Remember that line from Animal Farm — the political slogan devised by the pigs?

Four legs good
Two legs bad

It seems to me that the American media choose to communicate that a person is bad bad bad by using their full name. Because of that, we know how they feel about John Mark Karr.

Just run a search on famous criminals — murderers, rapists, kidnappers, convicted, acquitted, or never even arrested, it doesn’t matter. As long as the press wanted you to be afraid of them, they had three names:

  • Mehmet Ali Agca
  • John Eric Armstrong
  • Kirk Douglas Billie
  • Arthur Gary Bishop
  • Kenneth Eugene Bruce
  • Frank Ray Chandler
  • Mark David Chapman
  • Norman Richard Cleary
  • Tyrone Peter Darks
  • Genero Espinosa Dorantes
  • Robert William Fisher
  • Anthony Guy Fuentes
  • John Wayne Gacy
  • Victor Manuel Gerena
  • Glen Stewart Godwin
  • Dominique Jerome Green
  • John W (Warnock) Hinckley
  • Bobby Ray Hopkins
  • Theodore John Kaczynski
  • Edgar Ray Killen
  • Edward Lewis Lagrone
  • Pedro Alonso Lopez
  • Ynobe Katron Matthews
  • Demarco Markeith McCullum
  • Frederick Patrick McWilliams
  • Brian David Mitchell
  • Robert Brice Morrow
  • Joe Elton Nixon
  • Lee Harvey Oswald
  • James Earl Ray
  • Melvin David Rees
  • Jack The Ripper (Sorry. Couldn’t help myself.)
  • John Glenn Roe
  • Raymond Dayle Rowsey
  • Orenthal James Simpson
  • Charles Laverne Singleton
  • Chester Dewayne Turner
  • Billy Frank Vickers
  • Coral Eugene Watts
  • Donald Eugene Webb
  • Cameron Todd Willingham
  • Windel Ray Workman
  • Kevin Lee Zimmerman
  • Martin Lewis Tupper

Do you recognize that last one in the list? HBO used to run a show called , starring Brian Benben (man, I love that name) and Wendie Malick. Benben played Martin Tupper, whose attention was constantly interrupted by flashbacks of old movies and television shows he’d seen on the eye of hell when he was a kid. The flashbacks always related in some way to what he was dealing with at the time.

In one episode, Martin Tupper is falsely accused of some serious crime. I can’t recall whether it was murder or rape. But while he’s panicking away, trying to figure out what to do, he hears a news report on TV about the manhunt for Martin Lewis Tupper. I’m fairly certain that’s the only time in the six or so years the show ran that we find out Martin’s middle name. And of course, you’ve got the Martin and Lewis reference in there too. As my old pal the Sprout would say, “brilliant.”

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