Stephen Singular's Blog

        In 1987 I published my first book, Talked to Death, about the life and murder of Denver talk show host, Alan Berg. The Oliver Stone movie, "Talk Radio," is based in part on this book. That story described how nine, obviously-fanatical neo-Nazis plotted to kill Berg and launch a white power revolution, designed to rid America of minorities. For the past decade, I've wanted to revisit this subject because highly disturbing pieces of the mindset -- the anger, fear, blame, hatred, and absolutist thinking -- of those who assassinated Berg have gradually crept from the fringes of our society into the American mainstream. They've become normalized inside major religions, the corporate media, and political leaders at the highest levels of our society. They are at the root of what all but shut down our federal government on the night of April 8, 2011, when the anti-abortionists were willing to sacrifice the jobs of 800,000 employees because they don't accept what has been settled law in the United States since 1973. Their religious ideology trumps the rule of law -- the very definition of extremism.

               On May 31, 2009, when abortion doctor George Tiller was gunned down by Scott Roeder inside his Kansas church, I began researching my 20th book. The Wichita Divide: The Murder of Dr. George Tiller and the Battle Over Abortion, will be published this coming week. It's about the new American civil war that's infected our country for roughly the past four decades. It's about how deeply personal issues, especially sexual issues like reproduction, have been used to demonize entire segments of the population, and how this has been driven by some of the most successful people in our culture.

               The book's narrative focuses on the lives of two families, Dr. Tiller's and Scott Roeder's, and describes how both were trapped inside this war and experienced their own  tragedies. I've tried to show the heart and the cost of this conflict, mostly through the eyes of Roeder's ex-wife, Lindsey, who found out first-hand what it's like to marry a relatively "normal" man and watch him turn into an American terrorist.

               When people at the very top of society sanction hatred in a public way, it filters down to those not only less fortunate, but sometimes to those who are emotionally unstable. Then violence becomes not just likely, but virtually predictable. And then, when it's too late, the haters claim they had nothing to do with the bloodshed and run for the hills. Whether we want to be or not, we're all involved in this war and we're all responsible for what we bring to it. This is a fight for the soul of the nation, just as the first Civil War was. We can't afford to lose the sense of co-operation and balance that have kept America alive, and kept religion and politics separate, throughout more than two centuries. We are perilously close to the edge.          

In recent months, a profound thing has unfolded in Wyoming. Two women in the state legislature – Sue Wallis and Lisa Shepperson, a pair of "small government" conservative Republicans -- stood up in that chamber and spoke from the heart about abortion, about their own medical experience, and about how no state or federal government belongs in this part of their lives, or anyone's life. Their remarks came as many other GOP politicians across the nation (let's call them "Big Government" Republicans) launched a coast-to-coast battle to make abortion laws more restrictive.

            In 2010, state legislatures introduced more than 600 measures to limit access to abortion and 34 of those bills passed. Last year's mid-term elections saw 45 new anti-abortionists win seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Twenty-nine governors are now strongly anti-abortion, eight more than before the last election. Fifteen states currently have both anti-abortion legislatures and governors, up five from last year. Many of the newly-elected politicians support laws that require doctors to read fetal development material to their abortion patients, to show them ultrasound images, and to impose mandatory waiting periods. They are also intent on killing Planned Parenthood, which offers 1.85 million low-income women family-planning counseling and screening for sexually-transmitted diseases, diabetes, and a variety of cancers; no other nationwide outfit in America offers this level of comprehensive care to women.

            According to Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pennsylvania), the U.S. House is "more pro-life than it's ever been."     

            "We are sending a clear message to House Republicans that their agenda on women's health is extreme," says Senator Barbara Boxer (D-California). "It breaks faith with a decades-long bipartisan compromise, and it risks the health and lives of women."

            Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-California) has called the latest round of anti-abortion activities the biggest assault women's rights "in our lifetime."

            So how strange is it that the deepest rebellion against this assault has come from Wyoming, America's reddest state? Its Senate holds 26 Republicans and only four Democrats, but Wallis and Shepperson did not pay any attention to these numbers. They stood nakedly in front of their colleagues and spoke passionately about what freedom means and what privacy is, but that isn't the really profound part. Their fellow legislators, along with other citizens around the state, heard them and began responding in an open and empathetic manner. They women found out they weren't alone, not even in Wyoming, in their wanting our government to be about creating jobs and balancing budgets, rather than intruding on the most personal aspects of American lives. To their amazement, they found allies on every side.     

            Because of their efforts, Wyoming defeated a bill requiring doctors to inform women seeking abortions of their right to see an ultrasound image, and providing them with scientifically-disputed information about fetal pain. Once this initial bill had been stopped, its original sponsor came back with another, slightly changed one, and again Wallis and Shepperson fought back. The second bill made it to the Senate floor, where it failed by one vote: 15-14, with one member not present. The battle to limit women's rights in Wyoming was over, at least for another year.

            Something happens when people who are speaking in public about important subjects drop their script and begin to talk from a deeper place. This is not only heard in a different way, but also felt differently. It becomes virtually irresistible and unstoppable in its force and effect.     

            When President Obama first emerged as a candidate for the Oval Office this was how he spoke about America and the reason he gave so much hope to so many. That's why people responded to him and bought in when he talked about creating change we can believe in. But he hasn't done this as President or spoken from the heart ending about the wars America remains entangled in or lowering the crushing medical costs that his health care reform have done virtually nothing to address. He hasn't trusted us to be able to hear and accept adult common sense or asked us to make sacrifices because that's the right thing to do. Maybe he can learn something important from what these two women did in Wyoming -- that he has allies out there, tens of millions of them who are craving leadership and a change of direction for America. Sometimes, you have a take a chance that there's a net where none appears to be. Sometimes, you have to realize you're not alone and that others believe in you perhaps more than you believed in yourself. Wallis and Shepperson have shown us the way forward. Now the rest of us need to stand up and speak out.

            If you were the kind of person who believed in conspiracies, you might see the outlines of one in what follows. On May 31, 2009, the radical Kansas anti-abortionist Scott Roeder walked into Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita and gunned down George Tiller in the foyer, just as the Sunday service was about to start. Dr. Tiller was America's best-known and most-hated abortion provider (my book about his assassination and the unfolding civil war in our country over issues like abortion, The Wichita Divide, will be published by St. Martin's Press in April 2011). In the immediate aftermath of the murder anti-abortion groups, politicians, and individuals rushed forward, as they always do in these circumstances, and decried this violent act. No one wanted to say that by killing Dr. Tiller, Roeder had eliminated abortion not just in Wichita and Kansas, but had removed this option for the thousands of women who'd come to his clinic from other states seeking his advice and care. Roeder had effectively lowered the number of abortions in a wide swath of the country. Other people, rarely described as "radical," were about to intensify their own strategies for accomplishing the same goal -- from coast to coast.    

            In 2010, state legislatures introduced more than 600 measures to limit access to abortion and 34 of them passed. Last year's mid-term elections saw 45 new anti-abortionists win seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Twenty-nine governors are now strongly anti-abortion, eight more than before the last election. Fifteen states currently have both anti-abortion legislatures and governors, up five from last year. Many of the newly-victorious politicians support laws that require doctors to read material to their abortion patients about fetal development, to show them ultrasound images, and to impose mandatory waiting periods. According to Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pennsylvania), the House is "more pro-life than it's ever been."       

            The Republican majority in the House is considering the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act," which would abolish tax breaks for private employers who provide health coverage offering abortion services. Many, if not a majority, of employer-sponsored insurance plans do just this. Under the proposed bill, people with their own policies and enough expenses to claim an income tax deduction could not deduct either the premiums for policies that cover abortion or the cost of an abortion. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Christopher Smith (R-New Jersey), would provide federal financing of abortions in cases of "forcible" rape, but not statutory or coerced rape or incest involving those who are not minors. Smith's office has not yet defined what "forcible rape" actually means.

            Another new bill, the "Protect Life Act" sponsored by Rep. Pitts, would prohibit Americans receiving insurance through the new state exchanges from purchasing abortion coverage, even with their own money. And it would allow hospitals to refuse women abortions, including in emergencies, if such care offended the conscience of the health care providers. Many of those behind this new anti-abortion legislation have run for office or positioned themselves as Small Government Conservatives. Yet when it comes to abortion, they're all in favor of expanding the feds' role in the most private area of individual lives.

            The current U.S. Supreme Court precedent prevents the government from barring abortions prior to the point of "viability": around 22 to 26 weeks after conception. Last year, Nebraska enacted a law changing this standard and the state now bans abortions 20 weeks after conception. The statute includes a very narrow exception for preserving a woman's physical health or life, but not for severe fetal anomalies. Similar laws are now pending in other states. The end game of all this new legislation, most on the pro-choice side of the debate believe, is to provide the Supreme Court's conservative majority ammunition to challenge or overturn Roe v. Wade.  

            For years Dr. LeRoy Carhart traveled to Wichita each month to assist Dr. Tiller at his clinic. Following Tiller's death, Carhart expanded his own abortion practice in Nebraska, but after the 2010 passage of the more restrictive law in the Cornhusker state, Dr. Carhart resettled on the East Coast. Kansas is considering passing a similar law, even though its one former abortion doctor is now dead. With tightening laws and rising sentiment against pro-choice, 87% of American counties have no abortion provider.

            Because of this and other factors, Planned Parenthood and its hundreds of health centers have played an increasingly significant role in aiding millions of pregnant women, poor and otherwise. The organization offers 1.85 million low-income women family-planning counseling and screening for sexually-transmitted diseases, diabetes, and a variety of cancers; no other nationwide outfit in America offers this level of comprehensive care to women. Planned Parenthood does not receive taxpayer money for abortions, but does fund its own abortion services, so it too has come under attack. The House has proposed cutting the entire $317 million program of aid for family planning, and floated an amendment to keep Planned Parenthood from receiving a federal dime. 

            "What is more fiscally responsible," U.S. Representative Mike Pence of Indiana recently asked his colleagues, "than denying any and all funding to Planned Parenthood of America?"

            Rep. Pence has 154 co-sponsors for a bill to prevent the federal government from funding not just Planned Parenthood, but every clinic that provide abortions. Using a more guerilla-like approach, a group called "Live Action" has been running a sting operation on Planned Parenthood clinics in six states, trying to connect the staff to child prostitution.

            In response to the new legislation, Democrats are trying to fight back, but on the defensive.

            "We are sending a clear message to House Republicans that their agenda on women's health is extreme," said Senator Barbara Boxer of California. "It breaks faith with a decades-long bipartisan compromise, and it risks the health and lives of women. It also punishes women and businesses with a tax hike if they wish to keep or buy insurance that covers a full range of reproductive health care."

            Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-California) has called the latest round of anti-abortion activities the biggest assault women's rights "in our lifetime."

            Then on February 17 at 11:30 p.m. on the House floor, Rep. Jackie Speier (D-California) abandoned her prepared remarks and spoke passionately about having an abortion years earlier because of a medical complication with her pregnancy. With a withering glance at Rep. Smith, she blasted him for thinking that women undertake these operations lightly and lambasted the House itself for focusing on abortion instead of improving the American economy and lowering the deficit: http://www.aolnews.com/2011/02/18/jac...

            This did not deter Rep. Smith or his colleagues.  Dr. Tiller's murder appears to have unleashed a new wave of energy for the anti-abortion movement to alter laws, shut down woman's health services, and restrict or prevent abortions. Nothing has been the same since Roeder took the physician's life.

            The most startling development of all surfaced in South Dakota where Republican state representative Phil Jensen had introduced a law to expand the definition of "justifiable homicide" to include killings intended to prevent harm to a fetus -- legislation that some have interpreted as making it legal to kill doctors who perform abortions. House Bill 1171passed out of committee on a 9-3 vote and is expected to face a floor vote in South Dakota's GOP-dominated House.     

            In a press release, Boulder, Colorado's Dr. Warren Hern, who for decades has received death threats as an abortion provider said the proposed bill "would legalize the assassination of abortion doctors…It would legalize vigilante terrorism against those of us who help women… Let's be honest about the bill's purpose. Its goal is to get people to kill doctors who perform abortions. It is utter madness and a descent into barbarism."   

            Less than two years after Scott Roeder shot Dr. Tiller to death in his church, the momentum to limit abortions and intimidate physicians who provide medical care for women has undeniably gained force. No wonder so many young medical personnel have been driven away from learning about or offering such medical care to female patients.  No wonder abortion opponents feel Roe v. Wade can be overthrown.

If you were the kind of person who believed in conspiracies, you might see the outlines of one in what follows. On May 31, 2009, the radical Kansas anti-abortionist Scott Roeder walked into Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita and gunned down George Tiller in the foyer, just as the Sunday service was about to start. Dr. Tiller was America's best-known and most-hated abortion provider (my book about his assassination and the unfolding civil war in our country over issues like abortion, The Wichita Divide, will be published in April 2011). In the immediate aftermath of the murder anti-abortion groups, politicians, and individuals rushed forward, as they always do in these circumstances, and decried this violent act. No one wanted to say that by killing Dr. Tiller, Roeder had eliminated abortion not just in Wichita and Kansas, but had removed this option for the thousands of women who'd come to his clinic from other states seeking his advice and care. Roeder had effectively lowered the number of abortions in a wide swath of the country. Other people, rarely described as "radical," were about to intensify their own strategies for accomplishing the same goal -- from coast to coast.     

            In 2010, state legislatures introduced more than 600 measures to limit access to abortion and 34 of them passed. Last year's mid-term elections saw 45 new anti-abortionists win seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Twenty-nine governors are now strongly anti-abortion, eight more than before the last election. Fifteen states currently have both anti-abortion legislatures and governors, up five from last year. Many of the newly-victorious politicians support laws that require doctors to read material to their abortion patients about fetal development, to show them ultrasound images, and to impose mandatory waiting periods. According to Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pennsylvania), the House is "more pro-life than it's ever been."       

            The Republican majority in the House is considering the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act," which would abolish tax breaks for private employers who provide health coverage offering abortion services. Many, if not a majority, of employer-sponsored insurance plans do just this. Under the proposed bill, people with their own policies and enough expenses to claim an income tax deduction could not deduct either the premiums for policies that cover abortion or the cost of an abortion. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Christopher Smith (R-New Jersey), would provide federal financing of abortions in cases of "forcible" rape, but not statutory or coerced rape or incest involving those who are not minors. Smith's office has not yet defined what "forcible rape" actually means.

            Another new bill, the "Protect Life Act" sponsored by Rep. Pitts, would prohibit Americans receiving insurance through the new state exchanges from purchasing abortion coverage, even with their own money. And it would allow hospitals to refuse women abortions, including in emergencies, if such care offended the conscience of the health care providers. Many of those behind this new anti-abortion legislation have run for office or positioned themselves as Small Government Conservatives. Yet when it comes to abortion, they're all in favor of expanding the feds' role in the most private area of individual lives.

            The current U.S. Supreme Court precedent prevents the government from barring abortions prior to the point of "viability": around 22 to 26 weeks after conception. Last year, Nebraska enacted a law changing this standard and the state now bans abortions 20 weeks after conception. The statute includes a very narrow exception for preserving a woman's physical health or life, but not for severe fetal anomalies. Similar laws are now pending in other states. The end game of all this new legislation, most on the pro-choice side of the debate believe, is to provide the Supreme Court's conservative majority ammunition to challenge or overturn Roe v. Wade.   

            For years Dr. LeRoy Carhart traveled to Wichita each month to assist Dr. Tiller at his clinic. Following Tiller's death, Carhart expanded his own abortion practice in Nebraska, but after the 2010 passage of the more restrictive law in the Cornhusker state, Dr. Carhart resettled on the East Coast. Kansas is considering passing a similar law, even though its one former abortion doctor is now dead. With tightening laws and rising sentiment against pro-choice, 87% of American counties have no abortion provider.

            Because of this and other factors, Planned Parenthood and its hundreds of health centers have played an increasingly significant role in aiding millions of pregnant women, poor and otherwise. The organization offers 1.85 million low-income women family-planning counseling and screening for sexually-transmitted diseases, diabetes, and a variety of cancers; no other nationwide outfit in America offers this level of comprehensive care to women. Planned Parenthood does not receive taxpayer money for abortions, but does fund its own abortion services, so it too has come under attack. The House has proposed cutting the entire $317 million program of aid for family planning, and floated an amendment to keep Planned Parenthood from receiving a federal dime.  

            "What is more fiscally responsible," U.S. Representative Mike Pence of Indiana recently asked his colleagues, "than denying any and all funding to Planned Parenthood of America?"

            Rep. Pence has 154 co-sponsors for a bill to prevent the federal government from funding not just Planned Parenthood, but every clinic that provide abortions. Using a more guerilla-like approach, a group called "Live Action" has been running a sting operation on Planned Parenthood clinics in six states, trying to connect the staff to child prostitution.

            In response to the new legislation, Democrats are trying to fight back, but on the defensive.

            "We are sending a clear message to House Republicans that their agenda on women's health is extreme," said Senator Barbara Boxer of California. "It breaks faith with a decades-long bipartisan compromise, and it risks the health and lives of women. It also punishes women and businesses with a tax hike if they wish to keep or buy insurance that covers a full range of reproductive health care."

            Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-California) has called the latest round of anti-abortion activities the biggest assault women's rights "in our lifetime."

            Dr. Tiller's murder appears to have unleashed a new wave of energy for the anti-abortion movement to alter laws, shut down woman's health services, and restrict or prevent abortions. Nothing has been the same since Roeder took the physician's life.

            The most startling development has surfaced in South Dakota where Republican state representative Phil Jensen had introduced a law to expand the definition of "justifiable homicide" to include killings intended to prevent harm to a fetus -- legislation that some have interpreted as making it legal to kill doctors who perform abortions. House Bill 1171passed out of committee on a 9-3 vote and is expected to face a floor vote in South Dakota's GOP-dominated House.     

            In a press release, Boulder, Colorado's Dr. Warren Hern, who for decades has received death threats as an abortion provider said the proposed bill "would legalize the assassination of abortion doctors…It would legalize vigilante terrorism against those of us who help women… Let's be honest about the bill's purpose. Its goal is to get people to kill doctors who perform abortions. It is utter madness and a descent into barbarism."   

            Less than two years after Scott Roeder shot Dr. Tiller to death in his church, the momentum to limit abortions and intimidate physicians who provide this service for women has undeniably gained force. No wonder so many young medical personnel have been driven away from this learning about or offering such medical care to female patients.  

If you were the kind of person who believed in conspiracies, you might see the outlines of one in what follows. On May 31, 2009, the radical Kansas anti-abortionist Scott Roeder walked into Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita and gunned down George Tiller in the foyer, just as the Sunday service was about to start. Dr. Tiller was America's best-known and most-hated abortion provider (my book about his assassination and the unfolding civil war in our country, The Wichita Divide, will be published in two months). In the immediate aftermath of the murder, anti-abortion groups, politicians, and individuals rushed forward, as they always do in these circumstances, and decried this violent act. No one wanted to say that by killing Dr. Tiller, Roeder had eliminated abortion not just in Wichita and Kansas, but had removed this option for the thousands of women who'd come to his clinic from other states seeking his advice and care. Roeder had effectively lowered the number of abortions in one swath of the country. Other people, who are rarely described as "radical," were about to intensify their own strategies for accomplishing the same goal -- from coast to coast.     

            In 2010, state legislatures introduced more than 600 measures to limit access to abortion and 34 of them passed. The 2010 election saw 45 new anti-abortionists win seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Twenty-nine governors are now strongly anti-abortion, eight more than before the mid-term election. Fifteen states currently have both anti-abortion legislatures and governors, up five from last year. Many of the newly-victorious politicians support laws that require doctors to read material to their abortion patients about fetal development, to show them ultrasound images, and to impose mandatory waiting periods. According to Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pennsylvania), the House is "more pro-life than it's ever been."           

            The new Congress promised to work on improving the economy, so naturally they're doing this by targeting abortion and trying to undermine the Obama Administration's health care reform legislation. Under the umbrella of saving money, the Republican majority in the House is considering the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act," which would abolish tax breaks for private employers who provide health coverage offering abortion services. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-New Jersey), would disallow tax credits encouraging small businesses to provide insurance for their workers to buy policies that cover abortions. Many, if not a majority, of employer-sponsored insurance plans do just this. People with their own policies who have enough expenses to claim an income tax deduction could not deduct either the premiums for policies that cover abortion or the cost of an abortion. These restraints go far beyond current law opposing federal money for abortions. The Smith bill would provide federal financing of abortions in cases of "forcible" rape, but not statutory or coerced rape or incest involving those who are not minors. Smith's office has not yet defined what "forcible rape" actually means.

            Another new bill, the "Protect Life Act" sponsored by Rep. Pitts, would prohibit Americans receiving insurance through the new state exchanges from purchasing abortion coverage, even with their own money. And it would allow hospitals to refuse women abortions, even in emergencies, if such care would offend the conscience of the health care providers. The obvious irony is that so many of these politicians have run or positioned themselves as Small Government Conservatives. But when it comes to abortion, they're all in favor of expanding the feds' role in the most private area of individual lives.

            The above are just a couple of the fronts in the emerging battle. Under current Supreme Court precedent, the government doesn't bar abortions prior to the point of "viability": around 22 to 26 weeks after conception. Last year, Nebraska enacted a law directly challenging this standard and the state now bans abortions 20 weeks after conception. The statute includes a very narrow exception for preserving a woman's physical health or life, but not for severe fetal anomalies. Similar laws are now pending in other states. The end game in all this new legislation, the pro-choice side feels, is to provide the Supreme Court's conservative majority ammunition to challenge or overturn Roe v. Wade.   

            For years Dr. LeRoy Carhart traveled to Wichita each month to assist Dr. Tiller at his clinic. Following Tiller's death, Carhart expanded his own abortion practice in Nebraska, but after last year's passage of a more restrictive law in the Cornhusker state, Dr. Carhart resettled on the East Coast. Kansas is considering passing a similar law, even though its one abortion doctor is now deceased. With tightening laws and rising sentiment against pro-choice, 87% of American counties have no abortion provider. Because of this and other factors, Planned Parenthood and its hundreds of health centers have played an increasingly significant role in aiding millions of pregnant women, poor and otherwise. The organization offers 1.85 million low-income women family-planning counseling and screening for sexually-transmitted diseases, diabetes, and a variety of cancers; no other group offers this comprehensive care to women on a national level. Planned Parenthood does not receive taxpayer money for abortions, but does fund its own abortion services, so it too has come under attack.  

            "What is more fiscally responsible," U.S. Representative Mike Pence of Indiana recently asked his colleagues, "than denying any and all funding to Planned Parenthood of America?"

            Rep. Pence has 154 co-sponsors for a bill to prevent the federal government from funding not just Planned Parenthood, but every clinic that provide abortions. Using a more guerilla-like approach, something called "Live Action" has been running a sting operation on Planned Parenthood clinics in six states, trying to connect the staff to child prostitution.

            In response to the new proposed legislation, Democrats are trying to fight back, but on the defensive in this new environment.

            "We are sending a clear message to House Republicans that their agenda on women's health is extreme," said Senator Barbara Boxer of California. "It breaks faith with a decades-long bipartisan compromise, and it risks the health and lives of women. It also punishes women and businesses with a tax hike if they wish to keep or buy insurance that covers a full range of reproductive health care."

            Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-California) has called the latest round of anti-abortion activities the biggest assault women's rights "in our lifetime."

            Dr. Tiller's murder seems to have unleashed an entirely new wave of energy for the anti-abortion movement to change laws, shut down woman's health services, and restrict or prevent abortions. Nothing has been the same since Roeder took the physician's life.

THE WICHITA DIVIDE

It will be published in April 2011. Yesterday, as I watched six people get gunned down in Tucson, Arizona, and felt this tragedy roll across America as so many similar ones have, I went back and looked at my notes for the keys points in the new book. They read like a blueprint for what we're learning about the latest disaster in Tucson. Here they are:

1)     THE WICHITA DIVIDE traces the growth of domestic terrorism and the normalization of division and hatred in the culture and the media from my first book, Talked to Death: The Life & Murder of Alan Berg, published in 1987, to the present.

2)      It shows how these attitudes have moved from the fringes into the mainstream, and the consequences of creating, promoting, and rewarding a deeply divisive media. 

3)      It's the first book-length account of the spike in racial and political violence since the inauguration of President Obama in January 2009 -- detailing ten murders in his first few months in office.

4)      It looks at the history of the abortion conflict, the recent rise of the Tea Party Movement, and the bitter opposition to the Obama Administration as part of an underlying and growing civil war inside America itself.

5)      It chronicles the talk show anger and the assault on the rule of law that's fed this war for two decades. And it connects the dots between how demonizing or targeting an individual at the highest levels of the American media can end in murder.  

6)      It places this new war in the context of not just politics, but of a poisonous and irresponsible emotional atmosphere that's pervaded the nation and resulted in mass violence at churches, schools, and other public institutions.

7)      It documents how this hatred and anger have flourished in the media because they're very good for business, regardless of the effect this has on our society.   

8)      All these themes are built into a dramatic narrative weaving together a biography of Dr. George Tiller, the nation's most controversial abortion provider, and of Scott Roeder, the American terrorist who stalked the physician for years before killing him inside his house of worship.

9)      A few weeks after the murder, I interviewed Roeder at the Wichita jail and he proudly talked about killing Dr. Tiller: "My only regret is that I didn't do this sooner." He adamantly denied that he was mentally ill, despite being diagnosed as schizophrenic in his youth.

10)  The book doesn't take sides in this new civil war, but examines the underlying causes for why we've become so divided. It suggests that until we recognize the source of the problem, we can only expect more bloodshed.     

11)  The Wichita Divide looks at this troubling reality less through political eyes than through the heart -- taking readers directly into the lives of those who've been trapped inside this war and felt its tragedy at point blank range. The book is about the human cost of teaching and encouraging the public to hate people who are different from or disagree with them…and how far we've gone down this road since the murder of Alan Berg 25 years ago. 

12)  This is a crime story, but not a true crime book. While focusing on the Tiller case, it examines the many examples of "random violence" that have infected America in recent years and puts them in the larger context of the emotional upheaval and instability of our time. Provoking people to hate, especially people who are at risk in terms of mental health, is a very dangerous game.   

How many more people need to die before we discover that our words and actions have meaning and consequences?

Throughout the past 40 years, America has been increasingly divided by fighting a cultural war with itself and by the media carving up the country into "red" and "blue" states that apparently have little in common. Endless battles have erupted over gay marriage, immigration, abortion, gays in the military, religion, the role of government in individual lives, and other so-called "wedge issues." They've certainly driven a wedge into the heart of our nation, if not a stake. This new civil war has been waged over the most personal issues we all confront, and the U.S. has seemed determined to tear itself asunder because it couldn't find the empathy or the soul to grant a piece of privacy and dignity to every one of its citizens. It's been a recipe for constant sorrow.

Yet those who can't agree on anything else have often found themselves standing next to "the enemy" and having a magnificent time at a musical event -- a bluegrass festivals, a blues concert, a rock show or other, similar venues. It's as if the music itself has been trying to bring together and heal what politics, religion, and petty quarreling have split apart; as if those twelve notes of our musical scale are trying to reach us and tell us that we're better than this and have found solutions to larger and deeper problems during our past two-plus centuries as a nation. As if they're trying to remind us of how explosively creative we are and of what we can still become. Walt Whitman had once heard America signing, but if he were alive now and listening, he'd have heard it picking and strumming too.

            Since the mid-1960s, the country had appeared increasingly dysfunctional on many levels, but the opposite was true of its music. The amount, the variety, and the quality of sounds the U.S. had produced during the past four or five decades has been astonishing, yet one has to dig below Top 40 radio and the Grammy Awards to appreciate this. As with so many other things in American life, music had fragmented, but virtually every fragment had generated new masters of their genre and of their instruments, from the mandolin to the violin to the harmonica. Not just in the U.S., but around the globe players have risen to extreme accomplishments, compared to the recent past. Gypsy jazz guitarists in Europe, like Stochelo Rosenberg and Jimmy Rosenberg, have taken Django Reinhardt's luminous talent and expanded it well beyond him. The same is true among bluegrass pickers, banjoists, and blues guitarists. On the Internet you can now watch teenagers sit in their bedrooms and teach you how to play just like Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton or Jeff Beck.

            I'd once believed that when historians looked back on America in the late 20th and early 21st Centuries, they'd praise our scientists and engineers, who'd driven forward so many technological breakthroughs, invented countless mechanical devices, and taken us to the moon. Or they'd honor the civil rights activists who'd struggled to provide equality under the law and equal opportunities for everyone. But I'd like to plug the musicians, who have filled a different but vitally important role in our lives -- teaching us through their hands and voices that we have more far in common with each other than not, and that we ignore this at our peril.    

               In recent days the Australian-born founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, has reportedly dyed his hair and been wearing disguises around London, while talking only on encrypted cell phones, spending cash instead of traceable credit cards, and sleeping on friends' sofas. Since releasing 400,000 more classified or highly-secretive documents about America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, he's become, at least in his own mind, a hunted man. A few months ago, he published 77,000 such documents, but now he's unleashed an even bigger trove of what the U.S. government doesn't want us to know about its activities abroad. This time around, as with the last time, there's been a great hue and cry about the enormous disservice Assange has done to American interests abroad and to the military itself. Isn't he placing the lives of soldiers or undercover intelligence personnel in danger? Isn't he hurting the U.S. cause? And isn't he a weird character himself, with a strange personality, a number of psychological problems, and a penchant for self-drama?

               The answer to the last question may well be yes, yes, and yes. Those who take risks as great as Assange is taking in making public the underlying reality of these two wars are rarely paragons of what some call "normality." They very often have personal issues that are an integral part of what makes them stick their necks out beyond where most of us can imagine. But they are also the only people who'll do what's necessary to bring to light the results of the decisions American political and military leaders have made regarding these two wars during the past nine years. They're the ones willing to go far enough to give these wars an actuality that goes past what the media will report on and what the public is usually exposed to -- the very same public that's been asked to offer these wars our political, moral, and financial support, not to mention the blood of the young Americans who are fighting them. When government decides to act in secret, and to keep the public from knowing what it's up to, supposedly to protect us, only people like Assange are going to try to reveal more of the truth. He is no doubt a flawed man, but who else is this committed to bringing the details of these wars home?

               For the past 25 years, I've sat in courtrooms and watched murder trials. They are time-consuming, tedious, if not boring, expensive, and can be mind-numbingly repetitive. You often can't wait for them to end, but once they're finished a strange thing happens. When you look back on them, after someone guilty of a heinous crime has been convicted in an open setting according to the rules of due process, you feel a sense of pride and subtle satisfaction. Evil has been rooted out, identified, and someone has been held publicly accountable for doing atrocious things. The scoundrels have been named and shamed in front of the citizenry, but without violence or revenge. Our legal has once again worked as it was designed to. It is much like what Winston Churchill said about democracy -- absolutely awful, except compared to every other system in the world.

               Because nobody has ever been held accountable for anything having to do with how the war in Iraq was launched or what the consequences of this have been (with hundreds of thousands of lives now lost and trillions of dollars spent), people on the margins are the only ones left to try to expose the real nature of these conflicts and what they've cost us. No one in authority has lifted a finger to impose due process on any of this or tried to purge the evil set loose in Iraq and Afghanistan. As a result we're left with Julian Assange, warts and all. In the future, when historians gaze backwards at this period and try to make sense of what we were involved in, they may have no better record than what Assange has given them. How will they view him then?

               In recent days the Australian-born founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, has reportedly dyed his hair and been wearing disguises around London, while talking only on encrypted cell phones, spending cash instead of traceable credit cards, and sleeping on friends' sofas. Since releasing 400,000 more classified or highly-secretive documents about America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, he's become, at least in his own mind, a hunted man. A few months ago, he published 77,000 such documents, but now he's unleashed an even bigger trove of what the U.S. government doesn't want us to know about its activities abroad. This time around, as with the last time, there's been a great hue and cry about the enormous disservice Assange has done to American interests abroad and to the military itself. Isn't he placing the lives of soldiers or undercover intelligence personnel in danger? Isn't he hurting the U.S. cause? And isn't he a weird character himself, with a strange personality, a number of psychological problems, and a penchant for self-drama?

               The answer to the last question may well be yes, yes, and yes. Those who take risks as great as Assange is taking in making public the underlying reality of these two wars are rarely paragons of what some call "normality." They very often have personal issues that are an integral part of what makes them stick their necks out beyond where most of us can imagine. But they are also the only people who'll do what's necessary to bring to light the actual results of the decisions American political and military leaders have made regarding these two wars during the past nine years. They're the ones willing to go far enough to give these wars an actuality that goes past what the media will report on and what the public is usually exposed to -- the very same public that's been asked to offer these wars our political, moral, and financial support, not to mention the blood of the young Americans who are fighting them. When government decides to act in secret, and to keep the public from knowing what it's up to, supposedly to protect us, only people like Assange are going to try to reveal more of the truth. He is no doubt a flawed man, but who else is this committed to bringing the details of these wars home?

               For the past 25 years, I've sat in courtrooms and watched murder trials. They are time-consuming, tedious, if not boring, expensive, and can be mind-numbingly repetitive. You often can't wait for them to end, but once they're finished a strange thing happens. When you look back on them, after someone guilty of a heinous crime has been convicted in an open setting according to the rules of due process, you feel a sense of pride and subtle satisfaction. Evil has been rooted out, identified, and someone has been held publicly accountable for doing atrocious things. The scoundrels have been named and shamed in front of the citizenry, but without violence or revenge. Our legal has once again worked as it was designed to. It is much like what Winston Churchill said about democracy -- absolutely awful, except compared to every other system in the world.

               Because nobody has ever been held accountable for anything having to do with how the war in Iraq was launched or what the consequences of this have been (with hundreds of thousands of lives now lost and trillions of dollars spent), people on the margins are the only ones left to try to expose the real nature of these conflicts and what they've cost us. No one in authority has lifted a finger to impose due process on any of this or tried to purge the evil set loose in Iraq and Afghanistan. As a result we're left with Julian Assange, warts and all. In the future, when historians gaze backwards at this period and try to make sense of what we were involved in, they may have no better record than what Assange has given them. How will they view him then?

               On January 14, 2009, the day after Stan Garnett became the new Boulder DA, I called him because he'd publicly said that he wanted to look at the unsolved JonBenet Ramsey murder case with fresh eyes. Surprisingly, he called back the next day, in part because he'd had some connection to the Alan Berg assassination in Denver in 1984, the subject of my first book. A few weeks later, I made an appointment to drive up to Boulder and speak with him about the Ramsey case. He seemed open-minded about the now twelve- year-old homicide and told me that his office, Boulder Police Department personnel, and other law enforcement were having a powwow about the case at the end of February 2009.

               In just the past two days, the substance of that meeting has become national news, and we've learned that a 20-some member advisory council made up of state and federal officials were at the gathering. We now know that they recommended the BPD go back and interview certain individuals connected to the case. One is Burke Ramsey, nine at the time of his sister's death and now 23. What we don't know and what seems very strange is that the BPD appears only now to be getting around to talking with these people -- a full nineteen months later. What they've been doing for the past year-and-a-half is about as mysterious as the murder itself. In my February '09 talks with Garnett, I gave him some very specific information about people connected to child pornography whose names have been associated with JonBenet's death. These leads had all been developed long after the murder, when certain people in Boulder had come forward to civilians with new information, in part because they did not want to go to the local police.   

               Initially, the Garnett appeared interested in opening up the investigation beyond the Ramsey family, just as the first DA on the case, Alex Hunter, had been when I'd approached him in April 1997. Back then, Hunter's complaint to me was that the BPD did not want to conduct an investigation into child abuse and child pornography that went outside the Ramsey family, and he was clearly frustrated by this. Twelve years later, there was reason to hope that Garnett would follow through with his desire to broaden the investigation. Within a few weeks, however, he'd turned the case back over to the BPD; some of the very same detectives who'd narrowed the murder probe earlier were in charge of it once again, the first sign that maybe Garnett's eyes were not all that fresh. In my future communications with the DA, he told me to pass along any information I had to the Boulder Police, as he did not have time to deal with it. So I did.  

               Let me be clear: we are talking about giving names to the Boulder Police Department of at least one offender convicted of child pornography charges, whose name had been raised by people in Boulder as having connections with the Ramsey homicide. When I attempted to convey this information to the BPD, I was essentially dismissed, as if this could not possibly be useful to them. I'm hardly the only one who had this experience. Throughout the past couple of years, I saw retired homicide detective Lou Smit on numerous occasions before he died in August 2010. He talked to me at length about the suspect list he'd put together since officially leaving the Ramsey investigation nearly a decade earlier, and sent along to the BPD. He felt the same kind of dismissive attitude toward him that I had -- despite having had a 90% clearance rate on his murder cases over decades of police work.

               It would be fine to be dismissed if there was reason to believe that the BPD has now broadened its investigation and is willing to look in new directions. But if that isn't the case, the public has the right to know what the police have been doing and how their tax dollars have been spent on this case.

               I'll have other things to say about information that was conveyed to the Boulder authorities around the time of this February 2009 powwow, but the critical question now is whether the BPD is going to interview more people beyond Burke Ramsey and other well known names in this case.

               More to come.