Following the Leader

Boys will be boys...right?

The LA Times reports on a disturbing trend:

Nationwide, an increasing number of animal cruelty cases are being reported outside city limits: Horses, cows, goats and other farm animals are being killed, authorities say, often by angry, reckless youths, perhaps acting on dares...

Studies suggest that youths who engage in animal cruelty often commit violent criminal behavior as adults. Among those who preyed on animals before turning on people were mass killers Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy and Albert DeSalvo, the Boston Strangler.

The random killing of larger animals signals a troubling psychology that experts are only beginning to understand. Even when caught, most youths refuse to talk about their crimes.

Disturbing, but not altogether a recent phenomenon:

"We were terrible to animals," recalled [Bush pal Terry] Throckmorton, laughing. A dip behind the Bush borne turned into a small lake after a good rain, and thousands of frogs would come out. "Everybody would get BB guns and shoot them," Throckmorton said. "Or we'd put firecrackers in the frogs and throw them and blow them up."

That's bad enough...what's even more disturbing is the potential for violence in some of the returning veterans, for whom 'going postal' might be as normal as the sun rising in the east.