Comments on: Amy Bishop: where was the ounce of prevention?

By: Scottie

Scottie — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 13:01:39 +0000

What is it with left wing nutcases like Amy Bishop these days?

Just finished reading the letter left by the nutcase who flew his plane into the IRS building in TX.

The things the guy complains about are striking in how they reveal a mindset so focused on a particular viewpoint of society – as well as blaming everyone but himself for his problems.

He even closes with a reference to the communist creed!

I have a suspicion he and dear Amy would have gotten along famously….

By: expat

expat — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 21:11:02 +0000

Here is a bit about the novel Amy was writing:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2010/02/bishops_unpubli.html

boston.com also has a story about her being second cousin to John Irving and her membership in a book club.

By: Sergey

Sergey — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 20:33:18 +0000

Sometimes I doubt if the Supreme court decision about unconstitutionality of compulsory protective incarceration of nutcases was a wise one. It left in the large aplenty of potentially homicidal maniacs, who just had not a chance actually murder somebody, but can do it at any minute.

By: Sergey

Sergey — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 20:04:33 +0000

The university department I graduated had lots of freaks among its professors, just as well of the best mathematical minds in the world, and these two sets were the same people. Even obvious nutters and conspiracy theorists made permanent contributions to their fields (professor Schafarevich was an anti-semit, believer in world-wide Jewish conspiracy ruling the world, but excelent algebraist; professor Fomenko belives that there were no antiquity, Bisant, Rome, and Greece, and all ancient texts were forged by Medieval monks, and his crazy theory, named New Chronology, was published in a dozen of popular books. Still, he is one of the world leading topologists). But they all have good manners, never were aggressive or deliberately offensive. Some detachment from reality can be expected from professors in general, and from advanced mathematics professors in particular. But there are worlds of difference between being asocial and being anti-social, between simple narcissism and malignant narcissism. Ami Bishop did not have anger management problem, she has a problem of narcissistic rage, readiness to run amok in a nick of time and smash everything around her in the process.

By: neo-neocon

neo-neocon — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 19:03:20 +0000

Tatterdemalian: I doubt you’ve followed all the links and read all the information. This wasn’t a colleague or two. This was a great many people over a great deal of time. It involved not just colleagues, but students, neighbors—and seems to have been a majority, not a minority, opinion. She was aggressive and offensive to many many people.

Not to mention multiple instances of violence on her part, including almost certainly the murder of her brother.

By: Dr. Mabuse

Dr. Mabuse — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 17:43:39 +0000

Wolla Dalbo – I looked at the pictures.

I say; the birds have all stopped singing.

By: Tatterdemalian

Tatterdemalian — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 17:25:17 +0000

Most of these testimonials sound a lot more like after-the-fact bandwagon jumping, motivated by her colleagues’ desire to claim a piece of the spotlight. If we treated every bit of gossip as if it was the Word of God, we would have the intellectual and cultural development of the Middle East.

We should be focusing on the stuff that proved her lunacy, not on the hearsay of some colleague who was scared of her because “she complained about something a year ago.” Lots of people complain about lots of stuff, it doesn’t mean all complainers are about to go postal.

By: Assistant Village Idiot

Assistant Village Idiot — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 17:15:34 +0000

Neoneocon quote: “Artfldgr: I don’t think you read my comment carefully. Or…”

You were right the first time.

By: expat

expat — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 02:14:19 +0000

Someone did some research into Amy’s stellar scientific career and found, among other things, a publication with her husband and three of the kids in a vanity journal and a helium baloon launch.

http://afamilyofshepherds.blogspot.com/2010/02/is-accused-murderer-dr-amy-bishop.html

By: Sgt. Mom

Sgt. Mom — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 02:10:13 +0000

Ugh … I can’t say that I know much about the inherent nuttiness endemic in academia … but the one thing that I have read about this case which really gave me the shudders is the account of those neighbors of the Bishops which Neo posted earlier, or that someone posted in links. I’ve lived in a neighborhood with a seriously nutty neighbor – back in the late 70s and early 80s when a man in the neighborhood that my parents lived in then appeared to be going slowly insane. He was convinced that all the neighbors around (this was in hill-country suburbia in Southern California, where most of the houses were on half-acre lots and just about everyone was irreproachably middle-class and law-abiding) were processing drugs. He insisted that he could smell it, that there were pipes and tubes running between all of the houses. A next-door neighbor who drew his particular ire – and was slowly dying of MS – he insisted she was a drug abuser. He lurked in the shrubbery, spied on all the neighbors, called law enforcement incessantly … eventually he had to be listed as a sort of neighborhood toxic dump with anyone trying to sell their house. Neighbors took him to court for harassment a number of times, but he always managed to look so proper and reasonable in front of the judge. I think he was eventually on the ‘well-known nut’ list of every law-enforcement body in Southern California. I was very glad when my parents moved away – because I was afraid that he too would cut loose someday, and when the slaughter was done, everyone looking in from the outside would be wringing their hands and saying “Oh, why, oh why didn’t anyone see the warning signs!”
In the neighborhood and day to day, we all saw the warning signs. It’s just that nothing much could be done, until the nutty neighbor cut loose with a gun. My parents’ nutty neighbor in Tujunga was known as “the Fan-man” – Mr. Salka. There isn’t much on him if you do a search, since most of his antics in the neighborhood dated from well before news stories and law enforcement blotters and material like that got posted on-line. But it was frightening and very wearing, living close to someone that unbalanced.