Of mad dogs and rabid fans
“RABID” is an adjective usually associated with mad dogs although there are other animals like bats and foxes that also transmit rabies through a bite.
But it can also apply to a person. It is not uncommon to read about a rabid fan in sports and a rabid supporter in politics. Although there is no actual inflammation of the human brain in politics/ sports-induced rabidity, the outward manifestations are the same: fanatical, maniacal and extremely violent behavior. Much like a mad dog’s.
Such is the case of Cesar Altieri Sayoc, half-American and half-Filipino, who could spend the next 50-plus years of his life in prison, assuming the deadly virus doesn’t turn on and get to him first, cutting short a threatening, if it isn’t so yet, miserable existence.
Sayoc was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation outside a car-repair shop in Miami, Florida yesterday after an investigation that included DNA matching, showed that he was likely the person who mailed bomb packages to former US President Barack Obama, his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton and a few other outspoken critics of President Donald Trump.
Sayoc is a registered Republican and Trump supporter. The New York Times described the bombing suspect as “filled with right-wing rage” and “living in a van plastered with hate.” He attended rallies wearing a hat that carries the Trump slogan, “Make America Great Again.”
“With fury in his fingers, he shared inflammatory news stories from Breitbart, hard-edge videos from Fox News and angry posts from pages like Handcuffs for Hillary,” the Times reported.
“He appears to be partisan,” US Attorney General Jeff Sessions said of the former male stripper turned bomb sender, “but that will be determined by the facts as the case goes forward.”
As soon as his arrest was made known, details of the life of Cesar Sayoc began to emerge. In his LinkedIn page, he wrote in part: “My family very sound Sayoc name in Medical field Grandfather Col. Baltazar Zook Sayoc that perfect the conversion oriental eye to Americanize. The first plastic surgeon to be observed by 8 million people in NY city Hospital. He over through Communist Philippines liberated island.”
“This doesn’t sound like English as a first language,” an American online journalist smirked. “Or it could just be mental illness.”
Typically American, I wanted to add but half of the blood that runs in Sayoc’s veins is Filipino. Besides, and this is more compelling, there are many other maniacal and fanatical creatures like him in the Philippines, only that they have not sent bomb packages to critics of their idol. Not yet an yw ay.