Obama, Afghanistan and the CIA

There is a theory that JFK was assassinated because he intended to wind down the American presence in Vietnam. This endangered the CIA's lucrative Southeast Asian heroin trade. Add in JFK's refusal to back CIA plots to restore Cuba to their Mafia friends and Kennedy's murder looks a lot like a CIA black op.

I mention this because of the rumor that President Obama may be considering winding down the American involvement in Afghanistan. The CIA is up to its dirty little snout in the Afghan drug trade. The CIA needs the current chaos to continue unchanged to keep the drug cash flowing. A stable Afghanistan, either pro-American or Taliban, would be a financial disaster to the CIA. Would the CIA perform another coup to protect their drug trade?

Note: Where God Went Wrong has a new Halloween entry.

Cure Worse Than the Disease

Blue skies
Smiling at me
Nothing but blue skies
Do I see ~ Irving Berlin

Leave it to scientists to come up with the only way to make a bad situation worse. Some scientists have decided that to cure global warming they need only only cover the Earth with an aerosol shroud. Their plan is to geoengineer the globe by pumping tons of sulfur into the atmosphere, covering the Earth with a dull haze that will reflect sunlight and, thereby, cool the globe.

Beyond the utter insanity of trying to cure a problem caused by pollution by adding more pollution, in essence making the whole world Los Angeles during a Stage 2 smog alert, there are a plethora of possible nasty side-effects.

• Beautiful days will be a thing of the past as scientists will turn the world's skies into an endless depressing gray.
• Put sulfur with air, add sunlight, and you make sulfuric acid. Acid rain, remember?
• Reducing the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth will lower temperatures at the cost of reducing the viability of plant life. The result will be shorter and less productive growing seasons. This will likely increase world famine worse than global warming will.
• It will accelerate ozone layer depletion. Expect increases in blindness, cancer, and additional negative effects on crops.
  
• The problem is Global Climate Change. Their solution is to replace one set of global climate problems with another, equal if not worse, set of problems.
• The whole concept is fucking unpredictable.
  

Global Climate Change is a real problem with a real, simple solution - reduce the infusion of carbon into the atmosphere. This scientific solution reminds me of an old children's song.

There was an old woman who swallowed a cow,
I don't know how she swallowed a cow!
She swallowed the cow to catch the goat,
She swallowed the goat to catch the dog,
She swallowed the dog to catch the cat,
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird,
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider,
That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her,
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly,
I don't know why she swallowed the fly,
Perhaps she'll die.

There was an old woman who swallowed a horse,
She's dead—of course!

CIA Pays Top Afghan Drug Smuggler

Ahmed Wali Karzai, brother of the Afghan president and and a one of that country's opium lords, is a highly prized CIA operative. Color me not surprised. One of the worst kept secrets in the history of clandestine operations has been the CIA's decades long leading role in international drug trafficking.

• France - It was after World War II that the CIA discovered the kind of money that could be made from drugs.The CIA worked with organized crime to take control of the French ports from Communists and as a sideline began profiting from the heroin trade. The CIA build the French Connection.
  
• Vietnam - It was during this war that illegal drugs began to plague the streets of the United States. One theory on why the Vietnam War lasted so long is that the government had become dependent on the drug trade to finance the CIA's black ops against the Soviet Union. Peace was not an option.
  
• Colombia - Following the fall of Vietnam it was the responsibility of then CIA director George H. W. Bush to open up new trade routes for the CIA to move illegal drugs. The CIA facilitated the development of the Medellin Colombian drug cartel. No coincidentally, cocaine use did not became significant in the United States until the 1980's when the CIA had a new war.
• The Contras - With the election of Ronald Reagan the CIA was tasked with supporting civil wars in Central America as well as funding arms shipments to the Iran. The grease applied was the cocaine trade. Now Vice-President George Bush was certainly up to his eyebrows in it. With the evidence widespread, the CIA is admitting to "tolerating" the trade when the truth is they were active conspirators.
• Afghanistan - The Reagan Administration tasked the CIA support revolt against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. The CIA set about supporting the creation of what became the Taliban and al Qaeda and funded these organization with a massive growth in the heroin trade from both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
• Afghanistan Reformed - After the fall of the Soviet puppets in Afghanistan the Taliban virtually wiped out the production of opium. Hence, the CIA saw a sharp decline in income for their criminal enterprises during the Clinton years.
• Afghanistan Back in Business - It is no coincidence that as soon as the Taliban fell the Afghanistan drug trade returned with a vengeance. The CIA was quick to restore business relations with top drug lords like Karzai's brother and running mate. Again, as in Vietnam, why does the war continue endlessly? Again, in part, it is because the CIA is making too much money to ever allow peace.
  

See also the Real Drug Lords and the Politics of Heroin.

The Lieberman Effect

Somewhere, probably in a comment to someone else's blog, I once wrote that the Democratic Party would regret welcoming Joe Lieberman's return into the fold. Sixtieth vote or not, Lieberman would someday gleefully, as gleefully as a man so permanently doleful as he can, stab the Democratic Party in the back. He would choose a time designed to maximize the party's distress and to hurt as many people as possible.

The act would be wanton and malicious. It wouldn't make sense but it wouldn't have to. His goal wouldn't be add to the political discourse but to destroy it. His goal would be to cause pain, extreme pain, surgically applied pain. Joe Lieberman is to politics what Herman Mudgett was to medicine.
PS: I know I'm not the first to notice that Joe Lieberman is the spitting image of Droopy Dog.

Republican Health Plan

Republicans in Congress are frustrated that their leadership hasn't come up with a "Republican Alternative" for health care reform. Allow me to help.

• Health Rationing - Health care is to be based entirely on the ability to pay. CEOs get gold-plated faucets in their hospital toilets. The poor get sanitary handiwipes to use while picking through garbage for food (assuming they are willing to pay for them).
• Health Rationing II - Doctor's are ignorant about medicine. All decision making on specifics of health treatment are to be made by insurance industry clerks whose judgment is not clouded by compassion, medical training, or that pesky Hippocratic Oath.
  
• Insurance Reform - Rewrite the laws to allow insurance companies to cancel coverage for any pre- (or post-) existing condition that might cause an insurance company to spend, you know, actual money.
• Drugs - Drug companies are allowed to set prices based on demand. For example, a pill vital for cancer treatment that costs five cents to make may cost $100 per dose because those dying will pay anything for it. The Federal Government will continue to require that Viagra be covered because keeping rich old farts horny is a vital component of the economy.
  
• Pandemics - Vaccinations should cost dearly. The productive members of society will pay, be protected, and allowed to party away. The young will die thereby reducing the burden of educating them. The poor will die thereby reducing welfare rolls, saving the government money. Consider it a cleansing, vaccinating the poor thwarts the Will of God.

Pictured is the Republican vision for health care, The Masque of the Red Death by Shakmet.

Yankee Stadium Is a Pile of Junk

The City and State of New York paid half the cost of building a new stadium for billionaire George Steinbrenner. The total price tag to various government entities is over $1 billion.

This is funny because the new Yankee Stadium now in its seventh month of operation is falling apart. Given the alleged ties to organized crime connections of contractors used to build the stadium, the fact the construction was shoddy should not be a surprise.

Random Thought

I am confident that I made decisions based on principle, that I made calls as best I could, and I did not sell my soul. ~ George W. Bush

You can't sell what you gave away for free years ago.

Operation Northwoods

Before the Birthers there were the Truthers, the people who believed that 9-11 was a plot by the Bush Administration to justify the conquest of Iraq. Truthers believe that the damage to the Pentagon was not caused by an airplane and the the Twin Towers were felled by explosive charges set by United States government agents.

It is an insane conspiracy theory and while I love a good conspiracy even I could not buy into this one. Still, Truthers could point for support to an actual government conspiracy that was eerily similar, Operation Northwoods.

Operation Northwoods
Devised in 1962 following the debacle of the Bay of Pigs, it was to provide the justification for an American invasion and conquest of Cuba. The plan proposed a series of phony provocations that would be the pretext for war. The author of the plan was the then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army General L. L. Lemnitzer. The plan's basics were:

• Initiate a series of fake attacks on the US military base at Guantanamo. The culmination would be a "Remember the Maine" incident where a US warship would be blown up in Guantanamo Bay.
• Terrorist attacks would be staged against Cuban refugees. American agents would sink a boatload of Cuban refugees and blame Castro. Attempts would be made on the lives of Cubans living in Florida. To be believable, these attempts would have to frequently succeed.
  
• Americans, using Cuban-type bombers, would use Soviet incendiaries to burn the crops of other Caribbean nations. The Dominican Republic was specifically mentioned as a possible target. Firebombing farms would kill civilians.
  
• American pilots flying Soviet MIGs would shoot down a passenger airliner. The suggested target would be a chartered flight of American students on holiday. Gen. Lemnitzer was sensitive enough to suggest substituting an unoccupied drone although his plan does not say how the government would explain the sudden reappearance of all those presumably dead students.

The plan received unanimous support by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and was forwarded to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and President Kennedy. Kennedy rejected the plan. Gen. Lemnitzer was quietly removed as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and was moved over to NATO where calmer heads could keep him under control.

Operation Northwoods was kept secret until it was published in 1997 as part of the Kennedy Assassination Records Review Board.

Secret but not forgotten. A year after it was rejected part of the plan was initiated. John F. Kennedy was murdered and the man framed for the murder was tied to Cuba.

PS About 9-11 Truthers: The reason I haven't believed them is that the Bush Administration just wasn't competent enough to have pulled it off. Although I am willing to reconsider if the Truthers can provide better evidence.

Rape Called 'Pre-Existing Condition'

Sometimes I wonder where health insurance companies find there executives, the people who make their rules for coverage. They can't possibly be human in that they lack even the faintest hint of human compassion. I've come to suspect that Blue Cross, for example, has a recruitment office in the eighth level of Hell.

• Your baby larger than average - insurance denied.
• Your toddler smaller than average - insurance denied.
• Use a pharmacy - insurance denied.
• Acne - insurance denied.
  
• Pregnant - insurance denied.
  
• Victim of rape - insurance denied.
• Beaten by your spouse - insurance denied.
  
• Have an irregular period (as do a quarter of all women) - insurance denied.

Hell, pretty much being a woman is considered a pre-existing condition and justification for denying coverage.

In California, PacifiCare denied coverage for almost 40% of applicants. Cigna denies nearly a third of applicants, Kaiser and Blue Cross denial rate is over a quarter of applicants. Source.

Maybe Bankers Deserve It

Consider, bank CEOs conned the federal government out of billions of dollars of free money. Bank CEOs made the term "too big to fail" a mantra that allows big banks to take outrageous risks - if they succeed the bank benefits, if they fail the government covers the loses. Bank CEOs have created an environment where the only people deserving of government largess are the richest of the rich.

After doing all that, don't you think bank CEO's deserve a few six-figure perks?

Republicans for Rape

It is rare I support a Republican site but this one deserves notice. Republicans for Rape defends patriotic American companies that practice the recreational rape of their employees. The issue is the Franken Amendment that would prevent private contractors from requiring arbitration in the event an employee was raped by her colleagues.

The exemplar case was when a KBR employee was gang raped in Iraq and the company imprisoned her in a shipping container, stole the rape evidence kit, and demanded her complaint go to arbitration. To date, no criminal charges have been, nor likely ever will, be filed. As Jon Swift points out, by complaining the woman was undermining the war effort.

The Defense Department, following that long held belief by militaries across time and continents that gang rape is one of the only perks of war, opposes the Franken Amendment. Also opposing are thirty Republican Senators. Each and every one, from John McCain to David Vitter, have long supported the rights of women to be raped without trial lawyers interfering.

Republicans realize the Franken Amendment is unfair to companies like Halliburton and KBR and interferes with corporations ability to impose repressive contracts on their employees.

The Franken Amendment is just another example of liberal treason. One final link, the Jamie Leigh Foundation was created to further the victim's subversive activities.

End Health Monopolies

Republicans claim to support free enterprise, competition in the marketplace. In reality, Republicans are the enemies of free enterprise with their steadfast support of monopolistic practices that stifle competition.

The only reason health insurance companies have sustained double-digit annual rate increases for so many years, as well as the cruel treatment of its subscribers, is the absence of competition. In most places in this country there is no viable alternative. The only way they could make the threat to increase rates in response to government action is if there are tacit, or formal, agreements between the companies to fix prices.

The reason the insurance companies are so terrified of the "public option" is that it offers real competition, health insurance that is not part of their cartel. Key to maintaining their monopolies is the anti-trust exemption insurance companies have. Breaking the insurance cartel must be a vital part of health care reform.

Texas Executions

The biggest problem with executions is killing innocent people. The biggest problem with politicians is an inability for self-reflection, the ability to admit error. In Texas that creates a perfect storm.

Texas governors love executing prisoners. It's a machismo thing. George Bush Jr. killed 154 prisoners in his six years; Rick Perry has killed 202 in eight years, with six more scheduled before the end of the year. That is a record. No governor in American history has ever killed more prisoners than Rick Perry.

Texas also leads the nation is the number of innocent people executed. Bush was notorious for his disinterest in reading clemency reports. Perry, on the other hand, is an ambitious man determined to build a political empire with the bones of the dead. Perry, like Bush before him, has a simple philosophy - kill 'em all and let God sort the innocent from the guilty.

The stories of the innocents killed by Texas governors could fill a book. There is Ruben Cantu, killed in 1993, the victim of sloppy police work. Frances Newton died in 2005 because the court appointed an amateur attorney to defend her - Ron Mock allegedly had a habit of showing up in court drunk, 16 of his 19 clients ended up on death row.

Then there is the now famous case of Cameron Todd Willingham, killed in 2004. He was convicted using clearly fabricated evidence. He died because a district attorney wanted to pad his stats. With the facts showing Willingham innocent Perry has become dedicated to covering up the case. Perry intends to be proud of every prisoner he has killed and won't allow facts to interfere.

There are more innocents lined up to be killed by Texas like Jeff Wood who was convicted of murder because he was standing outside a store when someone else inside the store killed a clerk.

See also the Texas Moratorium Network.

The Spawn of Satan?

Rush Limbaugh claims to have spawned Glenn Beck. I always knew it.

If Rush Limbaugh had sex with a succubus from the eighth level of Hell, afterwards the succubus would feel despoiled.

NOTE: Where God Went Wrong is no longer moribund. I had to resurrect it for the story of Texas school children using Gideon Bibles to smoke pot.

American Police State: A Little Paranoia Before Breakfast

Cracked.com is supposed to be a comedy site, which it mostly is. They also have a facility of finding those times when truth is not so much stranger than fiction than infinitely more frightening.

Today's contribution to daylight nightmares is Five Ways You're Secretly Being Monitored.

1. Public Surveillance. Count the number of cameras in your bank and you'll be arrested for plotting a robbery. Trust me, there are a lot of them. But they are just the tip of the iceberg. There are cameras on just about every urban street corner in America and Europe now. Stare at that sexy girl in front of the federal building too long and your face will be tagged as a potential terrorist. Audio surveillance is the new growth industry. Facial recognition software (grow a mustache, go to jail) that can pick out a face in the crowd for arrest is still mostly a sales pitch to gullible police departments. It's all an amusement park for government watchers. Just like in 1984, there are very few places you can go where you are not being watched. Gotta love these Chicago artists, though, who are turning public surveillance into performance art.
   
2. Cell Phone Bugs. Software to spy on cell phones is everywhere. It's so easy to track every message and GPS location. You can even turn on the iPhone microphone to listen in on your target.
   
3. Printer Tracking. This is not a problem for me because I only use words cut out of newspapers and pasted onto parchment to create my hard copies. Still, it must be unsettling to know that everything you print or copy is watermarked.
4. RFID Tags. You go to the Barnes and Noble and buy a subversive book. You pay cash, don't use your membership card, and make sure the surveillance cameras can't see the title so you figure you are free and clear. Wrong! The RFID chip is still active and wherever you go the chip is sending out it's signal leading the Feds right to your underground book club meeting. Then there is the alleged plan to use RFID chip to track the homeless or the equally believable Oklahoma plot to use RFID bracelets and police roadblocks to enforce universal Swine Flu vaccination.
5. Total Information Awareness Program.
   There's nothing you can know that isn't known.
   Nothing you can see that isn't shown. ~ All You Need Is Love
   The key is putting it all together. TIA does that. If you thought that this program died when Dick Cheney left office, think again. That data is all there, being mined to form an image of that complex tapestry that is you. Step out of line, the man comes and takes you away. Even your Amazon Wishlist is tattling on you.
   

White House Gets Honest About FOX

It's not exactly new news to anyone whose been paying attention but you have to applause the honesty from the Obama Administration stating outright that FOX News is just the propaganda arm of the Republican Party. So much of politics is playing Let's Pretend that hearing a simple truth is damn refreshing.

It's Good Enough He's Not Bush

President Barack Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Conservatives are spluttering their morning Mueslix out their noses at the news.

The truth is that Obama hasn't done anything yet to deserve the prize except that he is NOT George W. Bush. But, that is quite enough. Obama is truly a champion of peace just for kicking Bushism out of power. Pissing off Dick Cheney is a bonus.

American Police State Update

An innocent person, especially male and of color, ought to schedule an extra twenty minutes when traveling from point A to point B. The additional time is to allow for the every more frequent random police full body searches that are being conducted.

The grounds for a "stop-and-frisk" are loose, someone just has to look hinky to a cop. Hinky meaning, in most cases, the cop sees someone who is both male and of color.

You will want to be patient. Police take their time on such random stops, they'll want to talk and ask a lot of questions. They may want to pat you down. Try not to enjoy this because they may then arrested you for lewd conduct. Remember that they have an itchy trigger finger on that Taser gun of theirs so don't become frustrated or display any annoyance whatsoever. Whatever you do, don't get angry because right next to that Taser is a 38-cal. police special.

Useful Tip: White police officers in the Deep South respond well to the phrase, "Yes, massa."

We Are All Christians (Whether We Like It Or Not)

"It's erected as a war memorial. I assume it is erected in honor of all of the war dead," Scalia said of the cross that the Veterans of Foreign Wars built 75 years ago atop an outcropping in the Mojave National Preserve. ~ Huff Post

I have encountered this argument so often I have ceased to be amused by its naivety. It is always brought out by Christians to defend a government sponsored cross somewhere or other. It is silly, childish thinking - disingenuous at best and most often an outright lie. The cross is an exclusively Christian religious symbol; when it is erected to "honor" war dead it is intended to honor only the Christian war dead. Only an idiot would believe otherwise.

Antonin Scalia is no fool. He is a shyster who perverts the US Constitution to meet his personal political and religious prejudices, but he is not stupid. He is a man without scruples who would use his power on the Supreme Court to recast the United States as a Christian Theocracy, but he is not an idiot. When Scalia says the Christian cross honors "all" he truly means "all who matter." Non-Christians, in Scalia's United States, are worthless dregs.

What Matters; What Doesn't(Presidential Division)

What Matters
The Economy. The official unemployment rate is nearing 10%. The Real Unemployment Rate is a staggering 17%. And the depression has continued long enough that families are using up their unemployment benefits with no relief in sight. This issue rates 100 on a scale of one to ten. It's The Economy, Stupid!

Afghanistan. The same people that ended Alexander The Great's quest for world domination, the people that chased the great British Empire back through the Hindu Kush, the ragtag rebels who destroyed the Soviet Union are now the problem of the United States. We have the power to destroy their country. We can kill every man, woman, and child in Afghanistan without breaking a sweat. We can never rule them and we might as well give up trying.

Health Care. One of the first lessons I learn is that real power politics is the art of the possible. There are very few issues that are so important one should waste political capital on a losing effort. If you can't win, let things slide and live to fight another day. The second lesson is to know what you want before committing to a fight. While health care costs and availability are a vital American concern, the insurance companies own a sufficient number of Congressmen and Senators to make real reform impossible. President Obama, while strongly supporting reform, does not seem to have a clear idea what that reform should look like. I'd like real reform but I don't see it happening and insofar as the health care debate is distracting from the economy it is a net loss.

What Doesn't Matter
The Olympics. No one, except venue builders and Chicago construction workers, cares where the Olympics are held. If Republicans try to make an issue out of the Olympics going to Rio it will be the GOP that looks petty and disconnected.

Iran Nukes. Sorry neo-cons, Iran is a regional issue. The Saudis and Israelis are scared but they are no threat to the United States. A little saber rattling for domestic consumption is all that is needed.

The Devil's Dues Are High

While the world suffers Goldman Sachs continues to have win-win deals so sweet they resemble Satanic orgies. If CIT Group goes bankrupt Goldman is guaranteed $1 billion while everyone else gets the shaft. The US taxpayer, for example, stands to lose $2.3 billion in a CIT Group bankruptcy. CIT Group is neck deep in shit, their operating margin, for example is -427%.

Pictured is either a Goldman Sachs board of directors meeting or a black mass, it's hard to tell them apart. More on Goldman's Devil deals here and here.

Standard Disclaimer to Goldman Sachs lawyers: I love Goldman Sachs and continue worship nightly to its Splendiferousness. Please don't sue me.

Hockey Night in Canada

Nothing will get the memories of the Black Dahlia murder out of my mind better than an excessive amount of ice hockey.

The Black Dahlia

There are certain mysteries that fascinate me, mysteries that, once I start thinking about them, I can't let go. The Kennedy assassination conspiracies (both of them), the Jack the Ripper case, the Lost Dutchman Mine are three. Another is the case of the Black Dahlia.

Elizabeth Short was beautiful, with raven hair that contrasted her alabaster skin and powder blue eyes. She always dressed in black and wore a flower in her hair. To see her, even in a black and white picture, is to become instantly captivated by her. She wanted to be famous, a movie star. She ended up famous, the victim of the most horrid murder in the history of Los Angeles.

Who Was Beth Short?
After her fiance has died at the end of World War II, Beth became something of a vagabond. She traveled from Florida to Chicago and finally arrived in Hollywood in the summer of 1946.

Beth visited the nightclubs where the glitterati would go, hoping to catch the eye of someone who would start her in films. The 22 year-old never worked a day in Hollywood. She lived sometimes in flophouses and other times in fine homes or hotels, depending on how successful she was convincing some man to put her up. She ate, when she ate at all, when men bought her dinner.

While Beth traded on her beauty she never sold her body. There is no evidence she was a prostitute and much evidence she always refused sex with her male companions. It seems she could manipulate men without ever giving up the prize.

The Black Dahlia Murder
I won't go much into detail because the details are repulsive. I won't show her autopsy photos although the pictures are easily found because seeing both the beautiful face above and the Glasgow Smile carved in that face by the murderer is the stuff of nightmares. Believe me. I won't go much into details but some facts are necessary.

Beth Short disappeared five days before her body was found in a vacant lot in January 1947. She had been neatly dissected in half at the waist and the two parts carefully posed. She had been tortured for days prior to her death.

The suspect list was pretty nearly the entire male population of Los Angeles. The murderer had mailed Beth's belongings to the police (via a newspaper). Included was Beth's address book, with a couple of pages torn out. While the police interrogated everyone in that address book it is obvious that the murderer was identified on the missing pages.

The police tried to pin the murder on a traveling salesman, one Robert Manley, who was the last person known to have seen her alive. The police were disappointed their investigation cleared him of the crime. Still the publicity managed to destroy his life, he ended up in a psychiatric hospital. After that the case devolved into the incompetent chaos for which the Los Angeles Police Department is still renown. No one was every arrested.

Who Did It?
Exactly who killed Beth Short is meaningless now as all the possible suspects are now dead. Still, there is quite the cottage industry of people trying to prove this or that person was the killer. I can understand why there is a need for some sort of closure. Some things can be deduced.

• The murderer knew Beth. There is a reason the address book pages were torn out. He was there, in the book.
• The murderer was skilled, probably a doctor with surgical training. Even more than the Jack the Ripper case, the Black Dahlia case shows precision with a knife. This was not some crude hacking, not the work of a traveling salesman, but the signature of a professional.
• The murderer took care to pose the body. He was making a statement.
  
• The murderer may have had important connections. The Los Angeles Police file on the Black Dahlia murder disappeared and even to this day some 60 years later, the LA Police Department is extremely defensive about the case. Far beyond being embarrassed by failure, they still seem to be trying to hide something.
  

NOT Recommended Reading
I do not recommend reading about the Black Dahlia case. It can lead to a very unhealthy obsession. If you are determined to confront these nightmares:

• Who Killed the Black Dahlia is a good overview of the case devoid of any disturbing photos.
• The Black Dahlia Solution has a lot of interesting observations if you can get beyond the bizarre symbolism the writer sees. It has the advantage of being really, really detailed. The disadvantage is more close-ups of autopsy photos than any sane person can stomach.
• TruTV did a good study of the Black Dahlia case but also of the woman Beth Short.
• Steve Hodel wrote a best selling book accusing his father of the murder. He is a former LA police officer with some serious daddy issues but he makes a strong case. He is critical of police conduct on the case.
  
• Heaven Is Here! is LA Times reporter Larry Harnish's study on the case. I like his process but his conclusion is lame. Harnish is too trusting of the LA police.
  
• The Black Dahlia Website is another very through study of the crime. Its message boards are for the totally obsessed.
• Then there is the Biltmore Hotel Ghost Story.
  

Final Thoughts
I think a major reason I am touched by Beth Short is that I see some of her in many of the women I have loved. When I look at her pictures while alive I can see women in my life and when I seen the crime photos it hits me as if a dear friend has been killed. I can walk away from the Black Dahlia story and I have to. But every so often I bump into the Dahlia and I feel her suffering again.

By the by, stay away from the Black Dahlia movies. They are all trash.