What Caught My Eye Today

Nebraska - Tragically, stories like this one are becoming more and more common...The 19 year old man who killed eight people and committed suicide in a shooting rampage at a department store in Omaha, Nebraska spent four years in a series of treatment centers, group homes and foster care after threatening to kill his stepmother in 2002. After reviewing surveillance tape, a suicide note and the man's last conversations with those close to him, police said they don't know exactly why he went to the Von Maur store at Westroads Mall and shot more than a dozen people. But he clearly planned ahead, walking through the store, exiting, then returning a few minutes later with a gun concealed in a balled-up sweatshirt he was carrying, authorities said. He went through a series of institutions in Nebraska as he progressed through the system: months at a treatment center and group home in Omaha in 2003; time in a foster care program and treatment center in 2004 and 2005; then a felony drug-possession charge later in 2005. Officials said the court records do not identify the drug. Under state law, wards are released when all sides — parents, courts, social workers — agree it is time for them to go. Once the man was set free, he was entirely on his own. He was no longer under state supervision, and was not released into anyone's custody. It's difficult to say what went wrong here. One could argue that the system failed, but I don't think that solves anything and it certainly won't bring back any of the victims. From what I can gather, there were attempts to reach out to the man before he went on his rampage. And you certainly cannot blame law enforcement for this. No one ever plans for this sort of thing to happen. As is so often the case with a tragedy like this there are so many questions and few, if any, answers.

Okay, then. Let's move onto the rest of this screwed up world...

Iran - NATO foreign ministers agreed to stay the course in seeking fresh measures at the United Nations to persuade Iran to stop uranium enrichment and reprocessing despite a new U.S. intelligence report that concluded the country halted it nuclear weapons ambitions in 2003. The ministers accepted the Bush administration argument that Iran remains a threat and needs to be treated as such. Iran strongly opposes Israel's existence and frequently boasts of its ability to strike the Jewish state with long-range missiles. Tehran insists it is enriching uranium only for peaceful energy production; but the U.S. notes that it also could produce the ingredients for a bomb. President Bush has also demanded that Tehran detail its previous program to develop nuclear weapons — "which the Iranian regime has yet to acknowledge." I suppose it should be construed as a positive thing that the U.S. still maintains some amount of stature in NATO. Still with Russia and China having veto authority, I don't see much hope for another round of U.N. sanctions being imposed. The irony here is that you could make the argument that sanctions are the reason that Iran stopped its alleged nuclear arms program back in 2003 and that more could be gained if additional pressure was applied in the form of new sanctions.

2008 Presidential Race - I have a two-fer for you today. First up, Mitt Romney...

Mitt Romney said his Mormon faith should neither help nor hinder his quest for the White House and vowed to serve the interests of the nation, not the church, if elected president. After declining for months to address the issue of his Mormonism directly, Romney switched course as polls showed widespread unease about his religion — and showed him losing his once-sizable lead in the opening Iowa caucuses to Mike Huckabee, a Baptist minister and former governor of Arkansas. Romney said some believe that a forthright embrace of his religion will "sink my candidacy. If they are right, so be it. But I think they underestimate the American people." I'm still not going to vote for the dude, but it is unfortunate that he had to address this in the first place. Whatever happened to the concept of 'freedom of religion'? Is there small print somewhere in the Bill of Rights or the Constitution that specifies which religions presidential candidates are free to choose from?

And then we have Hilary Clinton. While I'm sure every vote is happily received, I'm not sure this particular endorsement is going to matter much to the Senator.

The one-time other woman in Hillary Rodham Clinton's life says she's considering casting her vote for the former first lady. "I can't help but want to support my own gender, and she's as experienced as any of the others — except maybe Joe Biden," Gennifer Flowers said in a recent telephone interview. Flowers said she is still undecided, supports abortion rights and has long wanted to see a woman in the White House. "I would love to see a woman president, I just didn't think it would be her," Flowers said. In the 1992 presidential race, the former television reporter claimed to have had a 12-year affair with then-candidate and Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton. Clinton initially denied the allegation, but later, during his deposition in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case, acknowledged a single sexual encounter with Flowers. Don't you just love all these hard hitting stories leading up to the Presidential nominations and election next year? The depressing aspect of this story is that we're only in December. We've got to endure another 11 months of this stuff.

Jurisprudence - Kiefer Sutherland was sentenced Wednesday to 48 days in jail for racking up a second drunken-driving arrest in three years and immediately reported to a city lockup. Sutherland, who pleaded no contest in October to driving with a blood-alcohol level above the legal limit of .08, appeared in court with his attorney and politely answered the judge's questions. His request to serve his time at the Glendale city jail was granted and he was ordered to complete the sentence by March 30 but elected to begin serving his sentence immediately. The actor was already on probation for a 2004 drunken-driving arrest when he was stopped by police as he left a Hollywood industry party at the trendy Area nightclub on Sept. 25. Authorities said he failed a field sobriety test after being pulled over for making an illegal U-turn. Sutherland will serve his sentence at Glendale city jail, but under a county jail inmate program because of overcrowding. He must serve all 48 days. The Glendale jail is a minimum security facility with 48 cells, each of them measuring 10 feet by 8 feet. They come equipped with two beds, a toilet, washbasin and water fountain, but Sutherland won't be sharing his cell with anyone. Is it just me or is there a double standard being applied here? If memory serves me correctly, Paris Hilton served something like 3 days of a 3 week sentence and Lindsay Lohan didn't even make it to her cell before she was released. I'm not saying that boyfriend should get off scott-free, but if the courts are going to make him do the time, so should all the rest of those celebrities.

And finally, to end things, hopefully, on a light note...

Sleeping - Victoria Beckham goes to bed naked. And she's got a very good reason — her husband. "You don't sleep with David Beckham," the 33-year-old Posh Spice said in an interview appears in the January issue of Elle magazine. "I'm going to be naked if I'm getting in bed with him every night!" So there you have it. I'm sure we'll all have pleasant dreams with that image in mind.