TIDBITS

SERIAL KILLERS. I'm always fascinated or appalled may be the best term in talking about those whose moral compass has seemingly gone south. Is there any pattern of behavior to those who commit awful atrocities like Virginia Tech. What do we know: alienation, bullied, hearing voices. If we could have had a profile of the Virginia Tech killer could the tragedy have been prevented. No, not really, just as 9-11 probably could not. And, as we keep trying to make sense out of the overwhelming sense of loss, we can do a few things. One of them is change the laws about guns. Under anybody's definition who thinks, the laws are way to lax. What does someone like Cho need with an automatic 9mm glock; give me a break. What does a hunter need an AK47 for? And, we need to get this out of politics. I'm surely not a gun control nut but being smart and a zeolot are not one and the same. Come on!

IRAQ. Then there's always Iraq. Iraqi civilians are caught in the crosshairs of a civil war. Seeing a couple of families profiled, the inevitable question: were they better under Saddam. Since I'm the one asking the question, my answer. Absolutely. We are going to be haunted by Iraq for a long time just as we are about Vietnam. The vast difference is that Vietnam nowhere knew the violence visited upon innocent civilians. In Vietnam, eventually, we were two armies opposing each other on the battle field. The farmers were still growing their rice and South Vietnam was still functioning. In Iraq nothing is functioning. A country with enormous oil reserves and lines for as many as 3 days is more the rule than the exception. What is wrong with this picture?