I don't blame teachers or students for this, I blame political pressure. We are still debating evolution vs. biblical creation almost 75 years after the Scopes monkey trial in Tennessee. There are so many things teachers can't teach, so much dumbing down of textbooks, that the ability to reason and question has been blunted. A product of this system thus robs a 7-11, then calls a cab to drive him home. Combine ignorance with lack of economic opportunity and you have the country's dumbest criminal, Timothy McVeigh.
Despair is the devil's doorway which ignorance unlocks.
The young, dumb and disappointed descend to dastardly deeds. Those who know how to manipulate that disaffection do great damage. Several recent incidents point out the problem. A talk show host at the Reno hate radio station last week took an ill-researched potshot at my Daily Sparks Tribune colleague in columny, Susan Severt. The new shock jock in town apparently knows that his idol, Lush Rambo, built his national fame in part by demeaning Reno homeless people in 1988.