This was a terrible day for news about children.
The awful thing is that the front-page story about the boy shot and killed by his brother while they were idle on a "snow" day was not the worst, most appallingly horrific such news in the paper.
It was awful enough. In my long career in this business, I am often shocked at how unbelievably trivial the incidents leading to domestic homicides (the most common kind) can be. Although I can't remember whether this happened in Tennessee or Kansas or South Carolina (the three places I've worked), the archetype in my mind was a case in which two grown men who were related to each other (I want to say an uncle and his nephew) were drinking heavily, and one shot the other after the quarreled over what to watch on TV.
This case exceeds that one in sheer awfulness, and not only because it was children involved. These boys were arguing over who would sit where while they watched TV. The mind reels, this is so terribly sad and unnecessary.
And those words — "terribly sad and unnecessary" — are so pathetically inadequate. You have to be a better writer than I am to describe it adequately, and I mean a MUCH better writer. Conrad got at it with Kurtz' raw whisper, "The horror! The horror!" Obviously, you don't have to travel to deepest Africa to find the Heart of Darkness.
Then there's Dostoevsky, of whom I was reminded in reading the second, and even worse, item in today's paper. Ivan Karamazov, world-class cynic, told his idealistic brother, "You see, I am fond of collecting certain facts, and, would you believe, I even copy anecdotes of a certain sort from newspapers and books, and I've already got a fine collection." They tended to be of horrific incidents of unspeakably terrible things being done to children, and they confirmed him in his dim view of humanity.
This second story would have fit perfectly in his collection. Before I share it let me warn you that this is by far the most horrible, shocking, painful-to-read thing I have ever posted on this blog.
That said, here it is:
The toddler, who has not been named, was found unresponsive Monday at a home that Sumter County Coroner Harvin Bullock described as filthy and unsuitable for living.
The child was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead, Sumter Police Chief Patty Patterson said.
A police report listed the toddler's weight as 4 pounds.
The boy's parents have been arrested and charged with homicide by child abuse and unlawful conduct. Kevin Dewayne Isaac, 25, and Marketta Sharnise McCray, 23, were in jail Tuesday awaiting a bond hearing, and it was not immediately clear if they had attorneys, police said.
If convicted on the homicide by child abuse charge, Isaac and McCray could face life in prison, and Patterson said more charges could be forthcoming.
The boy's twin sister, whose weight was listed as 9 pounds, has been hospitalized for malnutrition, and three other children in the home have been placed in state custody.
Those children – ages 4, 6, and 9 – are being checked out by physicians, Patterson said.
As I read that in the paper this morning, it struck me as so massively tragic that the pages of a newspaper seemed far too frail and insubstantial to support it. The item — which is about a child who was a twin, and almost exactly the same age as my precious twin grandchildren — should have dropped through the page, through my breakfast table, and plunged straight into the netherworld before I could see it. Yet there it was.
Ironically, today was the same day that The New York Times editorialized, again, to this effect:
Remember when I wrote about that several months ago, about how easy it was to inspire "horror" in the eyes of the NYT editorial board? I even wrote a follow-up to provide a little perspective on things we should truly "watch with horror." I even included some pictures that were very painful to look at.
But you know what? This news about this poor child starved to death is harder to take than what I cited before. You see something like this, and you want to be distracted from it. You say, by all means let's talk instead about how filled with horror we are at that awful George W. Bush and the unspeakable things he did. Let's indict him. After all, the NYT accuses him of "mangling the Constitution." Let's have show trials, 24/7 on television. I promise to shout and wave a pitchfork. Anything to avoid thinking about that little item I read in the paper this morning.
Because I don't want to think about that any more.
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Oh, and before bud or someone gets all indignant about my mentioning the NYT thing in connection with these horrific local tragedies…
I was going to write this post before I saw that editorial. It’s just that when I saw it, I was struck yet again at the disproportionality between the things some people get worked up about, and the truly terrible things that sometimes happen in this world.
It could as easily have been, I don’t know, something that malicious idiot Rush Limbaugh said about how he wants the president of the United States to fail in leading this country to better times, or something some halfwit actor said at the Oscars, or almost anything that would strike me as absurd to be worrying about, in light of the real suffering of so many innocents in this world.
But as it happened, on the way to writing this post, I ran across the NYT being “horrified” again, and the irony struck me, so I mentioned it…
Brad, indeed the the 2 stories you relate are indescribably horrible. No argument from me.
But so were some of the things Bush allowed to happen on his watch. Just check out the horrors of the Abu Ghraib incident(s). That was pretty horrific to me. Add to that the millions of innocent civilians slaughtered because of our interference in Iraq, many of whom were young children, and you get some sense of what the NYT is talking about. Indeed horror comes in many languages and on many continents. Just because it doesn’t happen here doesn’t mean it isn’t truly horrific.
Hey, I’ve become a huge fan of Rush Limbaugh. The fact that he’s now the defacto leader of the Republican party and has a lower approval rating than either Jeremiah Wright or William Ayers suggests a long period of complete irrelevancy for the GOP. So no, Rush is not a horror. Rather he serves as the comic relief in the daily news cycle.
What can we as a society do to prevent its members from being exposed to a horror over which they have no control. Intensive education in the schools about the responsibilities and obligations associated with parenting? Education about birth control including the free distribution of condoms? Something similar to the Nebraska law (but limited to much younger children) which allows parents who are not up to the task to abdicate all responsibility?
The other night I was at a restaurant and there were couples with children who were at the opposite end of the spectrum from the people you refer to. One couple in particular made an impression. They were sitting with friends but in turns one of the parents would focus on their six month old daughter, feeding her, talking to her, carrying her around the room to see things of interest. Odds are high that these people will be rewarded with a healthy happy child.
Why would anyone have a child they were not dedicated to nurturing?
Of course, not 10 minutes after I posted this, I’m skimming through The Economist while eating lunch at my desk, and run across this:
Such are the horrors reported from some recent conflict zones. In civil wars, women and children always fare worst. But with every new killing-field, from Bosnia to Liberia, Sierra Leone, Congo, the Central African Republic or the Darfur region of Sudan, the level of cruelty seems to shock even the most seasoned observers.
… which makes me wonder whether the Heart of Darkness doesn’t reside in Africa after all.
The thing that made that item out of Sumter so horrible is that we just don’t expect such things here in this country. The real horror is that in some parts of the world, such suffering remains all too common.
I’m waiting for someone, probaby bud, to connect Rush Limbaugh or George W. Bush to the horrific events in Sumter now.
Maybe bud will blame it on the Keating Five, and launch another diatribe about how everything would be better if we just legalize marijuana.
This blog has become a sad place, a victory party for the great unwashed and those who pay too much attention to the New York Times, which has morphed into a liberal rag that rivals MSNBC for insanity in backing the Democrat dog in the hunt.
Welcome to the world the Democrats spent the last half-century making. It’s ugly, and its inhabitants are not just stupid, they’re proud of it.
Now they have complete control of it, and they’re going to destroy it completely while they have the chance, and blame it all on a guy who does talk radio.
That’s like blaming Tokyo Rose for World War II.
Yeah, guys, it was all her fault.
Impressive guys, from the horror of killing children to partisan sniping all in the blink of an eye, Bravo!
Weldon & Greg,
Thanks for your great observations and comments.
Nothing more needs to be said.
I think Weldon’s gone sweet on Tokyo Rose, sticking up for her like that…
Not as sweet as you are on the New York Times, Brad.
Besides, she died three years ago, and from what I understand, the Times is still on its death bed.
While we’re at it, shall we give 3 cheers to the NRA whose legislation is designed to put AK-47s into the hands of the Jukes, Kallikaks and all their spiritual kindred?
So now we’re blaming the NRA for a child starving in Sumter?
These incidents are good arguments for that stimulus contraception money about which the Weldons and Lees of the world were so aghast. The impoverished need to be better educated and given free birth control.
Weldon called lefties:
>the great unwashed
Ah, one of the elites among us. Oh yes, your worship, tell us all the way things should be.
I suppose, York, that it all depends on how many times you’ve heard the phrase “my check”.
Or whether you live in a county whose survival now seems to depend on those monthly stipends from Washington.
If an impoverished potential mother sees welfare as a reward for having children — the more she has, the more she gets — what sense does it make to offer her the free choice of contraception, too?
The Democrats’ strategy to enlarge their voting bloc and buy votes simultaneously with everyone else’s money (note how hard it is to appoint a Democrat who’s up to date on his or her taxes) sometimes has terrible consequences.
For every horror we see, imagine how many horrors our senseless system of entitlement has produced that never come to the light of the journalistic day.
Behold the Great Society, drowning in debt, ignorance, political correctness and disposable cell phones.
It’s enough to make a grown man cry.
Catholic sex abuse cases
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Roman Catholic sex abuse cases)
Allegations of sexual abuse of children have been made against a variety of religious groups including but not exclusively Roman Catholic priests, monks, and nuns. Several major lawsuits were filed in 2001 alleging that priests had sexually abused minors.[1] Some priests resigned, others were defrocked or jailed,[2] and financial settlements totaling in the hundreds of millions of dollars were made with many victims.[1]. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops commissioned a comprehensive study that found that four percent of all priests who had served in the U.S. from 1950 to 2002 faced some sort of sexual accusation.[3][4] According to this report, common actions included touching adolescent males under their clothes and removal of clothing, but more serious acts were committed in many cases. The Church was widely criticized when it was discovered that some bishops knew about allegations and reassigned the accused instead of removing them,[1][5] although public school administrators engaged in a similar manner when dealing with accused teachers,[6]. Some bishops and psychiatrists noted that the prevailing psychology of the times suggested that people could be cured of such behavior through counseling.[5][7] Many of the abusive priests had received counseling before being reassigned.[4][8]
The above is submitted from Wikipedia to simply say that there are many horror stories. Some maybe even worse than others. There are some mentally sick people in this world that need to be put away to protect the sane people in our society.
95 percent of the sexual abuse by Catholic priests was homosexual. That’s why the press stopped running stories about it.
Let’s see how long it takes the Catholic Church appologists to exonerate them for ANY responsibility for the horrors of the pedophilia scandal. Or does this even qualify as horrible? In my book the ruination of thousands of young lives would qualify but for those with a high thresshold for declaring something “horrible” this may just be merely a “bad” thing, like a bad haircut. What say you Brad?
I cannot imagine as a parent anything that would be worse both for my child and my family to know that my child was sexually abused by someone in authority in a church, or anywhere else as a matter of fact.
To harm an innocent child should be an offense that would be punishable by life in prison.
How may church affiliated rapes of young boys by the clergy have produced prison terms?
“The impoverished need to be better educated and given free birth control.”
Planned Parenthood provides free condoms. The cost of birth control is not the problem with these parents.
So are we talking about the sexual abuse of children being a bad thing (which seems like a “duh” to me), or are we talking about how much bud hates the Church?
It should be noted re this blog becoming “a sad place,” that the first person on this thread to make a personal attack based on the assumption of a point that was NEVER made, was Weldon in his first comment who said, “I’m waiting for someone, probaby bud, to connect Rush Limbaugh or George W. Bush to the horrific events in Sumter now.”
Shame on you, Weldon. If the blog is a sad place, you need to own up to your own part in making it so.
As for the “world the Democrats spent the last half-century making,” my math comes up with a more equitable distribution of power in that span between both parties, certainly if you include the executive branch. This is the world, or the country, we Americans have made. And while occasionally we read these stories of unbelievable horror, every day there are also great stories on the other side of the ledger, stories of great courage, love, kindness, accomplishment, creativity. While we always strive to minimize the possibility of the horrible, we can never eliminate it completely because of the peculiarity and mystery of the human condition.
Every single day we will always continue to be able to find each kind of story, because these stories—both kinds—exist within every single one of us. Evil and good—and the potential to act upon those—lies within each of us.
Let’s at least for this thread, as we think about the awfulness of these recent SC stories involving kids, give them a thought by holding off on accusing one kind of person over another for “creating conditions” that allowed this to happen. And especially, Weldon, let’s vow—and I’ll join you in this—not to attack people for points of view or statements that they did not actually make. Let’s not put words in people’s mouths.
I responded as I did, Phillip, because bud levied attacks at Bush and Limbaugh, when neither had anything to do with the starvation in Sumter.
Going off topic to sing the same old song — levy unsupported attacks at Republicans — is something bud does at least once every two days.
Now bud has taken the opportunity to horn in on another one of his favorite avenues — attack the Catholic church, as though priests starved the kid in Sumter.
Sorry, Phillip, but Democrat programs had a lot more to do with the Sumter death than Abu Ghraib. If you don’t see the connection, you’re either not looking hard enough, or deliberately looking the other way.
Based on his flippant answer Brad only thinks widespread, condoned, serial rape of young boys is only “bad” and not “horrible”.
It was Slugger who brought up the atrocities of the Catholic Church, not me. I’m just trying to establish what qualifies as horrible. Brad has suggested a very high threshhold. I suggest a somewhat lower thresshold. To me rape of children is “horrible” not merely “bad”.
Homosexual child abusers always try to weasel into jobs with access to potential victims – in the churches, the schools, youth groups.
How about Lee Muller? Is reading his posts “horrible” or merely “bad”?
Big deal. So do heterosexual child abusers. No, Weldon, I don’t blame the NRA for that poor child’s starvation. Nor do I blame the NRA for the child who was shot by his brother. What I do blame the NRA for is it ideological insistance that anyone have the right to a gun. That father owned the gun illegally. I know the NRA gives lip service to keeping guns out of the hands of criminals, but that’s all it is–lip service. The NRA has ensured that such ‘gun control’ laws as we have are so ‘holey’ that they could have been on those tablets Moses brought down from Sinai. Neverless, the person most responsible for the boy’s shooting is the father Children do not have the impulse control, or the understanding of the consequences of an act such as this to be competent enough to be responsible–that’s why they can’t buy a house, or marry, or sign up for the military. As for the news not talking about the sexual exploits of the Roman Church’s priesthood, I suspect it’s because the situations have by and large been settled by the courts. I strongly suspect that there’s been some heterosexual abuse that doesn’t come out because girls are quiet about such things, since they all to often get the blame for the relationship. And Brad, you’re right. As much as I think the previous administration should be investigated for illegal activity, constitutional irregularities, and abuse of office, these things pale beside what is being done every day by everyday people.
The Second Amendment: “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”
The Supreme Court ruled in 2008 the “Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.”
Perhaps you should blame our forefathers, not merely the NRA, for their ideology, Karen.
Karen,
You are too ignorant about the NRA and gun laws to be commenting in public.
The NRA is the primary reason for laws against violent felons having firearms, and for the prosecution of them. The NRA drafted the laws, and the NRA Foundation provided the grant money to fund trial programs in Richmond and other cities to demonstrate how good firearms laws can work.
And yes, heterosexual predators use the same tactics as homosexual predators. My point is the fact that 95% of the Catholic priests were homosexual predators.
And yes, heterosexual predators use the same tactics as homosexual predators. My point is the fact that 95% of the Catholic priests were homosexual predators.
What is the point of this. Are you trying to make a statement on homosexuality?
Make that 95% of those who were reported. My previous comment on that stands. And unless you can show me independently verifiable proof that criminals no longer have access to guns I’ll stand by my statements about the NRA, as well.
And unless you can show me independently verifiable proof that criminals no longer have access to guns I’ll stand by my statements about the NRA, as well.
Criminals will always have access to guns; they don’t mind breaking the law. It’s the average citizen whose access to guns is restricted.
I’m waiting to hear your infallible plan to keep guns out of every hand sporting and sinister, Karen.
So read the cliche once again. When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.
Plus the police and the military, which will facilitate the totalitarian state your president seems to envision, but our founding fathers wanted to prevent.
The NRA did what every advocacy group does when it sees the writing on the wall. They participated in passing laws they could live with to avoid more far-reaching laws.
All men have the right to defend themselves and others. They have the right to possess the tools necessary for self-defense. The Constitution does not give us those rights; it merely recognizes those basic rights.
Gun control is a slogan. It is people control, the control of honest people by tyrants.
Karen, you don’t like the fact that 95% of the sexual abuse cases in the Church involve homosexuals. So you pretend to have supernatural instincts that there were more unreported heterosexual crimes. How pitiful that argument is!
I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Betty
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I liked the story of a The unspeakable horror. It is really a horrible story. Sorry to say that Allegations of sexual abuse of children have been made against a variety of religious groups. I think we should fight against that.
I hate to think things like this really happen in our state. It is horrible!!