In Oklahoma City, Alfred P. Murrah Building is blown up. The nondescript building has no significance other than being headquarters for DEA, Secret Service and ATF. The aftermath is a nine story-hole, a crater 30 feet wide by 8 feet deep, and 168 innocent people killed. The methodology is very similar to that used in World Trade Center bombing: a 1,000 to 1,200-pound fertilizer- and diesel-based bomb packed into a rented Ryder truck and detonated by remote control or timer. Different folks, same strokes.

Farther south, some 300 miles away in Waco, Texas, site of Branch Davidian compound has become a popular local tourist attraction. The bomb blast in Oklahoma City occurred two years to day after attack by ATF on cult's compound. During ATF raid, a brainwashed prophet, with an arms cache size of Serbs', had his followers blow their brains out as he torched his compound-and their children. Or so government told us he did, until they found military advisors and inflammable tear gas canisters at scene.

Mayhem, Tabloid Style

We used to chuckle at tabloids, as we bought them with our groceries. Now we can't figure out if it's news we're watching or promos for latest B movies.

Hard times breed strange heroes. The hardscrabble days of early America bred outlaws of Wild West. Jesse James and Billy Kid were popularized in East Coast dime novels. The Great Depression gave us Dillinger and Capone, Bonnie and Clyde. Today, in down-on-its-luck L.A., we are hatching a new breed of famous ne'er do wells. In Los Angeles, land of "three strikes you're out" has become "do a crime, do prime time." Are you watching a talk show or is it a Tyson bout? Is that a mass murderer or is he just working through some "issues"? What is wrong and what is right? Film at 11. Answers, never.

Here, random violence and thoughtless pain take on plot, character and movie deals, as two rich kids splatter their parents' brains against a wall with a 12-gauge for a couple of Rolexes. In Los Angeles, a former football hero and movie star is accused of nearly severing his ex-wife's head and brutally stabbing to death her acquaintance. Meanwhile, during his "getaway," traffic on plagued L.A. freeways comes to a halt; motorists emerge from their cars waving banners urging, "Go O.J.!" and "Save Juice!" After most publicized trial in history, jury lets him go free.

Crime needs a subplot and linkage. A mother tosses her kids off a bridge and jumps in herself afterward. The news media immediately connects it to a woman in South who rolled her two kids to their watery end-a woman who played media like a fiddle in her search for her "kidnapped" children. A mother of a school shooting victim walks into a pawn shop to see a gun, loads it and shoots herself in head. Distraught people block crowded freeways, unfurl large banners and then blow their brains out on freeway. Suicide by cop means clean shooting, an ambulance if they miss and wall-to-wall TV coverage. Everyone can be Hemingway now.

Crime also needs a surprise ending, a payback. Rodney King gets crap beaten out of him, sues and gets millions. Reginald Denny gets crap beaten out of him and hugs and kisses mother of one of his attackers. The Unabomber's big demand is that he have his antitechnology manifesto published. We Americans seem to like our crime. Just keep it fresh, surprising and very brutal.

What's answer? Who are real terrorist? The answer is easy. TAKE IT BACK! Take America back to beginning. The biggests problem in country are attorney's and judge's who are allowing this crime to happen. When criminals have more rights than victum then a change is needed. Who are real terrorists threats? It's not Osama, it's in your own backyard folks. The militias and gangs, those are real terrorists this country needs to be facing.

Ken Slater http://www.miamitopics.com