Congrats to the MSM!

A big palm-slap belly-bump to the members of the Mainstream Media who have once again succeeded in chumming up another psychopath by basically giving Psychopath #1 exactly what he wanted...fame! National prominence! The Most Holy Grail of Celebrityhood! His picture everywhere! His whole life deconstructed, search for "clues as to why, oh why, such a thing should happen?"

Here is Michael's question for the day...when psychotics perform unspeakable acts and we respond by giving them the very thing they desire most of all, to you think that discourages, or encourages, other festering lunatics who desire the same thing?

I know...I know...a trick question!

Let's ask another one, since it's Monday.

Does knowing why a psychotic acted one way or the other make any difference whatsoever for society? Oh man, another trick question! I mean, once we have that information — abuse as a child, an absent mother/father/puppy, Twinkies, chemical imbalance in the brain, etc. — what does that information do for us? What does that information allow us to do that we would not be doing otherwise? Well darn, Michael! Isn't this the sort of information that the Department of Future Crimes needs to know to allow them to create a profile and ultimately stop the crime before it happens? The problem is that once we arrive at a motive, the why of it, we will inevitably discover that hundreds, thousands and maybe even millions of people worldwide have had exactly the same childhood, diet, chemical imbalance, what-have-you and not gone on a crazed killing spree. "Meeting the profile" is not the same thing as "killer in waiting." We all meet some profile or other in these profiling-intensive days.

Our very best experts have been studying mass and spree killers for a long time, and it seems to me the best they can say is, "They're not like us." Can you give me a quick definition of the difference between a "mass murderer," a "serial killer" and a "spree killer?" Don't feel bad if you can't; there are differences of opinion as to what action falls into which class among criminologists as well.

I do know this...although its influence is ebbing, the MSM remains one of the most powerful entities in American society. And as a commentator noted after Aurora, any kind of mass killing is the MSM's "bread and butter," by definition something they can spin to dominate the news cycle day after day and in some cases week after week. Each new report, investigative find, interview with the friends, parents, neighbors, pets of the psychopath opens with a big, full screen picture of who appears to be the most important, most mysterious, biggest person in the whole world world. Which, of course, ultimately plays into the whole psychotic fantasy...in a world of inconsequential proles, I am The Joker, I am the predator, I am the top of the food chain. As Harry Chapin once wrote in his disturbing song Sniper:

Am I? 

There is no way that you can hide me. 

Am I? 

Though you have put your fire inside me. 

Am I? 

You've given me my answer can't you see? 

I was! 

I am! 

...and now I will be, 

I will be, 

I will be, 

I will be, 

I will be, 

I WILL BE!

And so here we are again...another psychopath, another location, more grief and death. The Wisconsin police have the right of it when they said the psychopath was "put down."

That's what we need to do with rabid animals.