Aurora CO Theater Massacre

[Twyla LaSarc]

Another movie massacre movie: Peter Bogdanovich's "Targets" (1968) starring Boris Karloff ...

From Wikipedia:

The story concerns a quiet insurance agent / Vietnam veteran, played by Tim O'Kelly, who murders his young wife, his mother and a grocery delivery boy at home and then initiates an afternoon shooting rampage from atop a Los Angeles area oil refinery. Several motorists and passengers are wounded or killed on the nearby freeway. When the police respond and start to close in on him he flees and resumes his shootings at a Reseda drive-in theater where an aging horror film icon is making a final promotional appearance before retirement.

The character and actions of the killer are patterned after Charles Whitman, the University of Texas sniper. The character of actor Byron Orlok, named after Max Schreck's vampire Count Orlok in 1922's Nosferatu, is patterned after Boris Karloff himself, who in fact plays the part in his last appearance in a major American film (although Bogdanovich states that, unlike Orlok, Karloff was not embittered with the movie business and did not wish to retire).

In the film's finale, which takes place at a drive-in theater, Karloff — the old-fashioned, traditional screen monster who always obeyed the rules — confronts the new, realistic, nihilistic late-1960s monster in the shape of a clean-cut, unassuming multiple murderer. He slaps the murderer into submission and the police arrive and affect an arrest. The murderer wonders aloud about the exact number of victims after his wounding or killing of several theater patrons,

Thank you. Turns out my movie collector kid has a copy (and put in a good word for it). I now know what my late nite movie is going to be!

[nashvillebrook]

Thanks for that, justdrew. I also saw this at cryptogon about HNC:

HNC Software Inc. is San Diego’s largest software company and develops predictive software solutions for business-to-consumer service companies. These solutions allow companies to make more intelligent and profitable decisions and are marketed to industries- including financial, insurance, retail, telecommunications and the Internet.

Like many San Diego-based software companies, HNC Software Inc. traces its origins to the defense industry. When the company was launched in 1986, it focused on defense-related research and development. But over the years as defense budgets shrank not only in San Diego, but nationwide, HNC quickly realized that in order to succeed and grow, other commercial applications had to be found for its products.

…

But perhaps the most exciting frontier awaiting exploration and commercial development by HNC is in an area that scientists still know very little about: the human brain. HNC is working on a long-term research project launched in 1998 that is jointly funded by HNC and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), part of the U.S. Defense Department, to investigate ‘cortronic neural networks,’ a concept originally proposed by Robert Hecht-Nielsen, HNC’s co-founder and chief scientist.

HNC hopes to develop new capabilities in the areas of textual, aural and visual representation, and to actually build three new predictive, neural-net based systems: one that reads, interprets and searches text more effectively; a second recognizing speech and other sounds, enabling users to perform audio searches; and a third that can scan for and interpret images. The ultimate goal is to integrate all three systems. The net result – machines that someday might be able to reason like humans.

“This is the most important scientific challenge of our time, and finding the answer will be the adventure of the millennium,” says Hecht-Nielsen.

The Motivation Behind the Colorado Killings Is Murky, but the Horror Is Crystal Clear

Two months before he was charged with killing 12 people and wounding 59 others at a midnight opening of The Dark Knight Rises, James Eagen Holmes was scheduled to conduct a seminar on how the tiniest bits of genetic material can signal psychiatric and neurological disorders.

Whether or not he actually delivered his talk on micro RNA biomarkers is not yet clear, and he has since dropped out of the graduate neuroscience program at the University of Colorado Medical School in Denver.

But what soon became murderously clear is that none of our present societal markers are able to prevent a maniac from obtaining an arsenal and coldly plotting a massacre.

...

Before dropping out of graduate school in June, 24-year-old Holmes made the same benign impression on the brilliant professors and doctoral candidates who study the brain and behavior at the school’s neuroscience center. The professor who ran his course on the biological basis of psychiatric and neurological disorders is a prominent member of the medical school’s department of psychiatry. The two student-led seminars scheduled immediately after Holmes’s seminar were on psychosis and paranoid delusions.

http://www.bio.net/bionet/mm/neur-sci/2 ... 55098.html

The link I picked for this coincidentally-dated article is, appropriately enough, from a neuroscience discussion group:

Below I have reproduced (in ASCII) a front-page New York Times article from 1977 that I copied from microfiche.

...

The New York Times, Thursday, July 21, 1977
Page A1

C.I.A. Data Show 14-Year Project On Controlling Human Behavior

By Nicholas M. Horrock
Special to The New York Times


WASHINGTON, July 20 -- The Central Intelligence Agency conducted a 14-year program to find ways to "control human behavior" through the use of chemical, biological and radiological material, according to agency documents made public today by John Marks, a freelance journalist.

Mr. Marks, an associate of the Center for National Security Studies, asserted at a news conference that Adm. Stansfield Turner, Director of Central Intelligence, in a letter to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence last week, "seriously distorted" what the C.I.A. research programs involved.

Mr. Marks said that, based on documents about the program he had received under the Freedom of Information Act, he had concluded that Admiral Turner "seems to be practicing what used to be called 'a modified limited hangout'" when he called the agency's activity "a program of experimentation with drugs."

"To be sure, drugs were part of it," he said, "but so were such other techniques as electric shock, radiation, ultrasonics, psychosurgery, psychology, and incapacitating agents, all of which were referred to in documents I have received."

It made me, and surely many others, take immediate notice when they saw that this latest bizarre massacre took place so near to the Columbine event. Also right by the Colorado NSA facility, Lockheed Martin, the mysterious Denver airport - I'm sure there's many more to list.

CIA Plans to Shift Work to Denver

CIA Plans to Shift Work to Denver
Domestic Division Would Be Moved

By Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 6, 2005

The CIA has plans to relocate the headquarters of its domestic division, which is responsible for operations and recruitment in the United States, from the CIA's Langley headquarters to Denver, a move designed to promote innovation, according to U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials.

About $20 million has been tentatively budgeted to relocate employees of the CIA's National Resources Division, officials said. A U.S. intelligence official said the planned move, confirmed by three other government officials, was being undertaken "for operational reasons."

A CIA spokesman declined to comment. Other current and former intelligence officials said the Denver relocation reflects the desire of CIA Director Porter J. Goss to develop new ways to operate under cover, including setting up more front corporations and working closer with established international firms.

Associates of Goss said yesterday that the move was also in keeping with his desire to stop the growth of CIA headquarters and headquarters-based group-think, something he criticized frequently when he was chairman of the House intelligence committee.

Other CIA veterans said such a relocation would make no sense, given Denver's relative distance from major corporate centers. "Why would you go so far away?" one asked. "They will get disconnected."

The main function of the domestic division, which has stations in many major U.S. cities, is to conduct voluntary debriefings of U.S. citizens who travel overseas for work or to visit relatives, and to recruit foreign students, diplomats and businesspeople to become CIA assets when they return to their countries. It was unclear how many CIA employees would relocate to Denver under the plan.

Although collecting information on U.S. citizens under suspicion for terrorist links is primarily an FBI function, the CIA may also collect information on citizens under limited circumstances, according to a 1981 executive order. The exact guidelines for those operations are spelled out in a classified document signed by the CIA director and approved by the attorney general.

The Denver move, which is tentatively scheduled for next year but has not been finalized, coincides with several other developments related to the CIA's domestic intelligence work.

Last week, the CIA and FBI agreed to a new "memorandum of understanding" on domestic and foreign operations, the first change in decades. The negotiations surrounding the memo were highly contentious, with the FBI saying that it should control and approve the CIA's domestic activities, including its pool of U.S.-based assets that have been invaluable in the past to understanding the intentions of foreign nations and groups.

But the FBI is having significant problems developing its own domestic intelligence branch and the CIA is generally viewed across the intelligence community as more experienced and skilled at handling foreign informants who eventually return abroad, where the CIA has the lead in intelligence gathering and operations.

Both the CIA and FBI are trying to deepen their outreach to U.S. research and academic institutions and to private subcontractors working on major government contracts abroad.

Originally, the FBI also pressed to have the bureau disseminate all intelligence reports from sources -- foreigners or U.S. citizens -- living in the United States. It was undercut, however, by the fact that the bureau routinely falls behind in issuing counterterrorism reports and, at the time of the most heated negotiations, in December, the FBI had a backlog of more than 100 reports it had not distributed.

In response to questions this week about the new agreement, the FBI and CIA issued a joint statement to The Washington Post. "The FBI and CIA are committed to effective, joint operations to safeguard our nation," it says. "To that end, we are completing work on a memorandum of understanding that will codify our joint operating principals. We are pleased with both the process and the outcome and we recognize that our joint efforts will enhance national security."

Under the agreement, the CIA must coordinate its operations with the FBI. The CIA's domestic division has agreed to provide the FBI with more information about its operations and debriefings. One goal of updating the memo was to ensure that the two agencies were not working at cross purposes and were aware if one or the other had already recruited or debriefed someone.

It is unclear how a move to Denver would increase the effectiveness of the domestic division's operations, said several former intelligence officials.

Colorado has become a major intelligence hub since Sept. 11, 2001.

The Denver suburb of Aurora is home to the little-known Aerospace Data Facility. Located inside Buckley Air Force Base, it has become the major U.S.-based technical downlink for intelligence satellites operated by the military, the National Security Agency and the National Reconnaissance Office, according to military and government documents obtained by William Arkin, author of "Code Names," a book about secret military plans and programs.

About 70 miles away, the U.S. Northern Command, based at Peterson Air Force Base, in Colorado Springs, is tasked with homeland defense and has been increasing its domestic intelligence work.

It could not be learned whether the CIA's Denver plans are linked to the presence of either facility.

just have to say...tasty stew of data points


edit to add...here's another interesting bit from cryptogon -- does is seem like Holmes is from an elite-ish background? maybe he had enough money for the massacre saved from graduation gifts or a trust fund?:

James Holmes: Accused Colorado Shooter Is Grandson of Decorated Veteran, Has Mamily Roots in Monterey County
Via: Contra Costa Times:

James Holmes, the man believed responsible for killing 12 people Friday during one of the largest mass shooting in U.S. history, is the grandson of a decorated military veteran who was a respected educator at prestigious York School in Monterey.

Lt. Col. Robert M. Holmes, who served in the Okinawa campaign during World War II, retired in 1963 as the last commander of the Nike missile group in San Francisco Bay. He was one of the first Turkish language students at the Army Language School, now the Defense Language Institute, graduating in 1948, a school spokesman confirmed Friday.

After his military retirement, Holmes taught math and science at York School for 17 years. He died in 1990. His wife, Mary Jane Crawford Holmes, attended Stanford University and worked at the Monterey City Library, Fort Ord Library and Pacific Grove High School before finishing her career as librarian and college counselor at York School. She died in 2010.

A 1945 graduate of Pacific Grove High School, she was also a member of numerous historical societies, including the Order of the Crown of Charlemagne, Descendants of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Boston and the Monterey Bay Colony of Mayflower Descendants, of which she served as governor.

Their personal histories, taken from their obituaries in The Monterey County Herald, are difficult to reconcile with the most indelible image of their 24-year-old grandson.
Research Credit: TR

[Twyla LaSarc]

In The Dark Knight, the police can't identify the origin of the Joker's clothing, it being of custom design. The Joker, at one point, manipulates Dent by talking about how he "doesn't plan," that he acts chaotically. Yet everything the Joker does in the films is executed with surgical precision, from the beginning heist where, to quote Wombat's earlier post, the "operational team erases itself" in an orderly fashion due to the Joker's intimate understanding of criminal psychology (people who can be paid to violently rob other people, may also be paid to betray each other for more loot), to the Joker anticipating the police's every move, and quick consolidation of various criminal factions. So, while he may call himself an agent of "chaos," he really behaves more like an agent provocateur, one who aims to provoke more order by carefully, painstakingly manufacturing artificial chaos.

The joker is the trickster is the evil clown.

And the chaos is always painstakingly manufactured.

[JackRiddler]

Saw "Targets" recently, it's pretty good. As a movie, I mean.

"If" doesn't really fit in here. After the students are repeatedly traumatized by the school authorities, Travis organizes a conspiracy for a politically-minded attack on some patriotic war commemoration where I believe the Queen is also present. The movie may be a load of romantic bollocks about the Propaganda of the Deed, but it's damn good, gripping stuff.

[nashvillebrook]

In The Dark Knight, the police can't identify the origin of the Joker's clothing, it being of custom design. The Joker, at one point, manipulates Dent by talking about how he "doesn't plan," that he acts chaotically. Yet everything the Joker does in the films is executed with surgical precision, from the beginning heist where, to quote Wombat's earlier post, the "operational team erases itself" in an orderly fashion due to the Joker's intimate understanding of criminal psychology (people who can be paid to violently rob other people, may also be paid to betray each other for more loot), to the Joker anticipating the police's every move, and quick consolidation of various criminal factions. So, while he may call himself an agent of "chaos," he really behaves more like an agent provocateur, one who aims to provoke more order by carefully, painstakingly manufacturing artificial chaos.

The joker is the trickster is the evil clown.

And the chaos is always painstakingly manufactured.

Had a discussion over lunch today about how the Joker/Trickster/insurgent characters in old pop culture tv and movies are always "agents of chaos" in the broadest sense, epitomized by CONTROL vs KAOS in the Mel Brooks/Buck Henry show Get Smart.



All hail Eris.

[alwyn]

I posted this first on the dread fb, which, i have to say i agree with Jeff in that it has become a way to corral people's impulse to organize....

"and perhaps security will have to change around movie theaters in the country"...i heard this on national tv tonight....
....call me paranoid, but does the 'emotional zombie' that took out a certain portion of Aurora sound like some kind of cia asset programmed to explode across the face of the national media and into America's heart during an election year so we will all be willing to have a more solid security 'presence' at our local movie theaters? somebody talk me down please


i'm not sure about this whole thing, mercury is retrograde, we don't know the whole story, and this thing stinks to high heaven. I used to live in Colorado springs in the early 70's....my then hubby was stationed at the airforce academy....there was really really weird stuff going on then, and i don't think it has changed much. There is some kind of vortex there where a LOT of negative stuff leaks through. There is some really incredible stuff too, but the darker energy is predominant

[semper occultus]

....not suggesting they deserve to be blown-away or anything but what sort of dingbats take 6 yr old kids....let alone 4 month old babies....to a midnight showing of an extremely violent film like this.......?

[jlaw172364]

@ Twyla

While the clown may be the trickster, etc, when I watched The Dark Knight, I got the distinct impression that the Joker wasn't really the "agent of chaos" he claimed to be. His joker persona was just a mask, similar to the Batman persona as a mask for Bruce Wayne. So, who is the Joker underneath the mask?

Having read my share of ancient mythology studies, it seems to me that chaos is assimilated to nature, specifically the jungle, as represented by deities like Tiamat. Then, the civilizing god, such as Marduk, comes, slays Tiamat, and makes civilization from the raw materials derived from her carcass. Chaos is neither good nor evil, it is perhaps, ambivalent, both creating and destroying with a great degree of randomness. The randomness and the destructiveness aspect are what make agents of order so fearful of it. They work so hard to build something, and then chaotic principles, seemingly inevitably, destroy what they have built.
But it doesn't seem that chaos likes conscious, willing agents. It is more a force of nature, and less people consciously acting out principles of chaos. Individual life-forms are inherently orderly, in my opinion, since they have to maintain a certain order to survive.

Often times, the newspapers will try to turn a criminal or a serial killer into an "agent of chaos," but if you examine their life story, you invariably find, if they can be categorized as "sane," that when they commit crimes or atrocities, there are traced to easily determined causes, such as a reaction to being disempowered, or wanting something tantalizingly out of reach and being frustrated at not being able to obtain it. Their crimes are a byproduct of our social structure, and not necessarily part of some mysterious, esoteric force at work.

So, I guess I don't believe the Joker when he says he's an "agent of chaos," anymore than I would believe Batman if he says that he's an "agent of order," which I don't believe he ever does in the films. The Joker acts like a brilliant insurgent general, moving his troops around like pieces on a chess-board, and outmaneuvering his enemies at almost every turn. This is a far cry from the chaos principle embodied by the Invisibles, who don't have a strict hiearchy, but constantly rotate leadership positions, and who constantly question their own motives for similar actions. He also displays a post-doctoral level understanding of human psychology, to the extent that rather than merely theorizing, he actually knows how to manipulate people, and he actually manipulates people into murdering each other, as well as turning Dent evil. That requires an "order" level of planning.

The fact that Nolan, who made Memento, put this into his film, deliberately, suggests that he may be trying to communicate a deeper meaning.

[General Patton]

....not suggesting they deserve to be blown-away or anything but what sort of dingbats take 6 yr old kids....let alone 4 month old babies....to a midnight showing of an extremely violent film like this.......?

Oh, you missed the parent of year part.

Guy put down his newborn son, left his girlfriend and 2 kids in the theater with gunman, drove off in his truck. Confirmed father of the year, she accepted his proposal for marriage later. I've been trolling guys on 4chan with this all night, 10/10 excellent chum.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFZ7C5-h_m4
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/2 ... 91332.html

"I got to my truck and I drove across the mall," Rohrs added. "I'm going to call 911 and trying to call Patricia and it's just ringing, and every time it rings I'm like they're dead, they're dead, your whole family is dead."

BTW, there were some older links that said he drove farther than the mall, I don't have the patience to track them down right now.

[No_Baseline]

@ Twyla

While the clown may be the trickster, etc, when I watched The Dark Knight, I got the distinct impression that the Joker wasn't really the "agent of chaos" he claimed to be. His joker persona was just a mask, similar to the Batman persona as a mask for Bruce Wayne. So, who is the Joker underneath the mask?

Having read my share of ancient mythology studies, it seems to me that chaos is assimilated to nature, specifically the jungle, as represented by deities like Tiamat. Then, the civilizing god, such as Marduk, comes, slays Tiamat, and makes civilization from the raw materials derived from her carcass. Chaos is neither good nor evil, it is perhaps, ambivalent, both creating and destroying with a great degree of randomness. The randomness and the destructiveness aspect are what make agents of order so fearful of it. They work so hard to build something, and then chaotic principles, seemingly inevitably, destroy what they have built.
But it doesn't seem that chaos likes conscious, willing agents. It is more a force of nature, and less people consciously acting out principles of chaos. Individual life-forms are inherently orderly, in my opinion, since they have to maintain a certain order to survive.

Often times, the newspapers will try to turn a criminal or a serial killer into an "agent of chaos," but if you examine their life story, you invariably find, if they can be categorized as "sane," that when they commit crimes or atrocities, there are traced to easily determined causes, such as a reaction to being disempowered, or wanting something tantalizingly out of reach and being frustrated at not being able to obtain it. Their crimes are a byproduct of our social structure, and not necessarily part of some mysterious, esoteric force at work.

So, I guess I don't believe the Joker when he says he's an "agent of chaos," anymore than I would believe Batman if he says that he's an "agent of order," which I don't believe he ever does in the films. The Joker acts like a brilliant insurgent general, moving his troops around like pieces on a chess-board, and outmaneuvering his enemies at almost every turn. This is a far cry from the chaos principle embodied by the Invisibles, who don't have a strict hiearchy, but constantly rotate leadership positions, and who constantly question their own motives for similar actions. He also displays a post-doctoral level understanding of human psychology, to the extent that rather than merely theorizing, he actually knows how to manipulate people, and he actually manipulates people into murdering each other, as well as turning Dent evil. That requires an "order" level of planning.

The fact that Nolan, who made Memento, put this into his film, deliberately, suggests that he may be trying to communicate a deeper meaning.

goddam, jlaw, that was a good piece of writing.

I have been researching the 'trickster' archetype for a while, I have personal reasons as well as a superficial fascination for doing so, and I was wondering if you could elaborate just a bit, please, about what you mean by how the Invisibles are constantly questioning their own motives? I believe I understand the part about the Invisibles being all the Archetypes, and there isn't a strict hierarchy because they all play a part in the human psyche and beyond, but I would really appreciate any links or books that would expound on the part about how they question their own motives...

[8bitagent]

elephant in the room: if this kid had been a middle eastern person of Muslim faith, oh lordy. The media be hammering us over the head 24/7 with "terrorism! jihadist act! is this linked to al qaeda?"

I remember in 2005 at Oklahoma University, a young white muslim kid strapped with explosives went to blow himself up at a football game being held there, but accidentally blew himself up in the parking lot. And quickly the whole thing was covered up for some reason.

[General Patton]

elephant in the room: if this kid had been a middle eastern person of Muslim faith, oh lordy. The media be hammering us over the head 24/7 with "terrorism! jihadist act! is this linked to al qaeda?"

I remember in 2005 at Oklahoma University, a young white muslim kid strapped with explosives went to blow himself up at a football game being held there, but accidentally blew himself up in the parking lot. And quickly the whole thing was covered up for some reason.

The Israeli's figured out it's bad to give terrorists free publicity a long time ago.

But then again, bureaucracy's have budgets to justify, people want promotions, the news wants headlines, it's an odd incentive system.

[JackRiddler]

In The Dark Knight, the police can't identify the origin of the Joker's clothing, it being of custom design. The Joker, at one point, manipulates Dent by talking about how he "doesn't plan," that he acts chaotically. Yet everything the Joker does in the films is executed with surgical precision, from the beginning heist where, to quote Wombat's earlier post, the "operational team erases itself" in an orderly fashion due to the Joker's intimate understanding of criminal psychology (people who can be paid to violently rob other people, may also be paid to betray each other for more loot), to the Joker anticipating the police's every move, and quick consolidation of various criminal factions. So, while he may call himself an agent of "chaos," he really behaves more like an agent provocateur, one who aims to provoke more order by carefully, painstakingly manufacturing artificial chaos.

jlaw, I'm really enjoying these insightful posts! Thank you.

Your note that the "the police can't identify the origin of the Joker's clothing" reminded me that they do immediately detect and identify the source of the DNA found on three playing cards the Joker leaves as an announcement of his next targets. In other words, he's obtained DNA from the targets without their knowing it, and he knows that a) the police will find the DNA, b) test it, and c) find the targets (a judge, the police commissioner and I forget who, the mayor?) in their DNA database. This results in a couple of throw-off lines - "sir, we found your DNA and that of __ and __ on those cards the Joker left" - with no need to state the implication that Police State Gotham is already up to the point where the DNA of all city employees, if not the whole citizenry, is kept on file. Not to mention that the anarchist bad guy has a parallel surveillance operation of this reach. This makes me view the movie itself as a kind of provocateur.

[alwyn]

I think this co-opting of the word Joker is a fascist ploy in itself...a key word hijacking of sorts. If you go back to midieval times, the Joker was the one who told the truth to kings, who brought enlightenment and off the wall solutions to pressing problems....the Joker can defuse a tense situation and start a new tangent, the joker will keep the balls in the air and the erring one's attention entertained long enough for the targeted sheep to awaken and leave the room....the heyoka clowns of the hopi were priests and policemen, the contrary is a high calling indeed. This (i'm fairly certain) bought and paid for thug is most definitely not a Joker.

We need to be specific about our terms; this event really has mythic proportions, how it plays out depends upon both our perception and spin. just sayin'

[MacCruiskeen]

If the world is defined as a battle between a Billionaire Self-Appointed Lawkeeper and an Amusing Psychopathic Crook, which side are you on?

This is how Hollywood teaches citizenship.