Newsmakers face life's issues, find different answers

Analysis and speculation is running at full throttle following Monday's massacre in Washington's Navy Yard.

What motivated Aaron Alexis to take the lives of 12 innocent people simply trying to do their jobs? He felt discriminated against. He had post-traumatic stress disorder related to 9/11.

He had anger management problems and blackouts of rage. He was a gentle, quiet man who was better at chanting than some of the Thais who attended a Buddhist temple. He shot out the tires of construction workers who disrespected him, and fired a pistol into the apartment of a neighbor who was being too noisy.

The dead gunman was discharged from the Navy Reserves, and may have been treated for mental illness.

Whatever the cause, something was wrong with his outlook on life. Something caused him to decide going on a shooting rampage was the answer to his problems.

The same might be true in the case of two Russians who got into a heated discussion about Immanual Kant, the 18th century German philosopher who argued that reason is the source of morality.

While two men in their 20s waited in line for beer, their philosophical disagreement deteriorated into a fistfight, and then one pulled out what only the Russians could describe as a "small, nonlethal pistol" and fired repeatedly.

But for an example of a better philosophy of life, we only have to look to a homeless man in Boston, who returned a lost backpack, containing $2,400 in cash, $40,000 in traveler's checks as passports, to a Chinese visitor.

Glen James was honored by the police commissioner, who gave him a special citation.

"God has always very well looked after me," he said. "Even if I were desperate for money, I would not have kept even a ... penny of the money I found," the Boston Globe reported. He stopped a police officer Saturday after seeing the Chinese man leave the bag behind.

A Virginia man began an online campaign Monday to raise $50,000 to donate to James. Let's hope he is able to find his way to a job and safe housing as proof that doing good pays off in the long run.