CHARACTER JUDGES

Has there ever been one of those multiple homicide guys who was not remembered as "the nicest guy in the world?" You never hear anybody telling reporters: "He was are a real psycho, a ticking time bomb. I knew he'd do something horrible! Why didn't anybody stop him before he killed the whole town?" Seems we're not the judges of character we fancy ourselves. Look at this Bernie Madoff guy who stole 65 billion dollars. His nickname was "The Wizard of Wall Street" and his reputation was as good as gold. Literally.

What's up with us? When did we lose a grip on figuring people out before it's too late? Look at our last damned president, who we elected twice! Once you can understand as a mistake, a big one to be sure, but one easily corrected at the next election. Electing a venal buffoon twice means we really weren't paying attention and the damage done to our nation by him and his gang of thugs and thieves has been quit extensive.

And the Republicans still haven't snapped out of it. Look at the people they admire most: Lush Limberger, Bill O'Really, Anne Coltish, Sarah Impaler and Newt Grinwitch, to name but a few of their low-rent heros, most of whom have had a well-publicized public scandal revealing them to be several notches below pond scum when it comes to character. Since their ouster from power, Republicans have not spent 20 seconds wondering what they did wrong but instead went immediately into attack-dog mode and called for the good old days of Bush The Younger that got the country into this huge mess to begin with. You have to figure that beats looking in the mirror.

But still,we all should spend a little time wondering exactly how we have come to misread the character of our fellow man so consistently. Did it start with television and the death of conversation? The rise of fast food and recreational drugs that promise instant gratification for every whim? Or maybe all those dopey disconnecting video games we buy our children so we don't have to deal with them and they don't have to deal with reality? Or just maybe it's a combination of all these things that have reduced our attention spans to 10 second sound bytes that substitute for thinking things through.

And what are the results? Pouty, disconnected and maladjusted children with access to automatic weapons. Grown men with perceived grievances against individuals and humanity in general killing everyone in the neighborhood before dying in a hail of police bullets. Corporate leaders forgetting their duties and obligations and earnestly looting all the wealth they possibly can by any means necessary. Political leaders in the pocket of corporate princes siphoning of public funds for themselves. Wars of aggression for the sole purpose of monetary gain for the few at the expense of the many (Okay, that's always been the case, but now we've even stopped pretending otherwise.). The middle and lower classes under attack by a ravenously greedy wealthy elite who have now nearly succeeded in ruining things for everybody.

And all of these things can be traced to our poor character judgement and our taking the easy way out when it comes to interacting with our fellow human beings, beginning with our own families. Who is more shocked than the parents of these mini-monsters who shoot up their schools and sleepy little suburban towns? My precious little Junior? Yes, your precious little incommunicative nitwit that you never bothered to get to know, never mind lifting a mental finger to shape his character, and with access to your extensive private arsenal, you lazy assholes! And so the worthless little prick snuffed out a couple of dozen lives and then people come out of the woodwork pointing to all the warning signs the kid left all over the internet, and in school and in his own home. We sure are whizzes at hindsight, no?

Maybe we ought to spend a little time actually conversing with one another, and more than 10 seconds to decide who to vote for. This is, after all, the Information Age, with no shortage of information available on anything or anybody. Use the technology to your advantage. Every candidate has a website with a lot of personal and political information on it. Almost every child in America has a Facebook or MySpace page. What's on your kid's pages? Here's a clue: if it's Hitler, Charles Manson or Satan, the kid might have a problem. Check out the dopey computer games they play. A lot of virtual mutilation and killing going on there? Maybe those things are not as harmless as you think.

And most importantly, talk to the damned people in your life. There's no substitute for human contact. The last thing you want to hear about your kid is some neighbor telling a reporter that he seemed like a normal kid. That usually only happens after he has done something unspeakable. So speak already, and tell the kid what's what. There's plenty of other voices out there that will gladly take your place if you abdicate your responsibilities, and they don't have anybody's best interests in mind but their own. Speak up.