Sarasota News Leader

01/04/2013

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Sarasota News Leader January 4, 2013 OPINION even the booming sounds of live music ��� are integral elements of that environment. The hustle and bustle of a city���s core create the very vitality and vivacity that attract many to live there. To desire otherwise says more about the unrealistic expectations of those who eschew noise than it does about the appropriateness of noise ��� both good and bad ��� in an urban center. Traditionally, people prefer to live in an urban setting because of the fast-paced lifestyle, the diversity, the culture ��� in short, everything that makes a city the last logical place to seek out quiet. Yet, apparently, some arrived in Sarasota���s downtown hoping for exactly that. If only they, upon learning the extent of their folly, had moved to the country for their sepulchral silence, all would be fine. Instead, Page 59 they have exerted an outsized influence on the city���s government, with the result that our downtown is nearly reduced to all the tumult one might find in ��� well, a tomb. We have tried to see the proverbial middle ground in this controversy, some basis for a reasonable compromise. Unfortunately, expecting the center of a city to be as quiet as a rural countryside is neither reasonable nor fair. Realtors and condo salespeople might have promised a quiet downtown, but they could just as well have been hawking the Brooklyn Bridge. It was not theirs to promise. And the sooner downtown residents embrace the sounds of the city ��� or head east of Interstate 75 ��� and the city backs off of its draconian restrictions on downtown nightlife, the better off Sarasota will be. % THE PSYCHOLOGICAL PORTRAIT OF A KILLER By David Staats Columnist COMMENTARY News media coverage of the Dec. 14 Newtown, CT, school massacre has been extensive. Still, many of the basic facts in the case of Adam Lanza, who is suspected of the murder of his mother and 26 innocents, remain unknown or are in doubt. Theories as to Adam���s motive continue to be put forward. Three psychiatrists were interviewed for this article. Each knew Adam only from what he had read in the newspapers or had seen on television. Since they could only speculate in general terms about an individual whom they Some reports depict him as a deeply troubled had never met or treated, the three asked to young man suffering from Asperger���s syn- remain anonymous. drome, a form of autism spectrum disorder. One of the psychiatrists believes it is imposOther reporting paints a different picture. sible to separate Adam���s neuroses from those

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