Welcome to the festival of Christmas goodness!

The Astonishing BetaMax Christmas: Click on the TV Guide to see the bazillion Christmas ads, Christmas shows, Christmas cartoons from days of yore, including ads by Folgers, Nyquil, McDonald's, Atari, Kodak, Tesco, Cabbage Patch kids, plus clips from Perfect Strangers, Teddy Ruxpin, Pee-Wee's Playhouse, the Muppets, One to Grow On, Will Vinton's Claymation, the annual CBS Christmas card, a Hall and Oates 'Jingle Bell Rock' video, some Max Headroom, ETC! Click the remote's channel buttons to change channels, and click on the TV Guide to see what's coming up in the next hour and a half or so.

If nostalgia from the 1970s and '80s isn't nostalgic enough for you, listen to Voices of Christmas Past, humdingers from 1898-1922, including Santa Claus Hides in the Phonograph, 'And the Glory of the Lord' from the Messiah, Christmas Morning at Clancey's, Uncle Josh Plays Santa Claus, Angels from the Realms of Glory, and 18 more!

Santas Working Overtime is a chaotic link dump of all things Xmas, from recipes and crafts to videos, audio clips, lists, quizzes, reviews,  podcasts and mix tapes, charity links, classical music, Christmas customs, cartoons, and on and on. For instance: John Cleese reading a somewhat updated and rather violent version of 'The Night Before Christmas' ("On Keith! And Banana! And whatever you're called.") Also: 10 Christmas Songs I'm Already Sick Of (and 10 Geeky Alternatives) at Wired. The one not listed here, which I'm sick of just thinking about, is 'The Little Drummer Boy.' OMG.

For Better or Werts' Yule Tube: Watch Christmas TV Shows Online! at freebies Hulu, TV4U, In2TV. Hulu has current Christmas shows from 30 Rock, The Office, ER, Psych, et al., and nostalgia from Barney Miller, Father Knows Best, Bob Newhart, Mary Tyler Moore, Married With Children, Chicago Hope, Picket Fences, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Family Ties, Bewitched, Spongebob, et al.

The classics Angels We Have Heard Are High, Cavalcade of Bad Nativities, and It Came Upon a Midnight Weird: Cavalcade of Bad Nativities II.

Similarly, Bad Gift Emporium. Rate each giftrocity; some are even available for purchase! Examples: Candy corn mouse butterknife set. Flipflop cheese plate ("Feet and cheese: could there really be a better match?"). Decoupaged fur-lined trash can. Submissive Jesus. Chanukah party music. Deer meat. A 'Butt Face' towel. Sea monkeys. You get the idea.

Classic Holiday Music with the Original Golden Artists. It's a radio show. Turn it on and hear what's playing. It's an eclectic mix of classical, country (All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth by Buck Owens), highly produced boys' choirs, Burl Ives, The Andrews Sisters, etc. But "No Rap or Rock."

Paperless Christmas advent calendar. Odd multimedia expectation.

The Five Most Terrifying Local TV Christmas Commercials

Make you own eggnog -- in 18 easy steps.

One of my favourites: Karen Carpenter singing Merry Christmas, Darling on Bruce Forsyth's show.

There's a lot going on here ...

It was 90 years ago today that the fighting of World War I between the Allies and Germany ceased, on 11 a.m. on 11 Nov. 1918 -- now variously commemorated as Veteran's Day (U.S. only), Armistice Day, Poppy Day, and Remembrance Day. The Treaty of Versailles officially ended the war (and some would say laid the ground for the next one) when it was signed the next year in June.

I started thinking about what else was going on in 1918.

NOTABLE EVENTS

The Spanish Flu epidemic, coming in waves from 4 March 1918 to June 1920, infecting from 500 to 950 million people worldwide and killing 20 to 100 million people,  likely quite a bit more than the number of people killed in World War I (8.5-10 million combatants plus about 10 million civilians, mainly of famine and illness other than the flu). The Spanish Flu was unusual in that it killed healthy adults (average age: 33) and spread even to the Arctic. It seems to have started in the U.S. state of Kansas.

The Sedition Act was passed in the U.S. at the behest of Pres. Woodrow Wilson and "forbade Americans to use 'disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language' about the United States government, flag, or armed forces during war." Under the act, members of the Industrial Workers of the World union (U.S. citizens) were imprisoned during World War I. Wikipedia says that in his book The Great Influenza, John Barry claims "that the reason there is so little information available today about the 1918 influenza pandemic is that the newspapers supported the act. The information might have lowered the morale of the civilians supporting the war effort and the morale of the troops fighting the war." The Sedition Act was repealed by Congress in 1920.

The UK allowed women over age 30 to vote and widened suffrage generally in Feb. 1918 "by abolishing practically all property qualifications for men [over 21] and by enfranchising women over 30 who met minimum property qualifications." The tripled the electorate from 7.7 million people to over 21 million. In December, Constance Markiewicz was the first woman elected to the British House of Commons. Women under 30 were not allowed to vote until 1928. (U.S. women gained the right to vote through the 19th Amendment, ratified in Aug. 1920.)

The Russian royal Romanov family was shot to death on 16 July at Yekaterinburg by order of the Bolsheviks. This included Nicholas II and Aleksandra, their daughters Olga, Tatiana, Marie, and Anastasia, and their son Alexis.

Lynching of black Americans continued in the U.S. South. In May, 8-months-pregnant Mary Turner was horrifically killed for opposing her husband's lynching: "She was taken from her home by a mob of several hundred, had her ankles tied, was hung upside down from a tree, doused in gasoline and motor oil and set on fire.  Whilst still alive, a member of the mob split her abdomen open with a knife, and the unborn child fell to ground, where it was repeatedly stomped on and crushed. Finally, Turner's body was riddled with bullets. After the incident, the Associated Press wrote that Mary Turner had made unwise remarks about the execution of her husband."

At the time of Finland's independence from Russian in late 1917, that country passed its Mosaic Confessors act, which went into effect in Jan. 1918 and which for the first time allowed Jews living in Finland to become Finnish nationals with full rights of citizens, and Jews who weren't Finns were to be treated like any other foreigner. Finland was engaged in civil war for the first part of 1918, between the socialists Reds (supported by Bolshevist Russia) and the non-socialist whites (supported by Germany); and when the Finnish Air Force was founded in March, the "blue swastika is adopted as its symbol as a tribute to the Swedish explorer and aviator Eric von Rosen, who donated the first plane. Von Rosen had painted the Buddhist symbol on the plane as his personal lucky insignia."

In Feb. 1918, Russia switched from the Julian calendar (which had essentially been in force since 45 B.C.) to the Gregorian calendar, and 1 Feb suddenly became 14 Feb.  Even stranger than daylight savings time, though only a one-time event. Speaking of DST, it first went into effect in the U.S. in March 1918, as did U.S. time zones!

Max Planck of Germany won the Nobel Prize for physics for his quantum theory of light.

Regular U.S. airmail service started in May 1918, among New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.

Forbes magazine produced its first Richest Americans list. The combined wealth of the 30 richest Americans was $3.7 billion. In 2007, the top 30 of the Forbes 400 were worth about $541 billlion.

The Raggedy Ann doll was introduced for sale in the U.S., based on a prototype produced to promote sales of the first book of Raggedy Ann stories, written by Johnny Gruelle.

Rinso, the world's first granulated laundry soap, was introduced by Lever Brothers.

On 11 Sept 1918, the Boston Red Sox defeated the Chicago Cubs for the World Series championship, their last World Series win until 2004.

U.S. Disasters:

• 9 July: The great train wreck of 1918 (two trains collided) in Nashville, Tennessee kills 101. (Other reports say 99 killed and 171 injured)
  
• 12 Oct.: The Cloquet Fire killed 453 people in the city of Cloquet, Minnesota and nearby.
  
• 25 Oct.: The Princess Sophia sank on a reef near Juneau, Alaska and 353 people died in the "greatest maritime disaster in the Pacific Northwest."
• 1 Nov.: The Malbone Street Wreck, which was "the worst rapid transit accident in world history," occured in Brooklyn approaching the new Prospect Park subway station, killing 97 and injuring 100 people.

BIRTHS

Jan: Gamal Abdel Nasser, pres. of Egypt 1956-1970; Oral Roberts, evangelist; Nicolae Ceauşescu, Romanian dictator

Feb: Muriel Spark, Scottish novelist (Prime of Miss Jean Brodie); Joey Bishop, American entertainer; Don Pardo (SNL announcer); Bobby Riggs, tennis player

March: Mickey Spillane, American writer; Howard Cosell, sports journalist; Pearl Bailey, singer and actress; Sam Walton of Wal-Mart

April: Betty Ford, first lady; William Holden, actor.

May: Jack Paar, American TV host; Mike Wallace (60 Minutes); Julius Rosenberg, American-born Soviet spy

June:

July: Ann Landers and Abigail Van Buren, advice columnists; Ingmar Bergman, Swedish film director; Nelson Mandela, pres. South Africa

August: Leonard Bernstein, American composer and conductor; Ted Williams, American baseball player

Sept.: Paul Harvey, American radio broadcaster

Oct.: Rita Hayworth, American actress

Nov.: Art Carney, American actor (The Honeymooners); Billy Graham, American evangelist; Spiro Agnew, American VP

Dec.: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Russian writer; Kurt Waldheim, Austrian president and Secretary-General of the UN; Anwar Sadat, President of Egypt; Helmut Schmidt, Chancellor of Germany 1974-1982

DEATHS

Gustav Klimt, Austrian painter (b. 1862); Claude Debussy, French composer (b. 1862); Manfred von Richthofen (The Red Baron), German World War I pilot (b. 1892); Tsar Nicholas II of Russia (b. 1868) and his family, in the Russian Revolution; Stanley Steamer co-inventor Francis E. Stanley (in an auto accident) (b.1849); Joyce Kilmer poet (Trees) (b. 1886); tobacco magnate R.J. Reynolds (b.1850); Wilfred Owen, English poet (killed in action) (b. 1893); Edmond Rostand, playwright (Cyrano de Bergerac) (b.1868);  Guillaume Apollinaire, French poet (b. 1880)

The question presupposes that you are sane, of course.

My sanity enhancers are:

I work out for 30 minutes almost every day, and I take a 30-minute walk most days

I very rarely weigh myself

I spend time meditating and reflecting

I hang out with my dog a lot

I don't rush

Like Tyler, below, I rarely check my portfolio and I avoid TV ads and commercial radio.

Tyler Cowen (Marginal Revolution) offers four:

"I try to listen to beautiful music at least once a day, I don't check my portfolio even in the best of times, I hug a loved one at least one more time than was expected (with adaptive expectations this is hard to sustain over time but I have my tricks), and also I avoid television advertisements as much as possible."

You can weigh in at Mindapples (or here of course, in the comments) with your five, and also name 5 famous people you'd like them to pose the question to.

More on the project at the British Psychological Society Research Digest.

Dinners since last post, so these are from 24 Aug - 6 Sept.

Last Week

Sunday: We ate out for lunch so just had sparse leftovers for dinner: a couple of tofu corn cakes, the green salad with tuna, and T. had half of his lunch meal that was left over. I think we had a new red wine with that, Bohemian Highway 2006, a Calif. cab sav., which I bought the day before at Whole Foods for $6. Sugar-free fudgesicle for dessert

Monday: I steamed two ears of corn-on-the-cob, and I made a one-dish meal of whole wheat rotini with pesto, steamed green beans, and grilled mahi-mahi. I grilled (really, broiled) the mahi-mahi on skewers in the oven for about 6 mins. total, after marinating them for a while in balsamic vinegar, olive oil, fresh chopped basil, and black pepper. Split a Negra Modelo for dinner. Sugar-free fudgesicle for dessert

Tuesday: You guessed it: leftovers! The rest of the pesto pasta mahi dish, and I made two more ears of corn, plus I made another green salad with the usual ingredients (including egg but minus tuna), and then at the last minute I cooked up (pan-grilled) about 12 jumbo shrimp coated in Old Bay and divided those among the pesto pasta mahi dish and the salad. Split another Negra Modelo with that. Sugar-free fudgesicle for dessert

Wednesday: I ate alone; T was out fishing until late. Two jumbo soy dogs with low-fat cheese, one corn cake. Glass of Bohemian Highway red wine. For dessert, a serving of grapenuts and a half-serving of raisin bran with low-fat milk.

Thursday: Stir-fry of mahi-mahi (marinated in rice wine, soy sauce, a litte peanut oil, and black pepper), green beans, shredded carrots, spicy and mesclun greens and spinach, broccolini, leeks, summer squash, scallions, garlic, ginger, and whole wheat rotini. Served with the Bohemian Highway red wine.  Sugar-free fudgesicle for dessert

Friday: Leftover veggie/mahi-mahi stir-fry, a couple of leftover corn cakes, and we finished the Bohemian Highway red wine. Sugar-free fudgesicle for dessert

This Week

Saturday: Ate out: artichoke and black olive pizza, anemic garden salad (iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, green pepper, onion, black olives, italian dressing), a glass of Avalon cab sav 2005. Sugar-free fudgesicles for dessert

Sunday: Gardenburger (flame grilled style) with swiss cheese, lettuce and ketchup, and salad: mesclun greens, hard-boiled egg, cucumber, red pepper, shredded carrots, garbanzo beans, black and green olives, whole wheat rotiini and caesar dressing. Half a Negra Modelo. Sugar-free fudgesicle for dessert.

Monday (Labour Day): A slice of leftover artichoke and black olive pizza, the usual summer salad (see above ingredients, with tuna), wistful end-of-summer gin and tonics! Sugar-free fudgesicle for dessert.

Tuesday: Tacos made with Morningstar soy crumbles sauted in taco spices and sauces with onions, and served with corn taco shells, diced tomatoes, mixed Mexican cheeses, romaine lettuce, black olives. With a Negra Modelo. Sugar-free fudgesicle for dessert.

Wednesday: Stir fry: shrimp, whole wheat rotini, broccolini, spinach, leeks, summer squash, shredded carrots, garlic and ginger, green beans, red bell pepper, water chestnuts, soy sauce, rice wine, and peanut oil. Split a glass of Avalon cabernet sauvignon 2005, which I quite like. Sugar-free fudgesicle for dessert and some moose tracks (toffee) ice cream.

Thursday: I ate alone - T. was volunteering: Taco salad from leftovers: soy crumbles, lettuce, cheese, tomatoes, black olives, broken taco shell. A Geary's Autumn Ale. Sugar-free fudgesicle for dessert.

Friday: Leftover stir fry from Wed. and Swiss chard sauted with garlic. 3/4 of a Geary's Autumn Ale. Sugar-free fudgesicle for dessert and some moose tracks (toffee) ice cream.

Saturday: Scrambled eggs, half-English muffin, cooked spinach, with 1/2 glass of Avalon cab sav.  Sugar-free fudgesicle for dessert and some moose tracks (toffee) ice cream. After dinner: Half-glass of Bartlett's dry blueberry wine (accidentally aged about 10 yrs -- we forgot we had it -- and it's tasting fine!).

Joe Posnanski blogs in some depth about favourite childhood foods that don't taste the same to the adult palate. And so far, there are 167 comments.

Q.v., Baseball Card Gum ("As a child it tastes like: Bubble blowing magic.  As an adult it tastes like: Sugared sandpaper"); Beanie Weenies; Candy Cigarettes; Cotton Candy; Dinty Moore Beef Stew; Fig Newtons; Fluff; FunDip; Hungry Man (Turkey TV Dinner); Kentucky Fried Chicken; Necco Wafers; Pink Snowballs; Pop Tarts; Spaghetti-O’s; and Tang.

On NPR's All Things Considered today, a selection of summer songs from Tom Moon's 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die. You can hear audio at NPR for 'I Want to Take You Higher' from Sly and the Family Stone's Stand! (I think I would instead choose 'Dance To The Music' or the obvious 'Hot Fun in the Summertime'), 'Poinciana' from Ahmad Jamal's But Not for Me: Live at the Pershing, and "L'estate: First Movement" from Vivaldi's Four Seasons as performed by Janine Jansen.  Moon also cites Springsteen's Born to Run album.

Entertainment Weekly lists its 100 Greatest Summer Songs of All Time ('Hot Fun in the Summertime' is #9 on their list); Pop Culture Madness lists 40 Beach Music Vacation tunes.

The most summery song I know is The Catalinas' 'Summertime Calling Me' (1975). Brings back those Myrtle Beach days. Lately, I'm loving Springsteen's 'Girls in the Their Summer Clothes.'

I feel like blogging what I'm eating and making for dinner these days, I'd love to hear what other people are eating and making, too. I'm trying to incorporate more fish and fiber into my diet. A lot of that happens at breakfast (fiber -- 10 gms. in the oatmeal!) and lunch (fish and fiber) but I'm focusing on dinner here.

Last Week

I was on vacation in Boston, MA, and in Rehoboth Beach, DE. To the best of my memory, this is what I had for dinner (I didn't cook any of it):

Saturday: I attended an outdoor wedding of people I don't know with X, who does know them. Ate some appetizers like spicy cold shrimp and spanikopita (one of my favourites), along with champagne, then dinner for me was veggie kabobs and something else veggie with rice. Red wine with dinner, and lots of water. Dessert (the wedding cake) was scrumptious, moist red velvet cake. We ate outside, overlooking a meadow, and it was idyllic. I talked with my tablemates (an interesting ex-Presby pastor now working with juveniles in the prison system and his wife, an Episcopal Sunday School teacher/learning disabilities teacher) about Girard and mimetic theory! God knows what I said.

Sunday: My friend R. made dinner. It was broiled or baked flounder, baked macaroni with cheese (and maybe tofu in it?), and some veggies I can't recall but I'm sure they were good. We had X's delicious chocolate chip cookies for dessert, and blueberries and other fruit. Dogfish beer and brewed iced tea for drinks.

Monday: We (6 of us) went out to a Chinese place (Confucius) which was very good. (It was the only place we could get into at 9 p.m. without an hour's wait.) As Ch. said, it shouldn't be called Chinese; it's gourmet. I had excellent crispy fried halibut, as did Ch. I thought it was going to come with the head on and I was prepared to cut if off and ignore it, but thankfully it was headless (and more importantly, eyeless). X had sweet and sour flounder (yum), R had spicy duck that she was very pleased with, and the two vegetarians had veggie fried rice and some kind of broccoli rabe. We also shared out some appetizers, like a yummy garlic spinach. Some of us had wine, I think, and some had beer, and I had a pot of hot jasmine tea. Our only complaint with this place was that it was annoyingly loud and there weren't that many people in the room we were in. Must be the acoustics. Still, fun. I brought back half my dinner and Ch. ate it for lunch the next day.

Tuesday: R. made dinner again (for 8 people), with help. She marinated and grilled shark, mahi-mahi, and bluefish, and all were tender and delicious. We also had corn cakes with tofu (yum!), maybe ratatouille?, a tomato/avocado/? salad, fresh pesto pasta, and other veggies. Red wine to drink. Then various ice creams and X's chocolate chip cookies for dessert, and sliced peaches and plums. I had a blast with Ch and N especially, laughed to the point of pain.

Wednesday: The least best meal, at the Rusty Rudder in Dewey Beach. It was buffet for R and me, and crabcakes for Ch and X. (The kids all defected.) What was really fun was time on the deck by the canal, in the sun, beforehand, with beachy drinks (hurricanes for me), listening to Calypso music and eating a half-pound of Old Bay-spiced hot shrimp -- the kind you can't get where I live now, alas. Even the buffet was good for me, with all-I-wanted yummy crab balls (my second dose of the day), pan-battered fried shrimp, crab-stuffed flounder, lotsa veggies and green salad. We four shared a bottle of red wine with dinner.

Thursday: The best, 4 dozen large Maryland blue crabs. Mmmm! Plus those yummy corn cakes again, ratatouille, the tomato/avocado salad, and probably other things I ignored in my obsession with the crabs. I think I ate a dozen and there were 7 of us crab eaters at the table (plus two vegetarians). Drinks, thanks to J and Ch, were Modelo Especial, PBR, Blue Moon, and various (locally brewed) Dogfish beers. And iced tea. Ice creams (including cookie dough) and fruit for dessert. X shot some video of this dinner.

Friday: Before we went out to eat, we had lovely vodka cocktails at the beachhouse. Our last beach meal was at Porcini House Bistro and Treetop Lounge (they don't have a website), on 2nd St at Wilmington Ave, which I heartily recommend for nice, fairly high-end Italian dining in a casual yet elegant space. We wanted to eat in the treehouse (upstairs deck) but because it was raining buckets right up until meal time at 7, we sat in the glassed-in front porch, very comfortably. (And they contacted us in the afternoon to let us know our reservation for the treehouse would be honoured inside.) Again, it was 9 of us (including two minors, who are both vegetarians). We had two bottles of red wine with dinner, shared out some appetizers, and I had a green salad and the half portion of crab risotto for dinner. The risotto was OK (could have been more crabby -- but then, what couldn't?), but X's mushroom soup was heaven (this said by a mushroom hater), the salads (including the caprese, with ripe summer tomatoes) were fresh, the steak, flatbread and fish-eaters seemed happy with their lot, the truffled mac & cheese (using orichietti) was perfectly creamy and savory, the desserts (chocolate mousse, lemon tart, and something else) were delish, and the service was extremely attentive -- until we were charged for 3 bottles of wine (at $39 per pop) instead of 2. That put a slight damper on the evening but we got it worked out and left happy.

Saturday: I was in Jamaica Plain and ate at a place fast becoming a favourite, Alchemist Lounge. They have absinthe! X and I didn't order that this time but I got the lovely, wonderful St. Germain Champagne cocktail (then a glass of red wine) and she had the Leatherlips IPA from Haverhill Brewery. We started with guacamole and chips, and then for dinner, I had the broiled haddock (with rice and asparagus) and she had the fish and chips. (I've tried to find the St. Germain elderflower liqueur since but have not been able to ... )

This Week

Sunday: Home again. We ordered out for Chinese. Mine was shrimp cashew with white rice, T's was shrimp lo mein.  A bottle of Gritty's Vacationland Summer Ale with dinner.

Monday: More of the Chinese.

Tuesday: I made a hybrid meal of macaroni (whole wheat rotini) and cheeses (cheddar and Parmesan) with a roux/white sauce (butter, flour, mustard powder, milk -- should have added white wine, will do so next time), baked that with thawed frozen peas and a couple of cans of albacore tuna, with breadcrumbs and Parmesan on top. and served it with cooked spinach and a green salad (mesclun, red pepper, cucumber, black and green olives, shredded carrots, corn, Caesar dressing). Red wine with dinner.

Wednesday: Same as Tuesday.

Thursday: Same as Wednesday, with the addition of a hard-boiled egg in the salad. We finished up the bottle of wine we started on Tuesday, a Portuguese red wine I got cheap ($6?) at Whole Foods, Cerejeiras Vinho Regional Estremadura 2007. It was so-so. I don't think I'd buy it again.

Friday: I made the pan-fried tofu-corn cakes we had at the beach (corn, tofu, egg, milk, flour, butter, baking powder, scallions, salt, pepper), and a salad of mesclun, cucumber, red bell pepper, shredded carrots, black and green olives, garbanzo beans, whole wheat rotini, and albacore tuna, with Cardini Caesar dressing.  With the Gritty's Vacationland beer.

Saturday (ate dinner alone): Green salad as on Friday (with tuna and beans), plus a couple of corn cakes. Lots of decaf iced tea.

A few websites that offer excellent comprehensive and/or in-depth information about crime novels.

LISTS

Stop, You're Killing Me! lists more than "2,500 authors, with chronological lists of their books (nearly 29,000 titles), both series (2,900+) and non-series." Also offers indexes by location, jobs and professions, historical time period of series character, and diversity (ethnicity, age, etc.), as well as category read-alike lists and lists of mystery award winners.

BiblioMystery: Mysteries Involving Libraries and Librarians, maintainted by Candy Schwartz at Simmons College in Boston: Extensive list of library-related mysteries with their publication info and one-line synopsis of plot. These include "mysteries in which books, manuscripts, libraries of any kind, archives, publishing houses, or bookstores occupy a central role, or mysteries in which librarians, archivists, booksellers, etc. are protagonists or antagonists (and preferably the location or occupation is important to the plot or theme). Not academic mysteries or mysteries which happen to be about journalists, authors, or literary figures unless libraries, books, manuscripts, archives, and so on, are important to the plot." Excellent. Look also at their Wishlist of similar books.

Thrilling Detective, a website specialising in private eyes and tough guys (and gals). Besides the regular magazine they publish, they also offer a "never-complete listing of private dicks and janes, and selected other tough guys and gals, listed by character, with all appearances in novels, short stories, film, television, radio and other media."

Euro Crime offers an extensive bibliography (works listed chronologically, series in order) for European crime writers. "Currently includes authors born in Europe and only lists their crime novels (and not an author's other types of novel)."

NEWS and REVIEWS 

** For current crime novel news and annotated links to current reviews, Sarah Weinman's Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind blog is excellent, a must-read. 

Cluelass Bloodstained Bookshelf, listing books recently published and forthcoming (up to almost a year in advance). 

Euro Crime blog offers "snippets about British and other European crime fiction, tv and film."

Reviewing the Evidence offers weekly crime fiction reviews as well as an archive of past reviews.

Overbooked offers ongoing listings, synopses, and reviews of crime fiction, mysteries, suspense novels, and thrillers that have received good reviews from Kirkus, Booklist, Publisher's Weekly, and/or Library Journal.

January magazine reviews crime fiction and offers interviews.  They also have a blog that covers crime and other genres.

Rap Sheet is a blog of crime fiction-related news.

DISCUSSION LIST

Dorothy-L  is an emailed "discussion and idea list for the lovers of the mystery genre." Topics include announcements by authors of forthcoming crime fiction; reviews, criticisms, comments, and appreciations of mysteries in the form of books, plays, and films; mention of great mystery book shops; and info on mystery awards and events.

A short McSweeney's list: Phrases I'd Rather Not Be Used At My Funeral by Harry Burt, with my anxious additions:

"autoerotic asphyxiation" [likewise: "left 10-inch clawmarks"]

"found by cadaver dogs" ["according to the forensic entomologist"]

"hopped up on goofballs" ["ate her weight in Oreos"]

"minutes from rescue" ["last-second airline flight change"]

"prehensile tail" ["cascading sheets of mucus"]

["salvaged what we could," "leaned over the rim a smidge too far," "must have been in unimaginable pain," "what's that on his forehead? 'syawliarT'?"] 

At the heart of Tilly's book Why? (see previous post) are the four kinds of reasons he posits: conventions, codes, stories and technical accounts.

Conventions and codes don't posit cause-and-effect; they simply appeal to socially appropriate formulas as explanation:

CONVENTIONS -- Conventionally accepted reasons. Examples: My train was late, I wasn't in the mood, she's just lucky, gotta run, I'm so busy, 

CODES -- Rules, basically. Particularly relevent in law, medicine, the military, government, religion, diplomacy, sports and so on.  

Stories and technical accounts do posit cause-and-effect:

STORIES -- Explanatory narratives, usually used for exceptional, unusual, or unfamiliar events.

TECHNICAL ACCOUNTS --  cause-and-effect explanation used by authorities and specialists in their fields (engineers, physicians, programmers, artists, etc.)

To show the difference among these, Tilly starts the book with a discussion of causes put forth early on, by politicians and survivors, for the 9/11 terrorists attacks: 

 

Story: Terrorists did it, but lax officials let them do it.

Convention: Modern life is dangerous.

Code: Because we have freedom to defend, we must combat terror.

Technical accounts: (Not many given initially. Later, specialists gave accounts of "how airplane crashes brought down supposedly unshakeable buildings, what went wrong with American intelligence," etc.) 

He notes that "intermediate forms of reason giving exist. One form sometimes mutates into another as people interact. In religious communities, 'God wills it' stands halfway between a convention and a story, having more or less explanatory power depending on prevailing beliefs about divine intervention in human affairs."

He also makes clear that all of these ways of relating are also used to accomplish things other than give reasons. For example, stories also "amuse, threaten and educate;" technical accounts also "display their providers' expertise and signal where the experts stand on divisive issues;" conventions also "mark boundaries between insiders and outsiders, fill lulls in conversations, and convey accumulated ideas from one generation to the next."

More about each:

CONVENTIONS

Conventions, like etiquette, "mix propriety and self-interest."  Etiquette "consists of supplying appropriate, effective reasons why -- for things you do, and for things you won't do. Good etiquette incorporates conventional reasons. The reasons need not be true, but they must fit the circumstances" and, even more, the relationship.

Some conventions consist of 'serviceable excuses' that try to normalise relationships. An example Tilly gives is of someone who's illiterate asking a stranger in a store to read something for them, with the explanation that they forgot their glasses. Other examples of 'serviceable excuses' we give to conceal "our suddenly revealed incompetence" include Sorry - I thought this was someone else's office, These gears always grind, The map was wrong, It's too loud to hear anything, etc. We use these to avoid embarrassment, to "prove that the relation between ourselves and others is not what it might seem." Sometimes, Tilly notes, we give similar explanations not to express our social competence but to "explain a failure as a result of excusable incompetence" (my watch stopped, I'm sick, I'm new in town, I've never done this before, etc.)

Tilly says that justification occurs in all types of reason-giving, but that "justification by means of convention ... has a peculiar property: participants rarely take the reason proposed seriously as a cause-effect account, and more often treat it as a characterization of the relationship, the practices, and the connection between them. A good reason offers an acceptable characterization." 

CODES

Using codes as reasons is all about matching the case at hand to the code in the book: "Asked to justify a decision, adjudicate a dispute, or give advice, skillful users of codes find matches between concrete cases and categories, procedures, and rules already built into the codes. Like conventions, reasons based on codes therefore gain credibility from criteria of appropriateness rather than from the cause-effect validity that prevails in stories and technical accounts."

"Sermons, classes, Power-Point presentations, manuals and how-to books often present codes: briefly stated principles followed by practical applications. Their very formats separate them from everyday social interchange. ... Job applications, survey interviews, resumes, obituaries, and citations for honors typically require either their authors or some specialist to convert accounts initially presented in story form into stylized facts to match well-established codes."

Tilly gives lots of legal and medical examples, especially malpractice. 

STORIES

Stories "truncate cause-effect connections. They typically call up a limited number of actors whose dispositions and actions cause everything that happens within a delimited time and space. ... Stories inevitably minimize or ignore the causal roles of errors, unanticipated consequences, indirect effects, incremental effects, simulataneous effects, feedback effects, and environmental effects."  

(All those errors and effects are what interest me -- as well as what the 'actors' think, feel and do -- and may explain an aversion I have to stories that omit those messy things.)

Stories make meaning, make "the world intelligible. ... Stories provide simplified cause-effect accounts of puzzling, unexpected, dramatic, problematic or exemplary events. ... [T]hey often carry an edge of justification or condemnation. ... The story usually gives pride of place to human actors. When the leading characters are not human" ... (animals, God, storms, etc.) "they still behave mostly like humans. The story they enact accordingly often conveys credit or blame. ... Stories exclude ... inconvenient complications [like those errors and effects named above]. ... Even when they convey truths, stories enormously simplify the processes involved."

Elements of stories and when we choose to tell them:

• Stories explain events in question, when conventions and general principles won't do
• Stories often assign blame to the actors involved, omitting other non-actor causes
• There are master stories that recur frequently[ i.e., myths?]: "A let B down and B suffered," "C and D fought to a standstill," etc.
• Stories usually have some kind of moral, even if subtle through assigning praise or blame

This paragraph was most enlightening for me, articulating something felt but not always consciously understood: 

"As with conventions the choice of stories obviously has consequences for later relations among the parties to the stories, and typically involves justification or condemnation of certain practices. If I tell you that a mutual friend has cheated me, I am simultaneously aligning you with me against the friend and warning you not to trust the friend .... That is why hearing stories often upsets us and sometimes incites us to challenge the teller: if we accept the story, we take on the consequences."

"Superior stories" are those that are simplified to the greatest degree and are also closest to truth; that is, they get their cause and effect right. These stories are widely accessible and persuasive.

TECHNICAL ACCOUNTS

Technical accounts "combine cause-effect explanation (rather than logics of appropriateness) with grounding in some systematic specialized discipline (rather than everyday knowledge). ... They assume shared knowledge of previously accumulated definitions, practices and findings. For that reason, outsiders often consider technical accounts inpenetrable because they are so hermetic or ... filled with jargon." 

Their relationship work is that they "signal relationships with possessors of esoteric knowledge, saying you're one of us to other sympathetic specialists, marking differences within the field from others with whom the author disagrees, providing introductions to the field ..., and establishing the author's respectablity vis-a-vis respectful nonspecialists."

Technical accounts use codes to match and measure cases against norms and standards, and they go on to posit cause and effect based on this.

Tilly's examples concerns violence, crime, the National Academy of Sciences, privatizaton of common resources, property rights, Jared Diamond's book Guns, Germs and Steel, etc.

(I find most of the examples in this book pretty tedious and very skippable.) 

My Conclusion 

After reading this book, I have the sense that pretty much every reason we give others or ourselves, or hear from same, is either formulaic or a highly simplified mythic account. Is that it?

I've been trying out reasons in my head -- all stories, so far, because that's the only place where it seems that complexity and doubt could enter -- conventions are not complex per se, codes may be complex but are also pro forma to some extent, and technical accounts aren't that useful for discussing ordinary relationships) -- for various actions I've done, and even when they sometimes include mention of coincidence, feedback effects, incremental effects, etc., they still, I can't help but notice, omit a lot of contributing factors, either because I want to minimise those factors when I present the reasons to myself, or the story gets unwieldy with so many offshoots -- perhaps with cause-and-effect accounts, there is a tendency to weight the contributing factors and to present those writ bold because they seem significant and seem to account for most of the outcome. My life experience, though, tells me that my justifications and reasons-giving after the fact are liable to be misinterpretations of reality, the result of my mind imposing actions, feelings and thoughts (and cause and effect hypotheses) into a biased framework.

I understand, reading this book, why I have felt at times so slighted by someone I considered a friend, when he listens to my story (sometimes a reason-giving story, sometimes not) and responds with what feels to me like a pat convention ("You know it's wrong to do that." "Well, these things happen." etc.)  I've done the same thing and felt the chilling effect it's had on the reason-receiver, too. Now I wonder if answering a friend's drama with a conventional response always necessarily reveals either (1) an intention to push the other away, to make an intimate relationship more distant, or, likewise, (2) an intention to change the relationship's power balance -- the one offering the convention is in effect saying, "I'm superior," or is at least making a claim to more power than she currently has within the relationship. 

Looking for music for your memorial service? Check out these ideas, which include the Monty Python song, 'Always Look on the Bright Side of Life'; Brahms's Ein Deutsches Requiem (Kempe or Klemperer versions, 79 minutes long); Bach's 'Sleepers Awake;' Prince's 'Let's Go Crazy;' Gillian Welch's 'I Dream A Highway;' Crash Test Dummies' 'At My Funeral;' requiems of Verdi, Faure, and Mozart; AC/DC's 'Highway to Hell' ...  

(My list includes, at the moment, Louis Armstrong's 'What A Wonderful World,' Kate Smith's 'I'll Be Seeing You,' and either Ella's or Bobby Short's 'They Can’t Take That Away from Me')

Following Jane's lead, I'm blogging the (visible) brands I use today:

7:15-7:45 a.m. 

Getting up, getting ready ... Zadro is the Shower Bug I listen to in the shower.

I'll note only this first use of Quilted Northern ...

 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

7:45 a.m.

Getting dressed ... socks and necklace don't seem to have a brand on them ...

 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

8:00 a.m. - 9:45 a.m.

What's happening in the virtual world?

  ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

8:15 a.m.

Dog feeding and cooking rice for future dog meals ...

 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

8:45 a.m.

Feeding me, vitamins (some are not branded), cleaning up ...

  ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

9:45 a.m.

Going out -- need jacket, gum, shoes, and a treat for the dog ...

 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

11:00 a.m.

Returning-home treat for the dog ...

  ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

11:00 - 11:52 a.m.

Now what's happening in the virtual world?

  ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

11:52 a.m.

Going out again for a walk ...

  ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

12:05 p.m.

Got a phone call while walking ...

 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

1:00 - 1:30 p.m.

Home and reconnecting ...

  ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

1:27 p.m.

Water plus tonic water ... Lunch was leftovers in a non-brand plastic container, so no brands to record. Then in the garden.

 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

1:50 - 2:00 p.m.

Playing with the dog ...

 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

2 - 2:30 p.m.

Working out ... weights don't seem to be branded ...

 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

2:52 p.m.

 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

3:00 -  3:40 p.m.

Watched taped "Workout" and blogged, read online, etc. ...

 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

4:50 p.m.

Did dishes. Oh joy. (Swept earlier, but no brand names on broom or dustpan.)

 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

5:15-5:30 p.m.

Made cornbread to accompany leftovers for dinner. Most cornbread ingredients not name-brand.

 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

5:35-6:10 p.m.

Reading the paper online and doing email as cornbread cooks and before heating up leftovers ....

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

5:42 p.m.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

6:15-6:55 p.m.

Dinner (leftovers, cornbread, and half of Christmas beer) and TV. Dog goes out.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

7:00 - 9:30 p.m.

Reading. Drinking tea. One phone call.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

9:55 p.m.

Dog to bed.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

10:00 p.m.

 Evening ablutions.

Yesterday, I thought I did nothing. Nothing worth the while, nothing to reflect on, nothing 'good.' I probed that, feeling that I had done something, and something worthwhile, even if it was nothing that fit the cultural and partially internalised rubric of worthiness, and came up with this list of what I chose to do (and what I chose not to do):

I slept late because I was tired from dreaming.

I listened to some of Morning Edition on NPR.

I made the bed. 

I watered house plants and hanging plants.

I clicked on the Animal Rescue site and all the other rescue sites. 

I read and responded to email, including listservs. I read my feeds via Bloglines several times during the day.

I entered the HGTV "Green Home" sweepstakes, as I do every day (until this Friday). 

I did two loads of 'dog' laundry (her blankets, bedding, etc.) and a load of dishes.

I reconciled the checkbook with the bank account online.

I made a batch of brown rice for the dog. 

I moved money from a sweep account at an online brokerage into a mutual fund there.

I did minor research of a house for sale in town (pure curiosity). 

I took photos in the garden and watched the robins build their nest. I looked for the snake but didn't find it. I put the photos online at my Flickr account.

I weeded the yard/garden.

I planted lettuce and arugula in containers on the deck. 

I imitated the seagulls' cries.

I wrote two blog entries for my 'work' blog. 

I didn't do any editing of my 'work' website, other than the blog.

I didn't write an author's profile though I have the notes for it. I didn't edit another author's profile, though she sent me edits.

I swept the kitchen and hallway.

I listened to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright taking questions at the National Press Club on NPR (missed the first part).

I blogged here. 

I spent 10 minutes trying to figure out what to wear for a walk outside.

I took a walk downtown and did a few errands. I bought a heavy item and carried it home because I knew my spouse would appreciate it. (compassion, or earning merit?)

I bought a small gift for a friend.

I rehearsed fantasy (un)conversations in my head.

I took a half-hour online Harris survey that involved determining our net worth (omitting real estate) and exactly what percentages of it are in what kinds of investments.

I watched bits of "Red Green," sports talk shows, "What Not To Wear," "House Hunters," and "It's Me or the Dog," amounting to about an hour of TV. I taped "House MD" to watch later.  

I didn't watch any Kentucky Derby coverage because it made me sad and angry. I signed a letter online via PETA concerning horse-racing (I amended the letter a bit).

I re-heated Chinese leftovers for dinner. (Happy Cinco de Mayo! ;-))

I talked with a few friends via email and one briefly on the phone. Except for my spouse and dog, I didn't have a face-to-face interaction with anyone I know.

I wrote a grocery list and a short list of things to do this week. 

I read and finished a crime novel. 

I wrapped another gift for another friend and got it ready to mail. 

I didn't read anything scholarly.

I didn't do a crossword puzzle. 

I didn't drive or ride anywhere. 

I didn't make any money.

I didn't volunteer anywhere.

I prayed and meditated but rarely as discrete actions.

It's been 16 days since my last Mob Violence post. The delay isn't due to lack of material but instead to being overwhelmed with material. The news from the Patna area of India would be enough by itself to fill this entry.

(If you want to know why I'm doing this, read the first posting.)

 

On with the show ...

1.  25 March, Port Harcourt, Nigeria:

The Advocate reports on the brutal beating of a chapter director of Changing Attitude Nigeria, a gay rights group, during a funeral service: "A man approached him while the congregation sang a hymn, asking him to speak with him outside. He said he was then attacked with slapping, punching, kicking, and spitting by a group of six men.

"'While beating me they were shouting, "You notorious homosexual, you think can run away from us for your notorious group to cause more abomination in our land?" Those who attacked me were well-informed about us, so I suspect an insider or one of the leaders of our Anglican church have hands in this attack.' ...  The attackers "said they would not rest until gays are silenced from activism."

"Colin Coward, director of Changing Attitude England, said in the release that violence against LGBT people has been encouraged by the Church of Nigeria's leaders, including notoriously antigay archbishop Peter Akinola, who is primate of the Church of Nigeria."
 

Conformity: Homosexuals are likely scapegoating targets in a majority heterosexual society, particularly one that considers homosexuality 'an abomination.'  The attackers seem to have found meaning in their violence, announcing that they would not rest until their mission was accomplished.

2.  9 April, Karachi, Pakistan: 7 die in Pakistani clashes

"Rival groups of lawyers fought Wednesday in Pakistan, triggering greater mob violence that left at least seven people dead in Karachi, police said.

"Five of the victims, including a woman, were burned alive when rioters set fire to Tahir Plaza, the Press Trust of India reported. Fifteen more people were reported injured, and a bank and several vehicles were torched, PTI said.

"The confrontation between the lawyers started near the office of the Sindh High Court Bar Association over the alleged manhandling of former federal minister Sher Aftgan in Lahore the previous night. The violence then spread elsewhere in the city with armed men exchanging gunfire at several locations, PTA reported."  Per UPI

Conformity: Not much info here. The spreading of the violence to other quarters speaks to the contagion aspect of violence and mob actions.
 

3.  15 April, Zweletemba township, Worcester, South Africa:

IOL reports:

"Thomas Chamiso, 32, an Ethiopian refugee, ran the Thembikosi Trading Store in Fulang Street in Zweletemba township, Worcester. A month ago, he was one of 50 foreigners chased out of the town by local residents.

"With his four cousins, Chamiso fled Zweletemba with only their wallets and cellphones. They lost their refugee permits, business papers, financial records, identity documents and driver's licences. 'Maybe we will sleep on the street. What will we eat? We have nothing. How can I start a business again? I have nothing left, nothing. Who will give us money? We have lost our humanity in Worcester.'

"As one drives from the bustling town of Worcester ... it is hard to imagine that this place, where the shacks have neat gardens and children play in the streets, could have been the scene of violent all-night looting of 23 foreign-owned shops.

"Foreigners, about 20 from Somalia, 15 from Ethiopia and a handful from Zimbabwe, the Congo, China, Pakistan and Bangladesh, were driven away on the night of Friday, March 7.

"The violence is said to have erupted after two shooting incidents in which a teenager was killed and a woman injured. Two Somalis have been arrested, one on a charge of murder and one on a charge of attempted murder. Both were released on bail and are scheduled to appear in Worcester Magistrate's Court again on April 25. ...

"South African shopkeeper 'Lani' Rasi, whose parents own Vukuzenzele Spaza Shop, said it was as though the community 'were just hungry for violence'."

"[Worcester police spokesperson Captain Mzikayise] Moloi said the perception of many locals that Somalis were murderous and intent on 'killing our children' was an issue that needed to be addressed. 'Locals don't acknowledge how many people their children have killed,' he said. ...

"Duncan Breen of the Consortium for Refugees and Migrants in South Africa (Cormsa) said the Worcester attacks seemed to fall into the same pattern as other recent xenophobic attacks across the country.

'There appears to have been tension building for a while, and it just took a trigger to ignite into mob violence. One of the common challenges we see is that many foreign nationals and South Africans have very little interaction, which allows negative stereotypes of foreign nationals to remain unchallenged.'"

Conformity: Pretty typical choice of scapegoats, people who aren't (for the most part) an intrinsic part of the community, strangers and unknowns on whom the locals can project all manner of evil. All 'foreigners' could be tarred with the same brush. What surprised me most was the police spokesperson's comment that while locals may perceive Somalis as child killers, the same locals don't take into account how many people their children have killed! 

4. 17 April, Bihar, Patna, India: Two men lynched in Bihar for theft

"In yet another case of 'mob justice', two people suspected of committing a theft were lynched by a mob in a Bihar village, the police said Thursday. The victims, identified as Mahant Nat and Butan Nat, were brutally beaten after they were caught allegedly while stealing a water pump set Wednesday night in Pokhra village of Siwan district, about 150 km from here. Both victims belonged to the economically weaker nomadic Nat community.

"'An angry mob of villagers caught them and beat them to death with bricks, bamboo sticks and iron rods. One eye of Mahant Nat was gouged out by the mob,' police sources said."  Reported by ThaiIndian News.

Conformity: No sense of the size of the 'angry mob' or the unifying aspects of the violence. As I commented last time, with the regularity of these mob lynchings in Bihar, one can only assume that the feeling of unity and peace during and following the lynching, if there is any, is extremely short-lived. The victims' status (or lack thereof) -- poor and nomadic -- conforms to Girardian predictions for typical scapegoats, those on the margins.

5.  19 April, El Alto ("La Paz's destitute and neglected satellite city"), Bolivia, S.A.:

The BBC reports on mob violence in January against two innocent bystanders mistaken for perpetrators:

"Tony and his friend arrived at a birthday party in the Bolivian city of El Alto and realised they had come empty handed. After greeting the host, they went to find a shop. But as they came out of the house a girl who had just been the victim of an attempted robbery saw them, and alerted the neighbours.

"'People started to point at us, they started to bang the doors yelling we were robbers,' Tony told the BBC as he walked down the streets where he was attacked, his face still swollen from the beatings.

"'All the other people around there woke up and were coming out of their homes with whatever they had at hand, like sticks. They started to beat me insanely, with their hands, with rocks.'

"'They were out of control, not listening at all … we were yelling: "you are confused, we are innocent, we are innocent, please", we begged a lot, even crying', Tony added.


(The article continues with a discussion of Bolivia's increase in mob violence and of the distinction between community justice and mob justice.)

Conformity: The mob was not interested in the guilt or innocence of the people it was beating; they came out of their homes ready to attack whoever was there. Tony even recounts the accusatory gesture: "People started to point at us."

6.  24 April, Bihar, Patna, India: Two [more] beaten to death in Bihar

Headline looks the same, but it's a different case a week later, as ThaiIndian News reports:

"In two incidents of 'mob justice', a man was lynched for allegedly attempting to rape a girl while another man was beaten to death for opposing extramarital relations of his wife in Bihar. Mithilesh Singh was lynched for allegedly attempting to rape a girl at Kelbanni-Dahiyar village under Rosra police station in Samastipur district, about 100 km from here, police said Thursday.

"Singh entered the house of Manju Devi, a ward member in the village, and allegedly tried to rape her twelve-year-old daughter. But the family members caught him and beat him to death, a police official said.

"In another case, Nasib Paswan was beaten to death by the family members of his wife for opposing her extramarital relations in Betadi village in Bhojpur district, about 70 km from here."

Conformity:  The first case doesn't sound as much like mob justice as protection of a child by her family. The second case is perplexing -- the man was killed by his wife's family because he didn't like her having an affair? Probably more to this than the short article can convey. 

7.  24 April, Bihar, Patna, India:  Man lynched for delay in serving tea:

"In yet another case of mob violence, a tea shop owner was beaten to death by a group of youths for delay in serving tea in Bihar's Araria district, the police said on Thursday.  Abdul Qayum, in his 40s, was the victim of the violent act. ...
The police said some youths were angered by the delay in serving tea. They first beat up Qayum's son Bittu. When Qayum intervened to rescue his son, they severely beat him with bamboo stick and bricks, they said. He died on the way to hospital and his son was admitted to the hospital for treatment, the police said.

"According to the police, the victim was busy serving tea to people at his shop and requested others to wait for some time. But the youths took the request as an act of humiliation."  Reported at Rediff.

Conformity: The lynching was seen as justified because the youths felt humiliated.

8.  25 April, Gotkharik village in Bhagalpur, Patna, India: Mentally challenged man lynched

From India enews: "A mentally challenged man was beaten to death by a mob in a Bihar village on charges of trying to give injections to children. ... According to the police, some girl students informed the villagers that a man was trying to lure them so that he could administer injections.

"A group of people attacked him with bamboo sticks, bricks and stones. He was seriously injured and fell unconscious. Some people took him to the house of a village council member. But before the police could intervene, he was dragged out and beaten to death.

"Deputy Inspector General (eastern range) Raghunath Prasad Singh said the police were yet to identify the victim. 'No injection needle was found (on him),' said Singh."

Conformity:  'Mentally challenged' is almost shorthand for 'likely scapegoat.' (Bamboo sticks and bricks certainly seem the brutal weapons of choice in Patna.)

9.  26 April, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia:

(This is a follow-up to the actual attack, reported by GoldCoast.com.)

"Some of the teenagers responsible for a sickening attack on an off-duty Gold Coast police officer and his girlfriend have walked free from court, smiling and laughing. Meanwhile, their victims, Constable Rawson Armitage and Michelle Dodge, who have been left physically and psychologically devastated by the attack, made a secret exit from the court yesterday, away from the spotlight.

Constable Armitage "told the court he was questioning his career as a police officer, had lost his confidence and desire to have children because of the violence inflicted on him by 'the pack of animals'.

"Of the nine teenagers sentenced in Southport District Court yesterday, six -- including ringleader Tiani Slockee, 18 -- walked free with either probation and community service or a suspended detention sentence.

"Two other teenagers, who assaulted Constable Armitage while he was unconscious, were sentenced to 15 months in juvenile detention.

"Many of the teenagers allowed to go free yesterday were happy to pose for the cameras, safe in the knowledge the media cannot identify them. Queensland's Juvenile Justices Act prevents the media from doing so.

"Described as inflicting 'mindless, gutless, mob violence' by Crown prosecutor Stuart Shearer, the gang worked together to render the couple completely defenceless as they walked home from a night out in Coolangatta.

"Constable Armitage was beaten unconscious and his head then stomped on.

"Ms Dodge was repeatedly punched and large chunks of her hair and scalp were ripped out as she tried to call for help.

"Alcohol abuse, peer pressure and a lack of parental supervision were raised as explanations for the attack."

Conformity:  The article doesn't talk about what led the children (in their minds) to attack the couple, so it's hard to draw conclusions. Obviously, lots of communities have alcohol abuse, lack of parental supervision, and peer pressure without mob violence resulting, though those conditions certainly increase the chances. The article does imply that the teens are perhaps not unhappy with their identity as savage attackers.