CSI couldn't handle these guys

I don't have anything nifty or clever to write about this Friday. The real story is this crazy blizzard that dumped over a foot of snow on the Twin Cities, but I can only post so many weather maps before people begin referring to more reputable meteorologists.

As such, I will point you toward an article that I found most fascinating. Anytime a major publication rolls out a Top 25 of the century, it tends to get attention and debate. This time Time magazine decided to dive into the Top 25 Crimes of the Century, and I will do my best to live up to the automatically deserved hype that it warrants.

There are many memorable ones from recent times such as OJ Simpson and Andrea Yates that some of us youthful folk can recall unfolding before our very eyes. Then there are others like the Lindbergh child kidnapping 75 years ago (the anniversary of which spawned this list) that are more familiar than other more distant crimes (Lana Turner, 1958).

I find it difficult to rank these criminal activities in any sort of "the greatest" or "the best" mentality, and it's probably for the best that Time ended up just listing them instead of ranking them. After all, what makes a murder "greater" than another? The number of dead? The grotesqueness of the activity? The media swirl given it? In the end, just sticking with the moniker "top 25" might be the safest way to go and if an adjective need be given it, "most memorable" strikes me as the best fit.

I suppose what struck me most from the list was the popularity of non-death crimes has declined while murderous rampages are the rise. Seems to me that the while there were high-profile killings in first half of the list's time line, the kidnappings (Lindbergh, 1932), art thefts (Mona Lisa, 1911), and robberies (The Brinks Job, 1950) were in vogue pre-Drew-being-on-Earth. Now-a-days our society tends to make headlines with bulk killings (Columbine, 1999 and Unabomber, 1996). Truly a proud evolution of our criminal minds.