This week we saw the controversy nationally of the Rolling Stone cover portraying the Boston Marathon bomber as though he were a rock star. That spawns local columnist Debra DeAngelo to opine about “When monsters have the face of angels, and the uncomfortable nature of journalism.”
She writes, “So, this week, when the angelic face of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a morph of Jim Morrison and Eros, peers out at us from under the iconic RS logo, it’s not out of character. The Tsarnaev feature is just another step on Rolling Stone’s investigative journalism path.
“Is the cover pleasant? Hell no. It twists your gut. Pinches your soul. Tweaks your sensibilities: How did this baby-faced, tousled teenager wreak terror, havoc and death on one of America’s most beloved cities at one of America’s most beloved events? Monsters are supposed to be hideous. Yet, that face – it doesn’t make any sense. But, then consider the headline and sub-headline: The Bomber – How a Popular, Promising Student Was Failed by His Family, Fell Into Radical Islam and Became a Monster.”
She makes an interesting point because quite frankly the same could have been made locally as young Daniel Marsh walked into the courtroom of Department 2, Judge Timothy Fall. The courtroom packed with friends, family, and media members.
And what you see is not a monster, but a boyish kid, looking far younger than his 16 years. The diminutive size and youthful appearance stood in marked contrast to the brutal nature of the crime he is accused of committing. One prosecutor outside of the courthouse quipped about the appearance of the defendant and the incongruity to the crime, noting that he resembled his paperboy more than a double murderer.
We want our bad guys to be unambiguous, thugs, scary, a reminder that there is evil in the world and that we are good.
In the past two years, we have had two relatively easy high profile murder trials. Marco Topete who killed Sheriff’s Deputy Tony Diaz was easy enough to morph into evil. He certainly fit the role even if those closer to him might disagree. Then you have Richard Hirschfield, who was convicted of the 1980 murder of two UC Davis students.
Each of those cases rocked the core of a key community in their times and yet, in a way the Daniel Marsh murder may end up being so much worse and more difficult.
Marco Topete, already had a long and troubled history, spent time in the SHU at Pelican Bay, was a noted gang member when encountered Deputy Tony Diaz on that ill-fated day. And yet, Deputy Diaz was merely in the wrong place at the wrong time, pursuing a dangerous criminal disparate to avoid going back to prison, perhaps this time for life.
Mr. Hirschfield was in his early 30s when he killed John Riggins and Sabrina Gonsalves, both 18, on December 20, 1980. He kidnapped the young couple, slashed their throats and dumped their bodies in a ravine near Lake Natoma in the Folsom area.
The jury foreperson was unambiguously in favor of the death penalty, telling the news, “He’s an animal, you know, plain and simple.”
The trial of Daniel Marsh will be far more difficult to deal with. We will get a taste of it in September when the preliminary hearing comes on and all of the evidence that prosecutors and police have been jealously guarding for months will come out and they will be horrific.
It is easy to dismiss Richard Hirschfield as an animal, easy to dismiss Marco Topete as a career criminal and gang member, there will be no such comfort in Daniel Marsh. He is your kid, growing up in the small town, troubled but no real criminal history, no history of violence.
We have heard the stories, bullied, depression, suicide attempts, and now this. We have not heard what this is – but the word the Vanguard has gotten is that it will be a shocking blow to this community because we will not be immediately able to write this kid of as a monster, he is after all one of us.
But there is more to this story. The Topete trial provided us with the drama of the victim. Whether it was locking out the media and the public at the arraignment, the screams of the victim’s family during opening statements, or the angry and bitter comments throughout, the DA gained much mileage parading the victim’s family through the courthouse with the victim’s support staff in tow.
This trial will be a different scene.
We already got a taste of this with comments by the victim’s daughter to the press.
She said, “I thought, ‘It’s a 16-year-old. It’s a kid. Why would a kid want to kill an 87-year-old father? My father would be the first to jump up to defend that kid.’ “
She said. “I’m sorry we’ve suffered for his poor judgment. But I’m also sorry for this young man who has ruined his life.”
Ms. Northup told the Enterprise, “My dad would say, ‘At 16, they should know better, but they can’t think clearly… If this person did it, they need to make compensation, or get better if this is someone who needs mental health help.
“But I’m not into revenge, and I don’t think my father would be into revenge,” she added.
Oliver Northup was not just an attorney – he was a death penalty attorney. He defended the worst of the worst. People just like the person who ultimately ended his life.
Those who knew Mr. Northup well have told the Vanguard he would have been a critic of such youth sentencing policies that would put this kid away for 50 years to life.
In fact, it may well be that the victim’s family instead of expressing anger and outrage, continue to ask for forgiveness and compassion.
In a way that will make things all the more uncomfortable as the lines between good and evil become blurred and the community is forced to accept what may become very uncomfortable truths.
I agree with the prosecutor, it is better when the evil looks evil and everything is unambiguous. It is not that things never work that way, it is just that they do not always work that way.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
DG writes: [quote]We want our bad guys to be unambiguous, thugs, scary, a reminder that there is evil in the world and that we are good.[/quote]
“WE?” Really?
By golly; and all this time I believed monsters were defined by their conduct (or as the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. opined -paraphrased – by the content of their character)?
“Beauty is an enormous, unmerited gift given randomly, stupidly.”
Excerpt From: Hosseini, Khaled. “And the Mountains Echoed.”
David wrote:
> This week we saw the controversy nationally of the
> Rolling Stone cover portraying the Boston Marathon
> bomber as though he were a rock star.
I would re-write this to say:
“This week the media pretended that there was a “controversy” when Rolling Stone (a magazine that most people who’s parents are younger than the actual Rolling Stones have never even looked at) ran a photo of the (alleged) Boston Marathon Bomber that has previously been featured the front page of the NY Times and hundreds of other newspapers and magazines without any controversy”.
P.S. More Americans read Golf Digest and Cooking Light than Rolling Stone…
[quote]“This week the media pretended that there was a “controversy” when Rolling Stone (a magazine that most people who’s parents are younger than the actual Rolling Stones have never even looked at) ran a photo of the (alleged) Boston Marathon Bomber that has previously been featured the front page of the NY Times and hundreds of other newspapers and magazines without any controversy”.[/quote]
Did the media make this up?
[quote]http://dailycaller.com/2013/07/17/companies-boycott-rolling-stone-wont-sell-issue/
[/quote]
[quote] as the lines between good and evil become blurred[/quote]
Maybe if we didn’t present things in simplistic, dichotomous terms it wouldn’t be so hard to accept that people and behavior are complicated.
[i]Maybe if we didn’t present things in simplistic, dichotomous terms it wouldn’t be so hard to accept that people and behavior are complicated.[/i]
I don’t think we need to worry so much about their behavior being complicated in terms of criminality. In fact doing so contributes to us being unable to effectively create and maintain a safe society. Throughout history we have plenty of lessons for the dangers of injecting too much nuance into the heinous behavior of criminals. However, I do agree that the root of behavior is often complicated.
I find great absurdity in people giving care to criminals that commit what should be zero-tolerance crimes. Many of these criminals lived in a world of relative invisibility and external apathy before they committed their heinous act… which only then resulted in personal attention and external consideration of their humanness. We lament his upbringing, his lack of mental health care, his being influenced by others, etc., etc., etc. We wring out hands over “why” and desperately try to define him. I would prefer that we just switch off our care about them, and return to being apathetic to their existence as if they ceased to exist. I statement “you are dead to me” comes to mind.
Rolling Stone and other media should focus on the victims and the potential victims. Instead they do the opposite. They forget about the victims and the living, and instead focus all attention on these walking dead criminals that should be forfeited any consideration of their humanness as a result of their heinous act.
Having been raised in the Judeo-Christian tradition and being a practicing pan-theistic humanist, I can manage compassion for all of us. I think it diminishes all of our humanness when anyone is considered less than human . Part of maintaining a safe and healthy society is differentiating between antisocial behaviours which are acquired and may be modified environmentally and those which are native/sociopathic and require more aggressive/invasive approaches . In no instance should we be less than humane.
The great lapse of responsibility on the Media’s part,imo, is their failure to express the rarity of such events in daily life. Fuel for the fear mongers, I think.
Time magazine has long featured scoundrels as their “Person of the Year”.Rolling Stone is just infotainment for the boomer generation .
Biddlin ;>)/
Frankly
[quote]I would prefer that we just switch off our care about them, and return to being apathetic to their existence as if they ceased to exist. I statement “you are dead to me” comes to mind. [/quote]
And predictably, I feel very differently about this. I believe that it is the inability to care about another is likely what prompts these crimes in the first place. Lack of compassion and caring for another allows the perception that they are less than human. What difference does it make how one comes by that outlook ?
If we refuse compassion for those who commit crimes, we accept that their way of seeing the world is acceptable under certain circumstances. We then move that much closer to what we claim to abhor.
We should instead be concentrating on building into our individual lives and into our society as a whole more, not less, compassion and understanding.
Its very sad.
Can only imagine this kid has had a hard life; and if he is indeed found guilty; his life will not likely get any better–this intelligent and sensitive kid is entering a continuing nightmare, with no way out.
Seems maybe a combination of parents bitter divorce and school bullying (and maybe some other factors; underlying psychological predispositions) pushed this kid over the edge into psychosis. Makes me take more seriously allegations of bullying in Davis; just because Davis has a lot of smart kids doesn’t mean some of them are not capable of cruel and sadistic bullying–and a smart bully is more capable than a stupid bully of discerning what kind of treatment and words will inflict the most psychological torment on the victim.
[quote]We lament his upbringing, his lack of mental health care, his being influenced by others, etc., etc., etc. We wring out hands over “why” and desperately try to define him.[/quote]
I lament the consequences of all these things. Maybe if Daniel had had a different life, one with more support and help Chip Northrup and Claudia Maupin would still be alive.
“Seems maybe a combination of parents bitter divorce and school bullying (and maybe some other factors; underlying psychological predispositions) pushed this kid over the edge into psychosis….”
Just curious where you came up with the two factors for your analysis, jimt, and how you were able to determine that they pushed him “over the edge into psychosis?
[quote]“When most people blame others, they do so because that is easier than to acknowledge life’s complexity or to search within for the sources of their unhappiness.”[/quote]
Dennis Prager
“Dennis Prager”
that tells me all i need to know about you.
Davis Progressive, being that you probably get most of your news from MSNBC I’m surprised you know anything about Dennis Prager.
msnbc is crap. i rarely watch tv, but if i do it’s not msnbc. try again.
If you say so.
you’re just rude by nature?
I just call em like I see em.
Stop, please.
Don’t you think your post to AdRemmer was rude?
I would guess that DP listens to NPR, whatches PBS and primarily reads the SFC and the NYT for his news. He probably frequents the Huffington Post for his new media source of leftist propoganda.
But I have to point out that DP’s dismissal of Dr. Prager and slight that he can dismiss a person that listens to him, and then his next slight calling someone rude for doing the same type of thing to him… well let’s just say that is classic liberal. The “dish it out but can’t take” syndrome is alive and well in many of them. In fact, this is why these folks allign themselves with victims groups of every stripe. Their affiliation becomes their social “human shield” of protection for being able to lob insults at those mean, nasty righties without having to accept returns in kind. At least this is what they would like to believe they are entitled to.
“Don’t you think your post to AdRemmer was rude?”
politically pointed, but not necessarily rude. praeger is a right winger, far right winger and not someone most mainstream people would site.
you then asked me a question and i answered it honestly and your response was a snide “If you say so.”
frankly makes a lot of assumptions. i don’t listen to npr, don’t watch pbs, not sure was sfc is, chronicle? yuck. occasionally the times. rarely if ever the huffington post.
am i blowing your stereotypes out?
AdRemmer
““When most people blame others, they do so because that is easier than to acknowledge life’s complexity or to search within for the sources of their unhappiness.”
I believe that there is much truth in this statement. For me, it does not matter that it is quoted from Dennis Prager. It could just as well have been spoken by any number of religious and or political leaders. Would we agree more or less with the statement if it were attributed to
Abraham Lincoln, or Mahatma Gandhi, or Jesus, or Nelson Mandela, or Martin Luther King, all who would doubtless have appreciated the message of addressing our own shortcomings before attacking those of others ?
In the context of your post, however, it is unclear to me what you meant. Were you implying that those who are speculating about the factors that led to this crime are somehow themselves to blame ? Are you implying that there is no responsibility to consider the factors in the hopes of preventing future such events ? Or do you believe that evil exists in a vacuum and that only a single individual has culpability in a crime and therefore only the criminal need look inward ? I am sorry. I don’t mean to be obtuse. I simply am not grasping the intent of your post.
There is a clear difference in opinion/sentiment here that I find refreshing in helping to explain ideological differences on crime and punishment. But, at the same time, I find this tendency to shift criminals to the victim camp quite disturbing… and in cases like the Boston bombing I find it substantially abhorrent.
Seriously, I see those that demonstrate their feelings of sympathy for a murderer like Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as contributing to the occurrence of those events when the motivations of the murderers are often some twisted cry for attention. People give that attention and cause the next twisted evil soulless heap of disgusting humanity motivation to do the same.
Explain something to me. How is it that we must endure zero tolerance for words spoken 27 years ago that offend someone today (Paula Dean) and then demand tolerance and sympathy for someone that sets of a bomb in a crowd with clear intend of killing, and succeeding in blowing an eight year old boy in half, killing his sister and destroying the brain of their mother… AND causing life-long disabilities and overwhelming pain and suffering to scores of other people?
Somewhere along the way we have lost our collective ability to apply common sense. As they say, it appears that the patients are running the asylum. Maybe that answers the question… crazy is as crazy does.
frankly: some interesting thoughts there.
my thought is why can’t you have both sympathy for victims and perpetrators alike and yet enact an appropriate punishment? however, you choose to get there, the question is really what is the appropriate punishment for a crime? right?
Frankly
“well let’s just say that is classic liberal. The “dish it out but can’t take” syndrome is alive and well in many of them. In fact, this is why these folks allign themselves with victims groups of every stripe. Their affiliation becomes their social “human shield” of protection for being able to lob insults at those mean, nasty righties without having to accept returns in kind. At least this is what they would like to believe they are entitled to.”
How about if we just say that this is classic “extremist” thought and can be easily found on both ends of the political spectrum.
Could we not as truthfully say the same about those who hurtle the words ” moochers and looters” or disdainfully wield the words ” bleeding heart liberals.” ? When political, religious or cultural standards are perceived as being threatened it is a human tendency to become defensive and rather than try to find practical solutions, it is easier to name call and stereotype the beliefs of “the other”. Neither side of the political spectrum has a monopoly or even a preponderance of this behavior.
I finally found the Rolling Stone article online and read it. It is an interesting portrayal of how the young man seemingly got caught up in the increasing radicalism of his brother. It gives one pause to think how those dynamics might be playing out in other families. I don’t think it particularly glorified anyone. I don’t see anyone, here or elsewhere, ‘demanding tolerance’ for the perpetrators of the acts in Boston.
Mr. Prager’s quote could just as easily have come from a psychologist or a self-help guru. I find almost nothing in common with most of his writings. He has no respect for my values, and the feeling is mutual.
As to the Davis case, I find it odd that David Greenwald repeatedly refers to the family’s comments about forgiveness. We haven’t even gotten to the evidence yet. I also have little patience for those who ascribe psychotic, sociopathic, viciously violent behavior to anything related to upbringing, environment, or difficult life experiences.
” I find it odd that David Greenwald repeatedly refers to the family’s comments about forgiveness. We haven’t even gotten to the evidence yet.”
don’t you think david probably knows a lot more about this case than what he can share at this time? i knew chip a little bit and i find it consistent with what i knew about him. also, i have heard that family members are working with the defense rather than the prosecution in this case.
“my thought is why can’t you have both sympathy for victims and perpetrators alike and yet enact an appropriate punishment? however, you choose to get there, the question is really what is the appropriate punishment for a crime? right?
My thought is “why focus on appropriate ‘punishment’? Would it not be more appropriate to ficus on prevention of future such atrocities?
My preferred focus would be on maximizing individual and societal safety. Deterrence has two aspects, one of which seems to be effective, the second demonstrably not so. If by deterrence, it is meant preventing the specific individual once convicted from perpetrating another such crime, then isolation from the rest of society either through incarceration or hospitalization would seem appropriate. If what is meant by deterrence is
Preventing others from behaving in the same manner, I would say that our societies approach has been to date a stellar failure with others who hold similar beliefs actually being encouraged to follow in the footsteps of those they perceive as heroes and/or martyrs. I fail to see any purpose in focusing on ‘”punishment”. Perhaps someone can explain to me how they believe “punishment” helps.
Re:JustSaying “Just curious where you came up with the two factors for your analysis, jimt, and how you were able to determine that they pushed him “over the edge into psychosis? “”
I’m very careful with my use of words. Notice I used the word “Seems” to qualify this sentence; to indicate that I did not attribute certitude to my statement; i.e. the statement is not a contention of fact–I can’t help but speculate on this since it seems so bizzare to me.
The two factors I brought up were mentioned as being in his background, by major news sources. Perhaps the kid felt he had no refuge at home or school(I acknowledge this is pure speculation on my part);was overwhelmed and had some kind of psychotic break (such breaks are often induced by chronic and/or acute stress in those vulnerable people who have limited coping skills.
From Wikipedia (admittedly a source of info. not certified for accuracy):
“Many things can cause temporary psychosis. Environmental triggers, such as losing a loved one, are known to contribute, as may excessive stress,[3] or the interaction of strong social demands with a pre-existing vulnerability of self.[4]
Other causes that have been identified include lack of sleep, fever, brain damage, and even hypnosis.[5]
War/battlefield experience may also trigger a psychotic break:[6] when reality becomes unbearable, the mind temporarily breaks with it.[7]”
My intent is not to find or assign blame to anyone; but to try to understand what factors may have contributed to such extreme behavior–of course this may all be premature; we don’t know if it has been conclusively demonstrated that he indeed did the killings.