June 1: A loner becomes India's new Prime Minister

Manmohan Singh, who after last month's election will ascend to the leading role in governing one of the world's most crowded countries, is a loner. According to The Economist, Singh has a quiet nature and, while a student at Oxford during the 1960s, was "very diligent, hard-working and ended up with an excellent thesis. ... He did not mix a great deal with other students and was somewhat of a loner."

"He was notable for not being very social," recalls Ian Little, who was the future PM's college supervisor.


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May 28: J.J. Cale loves the desert, hates interviews

The beloved musician, now 65, told a San Diego Union-Tribune interviewer that he has been able to keep writing songs and performing well past middle age because "I didn't have nothing else to do. ... I didn't have too many responsibilities, like family. Most of the guys get married, wife gets pregnant, here comes two kids. They go: 'Well, I can't go down to Joe's Bar and drink and smoke marijuana and play music for four dollars a night anymore. I've got to get a job.'

"That didn't happen to me. ... I was a loner kind of a guy. There's an old saying: 'You can't sneak into town and draw a crowd.' I know all the bad things about celebrity stuff and people who became famous. They were really uncomfortable, because they got famous. ... Well, you can't draw a crowd sneaking into town (although) I still do," said the performer, whose songs have been covered by Eric Clapton, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Captain Beefheart, Deep Purple, Bryan Ferry and Johnny Cash.

"They had to hold a gun to my head to make me do interviews" to promote Cale's current CD. "I'm like: 'Let's just play the gig, collect the money and roll on. ... I really keep a low profile."

Asked about his anti-notoriety attitude, Cale - who lives in the desert north of LA - replied that "it would be more fun to play music and keep it on the sly. ... I've had articles that say: 'Well, you're a recluse' ... I'm not really. But they had to come up with some way to sell what little stuff I sell, so they had to have a tag."


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May 26: Cameron Diaz fantasizes about weeks spent solo and silent

An article on Australia's News.com is headlined, "Diaz loves it alone." The story goes on to say that the "self-confessed loner ... may not be setting up home with lover Justin Timberlake just yet after revealing she enjoys living on her own." Earlier, Diaz told the New York Daily News that she preferred spending time alone with her cats.

"I hang out with my cats. My fantasy is to spend a month without any communication with anyone," the performer told the reporter.


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Dec. 28: Was Nixon Evil? Of Course He Was, and Here's Why

An obituary in the New York Times magazine examined the life of the late Ted Rogers, whose top claim to fame -- judging from its placement in the lead paragraph of the obitiuary -- was "having been physically attacked by Richard M. Nixon." Apparently while running for president in 1956 Nixon faced some difficult questions during a Q&A at Cornell University and blamed Rogers, his media adviser, for having put him in the hot seat. On the campaign plane after the Q&A, the Times reports, Nixon "lunged at Rogers in a fury. 'You son of a bitch,' he yelled. 'You put me on with those [expletive] liberal sons of bitches.'"

Nixon, American politics' all-time villain, "cared inordinately about his image," was fiercely defensive when challenged, kept an $18,000 private expense fund during his campaign which enfuriated many Republicans, and ... well, was a racist and an anti-Semite who betrayed the country's faith. Among other signs of villainy cited in the article is that Nixon was "a loner at heart" who "insisted on preparing in isolation" for debates and other appearances. It wouldn't be an article in the mainstream media about a bad guy if it didn't include the L-word.


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Dec. 28: But the Philippines Loves a Loner

Then again, maybe other nations allow their heroes to be like us, rather than cast any suspected loner into the villain heap. A story published by the Philippines' ABS/CBN network hails Francisco I. Chavez, "a UP law graduate cum laude, courageous fighter against Marcos and martial law, a topnotch litigator who served as Solicitor General of President Cory Aquino, an indefatigable pursuer of justice against Marcos, his wife and cronies, and against all corporations, government officials and entities who betray the public trust, calling them 'encephalitic termites.' Frank Chavez has been rightly called the Tribune of the People."

Comparing Chavez -- who has a "growing reputation for being 'murderously sexy'" -- to Sir Lancelot and Galileo, the profile recounts this brilliant lawyer's struggle to right financial wrongs in his country and put a halt to "unmitigated plunder and exploitation" on the part of political leaders and governmental bodies: "In an acquisitive society where status is fixed by wealth, Frank Chavez ... has never been corrupted by greed. In a society hypnotized by slogans and dogmas, he has a mind of his own and the courage to speak it out. In a conformist society, he is a dissenter. In a frivolous society, he is a thinker and a doer. In the Philippine zoo, with its exhibitionist monkeys, cowardly coyotes, idle peacocks, trained parrots and predatory hawks, Frank Chavez is an uncaged lion. His enemies are Apathy, Timidity, Servility; Opportunism, Hypocrisy, Intolerance, Greed, Poverty, Ignorance, Injustice and above all Tyranny."

The article caps off its celebratory praise with this, and even uses capital letters to make its point all the more forcefully:

"Here is a Magnificent Loner with explosive hopes and dangerous dreams.... The herd of common men may graze where they please or stampede when they please. But Frank Chavez who lives an adventurous life remains unafraid when he finds himself alone."


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Dec. 27: Nothing More Need Be Said

Then again, a criminal who assembled an arsenal of weapons in Northern Ireland is sorted out in the headline of a story in Northern Ireland ICNet News: "'Loner' Jailed for Storing Weapons." The story begins, by describing a Belfast judge 'jailing 40-year-old 'loner' Philip George Shaw.

The court had heard that the guns, ammunition and explosives, including six improvised pipe bombs, two home-made machine guns, two pistols, two shotguns, several imitation weapons and 15kgs of assorted ammo, were hidden in a crawlspace of Shaw's flat.

The story goes on for nine more paragraphs yet in none of them is the "loner" claim explained, detailed, reaffirmed, or justified in any way. To the reading public, it is apparently enough just to say the guy's a loner and let them draw their own conclusions: all the same conclusion, obviously.


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Dec. 17: The Nightclubbing Murderer Who Was Mistaken for a Loner

The most closely followed arrest and trial in recent British history is that of Ian Huntley, convicted last month of having killed two little girls at his home in August 2002. Justifiably, the public reviled Huntley, who had been the caretaker at a school attended by the girls -- and who insisted that the deaths had been largely accidental. Unsurprisingly, reporters decided unanimously that he was a loner long before they checked their facts and did any research. A typical article profiling the killer which appeared in numerous papers including the Irish News, Daily Record, and Australia's Age included the line, "Classmates remember a child who was a 'bit of a loner.'"

But after Huntley's conviction and sentencing, a columnist in the Scotsman newspaper wisely mused:

"He has been portrayed as a loner and a fantasist, but to many who knew him, Huntley was a polite, confident and even charming young man. In the pubs and clubs in and around Grimsby, where he lived until 2001, he had no trouble attracting women who worked in the area's many factories."

He used what the columnist calls his "charm" to attract many partners and rack up, in the process, numerous charges of sexual assault: "At least four teenage girls, who had come across him at one of his favourite haunts -- Hollywoods nightclub in Grimsby -- accused him of rape."

Perhaps it was also his "charm" that allowed him to excape punishment for such repeated charges.

A former neighbor said Huntley was "like the bloody Pied Piper" in his ability to attract females, especially very young ones. Applying for work as a school caretaker, "he managed to charm his way into a job he should never have had."

Once again, the last thing the public wants to admit about a monstrous killer is that he's just one of the crowd.


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10/1: A Perverted Crime? Then He Must Be....

An article Scotland's Evening Express announcing the death of Leonard Bowie, who had been serving eight years in prison for horrific deeds, began with this line:

"An Aberdeen loner, who scalped two women in some of Scotland's sickest crimes, is dead."

The 64-year-old ex-hairdresser and club doorman, a hair fetishist, had scalped two women with a razor in the '80s, disfiguring them for life. Just in case you missed the lead sentence, the third paragraph begins:

"Bowie, a balding loner...."

How many loners set up shop in such sociable professions as hairdresser and club doorman, hmmm?


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9/25: He Assassinated a Beloved Politician? Then He Must Be....

Reporting on the arrest of a man suspected of killing Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh, the English edition of Norway's Aftenposten described how DNA analysis of a human hair led them to their suspect, a 24-year-old "loner with a history of psychological problems. He has been a drug abuser and a criminal record.

"At the age of 17, the suspect stabbed his own father repeatedly with a kitchen knife."


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9/25: A School Shooter? Wait, Then He Must Be....

A fifteen-year-old boy at a Cold Spring, Minnesota high school opened fire, killing one student and critically wounding a second before a teacher apparently talked the boy into dropping the gun.

Reporting on the incident, Newsday obligingly wrote: "Some students described the suspect as a loner."


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9/15: Alone in the Matrix

Along with other juicy bits such as the news that Madonna might want to get pregnant again, the Daily Dish declared, "KEANU SPENDS BIRTHDAY ALONE.

"Movie hunk Keanu Reeves turned down six gorgeous glamour models who offered to help him celebrate his 39th birthday - in favor of dining alone," the gossip column reported.

Reeves "preferred his own company as he dined on pasta at Dan Tana's restaurant in Los Angeles on September 2... He said, 'No thanks, I'm happy spending the big day alone.'"


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8/29: Crime + Computers = You-know-what

When a Minnesota teen was nabbed for launching a major computer virus, the Associated Press rushed out with a story that ran under this classic headline: "Teenager arrested for launching version of worm a loner with seven computers, neighbors say."

Just in case you missed the point there, the lead sentence of the story is: "A high school senior accused of launching a damaging version of a computer virus is a loner who drives too fast, neighbors said."

Eighteen-year-old Jeffrey Lee Parson was a hacker. A neighbor "said the teen has few friends and drives too fast in their neighborhood," the article reported, as if this had anything to do with anything.

In an interview with an FBI agent, Parson admitted modifying the original "Blaster" infection and creating a version known by a variety of different names, including "Blaster.B." It infected some 7,000 computers.

Parson's neighbor, quoted again later in the article, added thoughtfully and eloquently: "The profile kind of fits. He kind of liked to be alone a lot."


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August 9: We Are the Champions

An eight-year-old gelding won a $10,100 feature Free-For-All Pace at a New Zealand racetrack last month, according to the New Zealand-based Harnesslink web site.

The speedy horse paced the 2138 metres in 2.37.3 (mile rate 1.58.4) with closing 800 metre and 400m sectionals in 58.7 seconds and 29.2s - and "has been in stunning form this season posting eight wins and five minor placings and just over $50,000 in stake earnings from 15 race starts," the article explains.

And what's the horse's name?

Hes the Loner.

Don't know whether that's supposed to be "he's," as in "he is," or "Hes," short for Hester or Heschel. But hey, that loner kicks butt.


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August 8: Yet Another Job Opportunity

"Carnies form a loner family," is the headline of an article in the Union newspaper serving northeastern California.

Profiling a carnival worker who has been on the road since he was seventeen and took up this work after serving with the army in Bosnia and the Middle East, the article describes his calm demeanor and easygoing generosity with carnivalgoers.

The article then desribes the carnie's girlfriend -- the pair met at a fair. "It's hard meeting people," says the worker, who operates a Jet-Ski ride.

He lives in a small trailer, and "I could use a little bit better paycheck, but it's not about the money," said the carnie, who typically works sixteen days at a stretch, crisscrossing the country, interacting with countless people at the fairgrounds all day but returning each night to the peace and quiet of his trailer, which is part of a "trailer village" comprising the movable homes of his coworkers.

"Carnies band together and watch out for each other," he explained. "It's a combination of a whole bunch of loners, and we made our own family."


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August 2: Shrimp on the Barbie ... for One

Sydney, Australia's Herald Sun newspaper ran a lively interview with heroic loner Dick Tracy, whose web site http://www.theantisocialclub.com is hilarious and who once interviewed me bracingly and insightfully.

"He simply has no desire to mingle or 'make meaningless chit chat,'" the reporter wrote by way of introduction.

"If he attended parties, he'd be the type who pined to leave before he even got there, and despite working as the associative creative director for a funky Chicago advertising agency, he doesn't 'do' company lunches, after-dinner drinkies or any other type of social gathering."

Describing the loner ethos and mentality, Tracy told the reporter:

"Most people get energy from others and need to socialise. Loners lose energy around others and it doesn't matter if it's one or 100 people. The longer we are around people the more time we need alone to re-energise."

Loners, Tracy explained, "tend to be good at hiding our distaste for society and cleverly dodging drinks with the gang after work. I'd rather eat glass.

"We can make speeches, do meetings and meet new people. We tolerate people, but don't like them, and live in their social world when we have to, but come evening and weekends we are nowhere to be found. And don't bother calling -- we won't answer."


July 9: VANISHED ATHLETE, PRESUMED MURDERED, WAS A LONER

Missing Baylor University basketball player Patrick Dennehy, whom court documents say was murdered by a friend and teammate, was a loner, according to his grieving father.

No body has yet been found, but an affidavit claims that while shooting guns, Dennehy and his teammate got into an argument and one shot the other dead.

Dennehy's father, reports the San Francisco Chronicle, "spoke fondly of his son," calling him "by nature a loner. 'He had a tattoo on his arm, and the tattoo was a wolf howling at the moon,'" the elder Dennehy said. "'I think the wolf was simply a sign of how it is you have to approach the world sometimes.... You can't just be part of the pack.'"


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July 9: BIG BROTHER IS STILL WATCHING YOU

A hundred years after the birth of George Orwell, author of such classics as Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, critics and scholars are lining up to reassess the famous writer. As a Reuters report puts it so gracefully, the big question is whether the Indian-born and British-bred futurist was a "giant of 20th century political thought or [a] sick and quirky loner."

Wow, what a choice. And, I mean, not just a loner but a sick and quirky one.

Orwell, according to the Reuters article, "has been generally deified since his death in January 1950. But ... the Orwellian myth is coming under new scrutiny.... A Washington Post article accused Orwell of being an anti-Semitic and friendless loner who dressed working class but spoke distinctly upper class and who was torn between his own Socialist leanings and his detestation of Stalinist Communism."

Educated at Eton, working for seven years with the Indian Imperial Police in Burma, the novelist also worked as a journalist and schoolteacher and fought against Franco's fascists in the Spanish Civil War in 1937. Shot in the throat and disillusioned by the feuding among the ranks, Orwell fled to London.

Whether he was a loner or not isn't as important as the fact that the posthumous character assassination of a beloved writer would pair "loner" with "anti-Semite," as if these two were in some way parallel.

Some of "us" are more equal than others.


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July 9: PLAN A MASSACRE, GET CALLED A LONER: IT'S THAT EASY

Surprising no one, the press sent up a huge chorus following the arrest of New Jersey teen Matthew Lovett, who had been plotting with two friends to murder schoolkids and other residents of their town. Lovett, sang the papers, was a loner.

"A Teenage Loner, an Arsenal and, to the Police, a Close Call," ran the New York Times headline. "A loner who silently endured the heckling," proclaimed the Newark Star-Ledger. "Plot suspect a loner, obsessed with 'Matrix,'" announced the Philadelphia Daily News. "'Loner' Hid Inner Torment," intoned the New York Post. As usual, the details cited within the articles themselves painted a picture of an outcast, a disgruntled boy whose desire for companionship won him only cruel treatment from his peers. "At Collingswood High School," the Times tells us, Lovett's "tattered T-shirts, social awkwardness and limp made him an outcast and, frequently, the object of ridicule.... Residents wondered whether the teasing that had been directed at Mr. Lovett and his brother, who has a speech impediment, might have pushed him too far. 'A lot of people made fun of them,' said Lance Jones, 18 ... 'but no one meant anything by it.'" Sure they didn't.

Exhibiting nonlonerish, attention-seeking behavior, Lovett periodically "hid behind the bushes and then would startle girls when they passed by, neighbors said."

Seeking a solution to his pain, what did this "loner" do? Like the Columbine High School killers, he assembled his own little army. Now, is that social or what?


June 17: We Are Beautiful in Every Single Way

Ohio's Zanesville Times Recorder announces on June 17 that a local 21-year-old Miss Ohio contestant was bullied in middle school and went through childhood "torment" because "she was a loner, wasn't popular and didn't have many friends."

Later, Julie Inboden graduated high school as a valedictorian and started entering beauty pageants. In 2002, she was crowned Miss South Central Ohio and then went on to the Miss Ohio pageant.

For the talent portion of the pageant, in which she finished tenth, Inboden played the piano and sang an original piece, "Lullaby," which she wrote after 9/11 when thinking about children who felt fear and confusion following the attacks.

The talent portion "gave people the chance to really know me through my music," Inboden said. "I felt like I was really in my element."

If only more gorgeous, well-adjusted high achievers would tell the world they're loners....


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And Now a Word About That Case Western University Gunman

One day in early May, Biswanath Halder drove a rented red Dodge Neon about a mile from his home in Cleveland, Ohio to Case Western Reserve University. With body armor, a helmet, a sledgehammer and two semiautomatic firearms, Halder bashed his way into a building and began shooting, fatally wounding a student before a SWAT team was able to storm the school and apprehend the killer. In the ensuing days, newspapers all over the nation covered the story, using remarkably similar headlines; to wit:

Accused gunman described as troubled loner
Dayton Daily News, OH - May 11, 2003

Alleged Gunman Called Troubled Loner
Atlanta Journal Constitution, GA - May 11, 2003

Suspected Ohio college gunman described as loner
USA Today - May 11, 2003

Alleged Gunman Called Troubled Loner
ABC News - May 11, 2003

Ohio Loner Charged With Murder After Shooting Rampage
San Leandro India West, CA - May 15, 2003

Neighbors: Alleged Case shooter a loner
Lorain Morning Journal, OH - May 12, 2003

Alleged university campus gunman described as troubled loner
Contra Costa Times, Contra Costa County, CA - May 12, 2003

Surely Mr. Halder had some other quality, any other quality, that might pertain to his brutal act? None, apparently, that merited inclusion in the headlines. The Plain Dealer reports that he ordered the same lunch every single day (chef's salad with ranch dressing and a small cup of coffee), that he wore "a ridiculous toupee" and that he "sat alone and mumbled to himself." Sitting alone is one thing; mumbling to oneself in a ridiculous toupee is entirely another.

Characterized as a "computer geek," the 62-year-old shooter labored under the delusion that a CWRU student had destroyed Halder's Web site. Halder earned a master's degree at CWRU a few years ago, and in those student days he "wasn't hard to spot on campus," the Plain Dealer explains, as "he wore unfashionably high gym shorts and tube socks pulled up to his knees. And, of course, there was the toupee. Halder was a fixture all around CWRU - eating at the cafeterias, swimming or swatting a racquetball at the gym, toiling in the computer labs - but he never socialized."

After earning his degree, "he continued his hermit-like ways, occasionally leaving his dingy room to put out a small box of trash. He never received visitors," said a neighbor.

Another neighbor reminisced, "I don't know if I ever saw him smile."

A former coworker noted, "He didn't make friends well. He wasn't liked."

Halder's "only outlet, it seems, was his Web site, called the Worldwide Indian Network, where he hoped to create a coalition of Indian entrepreneurs to solve the world's problems and ... played the role of a left-leaning social activist, posting essays with titles such as 'Let Us Make the World a Better Place to Live.'"

There are several things going on at once with this coverage. Yes, the guy was a loner who avoided people. Yes, he was also a homicidal maniac. By attempting to interlink these two facts about him, as if one was inextricable from the other and/or one fed naturally into the other, the reporters are feasting eagerly on that classic misconception -- but in the process they are also enacting such a primitive form of prejudice. It's like ... reporters in the mainstream press can't get away these days with making such blatant claims as "Jews are misers, that's how Harvey Weinstein got rich" and so forth. Yet they can still say, "Loners are dangerous, that's how this guy ended up shooting a student."


May 4: Famous Loner Geniuses - Autistic?

Researchers at Cambridge and Oxford universities now believe Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton displayed classic signs of Asperger's syndrome, a form of autism whose symptoms include eccentricity, communication difficulties, lack of social skills and an obsession with complex topics, according to Asian News International.

According to the researchers, Einstein showed signs of Asperger's from a young age. "As a child," ANI reports, "he was a loner." Later in life, the German-born scientist made intimate friends, had numerous affairs and spoke out on political issues.

"Passion, falling in love and standing up for justice are all perfectly compatible with Asperger's syndrome," Professor Simon Baron-Cohen of Cambridge, one of those involved in the study, is quoted as saying. "What most people with Asperger's Syndrome find difficult is casual chatting -- they can't do small talk."

Newton, ANI reports, "hardly spoke, was so engrossed in his work that he often forgot to eat and was lukewarm or bad-tempered with the few friends he had. If no one turned up at his lectures, he delivered them anyway -- talking to an empty room."


May 3: Now They Say It'll Kill You

A United Press International report, which was picked up by Good Housekeeping magazine and many other publications, ran under the headline, "Antisocial Lifestyle Is Unhealthy."

"Researchers say antisocial types are more likely to suffer illness, injury and premature death than people who engage in socially acceptable behavior," we are told, based on a study reported in the British Medical Journal.

The word "antisocial," in British reportage, actually means violent, juvenile-delinquent-type behavior rather than simply socially avoidant. The report goes on to explain that "studies have found links between an antisocial lifestyle and injury, especially harm suffered in assaults at ages 16 to 18 and on the road or at work at ages 27 to 32, they said. Family, school and police interventions can reduce the health risks, the authors said. For example, pre-school education and management training for parents have helped to decrease a range of antisocial behaviors, including alcohol or other drug misuse."

Yes, understood, but the headline doesn't take into account that American readers would assume "antisocial" meant "walking alone on the beach instead of attending the Fourth of July barbecue." Thus, millions of readers now mistakenly believe that acting like a loner will shorten your lifespan.


April 28: Loners Are So Creative

British papers are reporting on the recent suicide of a Northumberland man who killed himself by way of an intricate guillotine which he spent three months constructing and which he rigged up to kill him as he slept.

In a story entitled "A Genius Suicide," the Mirror describes how Boyd Taylor, a "36-year-old loner," told his father, with whom he lived and who was curious about all the sawing and hammering, that he was "simply working on a woodwork project.

"But behind a double door in his bedroom, Taylor built an 8'x 3' frame to house a razor-sharp blade activated by a complex timing mechanism. The guillotine blade was weighted with a paving slab wired to a piece of plywood. That, in turn, was wedged into a wooden block at the foot of Boyd's bed. An electric jigsaw was set up next to the contraption and plugged into a timer switch - which would start the saw, cutting the wood and releasing the wire that held the blade. Boyd even created a device to cut out the power, so he would not be discovered for some time.

"He carved a Gothic-style wooden hammer, which was raised using thread and attached to the guillotine. When the blade was released, it cut the thread, letting the hammer swing, hit a peg and knock out the power.

"He took 12 sleeping pills, then lay under the guillotine knowing the medication was so strong his position in bed would not alter. At 3.30 am, the device was triggered and Boyd was decapitated. His father found him later," the Mirror reports, "covered in blood."

The father had never ventured into the double-doored room before. As he later told an interviewer, "I never went in - it was his space."

Local coroner Eric Armstrong had this to say about the incident: "Boyd Taylor had gone to extreme lengths over a period of time to construct this device. A good deal of thought had gone into the construction, which was ingenious, if applied to a somewhat bizarre purpose."

Well, no one can say we don't have brilliant imaginations, and the time, skills, and conviction to put them into action. Here's one answer to that question loners always hear: "What are you doing in there?"


April 19: Was Accused Wife-killer Peterson a Loner?

Scott Peterson, accused of murdering his pregnant wife whose partial corpse was found recently on the shores of San Francisco Bay, is now the subject of intense media scrutiny. Who is this heartless 30-year-old, really, everyone wants to know.

In a typical interview-the-newly-arrested-suspect's-childhood-acquaintances article, Peterson's hometown paper, the San Diego Union-Tribune, revisited his years on the high-school golfing team, on which he played from 1987 to 1990, and earned most valuable player honors two of those years.

"He was a tremendous kid and a tremendous golfer," recalled Peterson's coach. "He was both popular and a leader... He was dedicated to his team." However, the reporter found a former teammate who disagreed.

Peterson "was the biggest snob," said Ed Ventura. "He was always talking about how good his golf game was and how much better he was than the others.... He made sure we all knew how good he was," Ventura said. "We always wanted him to play, but when it came to wanting to be around him we would stay away. He was a loner. At school he was the kind of guy you would walk by and not even notice."

How long did it take after Peterson's arrest before he was tagged with the L-word? Less than 24 hours. A high-school sports team member; then a cafe owner who so charmed his customers that his future wife, a cafe-goer and still nearly a stranger, slipped him her phone number; then a traveling salesman ... sounds pretty outgoing to me. Did he kill her? Evidence points to yes. Is he a loner? Evidence points to no.


April 22: You Can't Be a Murderous Pervert if You're Not a....

The New York Post reports today on a Pennsylvania man who shot his brother- and sister-in-law to death and abducted their 13-year-old daughter before finally freeing the girl and surrendering after a four-hour standoff with police.

The "kidnap fiend," as the story dubs Robert Hixson, broke into his relatives' home on April 19 and killed the adults with a shotgun, then fled with his teenage niece, Hadley Bilger.

"There is some evidence of an obsession of a sexual nature with the 13-year-old," Monroe County, Pa., District Attorney Mark Pazuhanich said. Hixson's mother-in-law opined that Hixson "wanted to run off with" the girl.

Her husband, Myron Bilger Sr., told the reporter that Hixson was "a loner." He also said his murdered son "didn't like" Hixson.

Was this creep one of us or wasn't he? In the final analysis, it kind of doesn't matter. What matters to me is how relentlessly typical this story is. Arrest a monster, then dig up someone from his past who will dutifully make that grim pronouncement: "He was a loner." In actual translation, that phrase means: We didn't like him! And now he's justified our dislike with his evil crime!


April 18: Hermit Found Dead In Bog

The Welsh national paper, the Western Mail, reports that a local hermit was found dead "after he became trapped up to his waist in an isolated bog. It is feared that loner Robert Hoops may have been trapped for days as his cries for help went unheard. His decomposed body was found after a passing farmer saw [Hoops'] top half poking out of the marsh in the Swansea Valley."

The 58-year-old bachelor had been dubbed "Mr. Mole" by locals because of his habit of scavenging for coal on local hillsides. It is thought that during one of these expeditions, Hoops' legs were sucked in by the bog and that he was unable to dislodge himself. The top half of his body then stood upright in the field for weeks. The chilling discovery was made by a farm worker in Ynysmeudwy, near Swansea.

"Reclusive Mr Hoops, of Cefn Llan, Pontardawe, was last seen on February 28," the Mail reports.

Local butcher Bleddyn Howells, who knew Mr. Hoops, said, "Perhaps he was taking a shortcut across the field and he got stuck in the bog. It must have been a very slow cruel death, freezing to death with nobody to hear his cries for help."

The downside of being a recluse is that sometimes nobody can hear you scream.


April 3: Alleged Loner Wields Grenades

Among the first American casualties in the current Iraq war were victims of a California-bred U.S. Army sergeant who killed one comrade and wounded fifteen more with hand grenades during the war's early days.

The killer, Asan Akbar - born Mark Kools - targeted his commander in Kuwait, near the Iraqi border. After throwing grenades into the victims' tent, Akbar fled and was found hiding in a bunker.

A recent convert to Islam, he expressed fears that he would be prosecuted extra-harshly because of his faith. Preliminary investigations found that Akbar had had a recent tiff with his main intended victim and that his actual motive was resentment.

The New York Post story on the case is headlined 'TRAITOR' GI A MUSLIM LONER ... but the L-word doesn't appear anywhere else in the article.

So where does the reporter get the idea that Akbar's a loner? After all, this disgruntled soldier was so enraged over interpersonal issues, so dependent on the opinions of others as to kill and maim. Moreover, he wasn't drafted - Akbar joined the armed forces, volunteering for years of togetherness. Would a loner want that?


March 23: Why Call Dubya a Loner?

A story in the New York Times today is headlined "Bush 41 Wasn't the Loner His Son Is."

The story goes on to say that the first President Bush, during that other U.S. war with Iraq, operated amid an ambience that could be characterized as "a clubby 'we.' He and James Baker had a coalition of 36 countries for Desert Storm to affirm the principle that one country can't arbitrarily invade another. They constantly schmoozed world leaders and tried to maintain international order," writes Maureen Dowd, who goes on to add:

"The hawks of Bush II ... have no interest in any permanent coalition - except their own. They see the international 'we' as an impediment to joy - and to destiny. The Bush doctrine is animated by 'the big I.' That self-regarding doctrine ... preaches preventive pre-emptive preternatural pre-eminence."

The "L-word" doesn't appear anywhere in the story except in its headline. Thus by Dowd's definition, a loner is a fearsome thing indeed. Yet ... George W. Bush has chosen a career that involves constant contact at every level and that entails fiery criticism and cloying adulation, not to mention the making of decisions that involve massive numbers of people. Does that sound like a loner to you? (And don't forget W's earlier career as a heartily partying frat boy.) It's another case of "loner" being used as a euphemism for anyone who scares you.


March 21: New Film Puts the "L-word" into Headlines Galore

Use of the word "loner" in the press was tooling along at its usual level, relegated to stories about murderers, until the release this week of the new movie Willard, about a disgruntled young man who befriends rats. Starring Crispin Glover, it's a remake of a 1971 cut classic starring Bruce Davidson, whose sequel, Ben, continued the story and gave the barely pubescent Michael Jackson a big hit with its titular theme song.

Is Willard Styles, the movie's protagonist, really a loner? He's alone a lot, but could that be because he's shy (not an automatic loner-definer) ... and/or because his harpy of a mother rules his life, filling Willard with shame and a sense of confinement? The young man's heart blooms so transcendently at the first taste of friendship - though that bond happens to be with rodents - that you have to wonder whether he's just been craving human relationships so long and so much that the rats are surrogates. Willard's revenge and control fantasies also imply a "pseudoloner," an unhappy person who's alone but not by choice, and whose resultant feelings of fury and resentment toward others results in violence.

Be that as it may, reviewers seize on the character's solitary status and attach the media's usual array of negative adjectives to an L-word that is used less than accurately in the first place. Canada's CTV calls Willard Styles a "repressed, psychotic loner"; the Kansas City Star calls him "a misfit loner to end all misfit loners"; the San Jose Mercury-News calls him "the classic loser-loner."

That hyphen says it all. Thanks, Mercury-News, for making it all so clear.


March 15: Do Little Loners Have Low Self-Esteem?

An article in the Malta Times - yes, published on the island of Malta - urges parents to take an active role in raising their children's self-esteem. Kids with high self-esteem, the article points out, try harder, are happier, make friends easily and are more generous. On the other hand, low self-esteem "is related to insecurity, underachievement, anxiety, depression, difficult behaviour, sleep problems and being a loner."

To raise that all-important self-esteem, readers are assured, "there are many things you can do." A list of tips follows, including "praise your child," "be positive," "understand him," "keep criticism to a minimum," "encourage him to interact with other children and adults," and "accept your child as he is ... recognise his unique abilities and talents. Reinforce, nurture, and help the child see these talents. Focus only on changing behavior that is important to change, i.e. behaviour that isolates or harms him or disrupts the family."

The article goes on to tell readers that "your child needs to feel included at home, in the family, in school and in the larger community. Put a picture of your child with family members next to your child's bed. This is a subtle reminder that he has family support and is not alone in the world. Yes, many children really do feel that way."

Yes, many feel that way because, for them, it's true. Pretending to "accept" kids while striving to change their "isolating" lonerish behavior, and pretending to "understand" them while forcing community spirit down their throats is a sinister manipulation.