his critics, it is a good way to deflect attention and scrutiny from Rove. Rove should have at least five life sentences by now, for all his lying and deceit and backhanded tricks in helping to run the country. Libby might have been a liar and a cheat, but he was nothing compared to "Bush's Brain."
In other government conspiracy news, a great moment in Bolshevik history. I was watching one of my favorite cable shows last night, Infamous Murders on History International, and it mentioned a Bulgarian dissident who was murdered after his broadcasts accusing the communist dictatorship in the country of corruption. The cause of death was poison, and he was murdered in England, which sounds dangerously similar to the recent death of a Russian exile and critic of Putin's regime. And the Bulgarian murder was on the dictator's birthday, like the journalist who was recently murdered on Putin's birthday after criticizing Russian policies and Putin's administration.

Why do I bother?

2007-08-05T08:14:00.000-07:00

A guy who I haven't heard from in weeks showed up at Bound last night, telling me all the reasons he hasn't contacted me. He said that he came out because he thought I might be there. If that's true, it's one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me. But I have a difficult time believing him. So many people have lied to me throughout my life, especially men, that I have to have a healthy dose of doubt about anything they say. And he says he can't be in a relationship right now. I want to believe him, because I like him and had a good feeling about him, but my history with men, and the other girl I saw him with last night, give me a bad feeling. One of my problems is, I assume that anytime someone says they can't talk to me or see me, it must be my fault. I assume that everyone I meet will hate me, because they'll somehow manage to read my mind and see my various insanities. It's not the best way to live, I know, but I can't help it, not even after years of situating myself in the social sphere, and therapy. I hope this guy's telling the truth, even just to give me a shred of faith in humanity and my future chances of a happy relationship.

Gainesville Ripper thoughts

2007-08-01T12:27:00.000-07:00

Here's an unsettling bit of information: tabloid king and Fox News czar Rupert Murdoch has all but taken over the Wall Street Journal. I wonder if this will lead to the reputable publication's decline, as Murdoch's takeover did to the New York Post many years ago.
Late last Saturday night, I tried to get some writing done, but ended up watching an "American Justice" episode about Danny Rolling, the killer who terrorized university students in Florida in the early 1990s. At first, trying to deflect blame from himself, he blamed an alter ego called "Gemini," since he couldn't claim he wasn't guilty. His DNA was all over the crime scenes. In an interview with Rolling shortly before his execution, he says about the DNA test, "The test came back and, bingo," in a cold tone that is frightening to the rest of the world but very common among killers of Rolling's type.
In many ways, Rolling fits the standard profile of a serial killer. He had a rough childhood with a strict police officer father who he says "didn't allow for individuality" and abused him and his brother. He said he started to "walk the streets at night" to get away from his father, because "home was not a safe place," which could have been where he was introduced to his future life of crime. After he was charged with the Florida murders, Rolling was also charged with the attempted murder of his father of many years ago, in which Danny was the prime suspect. Danny Rolling started out with petty burglaries, breaking and entering, and eventually worked his way up to murder. Some psychologists think he chose college students because they symbolized the priviledged life that he, as a high school dropout and career criminal, had thrown away. He tried the military, but didn't last long. A psychiatrist there saw signs of antisocial personality and problems with authority. This brings to mind John Allen Muhammad, the Beltway Sniper, who was court-martialed twice during his time in the military for insubordination. As much as antisocial personalities want the power they feel comes with being in the military or law enforcement, their self-absorption and unwillingness to take the advice or orders of anyone else leads them into trouble in these fields. A prison psychologist diagnosed Rolling with borderline personality disorder, which is primarily characterized by an irrational fear of abandonment. Others who spoke with Rolling in prison say he was obsessed with how he would be remembered, another trait typical of the narcissism of serial killers. For many, a major reason they start killing is to feel the power and get the recognition they feel they deserve, and don't get from their often mundane lives. The psychologist also called Rolling "very immature," and said he had a problem with empathy. Many serial killers, and criminals in general, have limited emotional development. They still have the selfishness and irrational demands of a child, without the concern and awareness of others that most of us develop as we mature.
Authorities first got Rolling for the university murders when he was in jail for another crime, and he confessed to his cellmate, a convicted murderer, who promptly reported the confession to prison officials. When later questioned by the police, Rolling would only make his confession through his cellmate. At his trial, Rolling looked away from grisly photos of the crime scenes, claiming in an interview that he couldn't stand to look at them, and asked himself, "What have you done?" Was this a sign of remorse? According to the prosecutor, who zealously sought the death penalty, Rolling's expressionless face during the trial and the savage nature of his crimes were signs of someone who has no respect or remorse for others. Rolling says he confessed "for his maker" to make amends for what he did, since he knew he would likely die soon. He never showed any other signs of remorse, and as we all know about serial killers, they will readily lie to protect themselves. Rolling is a confusing character, and now that he's dead, we'll never know why he did what he did or how he would feel about it years later.
The more I read about crime and serial killers, the more I oppose the death penalty. On a show I saw about Joel Rifkin, currently serving a life term for 17 murders in the New York area, his interview, however disjointed at times, provided some strong insights into the mind of a killer. We wouldn't have had these insights if Rifkin had been executed. If all serial killers had been executed immediately after their crimes, as some of the more fanatic among the population demand, the pioneering Behavioral Science Unit at the FBI couldn't have conducted their interviews with Edmund Kemper, Charles Manson and many others that led to the development of the modern law enforcement technique of criminal profiling. The prosecutor in Rolling's case, and the anger in the eyes and voices of his victims families, demanding a death sentence based on the brutality of his crimes, did little to dissuade me from my belief that capital punishment is all about revenge.

Crime stories

2007-07-26T05:24:00.000-07:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ct/20070724/cr_ct/serialkillerontrialforcollegestudentsstabbingdeathin1974;_ylt=AnVWEv_1boVTDM0uOMvY1hFbIwgF

The name Coral Eugene Watts sounds vaguely familiar from the many books I've read about serial killers, but I'm not very familiar with his case. From what I gathered from the article, he's a woman-hating killer in the vein of Ted Bundy, with, according to his latest confession, almost as high a body count. Prosecutors in a 30-year-old murder case that has been tied to Watts are worried that his confession will be prejudicial, establishing him as a violent offender. That he's already in prison on a similar offense should be evidence enough that he has the inclination toward violence. But like I said, I'm not familiar with the case or Watts' history, but I'm intrigued, and will have more when I find out more.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070724/ap_on_re_us/serial_predator;_ylt=AgGfTnUK73WQKCODMaqxyM9bIwgF

A trial is under way for a suspect in the "Baseline" crime spree, but on shaky evidence. Prosecutors have implied they have the defendant's DNA from the body of a rape victim, but the defense disputes this. Also, the two rape victims failed to pick the defendant out of a lineup months ago, and only now identify him as their attacker, exactly the type of inconsistent eyewitness testimony that any good defense attorney enjoys ripping to shreds. The story doesn't say anything about the many other offenses for which the suspect is on trial, only that he has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

I was watching a show about Ed Gein, the inspiration for Psycho, a few nights back. He is one of very few murderers who has successfully pleaded insanity. Under the thumb of his religious fanatic mother, Gein had an isolated existence, dropping out of school at 14 to work on his family's farm. His mother drove away his few friends because she didn't approve of their less devout families, and he spent his life worshipping her, fearing her and loathing her. The two women he killed were middle-aged businesswomen, like his dead mother. The bodies he dug up from the local cemetery were middle-aged women. Gein was a classic necrophile. He killed his victims with a long-range shotgun, and his energies were devoted to desecrating their corpses. As psychologists have suggested, he probably hated his mother on some level for her domineering nature, but due to his fear and childlike idolation of her, he wouldn't admit it, even to himself. Instead, his hatred was taken out on female corpses. Gein was judged incompetent to stand trial, seemingly unaware of his actions and their consequences. At one point during his hearing, a journalist recalls him saying, "What are they going to do to me?" He was kept in a childlike state his entire life, due to his overbearing mother who wouldn't let him out into the world, and after she died, he was left alone with his twisted fantasy life, unaware of how to cope without his mother's guidance. Left on his own, he descended into madness unabated by contact with the real world.

Job status

2007-07-25T14:47:00.000-07:00

I went in for my review at the scheduled time, but my boss, being the forgetful person that he is, apparently forgot about it. I still took some time to tell him that I was ready to leave the company. Showing genuine concern for my welfare, which shocked me, he insisted that I stay for another month or so, until I found another job, and submit a formal letter of resignation for that time. So I'll be staying until the end of August, trying to make it through.
This job has been a great opportunity for me as my first real job just out of college, but I just can't do it anymore. All day I read through the muck of people who can barely write, just to send it to a luxury hotel to better improve their kiss-ass service techniques and therefore scam more money off the spoiled rich clients that are the only ones who can afford to stay there. I'm not aiding in anything blatantly unethical, like letting Scooter Libby out of prison or defending corporations in exploiting their workers, but I don't feel right about what the company does. Maybe I'm overreacting. I do that sometimes. But I'll stick around for a while longer, letting my bosses know that I'm not comfortable there and intend to leave as soon as I can.