The Problem With Boston Marathon-Style Terrorism

The problem with Boston-Marathon style terrorism is that it may become far more commonplace than we would like it to be in the future. There are thousands of young men that fit the profile of the Tsarnaev brothers who are eager to replicate the Boston tragedy. There are so many of these young people that they may well overrun the carefully set protocols of law enforcement that are in place to discover their plots and deeds. These criminals may simply overrun the ability of our homeland security system to apprehend them. Law enforcement has to be 100 percent accurate all the time, 24 hours per day and 7 days per week to prevent an attack. To carry one out, the terrorist only has to be lucky or good one time.

In 1995, I developed a typology of people that would potentially be of harm to the president of the United States. I did this because 1994 was a record year for presidential assassination attempts - there had been three attempts against Bill Clinton that year. It occurred to me that this typology might also apply to terrorists, and I believe that it does.

Threateners.  These are people that loudly proclaim their radical allegiences and verbally and publically threaten to commit a terrorist act. For example, they may write a public official a letter stating their intention to blow up a federal office building, or some other venue, on a given day and time. The threatener is then arrested and carted off to jail, and more often than not, to a psychiatric faciity for evaluation. Despite their boisterous loudness and boldness, they are the least of law enforcement's problems as long as they are confined and do not escape. When the terrorist attack occurs, they are the first to be ruled out - they are in jail.

Attempters. These are bumbling fools that cannot pull off the terrorist attack for some reason. We are grateful, of course, for their lack of competence. These are ones that attempt terrorism but for some unknown reason could not pull it off. Maybe it was poor planning or poor motivation or poor training. Maybe it was bad luck - who knows for sure? But the attack does not occur, to the relief of the public. The shoe bomber, the underwear bomber, and the foiled Times Square bomber are all examples.

Terrorists. Unfortunately, these people succeed where others have failed. They are a success only in the sense that they actually pulled off an attack, and they are likely to be emulated by thousand of young wannabe terrorists. Despite the normal human tendency to label them as "losers," their success at pulling off the attack means that, no matter how flawed they appear to us, they got the job done. This, of course, is the terrorist's view of the episode and not the public's. The public remains sickened by their behavior, as do I.

These young people somehow fly underneath the radar of law enforcement. Their threats are not bold and direct, as was the case with the threateners. Their threats are veiled and somewhat muted. Their threatening behaviors are likely to be discovered only after they have pulled off something "big," and law enforcement is trying to determine a motive for the attack. They may have no criminal record or very little in their backgrounds that would suggest that an attack is imminent. Even if law enforcement starts to monitor social media sites - a long and painful and possibly fruitless task - they may not be able to see in advance much in the way of evidence of sympathy for jihad, or any threats. These youngsters can become radicalized quickly on the Internet, and may be able to delete evidence of their radicalization. Further, the terrorist is one who practices the act before pulling it off. A trial run is often in order; or, at least some practice in making bombs and setting them off. This may be overseas or here at home. Perhaps the only weakness in the terrorists repertoire is an escape plan. For some, such as September 11th terrorists, they are hoping that the attempt succeeds and that escape is not necessary. On the other hand, the young jihadists in Boston clearly had no escape plan. They had no clue how intense the scrutiny would be after the attack, nor did they realize, even in this cell phone crazy era, how much actual photographic documentation there would be of the attack.

Antipathy Toward Runners in Boston 

Why attack the Boston Marathon? I believe it is possible that the Tsarnaev brothers had some serious antipathy toward runners and running. Both were athletes in sports in which they had to maintain a certain weight in order to compete, and running is by far the most effective way of shedding pounds in a hurry. But it might have been something that they hated. The low level trajectory of the bombs they made were specially designed to take out ankles, feet, even entire legs. A runner that has survived a scrapnel attack with foreign bodies in their upper torso could still continue to run, eventually, after healing. A runner or spectator that has nails, ball bearings and other scrapnel in their feet and legs is probably finished as a runner.

Here is a larger motive: the marathon requires hundreds of hours of preparation. At minimum, it would require training of about 25 miles per week of running for a period of about six months. A large commitment of time to be sure. To the jihadist, this is wasted time, time that could be spent rendering to Allah the proper support. Marathoning, in their twisted view, is a symptom of a bloated, wasteful culture that fritters away valuable time in non spiritual pursuits, according to the jihadist.

A Solution

The problem presented by future jihadists is a volume problem.

This reminds me a lot of the situation in the USA with respect to immigration reform in the 1980s. A careful and thoughtful set of laws had been enacted that created a pathway to citizenship for people illegally in the U.S. What happened was that thousands of people simply overran and overloaded the system to where it could not function - the immigration laws in place could not possibly be enforced.

We face the same kind of volume problem with respect to terrorism. There are likely to be thousands of young jihadists who would love to do nothing less than pull off the unimaginable just as the Tsarnaevs did. They may simply overrun our ability to monitor them, just as illegal aliens overran the immigration system of the 1980s.

A solution is what the criminologist calls "target hardening." Here, you make the target harder for the bad guy to get to it. This is probably what the future holds for America.

This means, heightened security at most of our public events. The wannabe jihadist will attack just about anything that is celebratory in our culture or anything that is representative of our so-called bloated wealth, wasted time and lack of "spirituality" in the jihadist sense of the word. More bombing sniffing dogs will be present. Long lines at some public events such as sporting events as people are inspected individually before entering the venue. More police officers present. A quicker response to any potential problem that comes to the attention of law enforcement. This target hardening will make it harder for the terrorist to perform, and may result in less death and less injury at future events.

Killing The American Dream: A Review of Bill O'Reilly's Killing Kennedy

For about one year now, the public has been able to read and enjoy Bill O'Reilly's Killing Kennedy, which he co-authored with Martin Dugard. The book has been a success, judging from the number of copies sold. Mr. O'Reilly apparently believed, as do I, that history is something that has grown well beyond the grasp of the common person. Mr. O'Reilly remembers reading Profiles in Courage by John F. Kennedy, a highly readable and engaging book about history. I also remember Six Crises by Richard Nixon, a book designed to rehabilitate Nixon's image and pave the way for his return to national politics in the 1960s. It seems to me, and probably to Mr. OReilly as well, that somewhere along the way, history became a subject by and for professors, graduate students, college students, and leisured elites that have the time and money to buy up all the latest books. Mr. O'Reilly goes against the grain with this book. I believe also that the authors saw the need to engage a new generation of students in the study of history. This book is non fiction, but has the cadence of a novel, and is likely to engage even the most tweet-and-text saavy young person with its quick pace.

For everyone who writes a book about the assassination of President Kennedy, the journey is intensely personal. The writer hopes to discover once and for all what happened in Dallas in 1963, not quite believing all that has been written about that day. So it is with Mr. O'Reilly. He comes from an Eastern Irish Catholic family. He has Kennedys in his family tree. He got interested in the assassination working for a TV station in Dallas, about the time of the second national study of the assassination, the House Select Committee on Assassinations. He had tracked down the man believed to be Oswald's best friend in Dallas and also it was rumored that this man was Oswald's "CIA handler." Moments before the interview was to be held, the man killed himself with Mr. O'Reilly nearby. This person was to have testified before the HSCA within a matter of days.

As I read this book, I felt that I was traveling a personal road of reflection. Along the way, I learned something about myself and about the American Dream. Thus, I feel that Mr. O'Reilly's book could easily have been titled Killing the American Dream.

Killing the Dream

One of the great things about growing up in the early 1960s was the sense of security that Americans felt each day of their lives. Sure, there is a tendency to over romanticize our youthful lives because they lacked the weighty responsibilities that come with adulthood. I'm as guilty of that as anyone else. But there was a sense, early in the 1960s, that America was safe and would not and could not be attacked by other countries, which made it an especially carefree time. There was a concern about nuclear war, but it was not imminent, at least at the beginning of the decade of the Sixties. Our lives were somewhat insulated from outside shocks. We bought American products at American stores and markets. There was not as much crime and violence as there is today. Some people left the doors to their homes unlocked. Schools were orderly. You could get almost anywhere you wanted to go in life given the proper effort, talent, luck and the presence of opportunity. Your wealth, or lack of it, was not held against you. The gradual creep of globalization was headed our way but we did not feel it quite yet. However, storm clouds were gathering on the horizon as President Kennedy takes office.

Mr. O'Reilly's discussion of the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 is riveting. A far greater threat than September 11 in my opinion, it was the one time that the world held its breath, hoping that a mutually destructive world nuclear war would be averted. In late October, 1962 Soviet missiles were discovered by American surveillance to have reached Cuba, and the nuclear warheads that could transport the weapons to the U.S. would be ready in a matter of days. Once loaded onto the warheads, the missile could be fired at any moment, and within minutes, about 60 percent of the American population would be obliterated in a thermonuclear catastrophe for the ages. I was particularly touched by how the crisis affected Kennedy personally, and his family. It reminded me that this event was the one event in the pre September 11 era that had broken my own sense of personal security. It reminded me of how much this sense of security had meant to me and my family. I always thought, looking back at the 1960s, that President Kennedy's assassination had been the end of innocence for my generation, for people of roughly my age. Mr. O'Reilly's book helped me to see that the end of that innocence had actually occurred 13 months prior to the assassination.

President Kennedy's Assassination

Concerning the president's assassination, there is not much in this book that is new. I did learn a few insights about why Mrs. Kennedy accompanied the President on this political trip to Dallas.  I had always wondered about why she went to Texas because she did not much like campaigning, and did not particularly care for Lyndon Johnson or for Texans generally. First, she had taken a measure of control over what happened in the presidential bedroom, hoping to make the experience better for both partners. Second, brother Bobby had warned the President about his sexual dalliances. He told him that he was one bimbo away from scandal, as the Profumo affair in Britain had shown. Then, the couple was still grieving the loss of their infant son Patrick who had died about a month earlier. Because of this, the President no longer took his family, or his time with his family, for granted. For all these reasons, President Kennedy encouraged Jackie to accompany him to Texas.

Mr. O'Reilly does not shy away from the conspiracy theories. He correctly notes that while 70 percent of Americans approved of President Kennedy's job performance, 30 percent hated him. The list of people or organizations that wanted some kind of "regime change" in Washington was quite long: the CIA, the Mafia, Frank Sinatra, the Russians, the Cubans, the Cuban exiles living in America, and this is just the start of the list. The FBI worried constantly about his romantic interludes, and about what kinds of state secrets might be whispered to the wrong kind of people.

In the end, however, the assassination according to O'Reilly is the result of the actions of one twisted human named Lee Harvey Oswald. Kennedy's life was glamorous; Oswald's was miserable. Kennedy was rich, Oswald was poor. Kennedy had a picture perfect family; Oswald's was not. Most important, Kennedy was somebody. Oswald was anonymous, a nobody, but wanted to become somebody. Thus, the same portrait of Oswald as a poor, pathetic loser that we saw in the Warren Commission report of 1964 comes full circle to greet us again in 2012.

Conclusion

The most important thing I learned when reading this book was an insight about myself, America, and the American Dream in the early 1960s. The forces of globalization had mustered enough strength to disrupt the peace and security of the United States during the Cuban Missile Crisis. About 60 percent of the U.S. population faced imminent death at any moment. Soviet missiles were locked and loaded and aimed at the U.S. America lost its sense of security during that crisis, 13 months before the president's assassination. That sense of security would never return, even if President Kennedy had survived the carnage in Dallas.

The Aurora Mall and the Lake Charles Tornado

Note: I worked at the Aurora Mall, site of the July 20, 2012 mass shooting, for a few months in 1981.

July 20, 2012. From my perspective, this was just possibly the weirdest day ever. This day was filled with what sociologists call "collective behavior" - weird, unplanned, unstructured behavior that is so strange that it cannot be predicted. In its wake, it leaves social change.  

The Aurora Mall

I awoke on July 20 to the horrific news that 70 people had been killed or injured at the Aurora Mall in Aurora, Colorado. My first thoughts were for the people harmed by the gunmen, and for their families. When people go to a midnight showing of a movie, the last thing they expect is to be shot at by someone. Parents and relatives may worry that the children and adults who attend such events may encounter a drunk driver on the way home. But never a crazed gunmen. The aftermath was chaotic, with a definite "fog of war" type of information gap. Imagine parents and relatives trying to find their children at area hospitals - and Aurora is the third largest city in Colorado. The whole thing was just awful and I was heartsick as I learned more details. Personally, it may be awhile before I go to a movie in a mall.

When the address of the mall was announced, it sounded vaguely familiar to me. When the first pictures of the mall were broadcast, I recognized it as the place I had worked doing market research for a few months in 1981. The drab brown outside of the mall was just the way I remembered it. The only thing different was the movie marquee for the theater that now is prominently visible on the outside of the building.

As usual in the early hours after such a horrible occurrence, there is false information being released. The killed/wounded number had to be revised downward. A reporter for ABC News claimed that the gunman, James Holmes, was a member of the Colorado Tea Party Movement - it was a false claim. The reporters also said the shooter lived in "North Aurora" but the address that appeared on the TV screen on a map was clearly incorrect, in South Aurora.

Denver and its suburbs are divided into quadrants by Colfax Ave. and by Broadway Blvd. Anything north of Colfax is North Denver, anything south is South Denver. East Denver is east of Broadway and West Denver is west of Broadway. Except for a few streets downtown that run at odd angles, just about every address in Denver and its suburbs can be pinpointed to a specific quadrant, and further, down to a specific block - a cab driver's dream.

Later, the correct address in North Aurora was identified for James Holmes. I was shocked to discover that he lived about three blocks from where I once lived in Aurora, I remember living there at an address just off East Colfax in Aurora from 1981 to 1982.

Aurora was a dream land for young adults when I moved there in the 1980s and I suspect that it is still very attractive today. Ski slopes are just a few hours away. Apartment housing is cheap and plentiful. It is a good place to get a start in life after college. There were jobs available, probably more in 1981 than is the case today. Though public transit was not the best in Denver, I used it anyway, catching the bus to the Aurora Mall for work. It was a commute of about three miles one way. If Holmes drove to the Mall from his apartment, it would take him 5 to 10 minutes at most. Holmes' school, the University of Colorado Medical Center, was just a few blocks away from where he lived. He could have easily have driven there or taken the bus. Walking was not out of the question, either. CU appears to have moved from its 1981 location on the west side to the east side of Denver, occupying the old Fitzsimmons Army Medical Center complex.

Holmes now appears to have been suffering from schizophrenia. It is an illness that can appear with increasing frequency in young men between the ages of 18-24, who are at optimal age from getting diagnosed with this illness. It is an illness that is made worse when the patient begins to isolate him or herself from other people. Holmes quit the CU doctoral program in Neuroscience that he was in. We do not know if he quit voluntarily or if he flunked out of his program. Being a Ph.D student can be a rough challenge. By failing classes or flunking a comprehensive exam, one's dream of being a Ph.D and teaching or doing research at a major university are pretty much over. The feelings of rejection are overwhelming, even for someone who is not ill with schizophrenia. My strong suspicion is that he was discharged for bad grades or for bad behavior that he displayed as his illness progressed. Either way, isolating himself from others was the worst thing that could happen to him. He was banned from campus; CU insists it was because he was no longer a student at the school. Here's some more irony: I was briefly a grad student at the University of Denver in 1983, and I too had quit school.

I have to admit that I felt unclean and kind of creepy once I found that I had so many things in common with this mass murderer, a person who will become a legend for all the wrong reasons. I was just kind of creeped out and did not want to do anything the rest of the day except just be a vegetable and do something that would distract me from the awfulness I felt inside. I did not want to think about anything. I felt pain and just want to get rid of it somehow.

Unfortunately, I could not take the day off from school. Finals for the summer term had ended on July 19. I needed to go into my office and attack the mountain of final exams on my desk. I used this as my distraction, to forget about Aurora, Colorado for a while.

But this strange day was only half over.

 The Lake Charles Tornado

Certain natural disasters are notable because there is so little warning. In the case of hurricanes - and I have survived many of them - you have at least a few days to vacate before the storm hits. With tornadoes, this is often not the case. Anyone who saw the movie, Twister, knows how true this is. And this bizarre day just got worse when my family got hit by the Lake Charles Tornado of July 20.

Getting caught in a tornado is pretty much just as it appears in the movies. There is no time to run, no warning. If you run, you get caught up in the twister - not good.

During the summer, I am in the habit of checking the weather before going to bed, just to see if any adverse weather is coming into Southwest Louisiana. On July 20, I could see that some weather was coming in from the northwest. I do not remember if there was a severe thunderstorm warning, although there may have been one. I was mostly concerned by the special weather statements that I had seen on the 20th and for several days before and after that day about "tropical funnel clouds." They appear due to instability in the atmosphere and rarely touch the ground. When they do, they can cause minor damage. So I was wary about tornadoes that might be coming out of the thunderstorms that evening. Would they? I had no idea. I had never heard or seen a tropical funnel cloud before. This was about 9:20 PM.

I went to our bedroom to tell my wife that weather was coming in from the northwest. She had already heard thunder. As we were chatting, I noticed that the thunder was now continuous, like it was not stopping. My wife asked if a jet was landing. "No," I said, "I don't think it is a jet." The continual thunder was starting to worry me, however.

What we heard at that moment was a funnel cloud that had formed near Chenault Airport in Lake Charles and was headed directly toward the Sugarloaf Community in South Lake Charles where we live. Despite the constant rolling thunder, I was still thinking it was just a thunderstorm. I returned to my man cave about 9:30 to tune in to weather reports.

Just after settling into my recliner, our home shook violently. The electricity went off. Now that the man cave was dark, I could see better outside my cave window. I saw various kinds of debris, including a lawn chair, swirling in a circle in my front lawn. My daughter had the good sense to order the family into the bathroom. My wife and I, daughter, and her dog were all huddled there, quietly, hugging each other and hoping that the funnel would go away. Somehow, the dog did not bark at all as she usually does where there is excitement around. She hopped into the bathtub and huddled quietly, watching her humans intently for any sign of panic. We prayed constantly, that helped ease our nerves.

After about ten minutes, the continuous thunder stopped. The winds died down and it began to rain very heavily, with spectacular lightning that appeared not to cease, just as the thunderous sound of the funnel cloud had appeared to be continuous just a few minutes earlier. As the sound of the funnel cloud passed, we slowly started to breathe a little easier, heart rates declining. My wife and daughter went out to look at the rain. I was still terrified; the dog and I stayed in the bathroom for a while, completely unnerved by the storm.

Finally, I retreated from the bathroom and found my way through the darkness to the recliner in the man cave, where all this madness had started about 45 minutes ago. The dog found a place under my daughter's bed, and would not come out except to eat and go to the bathroom for several days. Thank God, it appeared that we had survived. I was sure that there was some damage to our home, but I did not want to look right now, at 10 PM. I just wanted to sit and try to digest this most dreadful day that I had ever experienced. I was glad to be alive but still felt creeped out by Aurora, Colorado.

With the power out and the windows opened to get some air coming in, I heard a creaking noise that seemed to make a sound about every 60 seconds or so. There were still gusting winds outside, even around midnight, and that was when the creaking sound caught my attention. I figured that some siding had partially dislodged from our home, and was swaying when the wind gusts came. It turned out to be, as I found out later, a piece of siding from someone's home that had landed against our neighbor's privacy fence and was leaning precariously at just that spot. As the winds subsided, the wind was no longer strong enough to send the piece of siding flying off to another part of town. It seemed content just to stay there and make creaking noises now and then.

12:01 AM July 21. I was mentally exhausted but glad to be alive. I thought again about the people killed in Colorado and prayed for the souls who had life ripped from them by James Holmes. I could have died today too; it was a close call.

A tornado warning was never issued for the Lake Charles tornado. It was officially an EF1 tornado that formed near Cheanault Airport and made its way southwest, clipping a corner of the Sugarloaf Community before moving on toward the Burton Coliseum, the Lake Charles Airport, and other points to the southwest. Damage, overall, was minor, just as the special weather statements had predicted.

Power at my home was out for 44 hours. We stayed at a hotel in Sulphur, Louisiana for three nights before coming back home. Before the 20th, we had just gone on a spending spree, filling our large refrigerator and a freezer with new, fresh food. Now it was all spoiled. My wife cried more for the food than herself, but she was shaken by the fear of the tornado, just as we all had been.

On October 8, 2012 repairs will begin on our home. Mentally, we are all still in recovery.

Those Two Sisters, Katrina and Rita

This is adapted from my book, Post-Rita Reflections: A Sociological Journey. (Lanham, MD: Hamilton Books, 2009).


My family knew the Hurricanes for years. Not that our families were close or anything like that. Nobody really wanted to cozy up to them, anyway. They were a mean, spreading mayhem that could take years to clean up. Ever since Matriarch Audrey rolled up on Cameron in 1957, we knew what a tough bunch those Hurricanes could be.

That family’s only close friend was a squat, bald headed guy named Cantore who would camp out in the Hurricanes’ front lawn for days at a time, waiting to see where they would go next. Not even Cantore could score a scoop, though, despite his unprecedented access to the family. “We’ll just have to wait and see what they do, and act accordingly,” is what Cantore usually said.

The most ironic thing about the Hurricanes is how quiet they could be for so long. It seemed like for years at a time, you heard nothing from them. They were like guerilla warriors, waiting to attack you when you’re most vulnerable.

South Louisiana got kind of complacent about the Hurricanes due to their inactivity. The year 2005 dramatically changed everything when those two sisters, Katrina and Rita, shocked us back into reality.

Matriarch Audrey bragged that Katrina put up some amazing statistics. She was the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history, and one of the deadliest. At least 1,836 people died in the hurricane and subsequent floods, making her the deadliest storm since 1928. Total property damage was $81 billion. Katrina’s fury made her a worldwide celebrity overnight.

Little sister Rita was a formidable storm in her own right. She goes into the history books as the fourth most intense Atlantic hurricane ever recorded and the most intense tropical cyclone ever observed in the Gulf of Mexico. Rita spread $10 billion in damages from New Orleans to southeastern Texas.

Rita had a problem, though. She was born after Katrina and will live forever in Katrina’s shadow. For that reason, she will be the daughter that nobody knew. Despite her impressive record, people that know the Hurricanes have trouble coming up with Rita’s name. She remains “Old What’s Her Name,” or that other Hurricane girl that you can’t remember much about.

I root for the underdog, so I am an unabashed fan of Rita’s. I feel that history will not remember her, and that’s not fair. “Fandom” around these parts doesn’t mean a celebration of the damage done. It’s an economic thing. The more noise we make about Rita, the more reconstruction and recovery dollars we get for Rita’s playground, Southwest Louisiana.

If you think I’m wrong about Rita not being remembered, just consider how the one year birthday parties of Katrina and Rita played out.

Katrina’s bash was held at the Louisiana Superdome before 68,000 screaming fans and a worldwide television audience. With a fury Katrina would have loved, the New Orleans Saints blew away the Atlanta Falcons 23-3 in a game that was more about hurricane recovery and a city’s battle with adversity than about football.

Rita’s much smaller party was held in Cameron, Louisiana, population 1,400. A long list of dignitaries paid their respects, big names such as Kathleen Blanco, Mitch Landrieu, Mary Landrieu, David Vitter and Russel Honore. Despite all the celebrities in town, the attendance was sparse compared with the crowd at the Superdome.

The folks in Cameron could only take a deep breath, sigh, and shake their heads. That older sister had won out once again.

M.D. Anderson Remembers Betty Ford

M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, the nation's top ranked cancer facility, never forgot its humble beginnings. Betty Ford was there in the early days to give the new facility a much needed boost.

In one corner of M.D. Anderson's Main Building in Houston, there is a historical exhibit commemorating Betty Ford's appearance and speech at the dedication of the cancer center in 1976. Flanked by Lady Bird Johnson and a pioneering cancer physician, Mrs. Ford waives to the crowd in a photo that has become both a flashbulb memory as well as a cornerstone of M.D. Anderson's history.

Mrs. Ford surrendered a day in October, 1976, to attend the dedication. Her husband Gerald Ford was the sitting President of the United States and right in the middle of a closely contested race for President with Democratic challenger Jimmy Carter of Georgia. Mr. Ford could have used his wife on the campaign trail during the home stretch of the campaign, but she had more important business to take care of.

Shortly after moving into the White House in the summer of 1974 following the resignation of Richard Nixon, Mrs. Ford learned that she had breast cancer. Rather than hiding this information as previous first ladies might have, Mrs. Ford released the information to the public. Her struggle with the pain of her surgery contributed to a longstanding problem of being addicted to pain medication and alcohol. Most people have heard of the Betty Ford Clinic in Rancho Mirage, California that treats patients with addictions. Most probably did not know about, or could not remember, her battle with breast cancer. It was an issue that she held close to her heart. As her obituary in the Associated Press stated: "In an era when cancer was discussed in hushed tones and mastectomy was still a taboo subject, the first lady shared the specifics of her breast cancer surgery. The publicity helped bring the disease into the open and inspired countless women to seek breast examinations."

So her trip to Houston in October, 1976 had little to do with politics. Mr. Ford had pretty much conceded the South to Carter, and there were few votes hanging on Betty Ford's appearance. Instead, it was her effort to put a public face to breast cancer awareness that was her overriding concern on this autumn day.

The Fords were known for their transparency and for their forthrightness in tackling problems. They were like a breath of fresh air compared with the Nixon crowd, whose reputation for break-ins, wiretapping, buggings and secrecy had led Mr. Ford to call the Watergate era "our long national nightmare." A few days after being sworn in, a White House photographer snapped a picture of Mr. Ford in the kitchen preparing breakfast. Photographers in general had much more access to the White House under Ford than was the case. Mr. Ford released the results of his yearly medical exam to the public, in its entirety. A rock-solid conservative, you always knew where Gerald Ford stood on the issues.

And so it was that Mrs. Ford was equally transparent and forthright. Instead of hiding behind her problems, she turned them into important public issues to be addressed.

Mrs. Ford was remembered for her outspokenness on sensitive issues. Her unscripted comments created a tempest in the press and left President Ford's advisers in a funk, grasping for a way to defuse the fallout. Yet, after years of secrecy and lying in politics, Mrs. Ford's honesty was truly refreshing, and the public loved her.

I don't think that M.D. Anderson was very well known at the time of Mrs. Ford's appearance. Her being there on that October day made a difference. The Center got off to a great start, thanks to Mrs. Ford and the very determined people who worked there.

Wanted: A Few More Mature People to Serve in Washington, D.C.

I know that there are good people that serve in the U.S. government in Washington, D.C. Legislators, executives and jurists work hard in the public interest. The people who represent my home state of Louisiana are mature, hard working people. I know that because some come back home to report on their work, and it is good work. I respect these people.

Yet, I am disturbed by some of the reports I read in the newspapers that originate from the nation's capital. In recent weeks I had difficulty believing that some of the reports were actually true.

For example, I read that a certain member of Congress photographed his private parts and sent them to lovelorn single females via Twitter. Instead of reading an adolescent story about this member's member, I would rather have read about his plan to cut $10 trillion from the federal debt utilizing a practical combination of spending cuts and revenue raisers.

I read that Congressmen are making pledges that indicate that, no matter what comes, they will not raise taxes (not even a dollar) or support gay marriage or vote against family values. They have pledged that they will not raise the U.S. debt limit at all unless this action is linked to tax cuts or spending cuts/caps, or balanced budgets. Such intellectual inflexibility is not what the nation needs right now. If the U.S. were to go into default on its obligations on August 2nd, some of these pledge-hardy Congresspeople would just let it happen rather than give up the purity of their pledge. Being right is all that matters to them, and all that matters to their careers. These selfish people would rather see the United States go into default than lose face with fellow intellectual purists. The problem here is that if the United States does default on its obligations, an angry public will seek out these inflexible ones as the culprits who brought on the calamity, and it will get ugly quick. If default could be avoided and your compromise vote would seal the deal, would you register that compromise vote? Most mature people would do this. The ideologically pure would not. Who needs these people?

This pledge-hardy behavior reminds me of 10 year old boys who form a gang, or 11 year old girls who sign BFF contracts with their sleepover friends, or the 12 year old girls who sign chastity pledges stating that they will remain chaste until marriage. How long do such pledges last? Not long, but they probably will last beyond August 2 of this year. That is not much of a problem for the preteens but a big headache for the Congresspeople who signed voting or policy pledges this year. An angry public will seek them out if there's calamity and read my lips, it will get ugly soon.

I read of debt limit negotiations where the end result was a hardening of the resolve of the two sides not to agree on anything. The Republicans blaming the Democrats and vice versa. Each side calling the other side childish or selfish. Immature? I rest my case.

I read of debt limit negotiations where one side yelled at the other and stormed out the door. A tantrum? Yes! Meanwhile, the clock is ticking on reforming the nation's debt.

I try to calm myself down and look at the situation without agitation. What probably will happen is that the two sides will let the clock tick down to nearly zero, and against that kind of time pressure, will find middle ground and get the deal done. Which leads me ask: why is all the fake negotiation and grandstanding and bickering that went on for weeks needed? We might as well have skipped all that and just let the clock tick. What makes this process difficult is the election year that is coming up. Both sides are digging in because there is a lot at stake - the presidency and control of both houses in Congress. That being said, this issue better not go unresolved. If it does, just about everyone now in Congress will be looking for a new job in 2012.

The "throw them out" movement may be so strong as to sweep out of office some of the mature hard working folks that are there right now. That would be the saddest consequence of all. I do not want to read that news in the newspaper.

Casey Anthony Wished It All Away - Almost

When you wish upon a star
Makes no difference who you are
Anything your heart desires
Will come to you


Millions of children know by heart the lyrics of When You Wish Upon A Star, sung by Mr. Jiminy Cricket. Over the years it has become an anthem for kids descending upon Disney World, hoping for a long list of goodies inside Walt Disney's Magic Kingdom.

The problem is, the song only applies to Disney's World and what's inside. It was never intended to apply to the "real world." Or at least that was the plan in the beginning. And at some point, kids are supposed to grow up and learn that you can't have everything your way all the time.

In reality though, millions of youngsters apparently could not distinguish between Disney World and reality. The longing for all those good wishes carried on well after vacation was over.

Sociological theorist Jean Baudrillard saw all this coming long ago. He believed that fantasy worlds like DisneyLand and Las Vegas would become simulations of reality, simulations so lifelike and user-friendly and ideal that kids (and everyone else) would have trouble distinguishing the simulation from the real thing or the real world. There would be difficulty in letting go of the imaginary world, and so children would carry on in life blurring the two social contexts.

No, this is not the "DisneyLand Defense" of Casey Anthony and her dysfunctionality. It is better viewed as an explanation for her horrific behavior. Her lawyers insisted there was no evidence of social pathology, so where else do you go for a social context to explain such bizarre behavior?

Casey Anthony wished her legal difficulties away - and it almost worked.

For 30 days, she wished that the death of Caylee Anthony would just vanish into thin air. She left her daughter's moribund body in her trunk long enough to produce an odor of death. She waited long enough for decomposition to set in, then dumped her youngster like a piece of trash into the woods near the Anthony home. She wished for no one to find Caylee. The wishing unraveled when Cindy Anthony called 911, and later, when a passer by discovered Caylee's remains.

At the trial, she wished away a guilty verdict for murder - it worked.

She wished away a guilty verdict for aggravated child abuse - it worked.

She wished away a guilty verdict for aggravated manslaughter - it worked.

She wished away a long prison sentence - it worked. Given credit for time already served, she will be free within days.

It looked like all of her courtroom wishes would come true, just as Mr. Jiminy Cricket promised.

This fell apart with the charge of lying to police. Needless to say, there was plenty of that to go around. She was convicted of those charges, and they will go on her record.

What Casey Anthony cannot wish away is the difficult future she faces. Like O.J. Simpson, she may well find her way back to jail at some point in time. That seems inevitable, given the deeply wounded psyche she possesses.

Casey Anthony, also, cannot wish away the fact that there are millions who think she got away with murder. Somewhere in that group of millions is a freedom and justice loving person who owns a gun that may try to take justice into his/her own hands, the jury having apparently failed in the task. Safety ought to be paramount to whatever situation Casey Anthony finds herself once freed.

Freedom itself will be limited for Casey because of the madness she has created. How will she leave her home to go out into public? How will she support herself behind closed doors? There are lots of possibilities, but they better be behind closed doors, for safety reasons. Book signings and public appearances? I don't think so.

In the end, Casey's home - wherever it may be - will become her own private prison, and nothing can change that. It will be a situation that Casey Anthony cannot wish away now matter how hard she tries.