Tourette’s Syndrome

Matthew S. Ricker, resident pervert and assistant basketball coach at Hill-Murray School in Maplewood, MN, sent sexually harassing cell phone text messages to three of his players. After being arrested, Ricker blamed his behavior on Tourette Syndrome and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Right.

Help me out here: how do you go from sending premeditated messages to Tourette Syndrome? TS is anything but premeditated - tics and twitches are completely random and unpredictable.

No, Ricker’s moronic connection is in the perversion of his acts and, sadly, his perception that perversion and all things publicly vulgar are somehow linked to Tourette Syndrome. He couldn’t have confessed to his crimes any more clearly.

But how did this all start?

On the one hand, I have to be glad that Tourette Syndrome is so public now. As the saying goes, “say anything you want about me, just spell my name right.” Publicity and its erstwhile cousin public awareness are good things.

On the other hand, I seem to remember a TV show some years ago wherein (and I could be wrong here) a customer in a grocery store started yelling vulgarities, was arrested, and subsequently represented in court by clever lawyers who went neurological on the jury (my guess is that it was a legal drama, whaddya think?). And from there, this condition was defined by vulgarities.

Forget the poor shy guy in the cubicle next to you clearing his throat incessantly, or the woman whose sniffing and breathing seems erratic to the point of asthma, it can’t be Tourette Syndrome unless you’re screaming vulgarities.

Wrong.

Again, of the one in a hundred to one in a thousand (no one is quite sure) who has some level of Tourette Syndrome, only about 15% of those ever bother with foul language, unless of course, it has to do with gas prices.

So, lock up Ricker. And while you’re at it, tattoo “TM” to his forehead: Tourette Moron works for me. But I’m open to suggestions.