Cuckoo violence.

It seems all the recent violent shootings at an Aurora movie theater in Colorado, at an elementary school in Sandy Hook in Connecticut, the military yard in Washington D.C. etc. all have one thing in common and that is the lack of sense behind these shootings. There is really no rhyme or reason to them. They were completely pointless even when you surmise these people carried a grudge. In none of those shootings is it apparent that the shooter had a reason to go after those particular victims. Even if the idea might have been to have a last hurrah before committing suicide.

The thinking that lies behind that kind of ideation is not logical; it is cuckoo. This kind of thinking can only evolve if the shooter does not think through the consequences of his action. He doesn't think of the finality of it, and he will not ever experience the possible fame that comes from that ultimate violent act that he might think of as a reward. The shooter omits in his thinking the conclusion that he won't be able to experience the after-effect as rewarding.

So wouldn't it be a good idea to investigate why these people are shooting? I mean why are these people entertaining the ideas that ultimately show that they have a faulty thinking apparatus, a brain, that tells them something that is a priory an illogical path? I don't mean to imply that these people don't have a motive. I am implying that this motive springs from grossly faulty logic.

So, where would such faulty logic come from, especially when this person supposedly has either a very high I.Q. or is at least reasonably smart. Wouldn't it be logical to assume that something like a toxin is at work that blocks logic? At this point a psychiatrist might say that somehow magically the brain puts out the wrong amounts of serotonin or something is growing inside that blocks certain pathways. It is hypothesized that this comes from stress of some sort.

But what if it's not coming from the inside like from stress that happens to be hard to explore because the faulty brain doesn't voluntarily give away its secrets. What if the impetus always comes from toxins such as drugs or environmental chemical substances?

One of those most potent substances is mercury. It does all those things that cause cuckoo thinking. It doesn't dull your senses. It riles them up at something. It prevents the brain to check for faulty logic and it keeps on doing it in a very unpredictable manner. Mercury is insidious as the famous German chemist Alfred Stock wrote in his papers about the dangers of mercury vapors in the 1920s. Mercury causes erethism, "a state of abnormal mental excitement or irritation."

Mercury is known to cause mental changes in the brain. So it seems to be reasonable to check for mercury toxicity in anyone who has gone on a shooting rampage. Cuckoo violence might be an expression of mercury poisoning or some other environmental toxin that works similarly insidiously.

A foul at the soccer game

Last Saturday I watched the Earthquakes play Vancouver. The final result was 0:0. The score could have been different if a foul in the penalty area had been seen and whistled as a foul with a red card to the goalie David Ousted. With a penalty kick the score would have been 1:0 for the Earthquakes. It seems the Earthquakes only tied and thus lost 2 crucial points because the referee and the linesmen either chose not to see or did not want to see a foul that was too dangerous to overlook.

This foul was committed by the Vancouver goalie against Chris Wondolowski. The goalie lunged for the ball as Wondo was about to head it into the goal. But in the process of jumping and lunging Mr. Ousted deliberately swung his elbow hitting Chris Wondolowski squarely in the neck so that Wondo's head visibly snapped back as in a whiplash that might happen when a car gets rear-ended. The hit on Wondolowski was not noticed by any referee, no whistle was blown and no penalty kick was awarded.

Let me put it differently, the goalie went for Wondo in a purposeful move to hurt, and if it was not purposeful, it was clumsy and a potentially career-ending blow to one of the Earthquakes favorite players. In soccer there is no excuse for clumsiness. The particular elbow move by Mr. Ousted should never be seen. It should not ever be repeated, and if this type of attack by a goalie becomes common place, it is going to make the "beautiful game" into an ugly one where referees apparently don't see dangerous play. I am getting the impression that referees sanction a type of foul that can be practiced in a marshal-arts class. Since there are often fouls that don't get whistled, this has become the most egregious foul I have see performed by a goalie. That's why I am writing about it.

Wondolowski was the captain of that game. He should have been able to talk to the referee. However, since he had received a yellow card during the previous game, he was less willing to speak his mind for fear that he would get another yellow card that would cause a next game suspension.

There are so may dangerous, injurious fouls in many of the games that I sometimes don't recognize the game that I call my favorite spectator sport. If the refereeing is not soon improved I predict that eventually criminal charges will be filed against the league. The occurrence of concussions has increased in soccer, and the impact of these head-injuries can mean similar damage as was litigated recently by former football players against the NFL. The suit was settled in a lawsuit recently where hundreds of millions of dollars will be paid to those players who received traumatic brain injuries.

I love soccer, but I hate to see referees who choose not to see when injuries are inflicted on purpose. If they don't get trained better soon, we will see more of those injuries, and there will be more good men put into hospital beds.

The reason why the Earthquakes could not continue winning the way they did last year was because they had half of their team out at the beginning of the season because these players had surgery during the off-season and were not ready the come back in time to play the first three or four games.

It is inexcusable to see a lopsided dishing out of yellow cards as happened during the recent Seattle Sounders vs. Real Salt Lake game. Seattle got one yellow card, Salt Lake got as many as five even though the game had similar numbers of fouls if the referee had applied his judgment equally. Was the referee biased? I think so. I say that even though these two teams are not the teams I prefer. I like the Earthquakes, and maybe I am biased. But I am not biased enough to overlook dangerous play that will proliferate if the type of refereeing continues in the current fashion.