Old folks like to play the game of "I'm so old I can remember ... ." Like when gas was 28 cents per gallon or a year's decent income was $7,500. Recently though, I remembered I'm so old I can remember when Tylenol and such like were sold without protective packaging; that is, before the Tylenol murders of 1982, when some psychopath poisoned packages and killed several people in the Chicago area.

In hindsight I wonder if that was a harbinger of social dysfunction, the increasing anonymity of perpetrator and victims. Many mass shootings involve anonymous victims; the shooter only knows they are there in a targeted location. Tip O'Neil said, "All politics is local," meaning lawmakers knew their constituents and vice versa, but now it seems lawmakers can erase rights and benefits against the public will and ignoring whom they have hurt. Even federal agents are hiding their identity as they arrest people they don't know, who may or may not have committed a crime. Anonymity run amok.