About Lindsay

Jeffrey Dahmer. Ted Bundy. David Berkowitz. Charles Manson. And yes, yes I am. I'm about to add Lindsay Clancy to this list.

I'll be blunt: you have to have at least a touch of insanity to commit gruesome murder. Every person on that list demonstrated a degree of it, at times to reprehensible proportions. Ted Bundy violated the corpses of his victims until they were too decomposed to be of any use for his wicked desires. Berkowitz thought, if we can take him at his word, a dog from Satan was ordering him to kill. Charles Manson? He clearly broke the code of the Beatles' White Album to gain instruction. You get the point.

Lindsay Clancy systematically executed her three small children. She clearly put a lot of thought into it. Was she insane? I'm not sure if or how much that matters. 

The men on this list were put to death, or, at least, institutionalized for life. Jurors created no excuses for them. Yet "He had the hardest time getting off the fact that Lindsay viciously killed her children," said one Clancy juror, knocking the holdout juror who would not grant a not guilty verdict. That statement itself is insane. She couldn't hear the profound stupidity in what she was saying?

Another juror said the holdout couldn't point to one piece of evidence for a guilty verdict. Does Lindsay murdered her children not count? Again, an insane comment.

This type of dismissal of murder one worries me more about the future of humanity than the Iran War, Donald Trump or AOC, homelessness and many other societal ills. A segment of society is trying to defend murder based on mental health. Never mind that thousands of women who suffered post-partum depression did not kill their babies. Lindsay should not get excused for that. What kind of jury pool do we have when folks think that way? Are any of us safe when and if such an attitude towards very basic questions of justice permeates society?

Did you notice she wasn't quite so successful at killing herself? Yet she was a nurse. She surely knew how to accomplish that. If she actually meant to. Yes, I think her attempt at suicide a rather obvious subterfuge.

Bundy got the chair. Manson died in prison. Clancy should be in jail or confined to a mental institution. For life. An overwrought sympathy for her dilemma if, and that's a big if, she really was momentarily crazy, is a denial of justice to her children, and thoroughly despicable.

Rest in Peace, Robin Williams

By now, surely everyone knows that actor and comedian Robin Williams has committed suicide. Certainly, everyone realizes what a tragedy it is as well. How could anyone who made so many people so happy have done such a thing? How could someone with such a profound ability to entertain and also make others reflect on important things (if you've heard him tell the story of The Fisher King you know what we mean) do something so final to himself? Suicide, really, is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

We are not trying to criticize Mr. Williams nor anyone else who has fought the demons which influenced them towards suicide. That we can't understand it perhaps ought to make us all the more considerate of the mind which contemplates such an act. Of all the things a human being might do this, being so very beyond what other ills a man might commit, stops us in our tracks. One can almost understand someone hurting someone else for personal gain or private pleasure. But taking one's own life? It seems about as extreme of a thing as possible to imagine.

Again, we're not condemning Robin Williams or anyone else who's committed suicide. That's not our job, and the very nature of the act appears to us so incomprehensible as may also make it easily forgivable. The trouble is that we can't do that too readily either. We don't want to be so willing to excuse suicide that we might however inadvertently encourage someone else to do it to themselves. We don't want people to believe that it's okay to do that if things become, at face value, too difficult to handle. And as difficult as it is to say or hear especially right after news like that of Robin Williams, it's within the realm of possibility that someone taking their own life fully understood what they were doing, but did it anyway. That is the basic rationale behind the late Jack Kevorkian's ideals, you know.

What we do affects what others do. We are all role models, whether we want to be or not and whether we think so or not. As such, we can't be too forgiving of suicide lest we make it a reasonable alternative, particularly for someone who is facing demons we can't imagine. We can't encourage a world which effectively says, if it were the only option Robin Williams saw, it must be all right. It may be splitting hairs to say love the person but hate the action. But we don't see any other acceptable outlook.

What we need to do is be on the lookout for signs of trouble among our friends and family and to encourage fortitude in dealing with the issues they face, and help them find better solutions to their problems. We ought to be charitable (we will not say nonjudgmental, because to be that would actually require us to a blanket acceptance of things like suicide if you think about it) if as a result of their battles something tragic may happen. If it comes to that, all we can say is, Rest in Peace.

Rest in Peace, Robin Williams. And for those interested in hearing his story of The Fisher King, here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wN3bcE7ldHg It seems specially poignant today.

Euthnasia Insults Human Dignity

A set of twins in Belgium, where euthanasia is legal, were allowed to be euthanized on the grounds that their lives were destined to be intolerable. They had been deaf since birth and were going blind but were not terminally ill or suffering physically. They simply could not stand the thought that they would lose further communication with the world and each other.

To have a basic human sympathy for their plight is understandable. Yet to think it all right for them to die merely because they feared the future says something even more about their outlook on life, and of the real value of human life that societies which allow euthanasia actually hold. It says that a human life can be judged not worth living for any reason at all, even such a one as inconvenience.

Yet all lives have their inconveniences, don't they? All lives have pain and suffering, or, at least, ample opportunities for horrible conditions. If someone at some time can end their life simply because conditions grieve them, then shouldn't we all end our lives as they will all at times and invariably be hurtful? Are not all of our lives, strictly in terms of suffering, not worth living? What point is there to suffering anyway, again strictly in terms of suffering?

Did anyone say Helen Keller to these guys? Why do you have to have full command of all your senses in order for your life to have value? Does it show a defect in American society and the broader world that we (generally) do not allow euthanasia? Or does show a defect in those who want to be euthanized? It's a fair question to ask, no matter how many folks may think it crudely put. Is it okay to kill someone, even yourself, merely because you don't like your life for any reason?

We euthanize animals, don't we? Yes, but essentially because they are not sentient, they are not self aware. They do not have the obvious gifts which human beings do. They are below us. Their lives do not and cannot have the meaning ours can and do. They react; we reflect. We have an idea of the value of life; they do not. Equating people with the lower animals only goes to prove our point further: too many in modern times simply do not believe that human life has a dignity which badgers and beavers do not.

Did you have a choice in being born? No? Then why should you think you have a say in when you die?

We are not talking here about people taking actions, soldiers, for example, which might result in their death. They are not willing themselves to die but are rather willing to risk death for a cause greater than themselves. We are not mere animals; we are sentient, thinking beings on a much higher level. The voluntary risk of death by some is in fact a recognition that there are things about human society which must be preserved. Why? Because of our right to life, and our responsibility to live well and rightly.

In the end, our lives are not ours anyway. If so, we would have willed our births and not simply have had them foisted upon us. As it is, it is below the dignity of human life, even a willing human life, to kill itself merely to avoid anything, even suffering. Our lives are not so shallow as to be ended as with the dumb animals. Assisted suicide as such is not justice. Further, it is respect for the dignity of human life in any way, shape or form. It is killing a human being. Killing one. Society dresses the issue in prettier language simply because to state in in plain English might cause people to actually realize the evil inherent in such acts.

It is evil to pretty up death by suicide. Especially selfish ones which are below our intellect.