One way to achieve some understanding of Andrea Yates' appalling crime of drowning her five children is to think of American society as a suit of armor held together by a single bolt. The late Rod Serling used this simile to describe a New York ad executive slowly cracking up from his high pressure job.

Do not infer that I agree in the slightest with the notion that her depression somehow caused her to commit this vile act. In fact, in nearly all cases, depression, if it causes violence at all, results in suicide, not homicide--and certainly not multiple filicide. Instead, I am suggesting that when a society of hundreds of millions of people resembles that fey suit of armor, it may not completely explode, but rather, certain pieces will fly off from time to time. We had our school shootings, and now, we have our home drownings.

Preceding Andrea Yates was the much less publicized case (because only one child was killed) of Heidi Anfinson of Des Moines, Iowa. Anfinson was convicted last year of drowning her infant son in a lake 16 miles from her home, although she and her husband maintained her innocence to the end. They insisted that the baby accidentally drowned in the bathtub, and Anfinson panicked, discarding the corpse in the lake. However, forensic evidence showing plant matter and bacteria in the baby's lungs and heart blood proved that the child was alive and breathing when dropped into the lake.

It would seem that Yates has advanced the cause of filicide, if not in sheer quantity, at least in outward honesty. After all, Yates did call 911, and later admitted that she killed the children, even having to chase the oldest around the house, before she could drag him, screaming, to the bathtub to be drowned.

As far as I can determine, the modern quantity record for a mother killing her children is held by Magda Goebbels, the wife of Joseph, Nazi propaganda minister. She poisoned her SIX children in Hitler's Berlin bunker in the final days of the Third Reich. Cold comfort that it takes a loyal Nazi to surpass an American mother in blood lust.

Once again, as in so many of these high profile homicide cases, we are subjected to the observations of shocked neighbors, who would have never dreamt that the kind and gentle Yates could have done such a thing. Sorry, but this journalistic pablum has never rung true. Sad to say, I've known a few people who committed violent acts, either to themselves or others, and I assure you, it was no surprise. From the silent, detached kid, who worked in the chem lab with me that committed suicide, to the hyper weirdo who "accidentally" ran over his wife in a parking lot--there was no surprise. The rationalization of "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" maybe, but no surprise.

And once again, we have the loyal husband, standing with his wife, despite the overwhelming evidence of her guilt, and calculating unspeakable malevolence. But even as Russell Yates tried to find any excuse he could for this massive tragedy, he sounded way too perky for my taste, and all too willing to speak to any media figure that happened along.

In the weeks to come, we will hear much more than we care to about poor Andrea, who left nursing to stay home with the kids in 1994, and attempted suicide in 1999. We may even hear about the disturbing side effects of psychotropic drugs, such as she and the Columbine perps were taking.

But we won't hear about government encouraged atheism and government discouraged self-reliance. We won't hear about the effects of substituting personal goals and responsibility for becoming fanatic about a sports team, rock group, movie star, or politician.

In this pathetic case, Hillary Clinton may have been right. A village could have probably saved these five children. Too bad they lived in the village of the damned.

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