Even dogs are not safe from road rage drivers!

A Bichon Frise - NOT Leo.

Hundreds of innocent people, maybe more, are killed a year by upset drivers who become murderers the minute they get behind the wheel of their vehicles. Ironic to think the spokesman for road rage are not human beings but an innocent little white dog named Leo.

The dog was a ten-year-old Bichon Frise who belonged to driver Sara McBurnett in San Jose, Calif. The beloved pet lost its life when it was picked up and thrown into oncoming traffic by an irate driver last month.

McBurnett admitted rear ending a guy’s black sport-utility vehicle with Virginia license plates with her station wagon in a story by Washington Post reporter, Michael D. Shear, that appeared in the March 12, 2000 edition of The Dallas Morning News.

“I was going to say ‘sorry’ and apologize,” McBurnett said in the article.

But the killer, described as a “wiry man in his late 20s or early 30s with dark hair, a goatee and a baseball cap,” got out and started cursing at her.

“He seemed irrational,” she said in the story. “He didn’t take me on. He took on my little dog. What a coward.”

“It was the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen,” said one witness, a San Jose web developer whose name wasn’t used in the article, adding the guy got back in his car soon after.

“It looked like he was kind of debating what to do,” he said. “He went into the right turn lane and took off.”

According to the story, police at the time were pursuing the incident as an animal cruelty case with a $5,000 reward being offered for tips leading to the arrest of the suspect. The amount went from $5,000 to $40,000 in a matter of days as radio listeners and dog lovers from around the San Jose area and around the world sent pledges to a local station which enlisted the help of a humane society.

I first heard about the story March 3 on exite.com under the heading “Oddly Enough News.”

The story made me ill. It was even worse the following week when “Inside Edition” did a segment about McBurnett, the dog and the bizarre incident.

I could tell watching the segment that it was meant to play on people’s emotions as the sad, somber music was heard in the background and the camera zoomed in often on the portrait of Leo, his tongue sticking out to form a smile. I must say I had a lump in my throat after seeing it.

I would have thought the tabloid press was going too far with a story like this but then McBurnett asked on the “Inside Edition” segment, “What if this had been someone’s child?”

She has a point.

If some lunatic out there with serious personal problems is willing to grab someone’s beloved pet by the neck and throw it into oncoming traffic because they got rear ended, who is to say that person wouldn’t do the same thing to an infant or child?

When people called into San Jose radio shows, some listeners on the “Inside Edition” segment were quoted saying they’d like to throw the suspect into oncoming traffic and not stop.

Road rage, like kids carrying loaded guns to school, is becoming a rising epidemic with no clear solution. Last year, billboard signs were posted along Dallas highways that said something to the point of “Just keep it up with the bad attitude and I’ll make the traffic go even slower.”

It is obvious some advertising agency produced the clever sayings, but the messages were quoted by someone called “God.”

This year, a different approach is being taken to combat road rage. Billboard signs posted around the Dallas area ask drivers if they recall the ending of their favorite movie or if they remember their wedding day.

Some believe one way to cure road rage is to reconstruct the nation’s highways and make them wider. Personally, I think all that’s going to do is upset more idiot drivers who refuse to allow for such things to happen.

I am not an advertising major, but I do have an idea on addressing the issue of road rage. NBC could have a star from one of their hit television shows do another one of those “More you know” commercials. The station has been doing them for a few years now that feature stars like Frasier’s Kelsey Grammer and Law & Order’s Angie Harmon who offer tips like “talk to your kids.”

They can have a star from “Friends” introduce Leo the dog on a picture and talk about how he was the victim of someone’s road rage.

Perhaps he or she can add how some of the people watching this commercial might find it funny (because I know of some people who did find the incident humorous).

Then they ask the viewer to imagine, instead of a dog, this being their infant or child who is either assaulted or thrown into oncoming traffic.

The commercial could end with them saying something like “when someone on the road upsets you, take a deep breath and think about what you might do before doing it. Your actions could not only cost the lives of others, but your own as well.”

©4/19/00

My Personal Worst Films: The Omega Code (1999)

The Omega Code «½
PG-13, 100m. 1999

Cast & Credits: Casper Van Dien (Gillen Lane), Michael York (Stone Alexander), Catherine Oxenberg (Cassandra Barashe), Michael Ironside (Dominic), Jan Triska (Prophet No. 1), Gregory Wagrowski (Prophet No. 2), Devon Odessa (Jennifer Lane), William Hootkins (Sir Percival Lloyd), Robert Ito (Shimoro Lin Che), Janet Carroll (Dorothy Thompson), George Coe (Sen. Jack Thompson), Robert F. Lyons (General). Screenplay by Stephan Blinn and Hollis Barton. Directed by Robert Marcarelli.

"The Omega Code", an apocalyptic thriller, based on events supposedly foretold in The Bible’s Book of Daniel and Revelation, belongs in that pile of forgettable made-for-TV movies Hollywood made last year about the Y2K computer bug.

These are the kinds of films where the recordable tab on the side of the videocassette rentals ought to be restored so people can copy over them.

The film, which played in only a few theaters last October, was considered by its independent distributor, Gener8xion Entertainment, a success after making the list of top twenty most watched movies at the box office.

The unexpected triumph was enough that ABC News did a brief story about the picture and the audiences who were flocking to see it. The majority of patrons who paid to see The Omega Code were those faithful viewers of The Christian Broadcasting Network who promoted the end-of-the-world thriller on its local stations.

A woman interviewed by ABC commented how there was finally a movie out there now that followed her religious beliefs on how the final battle between Good and Evil, between God and the Antichrist, will take place.

Upon hearing that comment, I had to wonder if that person and I actually saw the same film. As far as independent productions are concerned, "The Omega Code" doesn’t have the clever believability, or perhaps I should say gullibility, of last summer’s "The Blair Witch Project" and lacks the juicy, witty dialogue of Quentin Tarantino’s "Pulp Fiction" (1994).

The film is completely devoid of any suspense. It has no hero worth rooting for and makes the mistake of portraying the Antichrist, who is played by Michael York ("Logan’s Run"-1976) into a likable character. It is true that movie villains are the most colorful characters who steal the show. "The Omega Code" was promoted as a religious movie and depending on one’s religious beliefs and how he or she was brought up, it would be wrong if the audience rooted for the devil.

The picture borrows ideas found in author Michael Drosnin’s 1997 controversial book, "The Bible Code." The book, like the film, follows the notion that The Bible has hidden mathematical equations in the form of crossword puzzles that reveal certain events past, present and future. They can only be translated in the Hebrew language with the use of computers.

The book said such things as the assassinations of Israeli President Yitzhak Rabin and JFK, the fiery end of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, and the Oklahoma City bombing were all mentioned in “The Good Book.” I didn’t believe a word it said but just imagine what director Oliver Stone ("JFK"-1991) could have done, or can still do, with such a project.

Ironically, "The Omega Code" cites only one reference that wasn’t even mentioned in Drosnin’s book thus making the picture even less believable. We meet Gillen Lane (Casper Van Dien), a popular motivational speaker and author who explains to a talk show audience how Princess Diana’s death in 1997 was foretold using this so called “Bible Code.” Lane mentions such phrases in The Bible that when translated reveal the words, “tunnel”, “Paris” and the number “5757” which mean the year 1997.

As a result of his beliefs, Lane is given the chance to work with Stone Alexander (York), a power hungry Middle Eastern politician who already has his hands on “The Bible Code” disc thanks to his personal bodyguard and former priest, Dominic (Michael Ironside). Alexander thinks Lane can unlock the final code that will reveal his destiny and bring about the apocalypse.

Soon Lane is overcome with visions of horsemen and hooded monks that don’t make much sense and realizes he has been sticking up for the wrong guy. The Bible Code’s revelations come up every ten minutes as the camera zooms in periodically on printouts found in Alexander’s underground computer center that say “rebirth of empire begins” and “ten horns unite world peace.”

Subplots are revealed that involve the destruction of Middle Eastern synagogues, presumably by Israeli and Palestinian forces, but why they occurred are never fully explained. What we do see is that Alexander is the only one who can bring about world peace.

We see two supernatural prophets preach the word of God throughout Jerusalem to anyone who will listen. The climax comes right out of a scene in "Star Wars" (1977) where the Death Star is bearing down on Princess Leia’s home planet. Remember when Leia (Carrie Fisher) tells Peter Cushing’s Governor Tarkin the supposed hidden location of the rebel base but the Empire blows up her home planet regardless?

When Lane reveals the final code to Alexander in an attempt to call off World War III, the political leader gives his armed forces the ok to attack anyway.

The only saving grace the film has is York who is one of my favorite actors. Like Sam Neill ("The Final Conflict"-1981), Jack Nicholson ("The Witches of Eastwick"-1987) and Al Pacino ("The Devil’s Advocate"-1997), all of whom have played the Prince of Darkness before him, York displays the same traits of his predecessors and has all the best lines.

“I was Judas leading Christ to the resurrection,” he tells Lane. “I was Hitler leading the Jews to extinction.”

York’s Alexander is handsome, impeccably dressed, and says things that make you think he is a man of great promise. When he is shot in the head midway through the film, (a prophecy also revealed on a computer printout), the world mourns the way they did when JFK was assassinated. When the leaders of seven nations come to Alexander’s bedside the minute he miraculously survives his head wound, the political leader calls it “a bedside summit.”

Is there really someone out there called the “Antichrist” who will one day call himself God and bring about the destruction of mankind? Some said the Antichrist was Hitler. When the Gulf War began in the late 80s, people rented the documentary, "The Man Who Saw Tomorrow" (1981), thinking Nostradamus’ references to a Middle Eastern prince was Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Some believe he, or “it”, is already here and is only a matter of time before they make themselves known.

I’d love to see a movie made that follows with what the Book of Revelation tells us. "The Omega Code" is not it. The film is nothing more than a cheap attempt for religious organizations to make it big in Hollywood. It doesn’t challenge, change much less question one’s beliefs on how the world will end. I believe the end of mankind will happen when the sun becomes a giant gas bubble and swallows up the entire solar system. That isn’t supposed to happen for another billion years.

Up until now, apocalyptic films have come in the forms of disaster movies where aliens in spaceships the size of pancakes destroy manmade landmarks like the White House ("Independence Day"-1996) and meteors “the size of Texas” ("Armageddon"-1998) threaten to put us into another ice age.

There is a group of books out now called the Left Behind series that in recent years has become so popular, authors Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins have written a separate series for kids. Both works are based on events discussed in the Book of Revelation.

The first novel appropriately titled, "Left Behind", begins in great detail how Israel’s enemies were miraculously destroyed by fire and large hailstones while certain people all over the world from passengers and flight crews in planes to automobile drivers suddenly disappeared into thin air for no apparent reason, leaving only their clothes and belongings behind. The result was a slew of traffic pileups and thousands of jets in the air either crashing or flying on autopilot.

I found those events in that book intriguing, if not horrifying than I did with Gillen Lane’s beliefs that mankind’s destiny, as well as Princess Diana’s, can all be found in “The Good Book.”

©2/28/2000

Farewell Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, Lucy...how can we ever forget you!

All good things end eventually.

It does not matter what that something is. Could be a favorite television show that ends due to low ratings or a long running comic book title that ceases publication due to lousy storylines and low sales.

Who would have thought the Peanuts comic strip, Charlie Brown, which according to the Jan. 1, 2000 issue of Newsweek, appears in 2,600 newspapers in 75 countries and 21 languages would come to an end, but it has.

The final weekly comic strip, published Jan. 3, 2000, featured that beloved beagle, Snoopy, sitting atop his wooden doghouse in front of a typewriter looking at a letter he just wrote to the millions of loyal fans.

The letter was from the strip’s creator, Charles M. Schulz, who announced his unexpected retirement late last November after being diagnosed by doctors with colon cancer.

“Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, Lucy...how can I ever forget them...” Schulz wrote.

The final Sunday Peanuts comic strip will appear in newspapers nationwide Feb. 13.

The thought of no more new Charlie Brown comic strips is like mourning the sudden death of a loved one.

I have probably read maybe 20 or 30 comic strips from the Peanuts gang in newspapers and books the past two decades. I cannot say I recall most of the plots except the ones involving Snoopy, who always stole the show and had a mind of his own. In the world of make believe, Snoopy was either the Red Baron, the flying ace from World War I, or an aspiring writer.

In a “Charlie Brown Christmas” (1965), perhaps the only animated holiday show I watch every year, I loved how the smart aleck, imaginative dog danced on his own and yelled “Boo” the moment Lucy announced his master would be in charge of the school play.

“Man’s best friend,” Charlie Brown later said sarcastically.

There were other things loyal fans related to as they read the comic strips.

“He’s independent, helpful and kind,” said 70-year-old Rollie Hester in the Today section of the Jan. 3, 2000, edition of The Dallas Morning News. “What more do you need to know about Charlie Brown?”

In the same section which ran a feature story about the comic strip ending, 17-year-old Kelly Hester related to the character Linus and his security blanket.

“I’ve had a teddy bear, T.J., ever since I was little,” she was quoted as saying.

As much as I cringe to say it, I too had kind of a security blanket when I was little. It was a stuffed dog I named "Bob" that I slept with until probably kindergarten. I assume it is still in the attic (not that I am needing it now or anything).

Seems several characters Schulz wrote about were really caricatures of himself. According to the same column in The Dallas Morning News, when Charlie Brown had a crush on a red-haired girl, the cartoonist modeled her after the love of his life who turned down his marriage proposal.

Schroeder’s love for piano playing Beethoven mirrored Schulz’s love for classical music while his devout Christian upbringing is instilled in Linus who often quoted from the bible.

Last month, the company I work for was giving away Christmas ornaments to all the employees. The one most everyone attempted to grab was the ornament of Snoopy since they knew it would now be worth money.

A coworker named Jerry Jones (yes, his name is Jerry Jones, and I am not referring to the owner of the Dallas Cowboys) had trouble figuring out the meaning of the Jan. 2 edition of the colorized Sunday Charlie Brown comic strip.

That is not at all surprising. Schulz told Newsweek the ideas do not come anymore and often struggled to find the right expression.

“Words are just gone,” Schulz said.

That comic featured a drenched Peppermint Patty during a football game asking “Chuck” what he was going to do with the ball. Finally, Marcie tells her that everyone has gone home and that she should also leave as well.

“We had fun, didn’t we Marcie,” Peppermint Patty said.

“Yes sir, we had fun,” Marcie replied.

Jerry eventually concluded this was Schulz’s way of saying he had fun writing Peanuts (a title the cartoonist has been quoted saying he hates) for close to 50 years.

Although there will be no new Charlie Brown strips to read, it is comforting to think that hopefully kids in the 21st century will not be quoting from the foul-mouthed disrespectful kids of “South Park” (1997).

Maybe they will relate to the characters and situations written in the old Charlie Brown comic strips dating back to 1950 which will run in newspapers across the country and perhaps the world.

If you think that would never happen, guess again.

Carlos Moreno, another coworker I know who takes immense pride at calling himself a “short timer”, told me that at the company meetings, the voices he hears from the supervisors are like those incomprehensible sounds’ adults uttered in the Peanuts specials.

A few weeks ago, I tried writing a film review of Oliver Stone’s football epic, “Any Given Sunday”. I only got as far as the second paragraph.

That was farther than Snoopy got when he tried to author the great American novel. He could only make it as far as the first line: “It was a dark and stormy night.”

“Good writing is hard work,” the beagle said.

How true.

©1/26/00

Bush’s lack of intellect doesn’t mean he can’t run the country

Perhaps one of the only joys I get out of going to work Friday afternoons is not the hour-long drive to McKinney.

It is that much of that hour is spent listening to the Rush Limbaugh show on WBAP at 1 p.m.

I never thought the day would come when I would say I am a student enrolled in the “Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies” until the night of Nov. 4, 1999.

That was the night Dallas based KDXA channel 5 news anchorwoman Jane McGarry said shortly before the 10 p.m. newscast that Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush Jr. failed his first political exam.

The exam was given by Andy Hiller, a political reporter for Boston based WHDH-TV, who asked Bush the name the leaders of Chechnya, Taiwan, India and Pakistan.

According to an article by the Associated Press in the Nov. 5, 1999, edition of The Dallas Morning News, Bush scored 25 percent on the quiz, getting only one question partially correct. The question was to name the leader of Taiwan. Bush said it was “Lee” referring to Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui.

I didn’t bother to find out that night what the channel 5 story was about. I knew, just as Limbaugh did, that this was just another bold attempt by the liberal press to bash a conservative presidential candidate and I was right.

Limbaugh immediately went on the offensive the next day and I enjoyed listening to every minute of it. I got to admit it. The guy makes sense at what he says. Bush failing a political exam was not news.

“Are you a journalist or a reporter,” the talk show host asked his “loyal listeners” but addressing, those liberals currently in the journalism profession and those planning on pursuing it.

Limbaugh continued saying Hiller fit his definition of a journalist defining him as someone who creates news for his own “self-aggrandizement.”

Hiller was not, in Limbaugh’s terms, a reporter which he defined as someone who goes, covers a story and reports what happened.

“The Doctor of Democracy”, a title Limbaugh goes by, was right on the money when he said if people are going to judge Bush’s intellect because of this quiz and say he is unfit to be president, then perhaps we ought to develop a whole new system on the way people apply for jobs.

Limbaugh suggested starting with Hillary Clinton who is running for senator of New York.

New Yorkers, for example, should ask her such questions as where Yankee Stadium is and how do you get there? How many people reside in the state of New York and how many of those citizens are registered voters? What the crime statistics for New York City over the past five years?

Such questioning, however, shouldn’t just apply to those running for political office. If someone applies to be a manager of a computer support helpdesk, the interviewer should not be concerned on whether the person managed a call center before that had a hold time of less than three minutes.

The interviewer should ask he/she such computer related questions as what do the letters “PC” stand for? What is a print queue? What is a mini hub? How do you go about setting up a store’s credit/debit card system?

The future manager of a computer support helpdesk doesn’t have to know how to unlock a store’s computer that has only a cursor on the screen. He or she has over 40 helpdesk personnel and supervisors who can address that problem for them.

It is not the president of the United States’ job to know who the world leaders are. He has advisors and researchers who do that for him.

It’s a good bet Hiller himself didn’t know who the leaders of those four countries were before he asked Bush. Chances are he had to look them up in a magazine or previous articles. If so, does that mean he doesn’t deserve to be a reporter? Does the fact Bush didn’t know the answers mean he can’t run the country? Of course not.

“I know what I can do,” Bush said in an interview with Time magazine Nov. 15, 1999. “I’ve never held myself out to be any great genius, but I’m plenty smart. And I’ve got good common sense and good instincts. And that’s what people want in their leader.”

That suits me just fine. I am more comfortable with Bush’s statement than I am that Democratic Vice President and presidential nominee Al Gore knew the answers to all four quiz questions.

For the record, those of you just dying to know the other three answers to Hiller’s questions, the president of Chechnya is Aslan Maskhadov. The prime minister of India is Atal Bihari Vajpayee and the general in charge of Pakistan is Pervaiz Musharraf.

Then again, how many of you reading this blog really want to know the answers to those questions? No one? Not one of you out there really gives a rat’s behind.

That’s how pointless the quiz Gov. Bush took was.

The only ones who gave a damn about it and made a big deal out of nothing was the liberal press.

©1/10/2000

New Ernor comic explores unique world of fantasy and magic

“Welcome to the world of Ernor!”

So says the opening line on page two of the new four-month-old independently published comic book.

The comic is a unique world of magic and cultures. It is the story of two different creatures; one of them is the Fenrae (pronounced Fen-ray) who exhibit wolflike qualities but aren’t necessarily wolves, and the Chic’tr (pronounced Chick-tear), a pack of six-legged insect-like creatures who look a lot like ants and have two sharp claws at the front of their mouths that extend outward.

“Ernor” (pronounced Air-Nor) is a story of survival. The publication is a six-issue bimonthly mini-series created by Patrick and Vicky Morgan-Keith, a couple in McKinney, Texas who have been artists all their lives.

“We always wanted to do a comic book,” Patrick said. “Both Vicky and I had been doing some of our own stuff for several years.”

“We eventually found out that both of us had had this similar interest since childhood,” Vicky added. “We both had been drawing since we were kids.”

Vicky, who received her degree in art from Lamar University in Beaumont, Tx., said animation from Disney movies, Don Bluth and such Japanese animation series like “Marine Boy”, inspired her to become an artist.

Patrick’s interest in animation happened when he first saw the cartoon “Speed Racer”.

The first issue of “Ernor” debuted in most comic bookstores across the country in July. The second issue arrived in September and the third is expected to hit stores sometime in November.

The Keiths originally planned on publishing the title as a series of novels.

“We were working on the first book of that and had done twenty-some-odd chapters through the conclusion,” Patrick said. “We only had a few more chapters to go and we thought about the hassle that was involved in sending it to publishers and dealing with someone else looking at our stuff.”

After receiving a number of positive responses from friends who had seen their work, the Keiths decided to self-publish the title as a comic book and formed their own company, Mprints Publishing, which the two operate out of their own home.

The title is currently distributed by Diamond Comics Distributors, which previews upcoming issues from a number of well-known publishers that include Marvel, DC and Dark Horse as well as a number of titles from independent companies like the Keiths.

“We have total creative control over our title,” Patrick said. “They are our characters. We have the rights to the comic book. Diamond does not have any say on the subject matter.”

Diamond does, however, ask that all publishers list what age group their titles are geared for since some of the stories today fall under adult categories equivalent to R and even NC-17 movies. But “Ernor”, the Keiths say is for most everyone including young kids. It is not geared to just one group of people.

Both share the publishing duties which include the drawing of the characters, typing out the dialogue and storylines and getting the issues scanned into QuarkXPress and Adobe Photoshop. Between the two of them, the couple can only come out with an issue every other month.

“There are only two of us doing the comic,” Patrick said. “It takes Vicky two weeks to a month to pencil 22 pages and then it takes us ten days to a week to do the inking if we can both get involved with that. Putting it on the computer and doing the lettering takes about two days.”

The idea for “Ernor” struck about four years ago after the Keiths played a Dungeons and Dragons type game with a few friends.

“Basically, I used the D & D rules for the game that we played,” Patrick said. “I created the characters and the setting, which is now Ernor, and named mountain ranges and forests for my characters to run around in.”

The rules for Dungeons & Dragons require that the player have a list of abilities for each of the characters he or she creates, Patrick added. “We used the D & D rules as sort of a framework to tell the story so if another person was wanting to attack an opponent or hunt down an animal, they would use the game stats I gave them to see what the outcome would be.”

“You have guidelines for these characters but as far as their personality goes, that is something each player makes up,” he said.

Both Keiths agree that doing the role playing allowed other people to come up with different situations neither might have come up with on their own.

“You get a lot of ideas other than just brainstorming yourself. True, I can have that character run off and do this or I can have them react a certain way. But...if you turn that character over to somebody else, you are going to be surprised by how they react in a certain situation,” Patrick said.

Dungeons and Dragons was not the only basis for the Ernor story.

“I have read about and watched shows and videos on all different kinds of animals on the Discovery Channel but in particular, wolves, and what I wanted to do was come up with an anthropomorphic story that hasn’t been done before,” Patrick said.

In other words, the animals aren’t necessarily human beings with emotional human qualities.

“I didn’t want to do that,” Vicki said.

Patrick said the main character and hero in “Ernor”, Whitepaw, is a wolf-like creature but he and the pack are not actual wolves.

“Whitepaw is a character I created a long, long time ago and compared to some early drawings that I have done of him, he has grown up some since then,” Vicky said. “Hask is a character Patrick came up with.”

The six issue series is going to be all about Whitepaw’s pack.

“Their territory has been invaded by these antlike creatures and so Whitepaw kind of goes off on his own to get help and that’s pretty much what the story is about, the adventures that he has along the way and the other creatures of Ernor that he runs into,” Patrick said. “He is pretty much a little puppy when he starts out, so he does not really know about the world around him. He just knows about his pack.”

“Throughout the series, Whitepaw will have to deal with not just his own prejudices that he has been brought up to learn but deal with the prejudices of the other creatures and cultures in order to reach some sort of agreement so they can all work together to defend themselves against this invasion. The ant creatures aren’t evil,” Patrick warned.

And this is only the beginning.

The couple are already planning a second “Ernor” mini-series next summer.

“There is another series I would like to do but that is some time down the road,” Vicky said. “We will see how “Ernor” goes. I do have a one shot (individual story) idea I want to do. If we get far enough ahead on Ernor that I have some time to kind of slip it in, I will do that.”

The couple, who have been to two comic book conventions this year to promote their series, have also discussed doing an anthology where other authors and comic book artists will submit their own stories to be published.

“The anthology we had in mind was another anthropomorphic comic which would rely solely on contributions from other people. You would have in the same issue two to three stories; however, many would fit that are six or seven pages long,” Patrick said. “We’re not really set up at this point to start taking submissions but hopefully soon.”

The couple have already received encouraging letters from readers as far as Hawaii who commented how much they enjoyed the first issue.

Someone from Germany even sent Patrick an email to their website (http://www.ernor.com/).

The “Comic Buyer’s Guide” recently gave their seal of approval to Ernor with an A-.

The Keiths said they are confident the title will be successful.

“We’re hoping by the second storyline (second mini-series), we’ll be able to publish in color,” Vicky said. “But again, our readership may not want that. They may want us to stick with the black and white format. So far, the feedback has been really positive so we feel pretty good about it.”

Vicky said she doesn’t think there are any characters in comic books like the ones she and her husband are doing right now so to her, it seems like they are pretty original.

©11/3/99

Mental illness cited as reason for shooter’s rage

A couple days after Larry Gene Ashbrook walked into the Wedgwood Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas wounding several people and killing seven others before turning the gun on himself, a friend asked me if I was going to write a column about the latest in a tragic series of mass shootings.

My response to his question was what would my column be about and what would I call it? Columbine Part II? That’s what some of the Dallas area news anchors who covered the Fort Worth tragedy live the night of Sept. 15 made brief references to.

When gunmen Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold opened fire on their classmates at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado last April, one of the shooters reportedly asked a young woman if she believed in God. When she said yes, for no reason other than having no respect for human life, shot her.

I have heard and read all the reasons why mass murderers have taken their rage out on society in such places as the bell tower at the University of Texas in Austin, in restaurants like the McDonald’s in California and Luby’s in Killeen, Texas, in post offices and in day trading companies. The reasons stemmed from unemployment, family and financial problems, work related issues to relationships with women.

One possible reason for the Fort Worth shootings was that Ashbrook couldn’t hold down a job and was in danger of losing the home which his father, who died in July, was paying for.

But then I read a front-page article in the Sept. 19, 1999 edition of The Dallas Morning News that boasted the headline, “Mental illness called the root of killer’s rage.”

The article quoted medical experts who said Ashbrook suffered from “apparent mental illness, undiagnosed and untreated.” According to the story, Dr. Saundra Gilfillan, medical director of psychiatric emergency services at Parkland Memorial Hospital, said Ashbrook “fit the profile of someone at grave risk of turning to murder-suicide: paranoid, delusional, angry and isolated.”

This is not the first time mental illness has been cited as a reason for gun violence.

The Nov. 28, 1994 issue of Time stated when Joseph Wesbecker, an out-of-work pressman walked into his former place of employment in Louisville, Kentucky Sept. 14, 1989, and opened fire, he was suffering from depression at the time and was taking Prozac. Eric Harris was also reportedly taking prescribed medications.

It makes me sick when innocent lives are senselessly cut short by someone else. But what turns my stomach even more is when society and legislators play the blame game every time a mass shooting happens. When ex-Beatle John Lennon was assassinated at the hands of a deranged fan 19 years ago, Congress began passing a number of gun control laws involving the sale and use of handguns and automatic weapons, according to a December 1980 issue of Time. Not one of those laws it seems has done an ounce of good.

Someone should explain to congress that outlawing automatic weapons isn’t going to stop the mentally ill or distraught individuals from getting their hands on other types of guns.

Society fingered law enforcement agencies and high school administrators for overlooking the ominous warning signs Harris and Klebold displayed in public. It took people less than 48 hours after the Columbine shootings to phone complaints to area video stores asking they pull such films as “The Basketball Diaries” (1995) from their shelves because the movies influence kids to go on shooting sprees. Society senselessly, I might add, blamed rock groups like Marilyn Manson and the Internet for the student’s actions.

It’s not law enforcement, Hollywood, high school administrators, the Internet, people who sell guns or the gun manufacturers. Not even the guns themselves.

The blame rests in the hands of the person(s) who pulled the trigger. But it’s not only limited to them. The blame also rests on the families of the individuals who did little or nothing to get the person any medical attention or failed to see the warning signs.

By all accounts it seems, the Ashbrook family certainly didn’t. According to the same Sept. 19, 1999, column in The Dallas Morning News, a spokesman for the family said they were not aware if the gunman had ever been diagnosed with a mental illness.

Until families of possible mentally ill people start caring about what their loved ones are going through, until parents start giving a damn about what their kids are doing under their roofs and stop worrying about their careers and material things, mass shootings like the ones at Columbine and Wedgwood Baptist Church will continue to happen.

If you notice a friend, family member, or coworker is going through some serious problems, then for God’s sake don’t ignore it and don’t make fun of them.

Get them help and if you can’t afford the medical expenses or have the time, find someone who can.

Don’t wait until a major tragedy strikes because by then, it will be too late.

When it happens again, the people I am going to blame other than the person or persons who carried out the atrocious acts will be their families who either did little to help or simply ignored them.

©11/17/99