Evil

"Just, Melvin: Just Evil" is just an incredibly intense television viewing experience. In fact, it is so intense I found myself wondering during the HBO documentary, which tells the story of a man so depraved that he forced himself sexually on his own children when some were as young as 3 years old, whether this should even be on Sunday night prime-time television. After much thought, I say not only should it be on, but HBO should also be commended for airing it right after "The Sopranos" tomorrow night, giving it the best chance for an audience of several million viewers.

One of the consequences of abandoning a standard by which right and wrong can be judged is our increasing inability to mete out punishment that fits the crime. In fact, too often we weigh extenuating circumstances rather than guilty actions. In the case of the Boston bombers, observers search for reasons why the attacks occurred. But the failure to view the attackers as anything other than simply guilty and judge them accordingly is similar to the U.S. government's attitude toward the Middle East, which often sees Israel as the major impediment to peace.

WHAT WITH the push to invade Iraq, the Bush administration's move to break a 20-month standoff with another part of the president's "axis of evil" -- by resuming talks later this week with North Korea -- hasn't drawn much fanfare. Nonetheless, it's a positive step for the United States, one that contrasts with the administration's much more aggressive stance toward Iraq. Both North Korea and Iraq are pariah states given to brinkmanship while building nuclear and chemical threats. The North may be even more dangerous than Iraq right now in that, unlike Iraq, it is believed to possess enough nuclear matter to make two weapons.

An 8-year-old boy was among the three people killed and at least 176 people injured, many severely, by a pair of explosions near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on Monday. According to The Boston Globe, the boy, Martin Richard, was with his mother and sister, who were also seriously injured. Krystle Campbell, 29, a restaurant manager who was watching the race with a friend, was also killed. A pair of brothers each lost a leg. Doctors reported that dozens of others had been wounded by some kind of shrapnel - small nails and ball bearings or BBs - that had become embedded in their flesh.

I went to church in San Francisco on Sunday, the big stone church on Nob Hill, whose name is an old slang term for a rich person, where a gaggle of railroad tycoons built their palaces high above the squalid tenements of the poor back in the Gilded Age, and there with considerable pomp we baptized a dozen infants into the fellowship of faith and we renounced the evil powers of this world, which all in all is a good day's work. The term "evil powers" is one you hear only in the church, or in Marvel comic books, or Republican speeches, and it isn't something I renounce every day. I am a romantic Democrat, raised on William Saroyan and Pete Seeger and Preston Sturges, and we have faith in the decency of the little guy, and we believe you can depend on the kindness of strangers.

An ambassador, someone cynically once said, is sent abroad to lie for his country. U.S. career diplomat John D. Negroponte confused that with lying to his country. As U.S. ambassador to Honduras during the early '80s, Mr. Negroponte systematically suppressed reports to Washington describing kidnappings and murders of political dissidents by a secret unit of the Honduran army. Instead he was responsible for false reports to Washington that portrayed the Honduran regime as committed to democracy and the rule of law.Why should an experienced U.S. diplomat send false reports to the State Department concealing damaging information about the nation he was assigned to?

"Dixie City Jam" is the seventh crime novel by James Lee Burke, and it appears that, by its early position on the best-seller lists, that he is finally getting the recognition he deserves. Mr. Burke's Dave Robicheaux novels have been among the best in American crime fiction of the past decade, and while fans have been touting this series from the opening book, "Neon Rain," commercial success has come more slowly. "Dixie City Jam," one of the strongest books in the series, may just put him over the top.Robicheaux is a former New Orleans homicide detective, a recovering alcoholic, who now operates as a sheriff's deputy in New Iberia, La., and also runs a fishing camp there.

I've been waiting for weeks to hear those two glorious words spoken with vitriol as only Vickie Guerrero can. Goodbye, whimpering, apologetic Vickie. Welcome back, scowling queen of mean. I'm so glad that WWE has resisted turning SmackDown's wickedly entertaining general manager babyface (reportedly that was to be the original ending of her story line with Edge). It was great to see her morph back into the woman viewers love to hate on SmackDown. (Go to baltimoresun.com/ringposts)

Alexander Solzhenitsyn is dead. Peter Rodman is dead. And memory is dying with them. Over the weekend, Mr. Solzhenitsyn, the 89-year-old literary titan, and Mr. Rodman, the American foreign policy intellectual, passed away. I knew Mr. Rodman and liked him very much. We were partners in a debate at Oxford University last year. He provided the gravitas. A former protege of Henry Kissinger and high-ranking official in two Republican administrations, Mr. Rodman was one of the wisest of the wise men of the conservative foreign policy establishment.

SIMON WIESENTHAL, who dedicated his life to not allowing the world to forget the extraordinary atrocities committed by Nazi Germany, will himself be long remembered for his extraordinary moral courage. He served all of humanity by calling evil to account. Mr. Wiesenthal, who died Tuesday at 96, somehow survived the horror of years in Nazi death camps (and two suicide attempts) to then summon the strength to pursue the surviving perpetrators of the Holocaust to the ends of the earth - in some cases, for decades.

We start off with Vicki's highly anticipated arrival to Heather's clam bake, and the tension between the women could not be any more awkward. Gretchen and Tamra worry about how to approach Vicki about her controversial face "tweaking. " Heather, of course, plays Switzerland and is happy for Vicki and her personal life decisions. Gentlemen, take notes on Terry's philosophical advice on women: "Asking a woman if they've had plastic surgery is like asking your wife if she's gained weight ... you just don't do it. " You can, however, tell women that they appear to have lost weight.

A Baltimore jury convicted a man of second degree murder for strangling his grandmother to death after he smoked PCP and heard voices warning him of evil people. Demond Tyler, 37, who lived with his grandmother, was at home in the 3200 block of Spaulding Avenue on Nov. 4, 2011 and told investigators that the voices said evil people would not look at him. Tyler then grabbed his grandmother, Shirley Tyler, 67, by the throat and demanded that she look him in the eye. He said the pair collapsed on a bed and she smiled at him, according to the state's attorney's office.

It's safe to say that Ticketmaster doesn't have many fans. The service, which handles ticket sales for venues large and small across the nation, charges fees on its transactions that seem to bear little relationship to either the cost of the tickets or the actual work the company does. We completely sympathize, then, with the Baltimore concert-goer who took the company to court and successfully argued that its fees violate a 1948 Baltimore law limiting extra charges to 50 cents per ticket.

After the past few days, America needs something to be mad at and quick. Luckily the NRA and Instagram have stepped in to help our rage cravings. The NRA has been unusually silent throughout aftermath of the Sandy Hook school shooting. Its Twitter accounts are collecting dust and its Facebook page has been shut down after pro-gun control commenters stormed the gates shortly after the shooting. In absence of them talking or defending themselves, they have become the perfect boogymen to vilify with impunity and the Internet has not passed up the opportunity.

When it comes to college athletics, it's time to speak truth to evil. You might think evil is too strong a word for what's going on in college athletics, but consider how Webster's Dictionary defines evil: morally reprehensible; causing harm; offensive. That pretty much sums up the state of big-time college sports today. The inane move of Maryland and Rutgers to the Big Ten is simply the latest example. Here's the current reality of college sports: •NCAA Division I sports - especially at Football Bowl Subdivision schools - has nothing to do with education.

A 69-year-old Edgewood man, who told investigators he was trying to rid his home of "evil spirits," has been charged with arson in connection with a fire at the dwelling last month. William E. Lowry was served with warrants at the Harford County Detention Center on Thursday charging him with first-degree and second-degree arson in connection with the Oct. 11 fire, according to the Maryland State Fire Marshal's Office. "The investigation by deputy state fire marshals revealed the owner of the property, William E. Lowry, 69, was responsible for intentionally setting the fire on an enclosed deck connected to the home," the Fire Marshal's Office said in a news release announcing the charges.

You didn't think Lewis Black was going to let convention week go by without stirring the political pot on his weekly The Root of All Evil show on Comedy Central. This week's topic: Red States vs. Blue States. The question: Which is the greater threat? Black's "history" of conservative and liberal geography is worth a tune-in by itself: "The Civil War ended in 1865, unless you live in the South." Unfortunately, I can't find another line to quote that wouldn't offend someone. But one of the jobs of a comedian, especially a political comedian, is to push the boundaries and make us uncomfortable enough to rethink our beliefs and prejudices - and cable TV is the place to do that.

Orioles fans are chortling this morning after the Detroit Tigers routed the New York Yankees 8-1 Thursday for a four-game sweep of the American League Championship Series. This was an unbelievably humiliating series for the Yankees, which always plays well here. It's been fun watching the notorious New York media savage the home team, too. The Yankees seemed intent in mailing this one in from the beginning. It didn't help that Yankees' ace  C.C. Sabathia, who surrendered 11 hits and six runs, appeared to be throwing batting practice to the Tigers yesterday.

No surprise from the editors of The Sun in the editorial "How Romney runs" (Sept. 2). I am sure that when you the Democratic National Convention ends, you will hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. What confuses many who reluctantly read your drivel is how you will blindly support a candidate who has no record to stand on and no plan for the next four years. Why not publicly endorse President Obama now instead of closer to the election? Bill Atkinson