With such mental telepathy, I’m sure you are often the big winner in the Mohegan Sun poker room.

I agree he wasn’t psychologically healthy to begin with, and a variety of stresses, each of which would be endured by a healthier individual, contributed to this result.

And ever-malleable religious interpretation contributing as usual by providing a feedback loop of bullshit rationalization for whatever violent thing somebody happens to want to do anyway. As such it’s a symptom of a weak mind I think, rather than a cause of action.

CAvard, ten a month is too high. Ten a year is more like it.

I doubt very much that Mohammed Atta was a psychologically healthy individual but I doubt very much anyone would say that is a more imprtant factor than his nutty and dangerous ideas about religion.

Did anyone notice the Times story the other day reporting that, when he was a kid, Hasan would chew food and let his pet bird eat it out of his mouth? And that he mourned the bird’s death for months? This was not a psychologically healthy individual.

The urge to reduce the explanation of complex phenomena (what was going on in somebody’s mind) with easy labels seems irresistable–much more compelling than an admission that the real workings of the murderous mind are apt to be a constantly shifting hodgepodge of influences. Even if the perpetrator himself survives, he may not be able to truthfully articulate his own motivations to any satisfactory degree.

That’s intolerable. We need a a simple one or two-word explanation. Thus arguments about whether he was a terrorist, or was mentally ill, or had “secondary” PTSD. Or, to use a term from the pre-everything is terrorism era, “went postal”. Assigning such labels allows us the comfort of the illusion of understanding such an incomprehensible attack. Once the label is attached, we don’t have to think about it any more, and can move on to the next thing.