A question for Captain Schettino, a quote by a CIA profiler re: Kim Jong-il and a headline on Kim, who “baffled” the world (not when we understand alcoholism).
Question of the month:
“Just how drunk were you, Francesco Schettino, Captain of the Costa Concordia? And were you a relapsing (and hidden from those that matter) alcoholic?” Several reports on the listing of the ship include clues suggesting the answers to the questions are “very” and “yes.” Clue # 1: Pier Luigi Foschi, the chairman and chief executive of Costa Cruises, reportedly said he believed that Captain Schettino “never drank alcohol.” Yet, a Dutch survivor claimed she “saw him drinking with a woman on his arm at the ship’s bar.” Clue # 2: Prosecutors allege he was showing off by sailing past the Tuscan island of Giglio, where his head waiter lived, with some claiming he was piloting the cruise liner “like a Ferrari.” Clue # 3: His former captain, Mario Palombo, claimed Schettino “was too exuberant. He’s a braggart. More than once I had to put him in his place.”
Quote of the month:
“Jerrold M. Post, a former psychological profiler for the CIA, diagnosed Kim as having malignant narcissism, a personality disorder characterized by ‘extreme grandiosity and self-absorption….There is no capacity to empathize with others,’ [he] wrote in a study of Kim. ‘There is no constraint of conscience….Kim’s only loyalty is to himself and his own survival.’”
So wrote Barbara Demick and John M. Glionna in the Los Angeles Times story on the death of Kim Jong-il. They, along with Post (and unfortunately, perhaps, the CIA) omitted Kim’s alcoholism, which explains the “malignant narcissism,” the “extreme grandiosity and self-absorption,” the incapacity “to empathize with others,” the absence of “constraint of conscience” and the loyalty only to himself “and his own survival.” The failure to identify alcoholism at the root of all of Kim’s behaviors ensures the failure to comprehend him, and to predict we were utterly unable to predict what he might have done next. Now we get to say the same about his son, Kim Jong-un who, by the way, recently inherited some nuclear weapons.
Headline of the month:
“North Korean leader dies. Kim, 69, defied and baffled world with his nuclear aims, bizarre actions.”
So led the Los Angeles Times cover story on the death of Kim Jong-il. From a libertarian-humanist perspective, the use of the word “leader” is revolting; Kim was among the most horrific of despotic rulers. From an addictionologist’s viewpoint the idea that he “baffled” the world with “bizarre” actions would be shocking and baffling only if he was not an alcoholic. We know there is nothing baffling or bizarre about him: he did what many practicing alcoholics dream and would do if only they could be placed in identical circumstances. Kim’s alcoholism-induced behaviors are discussed in detail in the Top Story and “Review of the Month” of issue # 3 of TAR. It’s an amazing read.