Behind Frame 313

Moments after the kill shot - Pic courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
MACABRE MEMORIAL

We’re approaching the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination, and I can’t help but mull over various things about it. When I saw Oliver Stone’s JFK in 1992, I was certain Stone was on to something. I’ve since decided his conspiracy idea is frenzied and has too many moving parts. I more recently saw Parkland, a somber retelling of known events, and it introduced some questions without getting as complex as a John Grisham novel.

GOING WITH A LONE GUNMAN ..

I think Oswald was neck deep in whatever happened -- there’s too much to suggest otherwise. On the morning of November 22nd, a coworker saw him go to the 6th floor of the School Depository with “curtain rods” wrapped in paper. He was seen leaving the building mere seconds before Dallas Police sealed the exits, minutes after the killing. My questions are about background and motive.. Here are some troubling Oswald questions.

1) Oswald renounced the USA and defected to Russia. While in Russia, he was given a cush job (by Soviet standards) and a nice apartment although it was heavily bugged. Mere months later he was readmitted to the USA and even given a repatriation loan of nearly $500. Why did either nation treat him with such kid gloves? This was the height of the cold war -- why was Oswald let back into the USA?

2) To time and stage the assassination would take planning and coordination. Oswald, who had a very poor record of work, just happened to get a job at the Depository in October 1963, working on the upper floors. That was one month after JFK’s travel plans had been publicized and one month before JFK’s murder. Oswald was not a very bright man.. It’s not impossible that he would have such foresight and awareness to plan everything, but it seems unlikely.

3) Oswald’s mother and wife were both of the firm impression that he was an operative working for the US government. Why did they believe this? It’s not necessarily the truth, but they somehow came away with this idea. Out of the mouths of babes come significant truths, and maybe the same can be said for snoopy, eavesdropping relatives. As previously mentioned, Oswald wasn’t a Rhodes Scholar -- he probably didn’t have all his cards concealed.

4) Why did Jack Ruby (a nightclub owner with mob ties) sacrifice his own life and livelihood to perform vigilante justice on a man who was already arrested and likely to see death row? What was possibly gained by that? In the Oliver Stone line of bizarre facts, Ruby died 3 years later from sudden onset lung cancer right before he was to testify. Ruby thought he had been injected with a chemical.

5) What would have been Oswald’s motive to kill Kennedy? As a self-professed “Marxist” (very intentional air quotes) he should’ve liked the fact that Kennedy was backing off of Cuba and suggesting a scale-back in Viet Nam. There is no meaningful motive that could be given to this assassination. Oswald was something of a patsy even before the assassination -- but he wasn’t mentally ill and wouldn’t have done something completely nonsensical. At least not by himself.

In a final analysis, I have to agree with John Kerry’s recent remarks .. I think Oswald was hugely implicated. He may have even been a lone gunman if by lone gunman you mean the one person who actually pulled a trigger. Was he aided, abetted, given cues and instructions by someone else? That also seems very likely to me. Kerry suggested it might’ve been the Cubans. I think Oswald’s crackpot mother (who died in 1981) might have some insights to give. So might J Edgar Hoover but it seems everyone we need to talk to is dead.

© 2013 blogSpotter

Daring Debutante

This is a stickup! - Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
I was in my junior year at Lanier High School in February 1974. Watergate was in full throttle and Paul McCartney’s Wings was boring us with “Bland on the Run”. I needed some excitement and finally received my fix when it was reported that 19 year-old newspaper heiress Patty Hearst had been kidnapped by the left-wing guerillas known as Symbionese Liberation Army. That poor, beautiful girl. There she was watching TV with her boyfriend Steve Weed one minute, and the next minute she was being held for ransom by a ruffian named Donald Cinque LeFreeze no less.

To look at her prior life is to look at stuffy, stifling, wealthy, lily white luxuriance. She was raised by her patrician parents in highbrow Hillsborough, California. The 3rd of 5 daughters, she attended the very best schools – Crystal Springs School for Girls and Santa Catalina School in Monterey. Had Patty’s life unfolded the way her preppy, two-dimensional “script” spelled out, she would’ve joined a sorority, majored in Liberal Arts, met a wealthy scion from Dow Chemical and settled into a life of shallow splendor – vacationing in Aruba and shopping for Mercedes automobiles.

But fate had another script in mind. In the hands of Donald Cinque LeFreeze, Patty was transformed into a firebrand of social revolution. LeFreeze used Maoist mind control tactics to convince the impressionable Patty that she was a victim of White Establishment propaganda. He renamed her “Tania” after Che Guevara’s girlfriend. He talked the beautiful coed into joining the SLA in its various activities – issuing dire proclamations to the public and robbing banks. Patty was caught on security camera, barking commands to Hibernia Bank customers while wielding a gun. Ironically, Hibernia Bank was headed by the father of her best friend from childhood. Strange how the circles overlapped.

The SLA was nothing if not socially conscious. The ransom they requested was for Patty’s father to give $70 worth of food to all of California’s needy – a total value of $400 million. When Hearst complied, the SLA considered the food to be of poor quality – ransom unmet. Patty herself was quoted as saying, “My father could have done better”. Alas, the socially aware SLA had a short run. The group, including Patty, was apprehended in September 1975 and brought to justice.

The 1976 trial was a precursor to the 3 Ring Circus OJ-style events we’ve come to know in recent decades. F. Lee Bailey defended Patty but he was no match for prosecution expert Dr. Harry L. Kozol. Kozol smashed the “Stockholm Syndrome” defense by pointing out that Patty (1) still refused to turn evidence on SLA members and (2) failed to ever mention a small closet where police investigators allege that she was raped. In what was seen as a victory for the prosecution, Patty was sentenced to 35 years in Federal prison. Fortunately for Patty, the other powers that be relented. Jimmy Carter commuted her sentence to time served, 22 months in 1979. Bill Clinton gave her a full pardon in 2001.

In 2011, Patty Hearst lives a pleasant, unexciting, unremarkable life as a still attractive middle-aged matron. She married her former bodyguard, Bernard Shaw; they live in Garrison, NY with their two children Gillian and Lydia. In 1974, the antics of the SLA were greeted with weary vexation – we were still coming down from the 60’s. We live now in an unyielding age of over-the-top comedy with comedians like Conan O’Brien and Kathy Griffin. The extreme ironies and titillating details of Patty’s ordeal would never escape the laugh-a-minute laser vision of Comedy Central or Jay Leno in 2011. Details like a captor named “Cinque DeFreeze” cannot be ignored. In point of fact, filmmaker John Waters (of Pink Flamingos fame) did see the zaniness even at the time. Patty’s acting career is mostly comprised of comedic roles in John Waters movies like Cry-Baby. She was also in a couple of other B movies and did cameos for Frasier and Veronica Mars. Patty’s parents probably wish that their daughter’s life had adhered to the debutante script. All the rest of us, as well as popular culture, must feel enriched that Patty’s life took a completely different direction.

© 2011 blogSpotter

Iris' Number One Fan

Jodie Foster as Easy Iris -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
Anyone 40 or older probably remembers an urgent news bulletin from March 30, 1981: "Young man tries to assassinate President Ronald in Washington D.C.". The young man was John Hinckley Jr., a deranged 26 year-old. Hinckley was also an aspiring song-writer and vagabond who periodically resided with his wealthy parents in Evergreen, Colorado.

His gunplay didn’t kill anyone although it did plenty of damage. Press Secretary James Brady, policeman Thomas Delahanty and Secret Service man Tim McArthy were all directly struck by the hail of bullets. The President sustained a chest injury from a ricocheted bullet. By far the worst injury was sustained by Brady who was paralyzed for life on the left side of his body. Hinckley didn’t try to run; in fact he viewed the shooting as a photo op. He wanted his "lady love" to view his rageful behavior with a Rohm revolver on TV.

Hinckley was a Texas Tech drop-out who tried however briefly to be a song-writer in Los Angeles in the mid 70’s. When that didn’t pan out, the disturbed young man withdrew into a macabre fantasy world which blurred movie plots, historical assassinations, and other acts of desperate violence into a macho, psychotic “alterverse”.

The movie which so obsessed Hinckley was 1976’s Taxi Driver which portraits an equally psycho (albeit fictional) Travis Bickle, played by Robert De Niro. De Niro plays a would-be assassin with a bizarre crush on Iris, an under-aged teen prostitute. Hinckley is said to have watched Taxi Driver hundreds of times and somehow imprinted himself with the Bickle character. So thorough was the imprinting, he began stalking Jodie Foster (age 18 in 1981), who portrayed Iris in the actual '76 movie. In the “creepy facts file”, Hinckley actually dropped notes at Foster’s home and talked to her briefly on the phone. In 2010, one must hope that celebrities can be more unreachable and anonymous with regard to wack job stalkers.

Hinckley decided that, like Bickle, he should kill a president to impress Jodie/Iris. He first tracked Jimmy Carter but was arrested on weapons charges in Nashville. His wealthy family managed to get him psychiatric care for what was clearly to them just untreated clinical depression. Shortly thereafter, Hinckley “succeeded” in his bizarre quest – he completed the 1981 violent assault against Reagan and his team. What followed was a slap-on-the-wrist trial where Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity. One cannot dissociate the verdict from other significant circumstances; the Hinckleys were wealthy, staunch Republicans – good friends with V.P. George H. W. Bush. Hinckley’s brother Scott was even scheduled to have dinner with Neil Bush the night of the assassination attempt. Hinckley was remanded to the care of St. Elizabeth’s hospital where he has remained (more or somewhat less) since 1981.

So great was the public outrage over this verdict, several states modified state laws to restrict expert psychiatric testimony. Three states -- Idaho, Montana and Utah did completely away with the insanity defense. This was much ado considering that wealthy citizens frequently can side-step the established writ, no matter how passionately it’s supported by the general public.

For “tough love”, three-strikes advocates you should quit reading now. Hinckley’s incarceration at St. Elizabeth’s has unfolded more like a Club Med vacation stay than any typical inmate story. He summarized his daily routine as:

“See a theapist, answer mail, play guitar, listen to music, play pool, watch TV, eat lousy food and take delicious medication”.

In addition, he’s been granted increasingly long (two week) visits with his family which have given him the liberty of a driver’s license and opportunity to date two women on the outside. He was almost sprung completely in 2007 but public outcry, buttressed by the concerns of Reagan’s family kept him in St. Elizabeth’s where he surely belongs.

There is much to mull over in this tale and much impact to the national psyche..
- The insanity plea was reconsidered and reworked in several states
- Gun laws were strengthened
- Censorship advocates were emboldened by a clear case of copycat behavior
- Public advocates argued about privileged treatment for wealthy people

Reagan himself couched the event humorously in '81: “Honey, I forgot to duck”. He also was surprisingly benign about Hinckley himself saying only that he, “hopes the young man gets help”. In point of fact, Hinckley was given the help of a cushy hospital and lengthy outside visits. It would be hard to assert that his help was corrective or meaningful in any significant way. Whether his outburst was an insane lark or "rational" choice, he needs to be kept away from a world which is an action movie blur in his addled mind.

CINEMATIC ADDENDUM -- 1/8/2011

Today I actually watched Taxi Driver from 1976; the last time I watched it was as a college sophomore in the theater. The movie is a tour de force, easily earning its position on the AFI’s list of all-time great movies. It is Martin Scorsese’s dark vision of Travis Bickle, a disturbed and mentally deteriorating Vietnam Vet. Travis is played by a handsome, lean and then-young Robert De Niro. The cast is a stellar one where even bit roles are played by future luminaries like Harvey Keitel and Albert Brooks. Jodie Foster is amazing as the street-smart Iris and Cybill Shepherd is equally great as Betsy.

It puzzles me that John Hinckley saw Travis as a role model -- the entire screenplay presents Travis as an unhinged loser, living in a violent, adolescent fantasy world. The last three minutes of the movie are controversial -- they suggest that Travis has been received as a hero for “rescuing” Iris and brutally killing Iris’ pimp, bordello bouncer and Mafia john.

This is arguable from a couple of standpoints …
1) The last 3 minutes are gauzy and surreal like something in the dream sequence of a dying man.
2) It wouldn’t make sense factually. The pimp, john and bouncer were unsavory people but they had done nothing to provoke the attack. Bickle would be guilty of 2nd degree homicide if nothing else, he wouldn’t be received as a hero.

However you see the ending, please see this incredible film. The gritty essence of New York’s mean streets have never been more brilliantly shown than in this timeless masterpiece.

© 2011 blogSpotter

The Tenant in 213

Dahmer mug shot -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
The name “Jeffrey Dahmer” is now one of legend, albeit the horrific, infamous variety. The name is used in moments of overzealous character shading, the same way one might toss out “Hitler” or “Jack the Ripper”. What’s interesting is that Dahmer was actually a soft-spoken slacker in his personal demeanor. His career consisted of stints in the US Army and at a candy factory (ironically the Ambrosia Chocolate Factory), interrupted by stints of unemployable alcoholic stupor.

Dahmer’s parents were Lionel and Joyce – an analytical chemist and a housewife. They were good parents to Jeff and his younger brother David – no Mommie Dearest tales to tell. Jeff spent most of his unremarkable childhood in Bath, Ohio. There were a couple of harbingers of trouble to come, but not so much that anyone spoke of anything like psychotherapy. Jeff was a preteen loner, riding his bike for miles around his neighborhood. Loners are certainly not always killers although a killer is seldom the life of the party. Jeff also had an unseemly fascination with dead animals, going so far as to dismember them and reposition the cadavers in unusual ways (a dog’s head on a stake). When a teenage boy exhibits any fascination with dead bodies it should be a red flag. Even to be overly enthused about hunting, splaying or butchering such creatures as fish or deer would raise my own eyebrows. I worry about someone who can’t see any spark of soul or suffering in animal kind.

Jeff’s pacific childhood did experience a serious bump – his parents divorced when he was 17. Jeff had already developed a problem with alcoholism in his teens; the drinking habit continued into college where he flunked out of his first semester at Ohio State University. His father urged him to join the Army, where Jeff excelled initially but washed out again (within a couple of years) due to his drinking. Jeff moved in with his grandmother in 1982. A grandmother’s love could not overcome Jeff’s bizarre behavior: he kept store mannequins and fire arms in his bedroom. He was arrested more than once for indecent exposure and public lewdness. Probably most alarming were strange foul odors coming from the basement which Jeff said was merely an experiment with a dead squirrel gone awry. He was trying to dissolve it chemically, he said. In fact, at this point Dahmer had already killed @ 5 men, four while staying at his grandmother’s house. That she never investigated the odors is amazing – probably some major denial at work. That she finally kicked his craziness to the curb (in 1988) is to her credit.

The next grisly chapter is the one so frequently played in our pop culture playbook (category “Horror”). Dahmer got a job at the Ambrosia Chocolate Factory and took Apartment 213 at the Oxford Apartments. He went on a 2-year killing binge where he picked up his young male victims at bars. He gave them sedatives or blindsided them with blunt instruments they were little expecting. There was never anything approaching a fair fight. The victims, primarily Asian and black, were summarily dismembered; some body parts were dissolved in acid, some were refrigerated as souvenirs and some were devoured as food. Some, it appears were kept for secret ceremonies using votive candles. The apartment managers and Milwaukee police turned deaf ears and blind eyes to the numerous accumulating clues. Neighbors complained of foul smells and sawing noises, occasional screams. The police believed Dahmer’s story over that of his young, drugged victim when the young man attempted an escape – they returned the boy to Dahmer’s “care”.

Finally in 1991, a young Tracy Edwards fought off Dahmer’s attempt to handcuff and subdue him. Edwards ran to the police (half-clothed and hand-cuffed). He brought them back to Dahmer’s apartment where at length and at last, they found his macabre butchery shop. Dahmer was tried and easily convicted in 15 of the 17 murders. He was given a life sentence at Columbia Correctional prison where he himself was finally murdered at age 34 by a fellow inmate, Christopher Scarver. Scarver was celebrated as a folk hero by some, probably people not knowing that he was a schizoid killer with nearly as many issues as Dahmer. Scarver also killed a bystander when he killed Dahmer, maybe collateral damage – who knows what goes on in any of their minds.

A lot is made of the fact that Dahmer’s father was an evangelical Christian, and that Dahmer himself claimed the status of Born Again Christian in the last year of his life. A Church of Christ minister actually met with Dahmer and baptized him during Dahmer’s incarceration. I can’t claim to know the mind of other men, much less the mind of God. Nevertheless, blogSpotter will humbly guess what God might be thinking (assuming the existence of a God with man-like thought process)... I think that God probably, oddly, forgives just about everything because God himself is the architect of our brains – including our obsessions and all of our misfiring neurons. But – I think the Architect would figure in this case that the human containment was appropriate (minus Dahmer’s brutal murder in a prison lavatory), and that the free will mechanism sometimes goes off the track. That is blogSpotter’s reductionist viewpoint – I’m willing to hear anyone else’s viewpoint for comparing and contrasting.

Jeffrey Dahmer brought the lore of killer-maniacs to chilling new heights of gruesome goriness. The actual man probably doesn’t live up to his monstrous legend, but it doesn’t matter. People tend to embellish a story and this story invites embellishment. The strange details of Apartment 213 are scary enough that the unadorned story can give us all the willies for a lifetime.

© 2010 blogSpotter

Pogo the Killer Clown

Gacy dressed as Pogo -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
If you’re 40 or older, you probably recall the grisly details of the John Wayne Gacy murders. He was apprehended in 1978 after the bodies of 26 young men (mostly teens) were found buried in the crawl space of his Norwood Park home in Illinois. Seven others were found variously buried near his garage or dumped into the Des Plaines River (which he used after the crawl space filled up). These ghastly deeds were executed across six years (1972-1978) and Mr. Gacy cheated fate several times – from the missteps of police and potential witnesses.

Gacy was one of three children in a middle class family of Polish descent. People have tried to reason away Gacy’s atrocities as the result of an abusive alcoholic father, possibly an injury caused by a swing striking his head in a childhood accident or an alleged sexual molestation that he suffered at the age of nine. But forensic psychiatrists examined his brain after his execution at age 52 and found no obvious abnormalities.

What surprises one in looking at Gacy’s story is the almost-Horatio Alger success quality that gloms to it, in the early years. Right out of college, he became a department manager for Nunn-Bush shoes in Springfield, Illinois. He married a coworker, Marilynn Myers, and fathered two children – a boy and a girl. He then moved to Waterloo, Iowa where his father-in-law elevated him to district manager of 3 KFC restaurants. Here, his extroverted personality led him to become vice president of the Waterloo Jaycees.

At this juncture, the Horatio Alger story is interrupted. It seems the Jaycees operated a secretive “swingers” club which introduced Gacy to extramarital partners and a world of new kinks. Gacy created his own sex club in the basement of a KFC restaurant and lured his male teenage staff into the “dungeon” where they were plied with alcohol and cigarettes. Two local boys testified that Gacy had molested them; Gacy was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in the Iowa Penitentiary. His wife also divorced him at this point, and he never saw his children again. Gacy was a model prisoner, promoted to Head Cook, and released after only two years in 1970.

If only that were the end, but sadly this is where Gacy’s horrific spree commenced -- when he was paroled and then returned to Illinois. He married a second time, to a friend of his sister, becoming step-father to two young daughters. He also continued, at least outwardly on a journey of career milestones and social success. He established his own construction company, called PDM Contractors (which happened to hire many young males). He became a Democratic precinct captain of the Norwood Park area and was even photographed with Rosalynn Carter. He had a successful sideline career as “Pogo the Clown” who performed at children’s birthday parties. And he even was a prolific artist who created dozens of acrylic paintings (posthumously now seen as creepy and disturbing).

During this period in the 1970’s, Gacy was also abducting, chloroforming, raping, torturing and choking young men to death. This monster in human guise had to be secretive at first and wait for his wife to be out. His wife divorced him after finding gay porn and signs of sexual infidelity – she had no clue about the crawl space. When she left, Gacy was able to let his demons run wild. He was actually careless in several instances, but indifference and incompetence were his allies. Oddly, many of Gacy’s victims were not gay. They were in fact former or potential employees, or hitch-hikers. Most were chloroformed or drugged – taken against their will. Gacy was actually suspected by the parents of his 2nd victim, an ex-employee, but the case was never pursued by police. Gacy sold one victim’s car to a young criminal and the car was impounded. But no follow-thru was done on how Gacy had acquired the car and he cheated justice once more.

One “fortunate” Gacy victim was tortured and raped but not murdered. He was dumped in a park and left for dead. When he filed a complaint with the Chicago Police, they basically dismissed it. (Chicago Police do not shine in this tale). The man, Jeffrey Rignall, did his own sleuthing and pieced together what happened from his drugged stupor. He found Gacy’s house and the police finally issued a search warrant. Simultaneously a last victim was seen talking to Gacy by both a shop keeper and the boy’s Mother, and they specifically identified Gacy. The Killer Clown probably became overconfident in his prowess and let his guard down.

I’ll skip the gory details of what was found – we all know. Gacy spent 16 years on death row after his arrest and never expressed remorse. He said jokingly to an officer, “You know … a clown can get away with murder”. His final words at lethal injection were, “Kiss my ass”. It’s hard to wrap my own mind around the fact that this hideous beast was a father, business owner, community leader and political activist. It makes me want to reexamine the criteria for being human, much less being successful. I don’t think a swing set is to blame for the unconscionable acts so much as a twisted vagary of nature itself.

My father once said, “You can’t blame a rattle snake for being one, but it doesn’t change the fact that he is one”. The Gacy reptile was finally dispensed with as he should have been – it’s too bad it took so long to find that the snake was a snake.

© 2010 blogSpotter

Legacy of Hate

Murrah Building, 1995 -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
Who was William Luther Pierce III? If not for a racist diatribe written under his pseudonym, Andrew Macdonald, he would be a crackpot white separatist who faded into oblivion along with his insane organization, “National Alliance”. Pierce was born in Atlanta in 1933, the son of Old South aristocracy – clearly a clan that hadn’t fully accepted the terms of Appomattox in 1865.

Pierce was bright in his schoolwork; he liked model rockets and skipped a grade in school. His first avocation was physics – he completed an undergraduate degree at Rice in 1955 and a physics PhD. from Boulder in 1962. He worked as a physics Associate Instructor until 1965, when his inner demons took hold, and he devoted the balance of his life to such diverse causes as the Nazi party, white supremacy and “Cosmotheism”. His family’s wealth probably afforded him the luxury of quitting an 8-to-5 job and redoubling his racist efforts.

Pierce was a white supremacist who was deeply concerned about interracial marriages and “racial apologists”. He dabbled with both the John Birch Society and the American Nazi party – he even became a leader in the Nazi organization for a brief time. Neither group devoted enough energy to the concept of racial cleansing in Pierce’s view – this prompted him to found his National Alliance (circa 1974), where he could give racial cleansing its “due”. In fact, Pierce was enough of an organizer that he created a mini-media empire; his deep pockets didn’t hurt either. He started a book publishing company, a radio program, American Dissident, and even a church to proselytize his poisonous ideas.

Pierce tried to get tax exempt status for his “Cosmotheist” church but was denied that by the IRS. His Cosmotheism was a sort of pantheism that featured a universal spirit which favored the white race. Neither his religion nor his radio show ever really caught fire. Pierce spent the final years of his life (he died in 2002 at age 68) overseeing his various productions and giving occasional speeches. His death would have been unremarkable in any way if not for the “seed” planted by his toxic tomes – The Turner Diaries (1978) and Hunter (1984).

Turner Diaries is a near-future sci-fi book which predicts race war and describes in detail the terrorist acts that “The Organization” (his fantasized group of white supremacists) perform to battle the Federal government. Hunter is a similar book describing a type of bounty killer that hunts mixed race couples. Both of these books were seized upon by radical right militia groups to give inspiration and even instructions to their members. At least two groups, Silent Brotherhood and The Order, used Turner Diaries as a guide. These groups were convicted of robbery and counterfeiting – acts that fall short of mass murder though reprehensible nevertheless.

When Gulf War veteran Timothy McVeigh killed 168 people bombing the OKC Murrah Building in 1995, he was found to be a fan of Pierce’s book. McVeigh’s self-defense was a garbled mix of patriotism and religious freedom (he hated the Fed’s handling of Branch Davidians a year or two earlier). Such a confused mind – why would McVeigh use this horrific, demented scrawl of race-ranting as his justification? Why would he even mention it to anyone? It had nothing to do with country love or religious freedom. Probably at the point where he was given a national audience, McVeigh had to change his narrative in hopes of gaining sympathy from the general public.

The irony isn't lost on me – I’m giving exposure to the author and his work with this very blog. It’s in the spirit of remembering the past to avoid reliving it. I give credit to my readers – we can say who, what and where without giving endorsements or “props” as they say now. Pierce was a disturbed man and his ideas were lunatic in nature; his Deep-South deep pockets enabled him to promulgate his lunacies to vulnerable, confused, self-loathing people all over America. Let us hope that if his writings endure at all, they endure as negative examples of racial paranoia gone wildly out of bounds.

© 2010 blogSpotter

Reverend Jim's Traveling Salvation Show

The final rite in Guyana -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
I must confess to a certain prejudice. When I think of cults or collective insanity, I usually think of right-wing ideologues or crazed Christians-- Nazis, KKK and Heaven’s Gate. I must pause to reflect and mention that sometimes the craziness has a leftward tilt as it did in November 1978. That’s when Reverend Jim Jones, of the Peoples’ Temple bade his 900 member commune to drink cyanide laced grape punch in an act of “revolutionary suicide”. What weird life trajectory would've brought Jones and his followers to this terrible point?

Looking back, the young Jim Warren Jones had an unremarkable middle class childhood in Indiana. He is said to have been an odd child, musing about death and holding funerals for animals. After his parents divorced, he moved with his mother to Richmond, Indiana. He attended Indiana and Butler Universities where he earned a degree in secondary education; his desire was to be a student pastor. Jones chose the Methodist ministry as his first career move, since they were accepting of people with socialist leanings (like Jones) in the McCarthy era. Alas, his dalliance with Methodism was short-lived because at the time they weren’t racially integrated and Jones was pro-integration.

In what was evidence of a dynamic presence, Jones founded his very own church, the People’s Temple Christian Church Full Gospel at the tender age of 22 in the early 1950‘s. Jones was also made director of the Indianapolis Human Rights Commission and presented a strong voice for the NAACP as well as the up-and-coming civil rights movement. His outspokenness brought harassment and vandalism to his Indiana church. In the mid 1960’s, Jones had a “vision” that nuclear holocaust was coming to America in 1967 and the only safe haven would be Redwood, California. He decided to move his church to California where, coincidentally, the liberal California culture would be more accepting of his socialist, mixed-race church.

Jones' church moved briefly to Redwood and then to San Francisco. Upon the move to San Francisco, Jones became a local political celebrity. He continued to raise funds for NAACP and was appointed the head of the San Francisco Housing Authority by Mayor Moscone. During the mid-70’s, Jones hobnobbed with the crème de la crème of liberal society -- Walter Mondale, Rosalynn Carter, Harvey Milk, Willie Brown and even Governor Jerry Brown. Dinners were hosted in Jones’ honor and he was a special guest speaker at a DNC Headquarters grand opening.

After several years of good California vibes, a cloud moved across Jones’ sunny sky -- a cloud that even his dynamic, jovial personality couldn’t disperse. Marshall Kilduff, an “alternative” journalist caught wind of bad things happening in Jones’ church -- physical, emotional and sexual abuse. He was about to publish a large exposé when Jones abruptly decided to move his church to Jonestown, Guyana. There, Jones believed he could at last establish his socialist, multiracial utopia away from the establishment’s prying eyes.

Unfortunately for Jones, the establishment couldn’t be shaken off so easily. A “Concerned Relatives” group wanted to resolve issues of kidnapping and abuse even if it was thousands of miles away in Guyana. A fact-finding mission was dispatched, led by Congressman Leo Ryan in November of 1978. Ryan’s entourage came down for a 3-day junket, which was cut short when they encountered overt hostility. They decided to return and @ 15 Temple refugees came with them. Jones’ “Red Brigade” opened fire on the group has they boarded their planes, killing 5 people including Congressman Ryan.

In quick succession following the air strip shootings, 909 people in the People’s Temple were bade to drink grape Flavor Aid laced with potassium cyanide. Jones exhorted them to participate in family units, as an act of “revolution”. Jones himself was found with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. There was no film recording, but an audiotape of the proceedings (over loudspeaker). The mass suicide is the greatest loss of American civilian life outside of natural disasters or 9/11.

What compelled this paranoid, egomaniacal madman to destroy his whole world? The worst possible outcome of Ryan’s investigation would have paled next to the horrific poisonings that happened in his humid, isolated dystopia. What do you believe and why do you believe it? Are we so fragile of mind that we’ll follow any pied piper that promises a happier reality -- a reality based on thin strands of psychobabble and religious distortions? There are no ready answers -- and there are myriad religions and groups now that exist on the mere edge of sanity. All that recommends them is that as yet, they haven't asked you to drink the Kool-Aid.

© 2010 blogSpotter

Nowhere Man

Psycho killer or folk hero? -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
Our popular culture has a strange fascination with bad boys – men who tramp on the law and survive to talk about it. We your have criminal suspects like OJ, or just the badly behaved like Chris Brown and Andy Dick. The fan base lacks rhyme or reason – sometimes the people with a notoriety fan club are psycho killers like Jeff Dahmer or Ted Bundy. Who in any right mind would admire convicted killers? Charles Manson, the ultimate, crazy, 60’s wack job fits some of the patterns above, although he looms larger in some ways. Because of his recorded music, Manson may even be a wack job for the ages. It would fill a volume to tell you completely why. I won’t attempt to cover Manson’s whole biography -- will just try to compress his bio and rap sheet here…

Manson was born to Kathleen Maddox, a 16 year old unwed mother, in 1934. “Manson” is a step-father’s name, a man he barely came to know. Charles spent much of his youth with an aunt and uncle in West Virginia and then in reformatories. He was an incorrigible burglar and car thief who transitioned from juvenile hall directly into prison. He was married briefly to a Rosalie Willis in his early 20’s but she divorced him after a couple of years, impatient to wait for his 5 year car theft sentence to expire. One pivotal prison fact – Manson actually had some musical abilities. During this last incarceration Manson was taught to play steel guitar by 30’s bank robber/legend Alvin Karpis.

Upon his release in the early 60’s, Manson was aimless. He pan-handled, committed petty theft and pimped out a couple of sometime-girlfriend prostitutes. His luck changed dramatically when he moved from LA to San Francisco at the dawn of the hippie era. His shiftless lifestyle, pimping of women, musical forays and Scientology psycho-babble was all taken as guru-worthy – Manson acquired a following of 12 women who cohabited with him in the residence of one of the women. His luck soared higher when two of his female “desciples” hooked up with Beach Boy Dennis Wilson at a night club. They introduced Wilson to Manson and the two actually became friends. Wilson then introduced Manson to Terry Melcher, an influential music producer who liked some of Manson’s tunes.

At this point, it should be mentioned that Manson obsessed over the Beatles. He thought that the Beatles were giving codified instructions for a race war in the lyrics of their songs. The coming race war was going to be called "Helter Skelter” after a Beatles song; one of Manson’s hideouts, a bright yellow bungalow, was dubbed the “Yellow Submarine”. In fact, much of Manson’s ranting would be seen nowadays as the dire symptoms of untreated schizophrenia – a markedly disordered thought process. That so many followers went with him informs you somewhat about the nature of cults and pseudo-religions.

On August 8th, 1969 four of the Manson Family disciples (one man and three women) invaded the LA home formerly occupied by Terry Melcher. Melcher and Wilson had witnessed Manson’s violent outburst toward an assistant and distanced themselves from him. A proposed music contract was canceled and all contacts dropped. Manson was furious with Melcher and wanted revenge. It’s thought that Manson knew Melcher had moved away but still chose his prior residence as an attack point – maybe for shock effect. Melcher was terrified of Manson for months preceding the murders and had extra security to accompany him everywhere.

The Family murdered actress Sharon Tate, Jay Sebring a hair dresser friend, Abigail Folger the coffee heiress and her friend Wojcieh Frykowski. The murders were messy and bungled with victims nearly escaping and the evidence scattered indoors and outdoors all across the property. All the participants were high (victims and killers) which probably added to the surreal nature of it. The title “Helter Skelter” was scrawled on a wall – a reference to the White Album song. The next night a wealthy grocery executive, La Bianca, and his wife were murdered in similar fashion. "Piggies" (also from the White Album) was scrawled on their wall.

There was evidence abounding and the police caught up to the killers in pretty short order. High, schizoid criminals aren’t the most skilled at covering their tracks. The 1970 murder trial was highly publicized due to the Hollywood tie-ins and bizarre behavior of the Family. They carved X’s in their foreheads and intimidated witnesses as a form of solidarity. All the killers were found guilty and sentenced to death. The state of California declared the death penalty illegal in 1972, and all the participants had their sentences commuted to life terms.

AFTERMATH

Much the way that gang-bangers like sinister-looking tattoos and pit bull dogs, musical bad boys have embraced Manson. Marilyn Manson borrowed his name from the killer and also sang Manson’s song My Monkey on one of his albums. Gun N’ Roses has also recorded Manson tunes – in fact Family Jam has released entire CD collections of Manson music. Sick-minded people can still find copies of a Manson CD titled LIE. It’s notable, but not especially admirable that a psycho killer so captured America’s imagination . If my blog’s title ever applied it, is here – it is truly a strange fascination.

© 2009 blogSpotter

craigslust.org

Is that a typo? ... -- Picture courtesy of craigslist

by blogSpotter
Craig's list is the "uber" web-based bulletin board service that has dominated the news recently -- because of an alleged craigslist murderer no less. Founded by Craig Newmark of San Francisco in 1995, craigslist is actually unsophisticated in both its appearance and intentions. With a simple text interface, craigslist just lays out all the marketing and social network opportunities for a given metro area -- the style resembles a greensheet or alternative newspaper layout. The service has been drawn into controversy recently because Philip Markoff, a dashing 23 year old medical student, was revealed to be leading a double life as the "craigslist killer".

It seems that this Philip was into gambling and girls (roughing up, robbing and killing said girls for gambling money). Now msnbc added to our knowledge base today, by saying that Philip was also into boys and cross-dressers (Dr. Phil might describe this as being pansexual). This All-American psycho was staunchly defended by his fiancée-in-denial -- "There is no way Philip could have done this," she said in desperate refutation, maybe hoping to preserve her Pottery Barn registration web site.

But investigators had the goods on Philip -- they associated his cell phone calls, his emails, his security camera images and even some "souvenirs" in his apartment with the assaults. Philip's misogynistic actions are not dissimilar to a young man here in Dallas who thought it was OK to run down a prostitute with his car. The only thing lower than a prostitute is a young man who thinks he has the right to judge and dispose of "lesser" people. The driver here in Dallas received the death penalty for his efforts; Philip might get off easier being affluent and white.

The public has been shocked by the craigslist events, illogically blaming craigslist for what happened. There are only a jillion lonely heart clubs, Usenet forums and social networking sites where similar things could've happened. We Americans like freedom of access and freedom of movement -- part of the overhead that comes with that is the risk of "stranger danger". I'm not at all defending Philip or anything that happened -- it's just incumbent upon the parties to take safeguards. Maybe meet in public or tell others who you're meeting.

The Internet has been blamed for many things now -- ponzi schemes, murders, identity theft and statutory rape to name but a few. All of these things were doable (and done) with snail mail, telephone and direct contact. The Internet just sped up the process. The Internet, like most technology is a white magic that enhances life and a simultaneous black magic that brings with it the ability to confound and destroy. Such is also the dual nature of cars, planes, mainframe computers and nuclear power. Does that mean we should banish these technical advances? No it does not. It means we should banish (or arrest as the case may be) our baser selves. And we should rise to the promise of technology -- which when applied towards its best uses, is almost like magic in the great convenience it gives us.

© 2009 blogSpotter

It's All a Ponzi Scheme

What Madoff Made Off with? -- Picture courtesy of Yahoo

by blogSpotter
America was shocked, simply shocked when 70 year old investment strategist Bernard Madoff was recently arrested. The genial, well-liked and well-connected businessman was charged by the FBI with the largest investment fraud ever perpetrated by a single individual -- 50 billion dollars. How could this pillar of society who formerly chaired the NASDAQ stock exchange do something so heinous? The grandfatherly Madoff headed his own well-regarded investment security firm from 1960 until his arrest this year; who would've dreamed it?

Madoff made off with money from some of the most prestigious (and usually financially savvy) people and groups; among those sucked in: HSBC Bank, Lappin Foundation (its 401K) and even several celebrities including Kevin Bacon. People who normally know better, knew worse. Consider the following "mommilies":

"If it seems too good to be true it probably is".
"Water doesn't flow up hill".
"There's no such thing as a free lunch".

Why do the platitudes of the wise seem to lose their influence when needed the most? I have more news for everyone so shocked; it's all a Ponzi scheme. Wall Street itself is a Ponzi scheme. I've often wondered why people of the early-21st century have been so eager to privatize Social Security -- thus using their retirement for a Day at the Races. Let's look at the definition of Ponzi Scheme from dictionary.com:

“Ponzi scheme - a pyramid investment swindle in which supposed profits are paid to early investors from money actually invested by later participants”

If you replace “swindle” with “arrangement”, that’s basically how all stocks and mutual funds behave. The investment houses can make no promises about what the returns will be, but they’re certainly glad to take your money, the money of a new investor, up front. Greater pyramids were never built in Egypt, and all of this is legal. It is the very definition of how it works.

In his defense, Madoff did nothing but add more blur to an already blurry line – he only did ‘what was in his nature’ and what is in the nature of unbridled capitalists everywhere.

In my quasi-socialistic, deterministic mind-set I like gains that are measured, modest and within reason. Fixed rates are preferable to variable rates. Low, guaranteed returns are preferable to speculative big returns. The tortoise predictably beats the hare, according to Aesop’s fable -- there's no disagreement there. And in the bullshit world of high finance, pyramids come tumbling down.

© 2009 blogSpotter

Tower of Terror

The deranged Eagle Scout... -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
In August of 1966 I was all of 8 years old living in Austin, enjoying my summer vacation. One hot day, my lunchtime TV broadcast was interrupted with a special TV report. It seemed a sniper was shooting people indiscriminately from the University of Texas Tower -- the 28-story Main Building with an observation deck.

I ran outside and joined my two friends (David Cotton and David Berryman) in the excitement of it all. We climbed to the top of Berryman's roof and strained to see what was happening with binoculars. We were a good 5 miles away, otherwise the action would've been foolhardy and tragic in the extreme. (In fact a couple of Whitman's victims may have been adult gawkers trying to get a look). Fortunately from the distance of University Hills, we could see nothing and were out of the maniacal gunman's range. My father was working on his math doctorate at UT and my aunt was working on her bachelor’s this particular day. Both had been ordered by campus intercom to stay huddled in their classrooms, away from the windows.

The gunman was 25 year-old Charles Whitman, an ex Eagle Scout, Marine veteran and UT engineering student. A nice-looking, tow-headed young man with a crew cut, nobody could have imagined that this former altar boy could harbor such violent feelings. When his journals and psychiatric records were later examined it seems that Whitman had a deep-seated hatred for his father. It’s ironic that he strangled and stabbed his wife and his mother earlier that fateful day – apparently his father-rage was redirected to his female relatives. (His journal said he didn’t want them to be embarrassed.)

In our post-9/11 world, it’s amazing how lax the rules were then. Whitman put his many supplies (gun, knives, ropes, water, spam, sweet rolls, journal, toilet paper, canvas, gasoline and other strange sundries) in a large trunk. He dressed a bit like a maintenance man and brought his trunk to the UT Main Building on a dolly. He simply showed his student/employee ID to the security officer and was waved thru as a maintenance worker. Upon reaching the Observation office suite, he killed the receptionist by bashing her head with a gun butt. He barricaded the office door and killed two tourists coming up the stairs with shotgun blasts. Then from 11:48AM until 1:24PM, Whitman engaged in a sniper attack that gripped Austin Texas and terrified the nation. He picked off pedestrians, students, shoppers and tourists like so many ducks in an arcade gallery – most victims were on Guadalupe Street, a west campus shopping strip.

At @ 1:24, Austin officers Houston McCoy and Ramiro Martinez pushed past the barricade and ran onto the south deck. In retrospect it seems like an invitation to death – Whitman was waiting for them in a corner, knowing they’d arrived. It may be that Whitman had already surrendered to some extent – he didn’t meet them with any fire. Martinez fired 6 shots with a revolver and McCoy fired two rifle blasts. It’s believed that McCoy’s rifle blasts are what killed actually Whitman, although the boastful Martinez received full credit for the killing long after the fact. For his part, McCoy dealt with post-traumatic stress syndrome for many of the years that followed.

In the final tally, Whitman killed 16 people and injured 31. One of the 31 had to be on life-support for 30 years – when he suspended the life support and died in 1996 the statistic was changed to 17 fatalities. At Whitman’s own pre-mortem suggestion, a thorough autopsy was done which did indeed reveal that he had a large brain tumor, a glioblastoma. Neurologists think that this type of tumor could affect emotions and fight-or-flight reflexes. This may be an explanation but never a justification for what horrible events transpired that August afternoon. The JFK assassination had somewhat inured us to irrational violence, but this was a new twist.

There have been several similar events since Whitman – most notably Columbine High School. All we can leave off with is a cliché, “Things are not always what they seem”. How could we miss the mark so tragically here? In the hindsight-is-20-20 department, it’s noted that Whitman had fantasized about “shooting people like pigs” to his therapist. There’s no clear way even yet to draw the line between psycho rants and a healthy person letting off steam. On August 1, 1966 America actually saw the difference first hand, gruesomely.

© 2008 blogSpotter

The Bitch Turn Me In

Facing the needle tonight -- Picture courtesy of Texas Department of Criminal Justice

by blogSpotter
Tonight at 6PM, Texas death row inmate Leon Dorsey will die by lethal injection. The 32 year-old black man was already serving a life sentence for killing a 51-year old convenience store clerk in 1998 when he was strongly implicated in another horrible murder in Dallas, Texas. It seems a few years earlier, in 1994 two Blockbuster Video clerks were found dead in the store office at Casa Linda Village in East Dallas, after hours. They had been slain execution-style, brutally. Dorsey apparently told his girlfriend about it; when she found out he'd gone out on her a few years later, she turned him in to the police. His famous words of remorse were:

"The bitch turn me in".

Let’s never mind the questionable morals of a girlfriend who would keep Dorsey’s gruesome secret for any misguided sense of devotion. Dorsey gave a full confession -- it turns out that it was a violently escalated robbery. The video clerks gave Dorsey $392 out of the register; he was angry at the small amount. They were unable to open the store safe, and that's when Dorsey blew them into the next world. After his girlfriend turned him in, Dorsey gave an interview to a reporter. His consoling words were something to the effect of,

"They’re dead. That’s over and done with. Why are you going to sit there and worry yourself about that? Move on".

His cold, remorseless remarks have garnered him the name of "meanest man on death row" as well as "Pistol Pete". Apparently he has made threats to all the staff, set a fire outside his cell and even tried to stab one guard with a shiv. For these actions, he is the most highly secured, locked down prisoner -- somewhat like the fictional Hannibal Lecter.

I've lived near Casa Linda since 1991. I remember back then that Casa Linda Village was an upscale shopping center with GAP, Taylor Books, Chile's, Pier One Imports and Highland Park Cafeteria. If you drive by there today, you might see a Dollar Store, some no-name shops and a CVS pharmacy. Mr. Dorsey did a great deal towards killing the neighborhood -- not just the two men so heartlessly dispatched. Is that so hard to imagine, that people don’t want to be robbed or assailed?

The Casa Linda area has historically been a nice, upper middle class neighborhood situated close to White Rock Lake. There was (and is) a "red line" that's never spoken of, but still very much there. South of I-30 and Buckner is a very poor neighborhood of section 8 apartments and pawn shops. When housing ordinances changed in 1988, it was no longer legal to discriminate against families with children -- many singles apartments along Buckner became family units, accepting section 8 vouchers. The Buckner red line crept up to Ferguson Road, and with 1994's vile killing, all the way up to Garland Road. With each encroachment, you could see the "burn" line of boarded-up buildings, stores with burglar bars and Burger Kings converted to no-name convenience stores. The neighborhood was devastated as surely as if it were a war zone (and in some ways of looking, it has become one).

Dallas is still not out of the woods. It is one of the most divisive racially, divided cities in America. Both the whites and blacks tend towards antagonistic behavior which has led to a rigid North-South divide along the Trinity River. Our weak-mayor system of governance fairly guarantees that self-interested multidistrict bickering will prevail. Without concessions from either side, the problem continues. The Dorsey story continues. Two South Dallas youths recently rode the Dart Rail to Garland. On the train they engaged two Christian missionaries in a 30 minute conversation, then shot them dead for a few dollars. A woman idling in her Ford pickup outside of North Park Mall was shot in the face by another South Dallas man who rode the Dart Rail northward. Is DART handling its security and fare-collection roles as well as it should be?

I can't, in any corner of my mind, fathom the thoughts or justification of these men. Dorsey is surely getting two scoops of what he deserves -- just be careful delivering such a dangerous man from his cell to the gurney. Dallas has many mountains to climb. We need to navigate political correctness and selfish motivations which together can create a toxic combination -- unbearable criminality that can't be discussed. Let's be civil, let's be polite and let's see why the city of Dallas is so screwed up.

© 2008 blogSpotter

Death Ride of Bonnie and Clyde

Texas folk heroes -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter

You've read the story of Jesse James--
Of how he lived and died;
If you're still in need
Of something to read
Here's the story of Bonnie and Clyde

from "The Story of Bonnie and Clyde" by Bonnie Parker, 1934

I watched the 1967 movie, Bonnie and Clyde last night on Apple TV. I hadn't seen the movie in its entirety since the 1970's -- had forgotten many elements. The movie was controversial at the time it was released; reviewers felt that it glorified violence and celebrated the criminals. It was linked to the mood-shifting, anti-authoritarian style of French new wave films in the late sixties. It was also part of its own "American" new wave, featuring more nudity and graphic violence than previously seen in movies. Also new were the actors; no less than four actors in the movie were relative new-comers whose careers were made by Bonnie and Clyde: Estelle Parsons, Gene Hackman, Gene Wilder and Faye Dunaway. (Beatty and Pollard were already established names).

The criminal couple portrayed, Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker, hailed from West Dallas. In fact, much of the movie was filmed in places like Red Oak, South Lake, Midlothian and Denton. Dallas has been known as "the city that shot John Kennedy" since 1963 -- I guess our link to history-making violence is preordained. Our only other association in the public's mind is the TV show Dallas which does little to dispel a trigger happy image.

When they met, Barrow was a 23 year old ex-convict whose prior crimes were relatively petty (car theft, stealing turkeys). Bonnie was a 21 year old cafe waitress. Over their two year reign of Texas terror (1932-1934) they killed approximately 9 law officers. Insiders have said that Bonnie never actually fired a gun, but that she helped with logistics and getaways. The movie melded some of the characters together (into C.J. Moss) and simplified much of the goings-on -- pretty much a necessity for a 2 hour movie.

They were ambushed in Louisiana and controversy surrounds that also. The duo was never given an opportunity to surrender or "come out with your hands up". Also, Bonnie Parker was never even served any kind of warrant. Parker's family would not let her be buried "side by side" with Clyde as the more recent ballad would imply. The couple actually became folk heroes to Depression-era poor people and it's estimated that 20,000 people attended Bonnie's funeral (actually preventing the immediate family from access). It's not just the 60's film producers that saw a legendary saga in the yards of yellow police tape and chalk outlines.

The Bonnie and Clyde "death car" has been a favorite of county fairs throughout the South since 1934; funny that there are several such cars in different year models and colors. The fact that this handsome couple forsook all safety and future well-being for a shoot-em-up thrill ride still intrigues people today. If you get a chance, pick up a copy of the 1967 movie. If you happen upon the "real, genuine death car" at a county fair, take that with a grain of salt. If you are a citizen of Dallas or a nearby area, ponder why the city is so indelibly associated with so much violence and brutality.

© 2008 blogSpotter

Mid-September News Digest

Greenspan, telling it like it is? -- Picture courtesy Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
I'm behind on my blog, and there have actually been a couple of newsworthy events worth mentioning. It seems OJ Simpson is in jail for a strange scenario in Las Vegas. He's alleged to have committed armed robbery to take back sports memorabilia that he thought was rightfully his. Now, that's a wrongful way to go about setting the situation right, even if his claim is true. The story is all over the editorial pages. One camp says that he has guilt over being found innocent of the 1994 double murder of ex-wife Nicole and her friend Ron Goldman. Maybe he wants to get arrested for something. Another camp thinks that OJ may have a God complex and thinks he can pretty much escape any punishment, ever. Let me remind OJ that notorious gangster Al Capone was finally nabbed for income tax evasion -- nobody ever said that poetic justice has to make the best sense. If I were OJ, I would mind all the P's and Q's; some people would love to haul him in and throw away the key.

Now on another front, ex-Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has ruffled Republican feathers by dissing the Bush Administration. In particular, he faults the current President for not vetoing the many pork-laden bills that came through on his watch. Greenspan also raised eyebrows by complementing the Clintons and worse -- suggesting that the Iraq War is all about oil. The last claim has been a favorite of liberal bloggers all over. In a major feat of damage control, Greenspan appeared on NBC Today with Matt Lauer yesterday and did a "Jimmy Carter" back pedal. He changed the focus to Saddam Hussein -- he said that Saddam was indeed trying to take over the Straits of Hormuz and choke world oil supply. In the TV interview, Greenspan said that Saddam needed to be taken out, and that the "Oil War" was not the fault of W Bush's administration. To me, the tone and content of his TV appearance veered dramatically off of his book's message. Mr. Greenspan, do you need some Evian water to wash down the crow you're apparently eating?

On the technology front, Steve Jobs was true to his word and offered a $100 in-store coupon to early adaptors of the iPhone. However, the offer is only extended to iPhone customers who've activated their phones thru the AT&T service. Many iPhone customers are put off by this -- it should be of no concern to Apple how the purchasers use the product. It should only matter that they purchased it. This AT&T stipulation may lose as much good will as it engenders. I'm figuring the AT&T contact would run me $70 across 24 months, or $1,680.00. That's a lot of money -- think I'm still coming out ahead with my non-AT&T, $599 iPhone.

That's all the news that's fit to print today. There's a lot going on -- a prime interest rate may be reduced today, and that could be a boost to the stock market. The technology, tabloid and finance fronts are all pretty eventful these days -- we'll have to stay tuned for further updates.

© 2007 blogSpotter

Atheist Murders Revisited

The Grande Dame of Atheism -- Picture courtesy Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
Madalyn Murray O'Hair is well-known as the woman who took prayer out of American public schools in 1963. As a champion of Church-State separation myself, I feel that she was undeserving of the title "America's Most Hated Woman". O'Hair was the director of the American Atheist Society headquartered in Austin, Texas for many years. Her son Garth, and twenty-something granddaughter Robin also helped in the administration of the group. O'Hair was not known for diplomatic phrasing or delicate words. She could be pretty scathing in her broadsides to perceived enemies, or even to cohorts that she felt were incompetent. Her undoing came in the mid 90's when she hired a violent ex-convict 53 year old, David Waters, to be her office manager. No telling what the background check involved but it was clearly inadequate. Waters was caught embezzling money from American Atheists and was fired. Madalyn wrote a scathing retort about Waters in the Atheist newsletter afterward. Waters saw the newsletter and he was reportedly enraged by it.

The rest of the story is rather gruesome and I'll sum it up quickly. In 1995, Waters and two cohorts kidnapped the O'Hairs from their home in Northwest Austin, and took them to a hotel in San Antonio. They forced Garth to cash large sums of money from personal accounts, and then they summarily killed all three O'Hairs. The details of this ugly deed are not known, and probably better left that way. It’s not known if they had to endure torture, because their bodies were so dismembered and decomposed when they were later discovered. Waters was eventually apprehended and sentenced for his deed -- he died shortly into his prison term from lung cancer. My main point in writing this article is to discuss how surrounding people dealt with the horrific event.

William Murray O'Hair was O'Hair's eldest son. William was actually a protestant minister and very much estranged from his Mother and family. Even so, I find it very odd that he didn't report his Mother missing for one year. The O'Hairs had left behind food cooking in the kitchen, beloved pet dogs and diabetes medicine in their house -- there was ample evidence from the get go that foul play had occurred. The Austin police refused to research it as a crime for a year or so, until several newspapers including the Dallas Observer had done so much leg work, it was painfully obvious a murder had occurred. Likewise, the FBI was very distant from the case until overwhelming data was produced by other parties.

Worst of all, some fellow Atheists mused about whether the O'Hairs had simply run away, possibly with funds from the organization. The reaction by family, cronies and law enforcement is absolutely astounding to me. When Waters was finally apprehended, it was for charges way less than 1st degree murder -- he was given 20 years for reduced charges. The lethargic and even hostile reactions, especially by law enforcement, make me wonder. I passionately embrace the idea of a Higher Power, but the God of my understanding would never condone what Waters and his cohorts did. Neither would the God of my understanding condone the hostile indifference that so many reputedly Christian people showed toward this crime. They seem to believe that it’s “just desserts”. It is possible for a believer to start out as an atheist (has anyone heard of Amazing Grace?) and come around to believing. To God, an atheist might be like unsculpted clay -- that which can be shaped into a beautiful sculpture of enlightenment in very short order. Even if someone is a diehard atheist to his last deathbed ramblings, it is up to God and not to us to decide on the worthiness or fate of that person's soul.

There are a few people who were rightly concerned about what happened. Even William Murray O'Hair finally came around and realized that nobody should countenance what was done to his family members. To people who felt menaced by Madalyn's presence in the world, or weirdly vindicated by her horrible murder -- shame, shame, shame. My own theistic perspective says we are always being watched by a Higher Power. His heart is gladdened by people who do the right thing, and saddened when people do otherwise. Condoning a sadistic murder probably falls into that second 'otherwise' category.

© 2007 blogSpotter

Gone to Pot

Consequences of the reefer -- Picture courtesy Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
In the great swirl of news items to hit recently, a video of two teens, about 16 and 18, giving pot to two children (2 and 6) has received global headlines. It's been the lead local story for two days, and has now made national news -- on shows like Nancy Grace and Sean Hannity. Let me preface by saying the teens should not have done what they did; it's wrong and should be dealt with appropriately. The response though is mind-boggling and seems out of proportion to the event. The little boys are now in foster care; the teens are in jail for injury to a child, being held on $150,000 bond each.

Let’s look at the injury that was done. Research indicates that marijuana can lead to other drug addictions; it can also lead to various forms of head, neck and lung cancer. Due to the fact that it's frequently used with alcohol and tobacco, the studies' results are a bit muddied -- alcohol and cigarettes can also contribute to addiction and cancer. Speaking of which, back in the 60's, my parents let me sip their martinis and maybe an occasional beer. Where were the helicopters and ABC News reporters? Why weren't the police called? I, an under age child, was using mind altering substances in the presence of my parents. I only took sips and didn't like the taste of it, but none the less it might be considered criminal in some circles.

What gets me about this junior pot case is that less has been said about events of actual child molestation and murder. Less ado was had over Susan Smith drowning her two sons. In the lower class 'urban youth' environment, those boys would probably be exposed to marijuana well before puberty -- just not on camera for all to see. Not only is it not unusual, it's practically a rite of passage. Now we have 3 children and one high school age 'adult' in need of foster parents; the kids have learned a lesson about drug hysteria but not necessarily about drug use or abuse.

If everyone would get their panties back out of a knot, these people could all be restored to their homes with appropriate messages taken. Don't give marijuana to children. Also, don't have a mass-hysteria campaign that makes passing a doobie, even to a child, a more heinous action that sexual molestation or murder. I'll be watching NBC5 tonight. If they run this story again, I will have only to conclude that there is no real news.

© 2007 blogSpotter

Dateline Catches Predators & Bad Karma

Catching predators and ratings -- Picture courtesy Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
I frequently leave the TV on some channel, say NBC, and then go about my household chores. For common fare like Deal or No Deal, I barely pause to look. But when Dateline's "To Catch a Predator" comes on, I'm inexplicably drawn to the TV. Must say, it's like watching a car accident -- a naughty car accident if you want to mix metaphors. In this series, Dateline works with the watchdog group Perverted Justice to operate an undercover sting operation to ensnare Internet sex offenders. A young adult decoy is used to pose as a 13 year old boy or maybe a 14 year old girl. The decoy invites the chat partner to his/her house 'while the parents are out'. The offender shows up, usually in the kitchen area of the home where the sting is being conducted. Offenders will be coyly greeted by the decoy who leaves the room 'to change'. Then, the offenders must truly shit bricks when 40-something host Chris Hansen walks in and says, "Hi, won't you have a seat?"

The smarter ones depart right away. They'll be arrested anyway -- in most of the states the online proposition is a crime in itself. Some will see a camera, wire or something else that clues them in -- they don't even walk in. They also will be arrested but won't have a camera interview confronting them later. Some of them sit and talk to Chris Hansen maybe out of shock or dismay. They'll deny any wrongdoing. "We were just going to watch TV". "I thought she was 19". All for naught -- Perverted Justice has captured the full text of their online chat as well as any lewd photos sent during the chat session.



Chris wants to talk to you -- Picture courtesy Wikipedia

Many of the men are married fathers; one had a daughter the same age as the purported age of the decoy. Several have seen the show before; in chats they'll say, "You're not with Dateline are you?" The decoy cheerfully says, "No!” One poor fellow had been previously caught in a Dateline sting. His sex addiction was so bad and IQ so low that he fell for it all again.

Is Dateline getting some bad Karma for itself? There have been several comments along that line. Perverted Justice is supposed to be non-profit, but gets 100K consulting fees with Dateline. Dateline is not supposed to entrap people but on a number of occasions the decoy is the first to bring up sex, violating the entrapment rules. In Murphy Texas, they had two misfortunes -- a county District attorney committed suicide when Dateline came to confront him. Also, the residents didn't want Dateline luring child predators to their neighborhood. The Columbia Journalism Review has opined that the public humiliation on national TV is in itself a punishment far in excess of an ordinary police sting.

One can't help but think that Dateline is more into ratings than moral rectitude. There is a little too much emphasis given to the salacious details and pixilated pictures of body parts and sex acts. Chris reads the chat transcripts with a lot of emphasis. There is the kind of duplicity, misrepresentation and yes, entrapment that could lead to some kind of explosive response on the part of a trapped offender. Dateline has caught itself a predator but it may also catch itself some bad Karma.

© 2007 blogSpotter

If He Did It

The Juice's mug shot -- Picture courtesy Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
When OJ Simpson was acquitted 11 years ago of murdering his ex-wife Nicole and her friend Ron Goldman, many people were outraged at the apparent miscarriage of justice. In truth, the prosecutors lost the case at the time of jury selection -- they gambled that black, female jurists would relate more to a female victim than a black defendant. Prosecutors also felt confident enough, based on the "mountain" of evidence, to move the trial to a predominantly black urban district; this was a measure to prevent a Rodney King-like verdict riot.

We all know how it turned out. The prosecution made major stumbles like having OJ try on a glove. Smooth talking lawyer Johnny Cochran charmed the jury with Dr. Seuss rhymes -- "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit". Then, a red herring was presented by defense. Police investigator Mark Furhman had used the "n" word in taped sessions with a screen writer years earlier. This irrelevance became the focus of the trial, and pretty much all was lost for prosecutor Marcia Clark -- OJ was acquitted of both murder charges.

In subsequent years, OJ has successfully protected his homestead from damages awarded in a civil suit filed by the victms' familes. He now resides in Florida, spending much of his time playing golf. He has a strained relationship with his children, and word is that they have never discussed the murders in all these years. Maybe his kids suspect his guilt, and maybe they just don't want to think about it. OJ hasn't helped things really. He's been filmed in recent years faking a stabbing with a banana; he also was quoted as saying that if he had committed the crime, it would have been justified.

Now comes his latest work -- "If I Did It...". In the book he "speculates" about how he would have done the killings, being closer to the material than presumably anybody else. The book's publisher Judith Regan, a victim of domestic abuse herself, considers it an OJ confession of sorts. The book will also become a FOX special. What strikes me about the case itself is the way it desensitized the nation to murder. Two people were butchered, and yet the presumed killer has maintained celebrity status and the killings themselves long ago became mere fodder for talk show humor. The macabre spectacle of his retelling the events is bone-chilling but will garner a big audience. The same instinct that compels people to watch a car accident or a public execution will deliver FOX a ratings sweep. If OJ did it, he needs to rest assured that "the jurist in the sky" hasn't weighed in yet. I don't believe in Hell so much as I believe in Karma -- and OJ will someday truly confront the wrongfulness of his actions. We must add, "if he did it" to be consistent with the upcoming book title.

© 2006 blogSpotter.

The John Karr Show

Karr's mug shot -- Photo courtesy Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
When I first went to the State Fair of Texas back in the 80's, my guiltiest pleasure was probably the Freak Show. There, we could look at Fish Boy or the world's shortest man. This unholy fascination was brought to an end by political correctness; sometime in the mid 90's, the Freak Show was discontinued -- our waning freak fascination would have to be quenched with tabloid headlines. Now comes John Karr, a fragile wisp of a man, confessing to the decade-old murder of 6-year old beauty queen Jon Benet Ramsey. John Karr's bizarre traits ratcheted up interest much as the OJ trial stirred race, sex, money and violence into a spicy brew. We had a beautiful blonde child victim, pedophilia, wealth, possible incest, lingering mystery and sexual ambiguity to top it all off (Karr was considering a sex change and appeared to be wearing layers of make-up when arrested).

Right off the bat, there were problems with Karr's confession. Extradited from Thailand, a Gulag of the child sex trade, he gave accounts that didn't wash. He said he drugged Jon Benet -- there were no drugs in her system. He said he picked her up from school the day she died; that day was a school holiday. Moreover, his family in Alabama was fairly certain he was with them all thru Christmas of 1996. Several media watchers were surprised there was even an arrest, given the shaky legs of this case. The charges were dropped on August 28th, although Karr still faces child pornography charges in Sonoma, California.

"Step right up, right this way. Come see the miraculous fish boy!" ... All we lack with Karr is the carnival barker. It matters not a whit that more important things are happening in the world. We have Hezbollah, gas prices and mid term elections to start with. And your point is? People want to know about that 'nice boy' down the street who has a screw loose -- the Eagle Scout who cannibalizes or the altar boy who kills 33 with a high power rifle. What vagary of nature causes the brain's neurons to fire in the wrong way? Other than knowing the psycho is finally apprehended, it's not even so important whether they get jail or a life in an institution. All that matters is the lurid reality, the horrific knowing that a monster has run freely in the streets. Before apprehension, maybe one of these monsters could snatch us away too.

John Mark Karr was interesting in his own right -- he combined the sexual androgyny of Michael Jackson with the creepiness of Roman Polanski. Had there been a DNA match, the feeding frenzy would've turned the journalistic eddy blood red. But no -- Karr's oddities stop well short of a sensational murder. You'll have to 'appreciate' what there is, no less, no more. Then proceed down the midway of the Fair -- cotton candy over here, turkey legs over there.

© 2006 blogSpotter.