The heart is the seat of the soul

The documentary tracing the life of American domestic terrorist Timothy McVeigh narrated by Rachel Maddow on MSNBC showed chapter and verse the classic personality profile of an hysterical psychopath in the guise of someone who considers himself a political activist.

Individually, any of these situations/circumstances cannot be cited as a singular cause, but all together, it creates a classic scenario of someone whose interpretation of the world and life becomes insanely skewed:

1) There was a disconnect with his parents - he did not receive or feel love from his family as a child. Even as he was waiting his death sentence, he said he did not feel love for or from his parents. The fact they were divorced does not, IMO, become a key element, because plenty of children whose parents are divorced, but who feel loved by either or both parents or extended families do just fine.

2) He was bullied in school from day one for being tall and skinny. His nickname was "Noodle." So he felt picked on by bullies over whom he had no power. He never felt as if he belonged and no one came to his defense. He grew to hate bullies and anyone or anything that he considered a bully. Gradually, he came to believe the ultimate bully is the government, and wanted to do something to show he could actually have power over the ultimate bully.

His ego became phenomenally large so he could get even with all the bullies in his life, and even feel he was sticking up for those "bullied" by the government.

3) He could not relate intimately with people. He did not have love in his life - whether friends or women - or pets. He was a man with, literally, nothing to lose, who felt connected to no one and nothing. It did not bother him that the Oklahoma bomb he set off killed and maimed so many children and women. "That's life," he said. "Get over it."

4) Although most anti-government right wing militia members are associated with white supremacists who identify as fundamentalist Christians, he did not believe in hell. He said, "Even if hell exists, I won't be sent there." He had no real sense of spirituality or religion.

5) He lacked empathy, except for others he considered also being bullied. Although a successful enlisted level US soldier in the Gulf War who followed orders well, he came to see his Iraqi enemies as regular people who did nothing wrong except follow what their government told them to do, and came to have a problem killing them.

He also empathized with right wing militia group attacked by the FBI in Waco, Texas. Despite the overwhelming evidence that showed the leader of the Waco anti-government group inside actually started the fire, setting off the explosives that consumed the building and took the lives of men, women and children, like most right wing thinkers, he blamed the government for the devastation.

In fact, the government was severely faulted for the way they handled the incident, those inside created the lethal outcome rather than surrender.

6) After a successful first enlistment, he failed the test to enter the elite Green Berets, and left the military, bitter. Blaming the military and government for his failure to make the cut.

7) He had no purpose in life. From his youngest years until he decided to kill as many American citizens as he could in Oklahoma, because of his lack of friends, close relationships and love, he did have any sense of purpose, any sense of loyalty, any sense of belonging. Only blaming others for his problems, for the problems he believed were created by bullies everywhere - the US Government being the most obvious.

In fact, the people with whom he originally conceived the idea of blowing up the Alfred P. Murrah federal building withdrew because they had families for whom they cared and did not want to put them in harm's way - including government scrutiny.

8) He was responsible to no one. A lone wolf, he could do anything he wanted and "get away with it." Even in death, he still believed he got away with murdering the US Government.

7) He was resentful. Instead of looking inside to see how he could affect change and help those whom he perceived were being bullied, he only saw solutions in striking out, killing and destruction.

8. He could not envision a future. He taught himself to live in the moment so he could be calm in the eye of the maelstrom he was creating. He imagined actually completely destroying the building - he was shocked when he saw it was not a rubble of ash after the explosion - but nothing beyond that. I feel sure this is how he came to be captured so quickly after he detonated the bomb. While he had been meticulous about his preparation and planning to destroy, in his mind, the US Government vicariously by bombing the Oklahoma federal building, practically ever step he took afterward was a careless, amateurish, error.

Make no mistake, the US Government is a bully. It has unjustly put people to death, tampered with other governments - resulting in horrible costs to be paid by their indigenous populations; its drive for world financial domination by greedy multinational corporations and hunger for international political power cannot be denied.

But there is no government that is not guilty of these offenses and much worse. There are few major religions that are not guilty of these offenses and much worse.

The difference is that, on paper at least, we are supposed to be the government, responsible for putting the people in power who are supposed to assure our life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, relying on a free and vigorous press to help us decide for whom to vote.

All these institutions are shaking, quaking and floundering today. I am still not clear who someone called Kate Gosselin (I had to research how to spell her name) is, but I see her face splattered everywhere in what passes for the "news" in the US.

Still - it is up to us to make a difference to protect ourselves from the bullies in our culture - if it's the federal government, blow the whistle and work for change. Those on the inside are most frequently too locked in or vulnerable to effect positive change. If it's business, report them to the folks who can stop abuses or assist in the positive changes that ultimately need to be made - who, not incidentally, work in local, state and federal government.

I see the age of the Internet ultimately one of the greatest keys for positive change.

Dickens said there are two enemies of humanity: want and ignorance. Of the two, he said ignorance is the most destructive.

While haters spout so much ignorance and vile on the www, other people eager to learn how to right the wrongs - to address injustice, abuses, and help create a more prosperous, peaceful (the two go hand in hand), indisputable world where everyone starts with a level playing field to work for a good life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness can find tools, motivation and instructions there. It's the world's most valuable learning apparatus if you seek an education.

Of course, none of it works unless we feel supported, loved and included.

While it's been written that sitting at our computers distances us from others, my experience is that I've made some very close friends through my work on the Internet, as have many people I know.

The TV commercial in which actress Ellen Page visits an elementary school class in Canada (US viewers think it's in the US) that connects them through the Internet with an elementary school class in China is a perfect example. As we get to know more people as they really are - we can make truly informed, humane and healthy choices.

The most basic choice we have: to add poison or positive solutions to humankind.

A lie does not equal one side of a story

I was asked to clarify something to which I referred in an earlier blog about journalism. Namely the lack of fair and thorough reporting in the US, especially when it comes to the Bush administration.

Here's how it works:

US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales tells a lie. He tells congress - officially - that there were no accounts of any reports of civil liberties being denied or abused because of the Patriot Act, which gives the government lots of leeway to track down real and imagined "terrorists" within the US.

This lie is reported as "one side" of a story, instead of questioned, which puts the "other side" of the story (that's a lie) on the defensive.

First, if anyone had investigated, they would have found that his statement - apparently one of the few things he could remember - was not true. Several complaints had in fact already been registered to the FBI, all of which went to his office.

Result: misinformation put out to the public.

Generally, it was reported this way: "US Attorney General Gonzales says that, despite concerns about the Patriot Act, no civil liberties have been reported to be denied or abused."

Do you remember that story? I do because I didn't believe it.

So the "other side" of the story is defensive, saying that there have been civil liberties abuses.

Those who are certain there have been abuses - or even those who have actually filed abuse complaints - sound like weak whiners. Or bitter liberals. Or just plain liberals who "hate the Bush administration."

Eeeeeeeeeew.

To those "critics," the response is simple: those people don't like Bush. They do not bother to even try to find or tell us the truth. It is simply their way or the fairway.

The fact that there were complaints of civil rights abuses and complaints before Gonzales' testimony for congress was later reported, but not in a way that would challenge his dishonesty.

Except on Keith Olbermann's MSNBC program, which was reported long after Gonzales testified.

The only way a lie should be considered a story is when something is reported to be a lie.

For example, the story *should* read, "US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales lied to congress today when he assured them there had been no complaints of civil liberties abuses due to the aggressive enforcement of the Patriot Act. In fact, before his first appearance before congress, six were confirmed by the FBI and forwarded to his office..."

This would put the liar on the defensive, rather than the truth tellers.

But thanks to so much misinformation and outright lies told by the memory-challenged Gonzales, the judicial branch of government has been hijacked; it is the first domino to fall in the long line of tumbling judicial domino's that are disabling the branch.

It starts at the top.

If the folks at the top, like Bush, don't respect the rule of law - ignoring it, snubbing their nose at it or not care about breaking the law because they know they won't be held accountable - how do they expect any of us folks down the food chain to respect it?

If government leaders tolerate or even perpetuate lies rather than facts; if media news chiefs don't make certain their reporters question sources - especially those known to misrepresent information or outright lie, the voting public remains ignorant and misinformed. Which keeps the abusers in power.

To get the truth, reporters need to make certain they do their research - or have time to do it before they're expected to tell the listening, reading or viewing public.

If news organizations are understaffed or staffed with too many inexperienced reporters, little research gets done so the "other side" of the lie is not reported. I remember one major national story that wasn't even recognized as a major national story because none of the inexperienced reporters (cheaper labor) was old enough to remember the initial event that made it such a huge deal.

Without the necessary knowledge or research, the "story" only goes out as the same old BS "he said," "he said," news, rather than reporting the actual facts - like the truth - or include any perspective.

If "we report ... he said x and she said y ... you decide." That is not journalism or reporting. It's transcribing what people say, whether it's a lie or the truth.

Meanwhile, speaking of the judicial branch: I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby had his 30 month prison sentence commuted by President Bush because Bush said Libby's family had suffered enough.

This is a boon to defense lawyers everywhere! Because according to the law, judges are never to consider family and other extraneous personal matters when determining the sentence of a convicted criminal.

Since the president himself has done it, watch for defense attorneys to ask judges to consider these personal matters when the judges before whom they appear determine the sentence for their clients.

There is still a year and a half of the Bush administration to go, and I cannot even imagine the amount of destruction to the government and the nation this guy and his henchmen will generate.

Sadly, Democrats come across as weak, powerless and incapable to do anything about these extraordinary abuses. They complain about the horrors of the administration, but then do little or nothing to stop or even curb them.

They can't stop this administration's hubris, arrogance and outright criminal destruction caused by an ignorant, incompetent, spiteful administration that chooses to live in denial of the wrath it has created in its own nation and the world - leaving in it's wake the bodies of thousands upon thousands of innocent victims and courageous military service people killed from Louisiana to Iraq.

Deadlines

When I worked more than full time as a mainstream media journalist in TV, radio and newspapers, my life was all about deadlines.

I would think far ahead to make the most of my available story gathering-writing-editing time before the deadline.

I was constantly thinking hours, days, weeks and even months ahead of the present time - especially for television news - to make certain I would be able to have all the elements of a story lined up, contact the right sources, get enough - and the correct - background information, shoot the right visuals, and so on.

Not for just one story, but several that I would be covering in the future.

In addition to doing the larger stories over a period of time, there were those on which I would report during the day. When, again, I would think ahead: I'd write and edit the story in my head before I was back at the station so I could barrel through, getting it done properly (sometimes my stories were a little visually/audio complex) with narration voiced, in time to build it in the program.

When I worked at combined TV/radio stations, I'd also file stories for the radio station.

I always enjoyed doing the lead story for TV newscasts, but of course that means the story has to be done *before* everyone else's stories get on the air! Which means I had less time to get it all together.

I *loved* my work, to be sure. I feel that pure journalism is a true and honorable calling.

But ... The management of news operations (commercial and non-commercial) drove me batty, so I left. Every time I took a job in radio or TV news, I felt like I lost IQ points. I can't afford to lose any, let alone many.

The same time line pressure of deadlines is true for newspapers, which also have their own serious management problems.

When I left journalism, the energy change was so great, my legs felt wobbly - as if I had been on a small boat for a long time and stepped onto land. I had to regain my land legs and start to think in real time. That took many months - and I couldn't help but note all the stories and information I found missing in newscasts--

But I digress.

While deadlines exist for every aspect of our lives - from anniversaries to graduation to taking tests to making dinner - it's as important, perhaps even more so, to think in real time and not create faux deadlines.

Old school Hollywood and lots of actors actually believe that if you haven't "made it" by the time you're 21, you are TOO OLD! I described a very talented actress to a long-established talent agent in Hollywood. He was very interested. Until I told him she was 27. "That's ancient here," he responded.

Well, guess what?

Another talent agent told me that the demand for *older* actors (30-60) was greater than the younger age category these days.

You are where you are. You are the age you are. If you're good - or better yet, great? You'll get work.

In short, while I love to live in the moment, making the most of every day? I don't see myself on some sort of living deadline, because face it - I could get whacked by a car any moment, and never see it coming.

It's all about that balance thing. What makes for your most fulfilling life? Go for it, and do it in a way that brings happiness to you and yours as you take the journey.

It is always, in all ways, the journey that matters and what will be remembered most fondly, not the destination. Reaching a goal only means the beginning of another journey.

33 dead - because it started as "just" a domestic case

Several years ago, when I was the ombudsman/Reader Advocate for The Seattle Times (my experience there is another story you'd find fascinating) I wrote one of my weekly columns about the mistaken age-old journalistic philosophy that relationship, psychological and sociological stories are "soft" (read: *not real*) news, while murders, accidents, fires and basically fall in front of your face with photo ops incidents are "hard" (read *real*) news.

The outcome, unfortunately, of all too many of what they believe to be "soft" news becomes unnecessary "hard" news because the issues inherent in those "soft" stories are not explored adequately.

How we interact, treat ourselves and each other, relate and communicate - or fail to - all too often results in significant abuse and even homicide/suicide.

Worse, it spawns future generations of adults who have learned as children dysfunctional relationship reasoning and actions, which is nurtured by unceasing violent media, news and music images.

When adults finally understand their thinking and behavior is unhealthy, dysfunctional and out of whack and they choose to seek help, they've got a couple of footlockers stacked on all the childhood baggage they have to work through first.

Ouch.

Of course, the only way to address this with significant and faster results is to teach children how to treat themselves and others in a smart, healthy, protective and caring way. Most effectively, this is done by example.

Like, if you're telling your kids not to drink alcohol - while the first thing you do when you get home is open a bottle of beer, or consider a celebration barren of meaning unless there's alcohol - from wine to whiskey to scotch to tequila to champagne ... um, they only hear what you do, because what you say obviously isn't the truth.

So two people at Virginia Tech are killed by an unknown assailant at 7:15 a.m. yesterday, but police don't become too excited or consider the situation extremely urgent because, as one of their own police officers said - they believed it was "just" a domestic problem.

As they saw it, given their interpretation of the crime and evidence, their problem was to track down the "domestic" shooter. The armed shooter who had not just killed his innocent former girlfriend but another innocent individual as well - who what trying to mediate their argument.

The rest is another, abhorrent chapter in US gun abuse history by a guy who couldn't have his way, whose "woman" wouldn't do what he wanted her to do. Another coward who planned his revenge because he couldn't handle himself when he believed he lost control over someone who would not do his bidding. Who refuses to be owned by him.

By the way, these monsters don't "snap."

They carefully plan obtaining weapons and ammunition, how to reach their destination without being detected, how to find and access their victim, as well as an escape plan - even if it's suicide.

Recently, a woman was shot and killed at the University of Washington by a former boyfriend-turned-stalker. She did everything right. The UW has a thorough system of addressing such problems - it was just never put into motion.

For whatever reason, her complaints, her notification of all the officials who were supposed to be contacted, the evidence of the "domestic" crimes he had already committed against her along with her clear and present pleas to police and campus authorities that he was out to kill her ...

Yes, for whatever reason, her information was not passed up the chain of command to people who could have properly protected her and her co-workers.

It is believed that if the complaint had been other than a "domestic" dispute, it would have been handled differently. Like all other cowards, including the mass murderer at Virginia Tech, the UW woman's killer killed himself so he would not have to be accountable for his actions.

Domestic violence is not decreasing in the US.

American women are still assassinated in large numbers in domestic disputes, as are men, and the failure of the nation, law enforcement, judicial and government to be outraged and take severe action against perpetrators of domestic violence continues.

I believe in reasonable gun control, especially for automatic weapons.

But if the NRA got smart, they'd invest lots of their lobbying billions in programs to help families, kids and individuals learn how to live without harming and killing each other.

Unfortunately they're hard on selling guns, soft on helping to prevent people from abusing them.

Filmmaker John Waters is producing a reality courtroom program about spouses who kill one another. He notes that juries *never* get tough on the killer because, he says, they understand homicidal rage that occurs in those marriages.

A culture of violence is nurtured by a government that proclaims an unnecessary war is a proper means to solve a non-existent problem (oil) - killing tens of thousands of innocent people ("collateral damage") as well as our own and our allies' soldiers; a country that pushes the death penalty as a legal punishment even though several of those put to death have been found to be innocent; music, films and TV programs that glorify guns and killing as a means to solve problems; people who immaturely decide that the best way to deal with an issue is a straight line between a gun and its living target.

People smarter than me have said it; there is a hole in the soul of our (US) nation. The only way to fill it is to find out what is missing in our individual souls and what created the hole so we can learn to fill it once again. Many outside our nation who once admired and even revered the American promise - which depends on having a national soul - believe we have lost it.

But it all starts with that soft news story still put on the lower shelf of the what's urgent news code: what makes us treat ourselves and others with disrespect or respect; abuse or care; meanness or kindness; and an abiding interest in finding new and other ways to solve problems.

Just a thought.