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.
This morning, a parking structure was imploded in the Medical Center here in Houston. I was able to film it from the fifth floor of the Smith Tower. The sound, I assume of the first charges going off, made me jump out of my skin, so the video gets off to a shaky start. A few shots of the aftermath are in a photo album. Enjoy.
There's apparently a new and groovy computer system in place at the Houston Municipal Court. But something went horribly, horribly wrong. What? Human nature intervened. Take people who have been doing something a certain way for 18 years and throw new technology at them and watch the devastation. It's not pretty.
City officials said Monday's performance of the computer system was better than a trial run in January. They said it could take between 30 and 90 days for the system to be at full speed.
Which begs the question, why deploy it now, then? Train them behind the scenes and roll it out in 30-90 days when all users are trained. Am I missing something here?
I was all set to say, "Well, good!" when I read this Houston Chroniclearticle about a burglar who was shot dead by the homeowner. How do you explain shooting someone in the back when you are trying to defend yourself? We shall see. I just know this: If you see a house you want to burgle, and you want to know what kind of gun lives there, just climb in through a window! We shoot to kill down heah!
1. There is a big garbage truck in front of me. Honking at ME isn't going to make IT move any faster.
2. Go ahead and go around me, you fool. (He ended up behind the giant smiling garbage truck and in front of me. Whee!)
3. Notice I'm not honking my horn at YOU like an idiot. Why? Because I see that you are trapped, fermenting in your own bile, behind the garbage truck.
4. Oh, and thanks for making my day and giving me something to blog about on my lunch hour!
WIDGETIZE