I now read with horror and disgust that Kimberly Trenor, mother of Riley Ann Sawyer, believed to be Baby Grace, is now pregnant with another child. Good grief. She was such a good mother to Riley Ann, wasn't she? Someone needs to take up a collection to have this woman sterilized so that breeding cannot continue. And while they're at it, let's round up her cur dog of a boyfriend, Royce Zeigler II, and have him put down. I cannot imagine a soul in this world who would miss either of them.
With regard to that Atlanta Falcons jacka$$ indicted for dogfighting, and in answer to the question:
If convicted, should Michael Vick be suspended for the upcoming NFL
season?
I respond: Absolutely. He should be suspended from a beam, doused with water and
electrocuted. If he's still alive after that, let's try suspending him
from a tree, dousing him with gasoline and setting him on fire.
Breaking local news reports tonight that a teen boy who just last year was sodomized with a PVC pipe while classmates looked on has taken his own life by jumping to his death from a cruise ship in the Gulf of Mexico. I cannot even imagine the horror that young man must have endured. My heart goes out to his family. And I hope the perpetrator rots in hell.
A Shadow On My Shoulder
by Brenda Penepent
There’s a shadow on my shoulder
That steals parts of my soul;
Bit by bit it takes my energy.
Never leaving me alone.
Oh, at first I tried to fight it.
I resisted it for years
Until the emptiness inside me
drove me crazy with my fears.
At times, I have embraced it;
For the comfort of my grief
Had become so familiar
I could not envision a release.
Like a cloud of empty promises
It covers me in gray.
Numbing me with sadness.
Draining color from my day.
The shadow of depression
Lurks dark upon my soul.
My wall of pain is standing tall
While I shiver in the cold.
About the author: Brenda Penepent, LPN, Executive Director of Healing Heart For Bereaved Parents, Russellville, Arkansas Chapter.
Update: 07-02-07: The teen had testified in April before Congress to urge them to strengthen hate crime laws.
I appear before you as a survivor, [the teen] told members of a House Judiciary subcommittee April 17. I am here before you today asking that our government take the lead in deterring individuals like those who attacked me from committing unthinkable and violent crimes against others because of where they are from, the color of their skin, the God they worship, the person they love, or the way they look, talk or act.
The horrific sight of burning buildings might have been a new vista for Americans on September 11, 2001, but it was certainly nothing new to the rest of the world.
World Trade Center, 2001
Tehran Apartment Building, 2003
Burning Office Building, Belgrade, former Republic of Yugoslavia, 1999
But there's nothing that I could say that Robert Jensen, University of Texas at Austin Professor of Journalism, hasn't said better. This text, republished at CommonDreams.org, is from a speech he gave at an anti-war rally on September 11, 2005, in Austin, Texas. I agree wholeheartedly.
There was nothing special about the pain of Americans on September 11, 2001. And there is no hope for this world until we in the United States -- the most powerful and affluent country in the history of the world -- understand that.
The deaths of 3,000 people in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania mattered, but no more and no less than the thousands of other deaths in the world that day, and the day before, and the day before that. Or the deaths since, as the United States has used the grief of Americans to justify two illegal wars of aggression, wars to consolidate the power and control of the few, wars accepted by the many out of moral laziness and fear.
All over the country today, people will be speaking about the nobility of the United States, the barbarism of the attacks on us, the deep suffering of Americans. I will do none of that.
I will not mark September 11 as a day of special grief until all of us mark every day as a day of special grief for those killed by the callous and cruel exercise of power. I am through indulging the grief of Americans. I will not be part of it. I will not contribute to it any longer.
Moxie gave a thumbs down to Oliver Stone's new film, World Trade Center. View the movie trailer. With box office heavyweight Nicolas Cage in the starring role, this film, maudlin at best, becomes just another disaster movie. I was quite put off by the movie's tagline:
The World Saw Evil That Day....
The world didn't see evil that day, WE did. The world has been seeing evil far longer than we ever did. By no means do we have the market cornered on grief or righteous indignation. And I'd be willing to bet that this country played a large part in a majority of the wickedness, crime, and evil that is visited upon other nations. Need an example? I've got a few.
WARNING: the following videos contain graphic images of death, dismemberment and destruction. Proceed with viewing bearing that in mind.
And just so you don't get the impression I'm playing favorites with Southeastern Europe:
And this, when all is said and done, is what's going on right now. One of the most non-judgmental, not taking sides, just throwing it out there, videos I've found and from a soldier's point of view, no less.
I decided to take a trip down memory lane and visit a site I had encountered when I first went online. It's gone, now, but thanks to The Wayback Machine, the site is still alive. (Which is more than I can say for one of the subjects of the site, which deals with death, gore and other vile things.) The following link is not work safe and neither is it for the squeamish or those who've just eaten or are thinking about doing so. Just warning you. Personally, I'm glad the subjects were so damn stupid as to have attempted to have their film of this abominable act developed, then confiscated by the authorities. They're now in prison, where they belong.
JustMeat.com archives ... Warning! Link contains disturbing visual images! To set the stage for what you are about to see, these people killed a man and dismembered him while taking photos. Originally from Dan's Gallery of the Grotesque before it shut down.
WIDGETIZE