I've noted here before that after I worked with murderers and rapists for a couple of years as a counselor/facilitator, I became a moderately inclined supporter of the death penalty.
In this vein, I feel compelled to support the state of Virginia, which recently executed John Allen Muhammad, better known as the D.C. Sniper. JAM, with the aid of a teenage accomplice, killed at least 10 people, all but one seemingly at random. The first victim was intended to be a Tacoma neighbor -- yes, like Ted Bundy before him, JAM was one of ours -- but JAM's youthful collaborator whacked the "wrong" innocent party when that poor woman came to someone else's door.
Muhammad completely fits the profile of someone I, a card-carrying liberal, think needed to be released from the torment of his life. He killed multiple innocents and cared nothing about any of his vics. He could not be rehabilitated and if anyone did so, he deserved to die.
His teenage accomplice is doing life, one of the bennies of being a vicious killer under the age of 18 when he committed his share of the dastardly acts.
In other news about random killings, Christopher Monfort, who recently assassinated a Seattle police officer, turns out to be a confused mixed kid raised primarily in Colorado and Alaska by a single parent.
A mentor of Monfort's, who was evidently a late-blooming (41) but promising law student, said he talked to her about his feelings of not fitting in on either side of the black/white racial bar. The woman, white but the mother of mixed children, said she tried to tell him he didn't have to be black or white. "You're Chris," she reported herself as saying.
As the father of a mixed daughter -- my ex is African American -- I found this interesting. Since we both took a turn trying to raise my youngest in her teens, after our divorce, I have some slight expertise in this. It was my observation that mixed kids are for all general purposes black, because that's how the overwhelming majority of the dominant, read white, culture sees them. Very few people who voted for President Obama recently bragged about voting for the mixed, or half-white guy. And none of his opponents ever forgot his race, think birthing controversy for starters.
I tried to raise my kid so that she understood she was Irish, German, Native American and African, but that most folks would consider her black. She got her first degree in ethnic studies, focusing on African American literature, but she also wrote a senior thesis on the Abbey Theater in Dublin, Ireland, which, of course, made me feel good.
Both my daughters -- my oldest is 100 percent African-American, I adopted her when she was 4 -- were raised with an awareness of their origins, exposure to their 'home' culture and developed the ability to cross racial lines at will. Both have dated black, white and in-between and both have friends of every race and most creeds. So it seriously irks me to see that old chestnut, mixed kids don't fit in, promulgated, no matter how accidentally, in the description of a confused, hate-filled man who would have been just as violent if he was 100 percent white or 100 percent black.
Mixed kids do as well as any other kind and if they understand their situation, and have an advantage in two directions. Plus they qualify for a lot of grant monies, if they keep their grades up, which was quite a bonus for a poor, starving artist type such as myself.
Finally, I just saw a bank surveillance tape snapshot of the Geezer Bandit, who has robbed five San Diego banks in the past five months. He looks about 100 years old. Since he has hurt no one but bankers thus far, I am oddly cheered to see an oldster who has decided not to live on the charity of others. If only all grandpas could be so industrious.
Or, maybe not, but the photo is startling and I find myself unable to dislike the Geezer as much as I would a younger bank robber. It ain't easy bein' old, so forgive me this empathetic weakness. Unlike corporate criminals, the Geezer does his own dirty work right out in public.[[In-content Ad]]
