Serial killers and the people who love them

I am starting a Masters degree in Sociology, with an emphasis in Crime, Deviance, and Social Control. For my first research paper, I decided to do a study on the social reactions of people to serial killers. My professor suggested I research websites on a handful of the killers, and evaluate the types of sites created. Once I got through the encyclopedic, informational sites, such as crimelibrary.com, I found some truly disturbing shit! There are people out there who consider Ted Bundy to be an adorable teddy bear. Granted, I didn't know the man, and I'm betting the sick chickie who wrote her message never met him either, but judging from the vicious murders and general crazy behavior, teddy bear is not a description I would give him. Deviant sicko, maybe. Or murderous psycho. Call me judgmental, but the people who love violent criminals (aside from family members), are almost as disturbing as the criminals themselves.

Chicago

My husband and I recently returned from a very quick trip to Chicago. I was attending a conference for work, he was tagging along. We flew into O'Hare the day after the World Series ended, which meant that the entire airport was jam-packed with White Sox fans. Everywhere I turned, all I saw were gray-and-black hats and a whole lot of partying.

We weren't sure if our hotel offered a shuttle, but eventually determined that it did not. Thus we had to decide between the Airport Express shuttle service, or a cab. Having ridden in a cab from the airport once already in Chicago, I had no desire to repeat the experience. We chose the shuttle, and were packed into it with about 50 other people (the van was designed to seat 10). Traffic, as you can imagine, was horrible. That didn't stop our driver from weaving in and out at death-defying speeds. Apparently, the prospect of being run over by a semi didn't bother her.

Almost an hour later, we arrived out our hotel, the Tremont, which is located about a half-block from Michigan Avenue. For that area of Chicago, I thought that $159 per night was very reasonable. If I had known that I would end up in an extremely old hotel with the SLOWEST ELEVATOR ON EARTH , I might have spent the extra $80 for a newer model. Our room was nice, although I have to say that it was very dark. There were three lamps and an over-head light, which together were about as bright as a 75-watt bulb. It was so dark, in fact, that I couldn't have read a book in any room other than the bathroom.

We were lucky enough to be in the same hotel as the Mike Ditka Restaurant, which is on the second floor and the location of a pre-conference reception we were invited to attend. After an exceedingly long elevator ride, we arrived at the restaurant much hungrier than when we left our room (yes, the ride IS that long). The reception was okay -- not too exciting nor too dull -- and the alcohol was free. That perked us right up, along with the obscene quantity of free appetizers. There were barbecue ribs, lamb chops, egg rolls, and meat skewers, plus a few that I was too full to try.

Needless to say, a little too much alcohol was consumed by one and all, and the night ended across the street at the Cheesecake Factory. For anyone who thinks that cheesecake is a good idea after imbibing vodka and more meat than I usually eat in a week, let me enlighten you -- it's a TERRIBLE idea! But then, so is going up to the top of the Hancock building when you're tipsy enough to think that heights are cool. Fortunately, the tour closes at 11:00, and we missed it by about 20 minutes.

Despite our night of indulgence, I made it to the conference by 8:15 the next morning. It was about 10 blocks away, and I was able to take in Chicago in morning rush-hour traffic. Not just automobile traffic -- during the entire 10-block journey, I was never surrounded by fewer than 15 people. That's quite a crowd when you're from Nebraska, unless you happen to be in Lincoln when the Huskers are playing -- but that's another story.

My husband and I met up in the late afternoon to go searching for Billy Goat's, the restaurant made famous by the Saturday Night Live skit with John Belushi -- cheeseburger, cheeseburger, cheeseburger. It's run by impatient guys with unidentifiable accents, and is patronized by many of the Chicago Tribune journalists from across the street. Cool place, sub-par burgers. Yes, I was surprised too.

After we ate, we made our way back to the hotel in time to catch the shuttle to the airport. We were there for a little more than 24 hours, and it was just too short. Chicago has so much to see and do, that you should really plan on at least a long weekend. We're already looking forward to a return trip.

Hairballs

I currently have three pets: 2 cats and a dog. My dog is about as low-maintenance as you can get. He's a Pomeranian we adopted three years ago from a rescue group, and he's partially lame. He can't jump onto the furniture, hence he doesn't shed all over the couch, and he is very laidback, not a characteristic typical in Poms. I think it is because he was abused for the first 5 years of his life. But he is about as happy a dog as I've ever known, and I'm so grateful that I found him on www.petfinder.org.

My two cats, however, are the exact opposite. One is hostile and obnoxious, the other is constantly yacking up hairballs and partially digested food. Kelli, the hostile cat, will most likely appear in a later post. Beast, the gigantic ball of fur, has caused me considerable pain as he continues to leave his mark of cat vomit around the house.

As you can see in the picture to the left, he's not dainty. In fact, he last weighed in at 18 pounds. He's fat and sweet, and I love him to death. But if he throws up one more time on my newly shampooed carpet, I may have to restrict him to a liquid diet and have his jaw wired shut.

The last episode was on my kitchen carpet, which had been cleaned only one day prior. I heard his rasping, wheezing, I'm-about-to-hork sound and hurried to the kitchen to see if I could move him outside before the contents of his stomach landed on my floor. But it was too late. Of course, all I saw was a tiny spot in front of him. He flipped up his tail and merrily bounced out of the kitchen, blissfully ignoring my swearing at him. And then I noticed a smell. A horrible, reeking smell that I can only compare to that of a rotting animal. I had already cleaned up the spot on the floor. Where was it coming from?

I turned around . . . and on my kitchen table, on a place mat, was a steaming pile of cat puke. And the odor emanating from it was enough to make me gag and shudder. Which I continued to do as I grabbed a wad of napkins and scooped the mess into the trash can. The place mat went straight into the laundry. And I sterilized the table to within an inch of its life.

Hairballs are the single worst reason to own a long-haired cat. The clumps of fur that he leaves behind him whenever he gets startled (which happens almost hourly) are a walk in the park to deal with.

The dropping crime rate

I was just reading an article on cnn.com entitled, "FBI: Violent crime rate declines again." A paragraph really grabbed my attention. To paraphrase, all major categories of violent crime have gone down by around 32% since 1995. The reason I find this so interesting is because I was doing research online for a term paper I have to write, and I stumbled across several articles asserting that Americans think the crime rate is going up, when all factual data suggests just the opposite. And it is not just Americans -- other studies were done in Canada and Australia with similar results.

I don't have any sound arguments for why this paradox exists, but I suspect that at least some of our perceptions about an increasing crime rate has to do with what we see and read in the news. With so much of the news focused on murder, abduction, rape, assault, etc., it's no wonder that so many of us think the world is going to hell in a handbasket.

My first post

This is my first entry. How do I feel about it? Mostly very aware that I have nothing to say. I'm asking myself at this very moment why I even started a blog. I'll endeavor to find something of interest, at least interesting to me, to post later.