Category: Geoff

On the surface, Josef Fritzl appeared to be your average caring, benevolent husband and father. Living in the suburbs of Amstetten, Austria, Fritzl worked as an electrician who was described by his peers as being "intelligent, hard-working and polite."  He had even adopted three of his grandchildren in order to provide a more suitable home environment for them to grow up in.  It seems the only thing keeping Josef Fritzl from his "Father of the Year" award are his multiple convictions of rape, incest, coercion, enslavement, and murder by neglect.

In April of 2008, Josef's 42-year-old daughter, Elisabeth, testified that she had spent that last 24 years in a concealed, underground prison built for her by her father. During that time, she had constantly been assaulted and raped incestuously, resulting in the birth of seven children.  Three of the children were taken from Elisabeth and adopted by Josef and his wife, Rosemarie.  The other three children (ages 19, 18, and 5) had never seen the light of day until they were rescued by police.  With no medical resources available in the dungeon, one child died shortly after birth from respiratory problems.  Fritzl told his wife and police that Elizabeth had run away from home in 1984, and Josef forced Elisabeth to write letters telling her parents not to come looking for her.   The police were alerted to the existence of Fritzl's incarcerated family only after the 19-year-old daughter became critically ill, and Fritzl was persuaded to take her to a local hospital.  Elizabeth had hidden a note on her daughter explaining her dire circumstances, and the medical staff alerted local police, who launched an investigation which resulted in the discovery of the dungeon.  Fritzl is currently serving a life-term in prison and his wife and the rest of his children have since changed their names and moved to different locations in Europe.

Although many Americans would like to believe that this type of monstrous behavior only occurs in distant, Transylvanian Euro-destinations, similar atrocities have been committed in our own backyard.  In 2009, the nation was shocked when Jaycee Dugard resurfaced after disappearing for 18 years.  Phillip Garrido and his wife, Nancy, had abducted Dugard at the age of 11 in 1991.   Dugard was kept in a tent in an enclosed area in Garrido's backyard.  Garrido fathered two girls- now 12 and 16- with Dugard during her captivity.  Phillip and Nancy have pled not guilty to charges of kidnapping, rape and false imprisonment and the court case against them is ongoing.

There are similar cases found in every corner of the world.  Some end with the children being discovered, many do not.  Even when the missing children are found and the captors are brought to justice, there is no happy ending for the victims of these crimes.  The physical and psychological damage inflicted on these young children is often too severe to hope for a return to normalcy.  The worst villains in this world are the ones whose damage cannot be undone. Their enduring malice haunts generations long after they are gone and their stories shake the foundation of our faith in humanity.  Their perverse sense of reality is infectious to their victims and we can only hope that their existence is confined to the front pages of distant newspapers, far removed from our own families and friends.

          J. Robert Oppenheimer is indirectly responsible for the deaths of nearly 200,000 men, women and children.  It is also reasonable to infer that he saved the lives of countless more.                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Born in New York City to a Jewish immigrant from Germany, Oppenheimer studied at the Ethical Culture Society School and went on to graduate summa cum laude after just three years at Harvard. At the age of 23, Oppenheimer earned his PDH at the University of Gottingen in Germany. In 1927, he returned to America and took a job as an assistant professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley.  After spending a few years establishing himself as an intelligent, charismatic professor, students from around the world migrated to Berkeley in order to study theoretical physics.                                                                                                                                                                     Although he was often immersed in his research and somewhat isolated from the political world, Oppenheimer was wary of the rise of fascism in the 1930s, and publicly opposed the authoritarian nationalist ideology.  By 1939, Americans learned that German scientists had split the atom, creating the opportunity for Nazis to develop extremely powerful weapons. President Roosevelt subsequently established the Manhattan Project and, in 1942, appointed J. Robert Oppenheimer as its director.  Oppenheimer quickly gathered the nation's most brilliant minds in physics and set up a new research station at Los Alamos, New Mexico. There he managed more than three thousand people, and overcame the vast number of mechanical challenges that arose during the creation of the world's first atomic bomb.On July 16, 1945, Oppenheimer witnessed the first detonation of one of his atomic bombs in the New Mexico desert (Trinity Test). In less than a month, Japan would surrender after atomic bombs were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Oppenheimer famously quoted Hindu scripture, saying “If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one” and “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”                                                                                                     At the End of WWII, Oppenheimer became the head of the general advising committee of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. He opposed the development of the more powerful hydrogen bomb, sensing the repercussions that would surely accompany the advancement of such destructive forces. Oppenheimer did not argue when President Truman eventually approved the research and testing of the H bomb, but his initial reluctance and the tense political climate eventually turned against him. In 1953, at the height of U.S. anticommunist feeling, Oppenheimer was accused of having communist sympathies, and his security clearance was publicly revoked. Despite a lack of concrete evidence that he was indeed a member of the Communist party, this loss of security clearance ended Oppenheimer’s influence on scientific policy long after the Red Scare.  He eventually returned to the field of education and took Albert Einstein's position as Senior Professor of Theoretical Physics at the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton.  In the last years of his life, Oppenheimer joined a number of noteworthy scientists in protest against nuclear weaponry, stressing mankind's inability to wield the epic power of knowledge in a world that is defined by its political disputes.                                                                                                                                                                 When defining a hero, there is often a great deal of debate as to whether or not someone is heroic just because they were the first to do something.  In this case, Oppenheimer's ability to efficiently assemble and manage thousands of the country's greatest minds led to a swift victory for the allies in WWII.  Many consider him to be a villain for fathering one of the most destructive forces of all time and doing so with the knowledge that his work would be used as a weapon.  Oppenheimer was a hero because he was on our side, and like so many heroes, his high esteem is a direct result of perspective. Without his help, the United States might have experienced a grim alternate reality were prolonged wartime would have exhausted resources, facilitating the spread of Nazism into the West.  For better or worse, Oppenheimer has reshaped the world and given its people a whole new reason to hope and fear for its survival.  In the end, we can only hope that this godly power remains under our control, because, in this case, one man's boon has become every man's burden.

       The Desperate Hero feels as though they have nothing to lose, but everything to gain.  They are not martyrs in a sense that they want to die for a cause, but they would rather risk losing everything if it meant being able to gain something significant.  When backed into a corner with a ubiquitous sense of despair, these characters emerge with a driven, almost manic focus to defy their oppression and live on in spite of their troubled circumstances.                                                                                                                                                 Jeb Corliss is a modern day example of such a hero.  Abandoned by his mother at the age of fifteen, Corliss dropped out of school in sixth grade. In an interview with Men's Journal, Corliss stated that "[school] was a place to go fight€¦it made me a very dark, unhappy person."  He suffered through severe depression throughout adolescence until he discovered skydiving at the age of 18.  After his first dive, Corliss became addicted to the adrenaline rush that accompanied the intense sensation of freefall.  He began to attempt more and more dangerous stunts in the realm of skydiving and base jumping. In an otherwise hopeless world, Corliss decided that he was either going to achieve greatness in his newfound passion, or die in his attempts. Now, at the age of 34, Corliss has become one of the world's most famous extreme athletes, having illegally jumped off of some of the most recognizable structures in the world (The Eifel Tower, The Empire State Building, The Golden Gate Bridge, The Petronas Towers, The Stratosphere Casino€¦etc.).  His next major project is building a $2 million ramp that he will use as a gradual landing structure so that he can successfully jump out of a plane without a parachute.  Jeb Corliss might not be every mother's favorite role model for their children, but his story of overcoming his depression and awing the world with his stunts is a great boon for those who have weathered the dismal years of adolescence.                                                                                                                                                     Another prime example of such a character can be found in the movie Gattaca. Ethan Hawke plays the role of Vincent Freeman, a man who is considered by his futuristic society to be slightly subhuman because he was born without the aid of liberal eugenics, which is used at birth to optimize children and rid them of any physical, intellectual or psychological dysfunction. Because Freeman is less than perfect, he is considered ineligible to fulfill his dream of traveling into space.  After realizing that he would rather be dead than continue to live as a subordinate, Freeman goes through the grueling task of impersonating an elite member of society.  After a number of near fatal setbacks, the hero miraculously boards a shuttle and launches into space.  This triumph of the human spirit over seemingly insurmountable odds is a classic hero story. However, the fervent desperation that gives life to these heroes warrants the creation of a new subcategory of heroism.  At a few points throughout Gattaca, Vincent and his brother, Anton (who is a member of the genetically superior class), play a game where they see how far they can swim out into the ocean, knowing that they will have to swim back to shore.  Anton is astounded that his weaker brother always wins.  At a defining moment in the movie, Anton asks his brother how he was always able to beat him.  Vincent smiles at his brother and says, "I never saved anything for the swim back."[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/XTEG3fF_0G4" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /][kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/hZKZSiCmXLQ" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

In the mid-nineties, a struggling musician and bartender named Troy Duffy was appalled when he came home to his Los Angeles apartment and witnessed a cadaver being taken out of a drug dealer's apartment across the hall.  That night, out of "sheer frustration and not being able to afford a psychologist," Duffy began the cathartic process of writing his first screenplay entitled The Boondock Saints.

The Boondock Saints is the story of a pair of fraternal twin brothers from South Boston.  The Irish Catholic duo ends up killing two members of the Russian mafia in self-defense after they try to shut down a friend's bar on St. Patrick's Day. After the Saints turn themselves in, the media hails them as heroes and the two blue-collar brothers resolve to continue killing evil people in the name of God.  At one point, they are nearly caught by a cunning detective, however, the detective joins forces with the Saints after he decides that what they are doing is a necessary evil.

In today's world, we turn on the news and are greeted with a barrage of horrific stories detailing villainous acts.  The same honest, hard-working citizens who fall victim to these monsters then have to pay tax dollars to keep criminals alive in prison.  Even if an inmate is sentenced to death, the appeals process can be so long and arduous that capital punishment can end up being more costly than incarcerating a prisoner for a life-sentence.  The idea of dealing out a swift brand of justice in the form of vigilantism can be a tempting fantasy, although it can lead to a number of ethical dilemmas.  Although the Saints are breaking the commandment, "Thou shalt not kill," they believe that they are saving more lives than they are taking.  This justification is valid in the sense that they kill a number of mob bosses who are indirectly responsible for the suffering and death of hundreds of people.  However, many question what gives the Saints the right to murder in accordance with their own belief of what is good and evil.  They claim that rape, murder and theft are sacrilege regardless of your personal faith, but many believe that there is a spectrum of criminality, and some cases require special consideration rather than a black and white form of justice.

Troy Duffy argues that everyone has a breaking point, and that anyone who is constantly exposed to the shortcomings of our justice system will eventually want to act out against the criminals that it sets free. As our culture becomes more and more politically correct, perhaps it is necessary to have heroes such as The Boondock Saints in order to keep our sometimes overly-lenient treatment of criminals in check. The righteous have nothing to fear.

"Never shall innocent blood be shed, yet the blood of the wicked shall flow like a river.  [The Two] shall spread their blackened wings and be the vengeful striking hammer of God."

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