[Cicero]

Long, and some informative details, but it really doesn't penetrate the surface. It's interesting to know that even as a little child Rachel ratted on her fellow schoolkids for breaking the rules in the playground. But what does that really say?

I suspect the causes are to be found back in America, in the 1960s, and in a closer look at her hippy/yuppie parents and her upbringing in the Seattle area.

[TopQuark]

closer look at her hippy/yuppie parents and her upbringing in the Seattle area.

Exactly.

But did you notice that this is a taboo topic? After the Colombine massacre, I could learn, despite my aversion to this emptiness, the caliber of pistols, trajectories of bullets, the music students liked --- anything but a single insight into their family. What family does it take for the parents not to notice a cache of weapons in the child's bedroom?

I guess, it is the instinct of self-protection. The "boomers," most self-centered generation in our history, has legiticmized the betrayal of parental duty. The newspaper writers and newscasters do not want to go "there," lest they themselves be asked. Much like the Germans after the WWII and the Russians today avoid asking, "What where you doing when..." I don't ask you, you don't ask me.

Interestingly, yours was the single most interesting point for me that made me read through. And this is the point --- parenting -- that was described the least.

[FITZ]

It's interesting to know that even as a little child Rachel ratted on her fellow schoolkids for breaking the rules in the playground.

She sounds more like a fascist than an idealist. She'd have fit right in with Hitler's youths.