American Taboo - Will there Ever Be Justice for Deborah Gardner?

I was interested to read this article about the bill sent to the President to expand AmeriCorps. It's certainly not a bad thing to encourage and incentivize national and community service (particularly now when we are living in Narcissist Nation -- two atomic middle fingers up to all you Ayn Rand-worshipping motherfuckers, by the way), but I was drawn immediately to the story because lately I've had the Peace Corps on my mind.

I spent the weekend reading this book about a Peace Corps Volunteer named Deborah Ann Gardner who in 1976 was murdered in Tonga by another Peace Corps Volunteer, Dennis Priven. Since I read the book initially (last year), I haven't been able to get Deb Gardner, nor her killer, out of my mind).

Deb Gardner was called "the most beautiful girl in the Peace Corps," and was pursued by many of the men she met while doing her service in Tonga. One of these men was Dennis Priven, a genius mathemetician and introvert, whose advances she gently rebuffed, telling him she only wanted to have a friendship with him. Enraged by this rejection, Priven decided "if I can't have her, no one will." One night, after a party on the island, he went to her hut with those classic tools of seduction, a 6-inch knife, a length of pipe, syringes, and a jar of cyanide.

A neighbor boy, who heard Deb's screams as Dennis Priven was stabbing her 22 times and was running to assist her, witnessed Dennis Priven open the door of her hut and try to drag her out. Realizing he had been spotted, Priven dropped her face down on the ground, jumped on his bike, and rode away, leaving her to die.

Deb's neighbors loaded the expiring girl into the bed of their truck and rushed her to the hospital. On the way, they asked her, "Who did this to you?" and she responded, "Dennis."

*********

So here you have your basic open-and-shut murder case, right? Well, actually, no. As I read the book, what I found most disturbing is how the US Government and the Peace Corps closed ranks around Dennis Priven, protecting him and basically overlooking the fact that at his hands, a girl was dead.

Dennis Priven, a brilliant sociopath, completely manipulated the Peace Corps country director, the Tongan government, the US Government, and even the other volunteers who thought of him as a friend. He told his friends who visited at the Tonga jail before the trial enough about the night of October 14, 1976, that I think they could be considered accessories after the fact. A Tongan jury found him not guilty by reason of insanity (a verdict that if you read the book you learn he completely manipulated -- he essentially counted the cards of the Tongan criminal justice system), and three months after he murdered Deb Gardner, Dennis Priven walked off a plane in the United States, collected his last Peace Corps paycheck, and walked away a free man. He then returned to his parents' Brooklyn home, got a job WITH THE GOVERNMENT, retired a few years ago, and still lives there, as far as anyone knows.

Guiltiest of all, I believe, is Mary George, the PC country director, who was more concerned with protecting the image of the Peace Corps than finding justice for Deb Gardner. Protect the Peace Corps at any cost, is how she approached the case. Mary George, may your soul burn in hell for eternity for this. Deborah Gardner's blood is forever on Mary George's hands, too, not just Dennis Priven's.

I remain flabbergasted by this case. It's a case of poisonous groupthink gone murderously, tragically wrong. A murderer, whom everyone knew to be a murderer, walked free and lived his life. How could the US Government let this happen and why can no one do anything to bring justice on this small and evil man Dennis Priven?

I have to wonder if Dennis Priven's neighbors and co-workers knew they were living and working next to a cold-blooded murderer? Did his ex-wife know that he was a murderer when she married him or did she divorce him when she found out? I have to wonder if this sociopath has killed again (NYPD -- any unsolved murders on the books? Check out Dennis Priven, or just frickin' bring him in on ALL of them, can't you? Just to harass him for the hell of it?). Don't ask me why this is so haunting to me -- it just is.

What do we need to do to get some sort of justice for Deb Gardner?

Sham-Ho!

So Vince the ShamWOW! guy got busted for beating up a hooker.

Why am I completely, totally, massively unsurprised by this? Doesn't old Vince just look like the kind of guy who needs to pay for sex?

(unzipping pants) "Now pay attention, 'cause we haven't got all day here. You gettin' this, camera guy?"

Dear Bobby Jindal: Do You Feel Like a World-Class Idiot Yet?

So Bobby, when you mocked the Volcano Monitoring line item in the President's stimulus plan, were you also waving off funds for hurricane warning systems and levee building? Oh wait, that's right, you were turning down the stim! So mock on, Governor, mock on, oh great hope of the Republican (and Democratic) Party!

See, I'll bet that line item was included based on recommendations from groups like the USGS and NOAA. You know, scientists. Guys who do things like monitor plate movement, earth core temperatures, and things that may enable predictions of earthquakes, volcano eruptions, and the like. I know you guys like to do things based on the science of making shit up -- I mean, your guys are the ones who watched a video of a plugged-in eggplant and determined that she could recover, and deemed clusters of cells stored in goo "snowflake babies," and you yourself banished Satan from a fellow classmate's body, so who am I to question your scientific credentials?

At any rate, despite your disparagement of the Volcano Monitoring systems, the Ring of Fire appears to be showing some pretty serious activity lately.

That underwater volcano that erupted last week in the South Pacific actually created a new island. Don't pretend you didn't see the youtube video, because even if you aren't a science nerd, it's really, really cool.

Then a few days later, Mt. Redoubt in Alaska erupted FIVE TIMES over one night. Ahem.

Today, an earthquake of 4.3 magnitude hit outside of San Jose -- feel free to keep referring back to that Ring of Fire map.

And lastly, today it was reported that TWO volcanoes may erupt in eastern Congo, which isn't actually part of the Ring of Fire, but still is indicative of some increased tectonic activity. (Remember that big wave that wiped out Southeast Asia on Christmas a few years ago? Earthquake.)

So, geologically speaking, things look like they are getting pretty interesting around the globe. And I can't help feeling a little smug that Bobby Jindal is getting some sort of tectonic smackdown. I really just wanted to talk about volcanoes and earthquakes, because I think they're pretty cool.

But one last thing. I think the WWE should name one of their pay-per-view specials "Tectonic Smackdown."

Update 3/31: From McClatchy today. Murkowski (R-AK) gets it.

Incident at the Laundromat

Apparently no good vacation day goes unpunished.

I took a couple of days off to use up some earned time before it expired, so today was able to run some errands without cramming them into those after-work hours or running around like a crazy person on Saturday and Sunday. You know, going to the bank to get my rent check, stopping in at the gym to update my card on file from WaMu to Chase so they can continue to receive my monthly donation...

I took a couple of loads of sheets and towels to the laundromat, too, since I knew it wouldn't be crowded at 11:30 on a Monday morning. Washed without incident, plopped everything into a couple of dryers, and ran over to the local 99-cent "Department Store" to see what fell off the truck this week. (Hmm, 100-packs of Melitta #4 filters for $3.99? I ran out of coffee filters this morning! Sold! Bars of Pears Glycerine soap for 99 cents? Sure! I carried around the $4 bright chrome silverware drainer, $8 curtain panels, and large bottle of $3 Johnson's Baby Lotion for a while before putting them all back. I'm getting a little better at that impulse shopping thing.)

I got back to the laundromat with a few minutes left on one of my dryers, and I opened it to see if my towels were dry. Well, they were dry, but with the dryer door wide open, the dryer continued to turn. Strange.

Suddenly (perhaps fed by the oxygen I let into the dryer by opening the door) my towels burst into flames! With the dryer still turning! So I'm looking into an industrial-sized cauldron of whirling flames, at which point, I slammed the dryer door, turned to the laundromat lady and said, "Ummm...I think we have a fire here." She toddled over and looked through the glass, but I guess the combination of me closing the dryer door (cutting off excess oxygen) and the tumbling, no flames were to be seen. She opened the dryer and pulled out all of my towels and sheets, which didn't have any obvious signs of having been on fire, and only the usual commercial dryer slightly crispy hot smell.

"I swear I'm not crazy," I said, as she gave me that look and went back to folding someone else's clothes. "Look!" I held up my red Ralph Lauren towel which, if you looked really closely at it, showed some evidence of scorching and showed it to the girl at the next dryer. All of my towels from that load do have a sort of singed look.

"You were remarkably calm about that," was all she said, and went back to unloading. You have to love New Yorkers who have seen it all.

I finished shaking and folding everything and went home, but the entire time those bags of laundry have been sitting in the corner, I've been giving them the hairy eyeball, waiting for them to spontaneously combust, as if some memory of flames might cause them to erupt again.

I figure it's only a matter of time before I hear sirens on Bushwick Avenue, look out my kitchen window, and see the Laundromat building going up in flames. Either that, or by opening the dryer door before the cycle was finished, I merely unleashed some demon from hell that didn't want my soul, but only wanted to consume my linens.

I know I just expended a whole lot of words to talk about a ridiculous 45-second situation at the neighborhood laundromat, but honestly -- What the Fuck?

Stayin' Inside When it's Nice Outside

It was the first nice day of 2007 -- the first truly spring-like day. Sunny and 75 degrees. One of those days when everyone in New York City walks around with big, druggy-looking smiles on their faces.

I was looking for a job at the time, so I had a lot of free time on my hands. On this April day, I decided to table the job search around lunchtime and go to the movies. (Terrence Howard in a Speedo. Worth an afternoon indoors, I'd say)

When I told a friend that I had spent the afternoon in a movie theater, he scolded me, predictably. "It's the nicest day of the year! And you went to the MOVIES?" I just shrugged. It's not like the first nice day of the year is going to be the LAST nice day of the year.

And I had to think: "Hello, Kettle? This is Pot. You're BLACK!" This is someone whom I have never successfully crowbarred out of his neighborhood to come to Governor's Island with me one single time.

Governor's Island is a tiny little spot in New York Harbor that was closed to the public until just a couple of years ago. It's only open for a few months of the year, and only on weekends.

I'm always surprised at how uncrowded it is. Maybe New Yorkers just don't have much use for a National Park (no alcohol allowed and all that)... But really, it's 800 yards from lower Manhattan, the ferry is free, and it's got the best view of the Statue of Liberty anywhere -- there's really no excuse not to go. I've spent many a placid Sunday afternoon sprawled in the grass under a tree, with a book, a sandwich, and a bottle of Gatorade. Sundays are better, as there is usually a concert on Saturday. There are no crowds, no people with loud radios, no loud ghetto-girls talking and cursing in their loud ghetto-girl voices, no screaming children (can you imagine taking one of today's video-gamed, sensory-overloaded kids to a Revolutionary War site that offers nothing but its own history?), no food sold on the island outside of the Hot Dog man at the ferry terminal. Cell service is spotty at best on the island (or was when I was last there)

There is always a nap -- once, so deep and peaceful I had to run for the last ferry of the day, though it looks like they've extended closing time from 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm, so I doubt I'll come that close to being stranded again.

I take it back -- I DO understand why New Yorkers don't flock there. See, when New Yorkers leave the house on the weekends, they do so with the air that they have to be doing something. Unless they are getting onto a plane or train to some exotic destination (which may be no more exotic than say, Hudson, NY), where they might force themselves to relax and do nothing (right), their lives have to be defined by some activity or another. Going out on a nice day invariably involves jimmying an errand or two into the day. Stopping at Duane Reade to pick up shampoo, ducking into Petco for catfood. There always has to be a goal, or reason. Sitting quietly somewhere in their own city for hours on end is an anathema to them. I think they think it's wasteful or something.

Going to Central Park doesn't count, because Central Park actually has things to do, like go to the Zoo, the Boathouse, the Carousel, the Metropolitan Museum, Summer Stage, preen and be seen on Sheep's Meadow, play softball or soccer, ride in loops, go skating, take a carriage ride -- no matter what, the beehive of New York City is never more than 200 yards away, no matter where you are in the Park. Bathrooms are easy to find in Central Park (helpful bathroom hint for NYC Tourists: If you don't want to use the public park bathrooms, which have improved immeasurably from the days when you had to nudge drug addicts out of the way with your foot, go to Tavern on the Green or the Boathouse. Because they are on city property, they HAVE to let you use their bathrooms. If you're closer to the Met and with a group, have one of your group go in, pay a "donation" of one or two bucks -- suggested donation $12, but they don't blink when you slap down a single -- and take turns using the little metal tag to go in and use their bathrooms). But you are always aware that you are in the heart of the most lively city in America.

At Governor's Island, there is only the island. There is no there, there. (Who said that?) It's just an immaculately-maintained fortress with beautiful closed-up barracks and houses, perfectly groomed drill fields bordered by hundred-year-old trees (perfect for aforementioned lolling, reading, and sandwich-eating), a perfectly-paved perimeter path, and the occasional little concert or re-enactment. I was once surprised in my afternoon lollygagging by the sound of snare drums and military calls, and over a nearby rise a battalion of fully-costumed and armed "soldiers" appeared and staged a drill a hundred feet from my tree. This went on for about a half hour before they marched away, leaving behind only the smell of gunpowder and the blowing paper shreds from their cap guns. It's easy to forget you're in New York because the only sounds you hear are the seagulls and the occasional lowing ferry horns.

So, I make no apologies for missing the first nice day of the year when there are so many other nice days to come, and Governor's Island is opening on Memorial Day weekend, just a couple of months from now. And now that I've thought about it, I don't think I want to go with anyone else -- I think I'll just keep it in my pocket as a place where I go by myself, just for me.