The Killer of Little Shepherds -- A True Crime Story and the Birth of Forensic Science

Photo: The book, from the author's own webpage. Here is an overview of the book itself.

Outstanding book that gives you a real feel for the lives and time of those involved. Written in a newspaper-like fashion, with no author intrusion at all--rare for this genre--and with a distant tone that is just right, almost too-distant, but not quite. Cast of real characters include serial killer Joseph Vacher, the French investigators, lawyers and judges involved in the trial, and his eleven known victims--there may have been as many as 25-30 total. One of my favorite investigators, Alphonse Bertillon, is covered a little. He was a French criminologist, one of the world's first accepted criminal profilers, and he's the author of one of my favorite, true-life quotes: "One can see only what one observes, and one observes only things which are already in the mind." Feast on that for awhile.

Vacher was a psychotic, narcissistic, borderline schizophrenic vagabond who killed ten little shepherd boys (and one or two girls) and one old lady. He sodomized and brutalized the bodies after death. What made him unique amongst killers of his type, besides for how long he got away with it, and the list of ineptness he festooned in others who associated with him, was that he was one if the first to declare himself not responsible for his crimes due to insanity. The prosecution disproved this by showing that his MO was so consistent that the perpetration of his crimes must have taken some thought, and forethought. They also showed that his talent for leaving the area quickly to avoid capture showed that he could rationalize--otherwise, why go to such consistent lengths to avoid capture?

The author concludes that his case is also unique because he was declared fit to stand trial (therefore, sane), and responsible for his crimes (so, not insane), and yet also clearly had at least one mental illness--paranoid schizophrenia, with a healthy persecution complex and fits of sexual mania. Therefore, it's possible that he was responsible for his crimes, yet also classifiably mentally ill. The author says he believes Vacher would also be found guilty today, just as he was in the late 1890s. But this reviewer is not quite so sure.

Photo: Joseph Vacher posing in prison after his capture in 1897. From the book, and this New York Times Review website for the book.  Vacher said that the hat symbolized his purity, and the keys, which he borrowed from a prison guard, symbolized the keys to heaven that he'd receive. Vachon believed he was protected by God and doing God's work. Just in case you were wondering

Certainly this case highlights the question of how much a mental illness can be said to make someone responsible, or not responsible, for his crimes. In today's heavily-diagnosed America (Donald Trump has been said lately to be harboring a potent textbook narcissistic disorder, and one wonders how fit he is to be President because of it. Look up the symptoms and I think you'll agree.), in which it seems that more people than ever may be diagnosed with a mental illness (and I mean that seriously and without judgment), this is a real question for our time. If a great many people are a classifiable something, how much does that make us culpable for our actions?

An interesting philosophical thought came up while I was reading. Another questions posed: If someone is guilty of murder (as Vacher was, and he was guillotined), and if that someone is responsible for his crime, yet is also suffering a mental illness that maybe helped instigate those crimes, can that person receive capital punishment? Again, where is the line drawn? Someone who is against capital punishment, as I am, would say No, no matter what the variables are. But those not against it, or even those on the fence, may use what I'll call the Rabid Lion Theory.

It goes loosely like this: If a lion is charging at you, obviously intent on killing you, don't you have the right to defend yourself and shoot it? If the answer is yes, what does it matter if it has rabies or not? You still have the right to kill it to defend yourself. But let's say it's foaming at the mouth and obviously has rabies. It's therefore, in a way, not responsible for its actions, as maybe it doesn't want to kill you, but the rabies is controlling it. (We can call this the Cujo Theory as well.) But even so, don't you have the right to defend yourself and kill it anyway, even if it's not responsible for its own actions?

Now, you're French society (or any society, including this one), and the rabid lion is Joseph Vacher (or any serial killer who has frequently escaped and who will obviously kill again). Don't you, as the society, have the right to defend yourself against the rabid killer, even if he's not responsible for his actions?

A real slippery slope, especially in these heavily-medicated times. And it's not going to get easier.

But I digress, a little. This book is more a history of really bad rural police work, really shoddy asylum practices, and a completely disorganized system of law if the murderer has the intelligence, good fortune, or whatever, to kill people in more than one jurisdiction. Surprisingly, this is still a big problem today (especially in these United States, and for a great number of reasons), but it was a catastrophic issue in the days before Interpol, before anyone thought to write down similarities of crimes committed across a large area over a number of years. Simply stated, nobody communicated well with each other, across provinces, just like today, where communication between departments, jurisdictions, states, and federal and regional agencies are slipshod and often testy.

This should sound very familiar for those who read about crime. Remember JonBenet? The local cops in Denver and the state and federal people were stepping on, over, and through each other immediately, screwing up the crime scene, the evidence, the witnesses, the testimonies, and every procedure and law, known and unknown to them, beyond repair. One of the guys in charge said the whole thing was botched beyond repair within a few hours of the reported crime.

And so it was with Vacher, until three guys started paying attention to some unsolved crimes, all of which involved the killing of young shepherd boys and girls, in the middle of rural nowhere, with the same MO (attack from behind, cut the throat, drag the body behind bushes or trees, sodomize and butcher the body quickly, change out of your clothes into clean clothes, and walk quickly away, often for a great many miles) and with the same descriptions of a vagabond seen in the area (short, bearded, scarred, gave off a dangerous vibe, couldn't talk correctly, and swelled foully because of yellow pus that drained from one ear). Sounds like something that anyone would put together, right? But with all the crimes happening all across very rural, nowhere France, before computers or phones, and with no system to keep track of such things, and no way to communicate?

So the history of forensics and crime is covered here, and it's all very informative and interesting.

A Bat in My Bathroom -- Musings by the Firepit 7.9.16

Photo: I would've taken a pic of the bat in my bathroom (yes), but I'd chickened out.

So I've been away for about three weeks from this blog. As I sit here, after musing by the firepit, I'll share partly why I've been away:

--A close family member passed, someone who was sort of a second father to me, especially after my real one passed. Wake and funeral, and I was honored to be a pallbearer, and then...well, I just didn't feel like doing much for awhile. I won't lie: I had the Poor-Me's. This made me feel even worse, and then I told myself to get over myself, and, well, it got ugly.

--I finally decided to update my cell, as I tired of everyone scoffing at it. So what if it was about 5-6 years old? It was the one I got to replace my flip-top! So I was eligible for a free upgrade, as you might imagine, which means (I told my better half) that I would be relieved of a couple hundred bucks, instead of more. I got the newest Samsung Galaxy, and a tablet, and I upgraded my cell phone account and my cable account, as I was paying a lot for things I wasn't using. I walked out of there with better contracts that cost me the same I'm paying now, but with more HD, a better box, and a free tablet. The phone wasn't exactly free, as I suspected, but would instead cost me much less than its $400 cost if I broke it down over infinite months, with a rebate, etc. But the newest stuff makes it worthwhile, especially the camera (you can judge by the pic above, as compared to all past pics on this blog) and the email access. And I'm not a tech guy, but boy the camera is much better and it's now so easy to delete emails at doctor offices and during commercials.

photo: from wildlife-removal.com, here. One of these guys was in my bathroom for about 12 hours.

--I got a bat in my house. I mean, the flying kind. You have not lived until you have seen a bat hanging upside-down from your bathroom window.

I was working on the same PC (yes, I know, why not the tablet? Or the phone? Or my Mac?) at about 1 a.m. when I heard something fluttering outside my office door, in the hallway. I knew immediately what it was. Unhappy. (I figure it came in when I walked inside from the upper deck after watching mucho fireworks up and down the bay and cove where I live.) It flew into my bathroom, and I shut the door. Then I called the Wildlife Emergency number I found on the internet. It said it was 24-hours, but I had to leave a message. They haven't called back yet, and it's been several days now. I then called a pest control company that handled bats (not all do). I said to the woman, "I have a bat in my bathroom." She said, "Oh, no! Say it isn't so!" I then left my contact numbers and my email and was told Fred would be there from 10-12 a.m. This was at about 11 p.m. I checked in my bathroom, with stealth. I didn't see it. I walked in. It flew out of my shower and I ran out and closed the door. I couldn't sleep until about 5 a.m. My better half got me up at 7 a.m. and I was wide awake. I peeked in again: it was hanging upside down from my Venetian blinds, exactly where I'd stand to do my #1 morning business, if you know what I'm sayin'. Good thing I saw it fluttering and didn't just walk in there at 7 a.m. the next morning like I normally would. I would slowly look to my right as I was draining, and I would get the shock of my life. And probably bitten. You would've heard me from wherever you live.

photo: from bat-house.net. This is the bathouse I have on a tree in my backyard. But, unlike this one, which you can see is on a telephone pole, bats don't want to go in mine. Apparently, they prefer my real house--specifically, my bathroom. See all those little guys in this one?!? Ewwww...

Anyway, I call the place back at 11:55, as Fred had not showed. I got transferred to five different people. The last one repeated back to me incorrect phone numbers for Fred to call me, and I admit to being upset. Surprisingly, Fred arrives. First thing out of his mouth: "So, what's the problem?" I said, "I have a bat in my bathroom." He turns pale and asks me if I'm serious. He'd shown up in a regular car, carrying a large screwdriver. (?) I said I was serious. He calls his supervisor, who must've said to hit me with the plans they offer. He'll get rid of the bat either way, but his boss correctly guessed that I'd be so freaked that I'd buy their biggest package of long-term care. Turns out, I did just that, to the tune of over $1,300. It involved a total concealment of my home and roof, except they couldn't put down screens on the roof until after August 1st, as it's against the law, because what if a mama bat lays eggs in my attic, but then she leaves from the screen and can't get back in and all the baby bats die in my attic? The baby bats are federally protected until the end of September. My attic and my sanity aren't. So these two guys came over the next day and laid down lots of traps, and heavy sticky things, and squirted black goo around my home's perimeter, and in the attic, and in the basement, and on my upper deck, though I reminded everyone that I think the damn thing had flown in when I opened the door. They told me that bats and mice need just a dime of space to get in. They spent about three hours here.

But I digress. Fred needed to get rid of the bat, and he was clearly unhappy about it. He kept calling his supervisor, in the hope, I think, that this man would come over and do it instead. Apparently his advice was for Fred to throw a towel over the thing and pummel it with the handle of the monsterous screwdriver. I posited that we could open the bathroom door. I would stand on the parlor stairs waving a broom so it wouldn't go down there, or I could tape a sheet to cover the stairs. I would have all the upstairs doors closed, except the one that led to the room that led to the door that opened up to the deck, where I think the damn thing entered to begin with. We would essentially just chase it out that way. He called his supervisor back. This man again suggested a towel and some pummeling. I asked Fred if he'd ever done this before, at all, and he said No. I also asked him why he hadn't been told that I had a bat in my bathroom, as I'd mentioned that several dozens of times, and I wasn't happy with the wrong contact numbers, either, which I had also mentioned a ton of times. "Yeah, our home office sucks," he said. (I'd already written the check.) He took a picture of the hanging bat and texted it and emailed it to his supervisor, who said he'd never received them when Fred called him maybe twenty minutes later. I almost asked him to email me the pic for this blog, but I didn't feel that was proper, and I can't for the life of me tell you why.

By this time we'd been having a long conversation in my bathroom, with the door open, standing next to my sleeping guest on my window blinds, because Fred correctly surmised that the bat wouldn't care and it was sleeping and it wasn't going anywhere. It was disconcerting to see how still and quiet these things are. I also wasn't happy that Fred said he suspected I had an attic full of the things, and that that's where this one came from, and that he'd climbed down a central air tube, or something. (It is true that I had a TON of mice poop in the attic and basement when I got here five years ago, and I wouldn't be surprised if there in fact had been bats in this belfry.) When I said I hadn't heard anything flying in there in five years, he pointed to our pleasantly sleeping friend. "You wouldn't," he said. This was unnerving, and I've been a little skeeved since. The two guys who visited the next day disagreed with this diagnosis; they said there hadn't been any new activity in my attic in some time. They were in there for over half an hour, shining their lights everywhere, and one was amazed at how much space there was amongst the eaves, and above the doors. This space goes all the way back to the end of the house, where there's no other access panel. Nobody volunteered to go all the way in. But they also spent over half an hour in the basement and in the crawlspace between the basement and the garage. And they did black poo the entire perimeter of the house, which is quite a bit.

Finally, after fiddling and farting around for over an hour and a half because he (understandably) didn't want to deal with the thing, he finally decided that he'd take two of these hand-sized black sticky things from his car--which is all he came armed with, and is apparently all he places; he's the salesman, I'm guessing--and get the bat out with those. He came back in the house with them, and took maybe fifteen minutes to climb the five steps to my bathroom. We conversed more outside the bathroom door; we'd become veritable pals by now. Finally he took each one in hand, holding them like EMTs hold the paddles before they shock the dead guy, and we paused again. He took a deep breath and slowly closed the bathroom door. (His company's insurance dictated that the customer could not be in any danger, so I couldn't go in, which was fine with me. Plus, I put myself in charge of being the one to open the bathroom door and the front door--fast!--if necessary.) Before this, I'd armed him with a plastic eye protector, and he'd found some really thick gloves in his car. I'd let my dog out in the back, in case things went bad and it flew away from us, so that my dog would be the only one without rabies.

So I stood outside the bathroom door, listening intently. There was nothing at all for about five minutes. I was about to open the door, or ask if he was okay, when he said, "Okay," and I opened the door. I purposely didn't look at him, or at his hands, but I intuited that he held the two black things together like a giant S'mores sandwich. He seemed greatly relieved and at peace, and he wasn't bleeding or frothing at the mouth. He walked slowly to the front door with me and we got outside, and he said something about seeing if it was out of its misery. I offered a plastic bag (we have tons for the dog walks) and said he could just throw it in, tie it up and throw it in my large garbage thing. He said it had been great talking with me, and this had been a first for him, and he clearly just needed to go somewhere and have either a drink or a nap. He'd spent about two hours here.

In summary, then, that's why I've been away: passing of close family member and my self-pity; phone and tablet; a bat in my bathroom.

A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson

Photo: from the book's Wikipedia page, here.

A very readable, funny and surprisingly informative book, great to read while you're sleeping on the couch in the living room every night so you don't have to put The Cone of Shame on your dog, which will make him (literally) cry, which will keep you awake.  It's also good to read any other time.

This book, about Bryson's attempt to walk all 2,000 miles of the Appalachian Trail, is a good read even if you don't like hiking.  It's not about hiking at all.  It's about doing something strenuous; it's about stepping out of your comfort zone; it's about chilling out overall, but especially with Nature; it's about disconnecting to all media and connecting to yourself, to Nature, to your inner being.  Or, like, whatever.

You get the idea.  But, really, stepping away from the cellphone and from the Internet and going for a walk is a really good, healthy idea.  You don't have to do so for many months, non-stop, as some people do when they walk the Trail--the whole Trail, from Georgia to Maine.  That sounds insane to me, and is just impractical.  I mean, we've got lives, right?

But I'll bet your state has its own trails.  Even mine does, and I live in the smallest one.  So why not just unplug and get out there, even for just a few hours?  Maybe there's a trail that traverses your state--and I don't mean Route 95, or even an actual road at all.  That's not legal, so don't hike those. But how about a bike path that goes across the state?  Walk it in steps, for three hours every Saturday (for example), until you walk the whole thing?  Drive to a spot, or, even better, get dropped off at a spot and then get picked up at a later spot.  Or take the bus home.  Who cares?  Just, for God's sake, get out there.

This is Bryson's overall message.  He knows it's not easy, but that's why challenges are...um, challenging.  That's the point, isn't it?  To set a reachable goal for yourself, and then exert yourself to reach it?  So what if you don't know the name for every tree, plant or flower you come across?  You'll be out there, exercising, getting in shape, accruing better cardio-vascular health.  Maybe even shed a few pounds.  (I have to mention here that you should consult your physician first, so you can't sue me or Bryson.)

Take this book with you on those jaunts when you need to sit, drink water, eat a little, and rest.  It's a breeze to read, and you'll maybe find yourself agreeing with Bryson when he dryly attacks the Trail's administrators' ridiculousness.  The Forest Service and other government entities get their comeuppance as well--and they should, when you read what they've done to our natural resources over the years.  He takes a potshot at stupid people--I'm talking shockingly dumb here--which I'm all for, as well.  (Quick, extremely minor example: People who park their car at a spot on the Trail, walk ten minutes in, walk ten minutes back, and tell their friends that they've "walked the Trail."  They do so, on the Trail, while on their cellphones, of course, thereby bringing to the Trail that which the actual walkers are trying to escape from.)

Anyway, sever that technology cord and get on a trail or path near you.  And read this book, too, when you can.

P.S.--If you intend to see the upcoming movie, as I do, it's best to read the book first.  And see if you agree that casting Nick Nolte in the role of Stephen Katz is a no-brainer.

Notes from A Stephen King Interview, Part 2

Photo: Stephen King at The Harvard Bookstore, June 6, 2005.  From his Wikipedia page.

[This is Part 2 of a blog started a few days ago, which you can go to here if you don't want to scroll.]

[Stephen King gave this sort of loose interview to The Atlantic on April 12, 2011.  The interview was in conjunction with a new-at-the-time short story, "Herman Wouk Is Still Alive," which you can read here.  (You should read the story first before continuing on with this blog entry.)]

To another vein.  You know how your writing and English teachers always tell you to walk around with pen and paper (or, today, an iPhone, or an iPad, or just talk into your cell, or--) because you must write down that great idea or you'll forget it?  Well, the guy who has sold more books than anyone currently alive says:

I never write ideas down. Because all you do when you write ideas down is kind of immortalize something that should go away. If they're bad ideas, they go away on their own.

For the record, I also believe this, and I very rarely write anything down.  When I do, I hardly ever use them.  I also believe that ideas you'll use will germinate in your head and simply not leave until you write them into a story.  All the other ideas are unwanted guests who are correctly shown the door.  The more I practice this, the more writing I get done.  The more I let every single idea take root, I stray or the elevator stops.

Out of nowhere, practically, King gives a pretty good description of what poetry is good for:

[Poetry] takes ordinary life, it takes things that we all see, and concentrates them in this beautiful gem. When the good ones do that, that's what you get. When the Philip Larkins or the James Dickeys do that, you get something that is heightened, that says to us that reality is finer and more beautiful and more mysterious than we could ever possibly express ourselves. Which is why we need poetry.

Indeed so.  I'm not a good enough poet to do this myself--I've only managed to sell one poem, though it's also true that I've only sent out one poem--but I agree that this is what good poetry can do.  It's life, super-concentrated, super-compact.  I wrote a line that says, "A poem is a thought shared in compacted time."  I believe this to be true.

But I respectfully disagree with King on one point.  When asked to compare the short story markets of his youth to the ones today, King said:

All those magazines published short fiction. And it started to dry up. And now you can number literally on two hands the number of magazines that are not little presses that publish short fiction.

While this may be true in terms of physical, tangible magazines you hold in your hands, this is not true overall.  There are a ton of markets--many of them big, that pay well--on the Web.  They're called e-magazines.  I've been published in a few of them, and they often pay better than the hand-held, paper ones.  A sign of the times, but a fact nonetheless.

In fact, when King says that people don't read short stories (or much else) anymore, I would politely disagree with that, as well.  Those online mags wouldn't be able to pay what they do if nobody was reading them.  And there's a ton of decent-paying online mags. Again, I know: I've been in them.

And, finally, here's an interesting irony:

JP: It is odd, though, if you think about it, that with all the speeding-up that we're being told about, and the dwindling of the attention span and all that, that people would rather chomp their way through a 400-pager than just get zapped by a little story ...

SK: And so many of the 400-pagers are disposable in themselves. When I see books by some of the suspense writers that are popular now, I think to myself: "These are basically books for people who don't want to read at all." It just kind of passes through the system. It's like some kind of fast-food treat that takes the express right from your mouth to your bowels, without ever stopping to nourish any part of you. I don't want to name names, but we know who we're talking about.

This is also true.  I'll name names for him: James Patterson.  Many of the heart-felt vampire books, or young-heroine dystopias.  But, I should also add, in all honesty: Stephen King himself, sometimes.

I think he would admit that, most of the time.  He was just having a negative, cranky interview.

The Misadventures of Millie Moskowitz

 Photo: Cover of the book, from imagesbn.com (bn.com; Barnes and Noble)

My friend Sheryl Sorrentino has crafted a sort of unique novel in a style that she calls "real fiction."  In an Afterword, she describes "real fiction" as "...provocative, culturally-inclusive stories that explore women's inner struggles in a socially-significant context."

Sheryl's "real fiction" novel, Later With Myself: The Misadventures of Millie Moskowitz, is about a middle-aged woman who is rocked by the death of her father.  His death leads to various skeletons escaping from her family's closets.  Millie must make sense of it all to find some peace not only with her present, but also with her troubled past.

It starts off with a twelve-year old Millie trying to find some sense of belonging.  She's a product of a troubled family, of adults with their own powerful issues, and she feels neglected and without any role models to teach her what she should, and should not, do for attention. Without this knowledge, and without a solid role model to tell her differently, Millie unfortunately gets the wrong sort of attention from men without morals, and she becomes pregnant.

The book then flashes forward to Millie's present: she's married to an African-American (she's white) and is the mother of two daughters.  She's a successful attorney, and she hasn't heard from her father, or from her brothers, in many years.

And then she gets the phone call.

Later With Myself: The Misadventures of Millie Moskowitz is indeed a novel that, in a sort of fictional memoir sort of way, tackles these issues--and many others--head-on.  In her Afterword, the author mentions that much of the book is at least semi-autobiographical, while much of it is straight-up autobiography.  A lot of it is, of course, completely made-up as well, but the reader can see the dots of the author's life being connected, and as such it is an extra benefit to see how the author constructed her book to put those pieces together.

I wished the author had focused a little more on the young Millie, because she's a kid you really root for, and for whom you wish better things.  Like Em, the main character of one of my favorite YA novels, Norma Fox Mazer's When She Was Good, the young Millie has an existence that wouldn't be wished upon anyone, and which is caused, predominantly, by forces outside of her control that make her a lost soul in a tough world.  Lost kids will do lost things, as they both do.  Em--the narrator of Mazer's book--fares a bit better than does Millie, at first, but it was a joy to see Em learn things on her own, and become the more put-together person the reader knows she's going to be.  I would've liked to've seen a bit more of that in Sorrentino's book, but that's not the gist or purpose of the work, as I've said.

But the first few pages are so good, so detailed and so strong, that clearly Sorrentino has a future in the YA genre if she ever wanted to tell a story that limited itself to that time-frame of a young girl's life.

So if you like socially-relevant issues explored in a middle-aged woman's (and a young girl's) life, with a bit of soul-searching, peace-finding, the mafia, a father's long-standing mistress, and disgruntled family members all thrown in, please check out Sheryl Sorrentino's book.  You can read more reviews about it (at least 30, averaging over 4+ stars!) at this Goodreads page.  You can get a copy at this Amazon page, in various formats: Kindle ($2.99) and in used (starting at $2.94) or new (starting at $11.22) copies.

It's Been Awhile--and More Quick Jots

So I've been away for much longer than usual.  Exhaustion, work, sinus infections and some serious insomnia (so bad that, despite a lifetime with the issue, I had to take a sick day for it for the first time), but I'm plugging along.  Here are a few quick considerations in the meantime:

--From the Sick World File, as per my last blog entry about this sick, crazy world, I offer you the story of three teens who beat to death a father of 12, grandfather of 23, while he was collecting cans in an alley for some money (which you would need with 12 children and 23 grandchildren).  As if that weren't horrible enough, it turns out that one of them filmed it on his cellphone, and then uploaded it to his Facebook page.  The reason?  Same as the one other teens gave when they shot a college ballplayer a few weeks ago: they were bored.

Filming a murder.  Laughing during the filming.  Posting a murder to Facebook.  Killing...for fun.

What the hell is going on?!?  Read it for yourself here.

--Speaking of which, the teens who beat to death the World War II vet in his 80s in Washington state recently pled not guilty today.  Although they, and the beating, were videotaped by security cameras.

--And one of them said the man was trying to cheat them in a crack deal.  I couldn't make that up.

--This past Sunday night, a neighbor and I met in the street while I put my barrels out.  We talked about the Patriots game, the Sox game, and the tennis match, that we coincidentally both watched.  Then I went back in and started yet another three-hour night of sleep.  He went to bed early, as usual.  And did not wake up.

--I'll miss meeting up with you at the mailbox and talking sports, my old friend.  Shine on.

--It can happen just that suddenly.

--And not just to my neighbor, who was in his 80s.  The guy murdered in Washington state was in his 80s, and the guy in the alley probably was, too.

--If I'd known that the Sox would make beards like those the Seven Dwarfs had the new big thing, I would have kept mine.  It wasn't in Mike Napoli's range, but it got very full and gnarly when I just didn't give a damn about shaving.

--The Patriots are a very ugly 2-0.  But as a co-worker said today, a win's a win.

--Putin isn't making Obama look bad.  That's a whole lot of nothin' right there.  Putin's the same guy who has recently sung bad songs to celebrities, who poses without his shirt, and who does many other things to increase his own visibility.  The surprising thing here is that he did a relatively restrained thing, like write a commentary for the New York Times.

--Though he's certainly not as popular and well-loved by the world as he was six years ago, Obama is still very well-liked and well-respected.  Nobody could have kept up his past level of world love.  But to say he's now unliked by the world is ridiculous.  You're talking about Obama's predecessor there.

--Up next: a blog entry about the evils of ebay.