Lisa Irwin...

Lisa Irwin is the latest missing child (in her case, Infant) to make the news. The father returned from his job at 4:00 AM to find the whole house lit up, the front door and a window wide open, and no baby anywhere.

Today's news (October 7th, 2011) is that the parents have stopped cooperating with police.

Now, I remember the JonBenet Ramsey case a decade and a half ago, and there are some strange similarities. JonBenet was not kidnapped, although there was a ransom note. Instead JonBenet was murdered, and the detectives in that case seemed to have botched it about as badly as could be. One of the first things they did was to focus on the family as suspects.

Now, I am sure whenever a spouse is murdered, some large percentage of the time the killer is the surviving spouse. I am also sure that when a child goes missing, the parents or a close family member are involved a large percentage of the time. But as an accountant I knew used to say, "Figures don't lie... but liars figure."

Percentages don't really mean anything in an individual case. Just like "America has 90% employment" doesn't mean squat if you are searching for a job.

I suspect that the police began aggressively questioning someone in the family - the mom, the dad, a brother, whoever - because that is what detectives do. I am not implying that they should stop doing it. Police deal with criminals on a daily basis, and, after a while, I think it makes them a bit suspicious of everybody.

But not everybody who is working with the police is a criminal - like, say, the family of an infant who has been snatched from her bed. While the investigation may eventually lead to a family member, it should not start there. People in emotional distress behave differently depending on the individual. Some cry and scream and shout - like outsiders expect. Some drop into a state of shock, and maybe distance themselves from reality, becoming cold and distant. This, of course, would be viewed suspiciously, even though I suspect it is perfectly natural.

So what will become of young Lisa Irwin, and the family, and the police in Kansas City, MO? Statistics say that, if she was truly kidnapped, she will be returned home - eventually. Of the 250,000 kidnappings a year, only about 100 result in fatalities, and almost all of them occur within the first couple hours.

Of course, statistics don't mean much for this one family.

They will be in my prayers.

They need to be in all our prayers.

Movies, movies, movies...

My wife and family returned to the US several weeks ago, and I find myself with more time on my hands than I'd like. Since there is another expat here without family, we have spent quite a bit of time exploring Bangalore, and watching movies.

After finishing an old Showtime series, Dead Like me, and the mediocre movie that was made a few years after the series ended, we turned to an independent film with Jeff Bridges called "Tideland".

Now, I enjoy movies. Some of my favorites are not Hollywood, but are independent, or foreign, or the originals that Hollywood remade (Like "Quarantine"? See the original Spanish language, "[REC]")

The great thing about independent film is that the director and producer are not constrained by bean counters worried about recouping money. Independent films can be cheaply made ("Blair Witch Project"), push the envelope ("Reservoir Dogs"), and earn critical acclaim ("Night of the Living Dead").

Unfortunately, some are - I was going to say "bad" but that doesn't seem to fit. A bad movie, to me, is "Battlefield Earth". To this day I hate John Travolta for stealing 2 hours of my life. Even Independent Films that I dislike normally have some redeeming quality, some aspect that I like, or that works.

My case in point is "Tideland". If I would sum up the movie in a single word, it would have to be "weird". Or maybe "unique".

The movie focuses on a girl, Jeliza-Rose, who is about 10. Her parents are drug addicts, and both die within the first 30 minutes or so of the film, leaving her alone (which, in her case, is not much different than having 2 drug addicted parents).

What follows is a escalating sense of weirdness. She yearns for family, and comfort, and love, and finds it in the mentally handicapped man-child next door, while the man-child's sister functions as a sort of "mother" to the strange sorry little band.

If the purpose of art, whether painting, sculpture, or movie, is to evoke emotion, this movie succeeds. It is not a light movie (a "Popcorn Flick"). Some parts are downright disturbing. But when I look back after sleeping on it, I find it left me with a sense of hope, that things would improve, and maybe Jeliza-Rose had found the family she wanted.

Since it is now October, and the Halloween season is again upon us, I am going to be forcing my friend to watch some horror movies - my favorite genre. "Trick 'r Treat" is definitely on the list, as well as "The Devil's Backbone" and "Pan's Labrynth" from Guillermo del Toro (and maybe his earlier work, "Cronos"). Since my friend scares easily, I am leaning more to creepy rather than truly terrifying.

Suggestions welcome...