Sunday, February 17, 2013

Newtown redux: Raising Adam Lanza

By pure chance I went to see what science documentaries were available on Hulu and ended up at PBS, thinking I might find something interesting on Nova. Yes, I do have other things I should be doing, but finding Frontline's story, "Raising Adam Lanza" gave me an opportunity to publicly admit I was wrong in a previous post.

Frontline's story on the shooting appears to be a two-part series starting on February 19, but some portion of the story has already been printed at the Hartford Courant. Despite some of my assumptions in my previous post - and the fact that Adam was sent to a private Catholic school for a time - the statement that I heard said by Adam's aunt that his mother bought the guns she bought "for protection" was likely errant.

To the contrary, the story describes this as "... a portrait of a mother, apparently devoted but perhaps misguided, struggling to find her son a place in society, ..." and reading the article certainly paints it that way. I can't say the article explains anything, though, because the descriptions remain frustratingly superficial. I perceive a "blame the mother" vibe that I don't really care for but we aren't given much to empathize with either. In the end, I suspect that reality will be just as frustrating.