Folks, I've been debating with myself for several days whether to comment on what you're about to read. Those of you who know me well know I'm not inclined to hold my tongue on most things, so you may be wondering why the hesitation.
Some background and then I'll forge ahead:
When I was a newspaper journalist a lifetime ago, I was always relieved to get the easy stories, the ones that dealt with the flotsam of everyday small town life -- school board brouhahas, city council flaps, the occasional dustup at the VFD or among members of the parks and rec. department.
Until one day the small town I covered was jolted by a murder, the first in those parts in more than 20 years by some recollections. As the lead reporter it was my job to cover it, blood and all. A woman who came home from work surprised her teenage neighbor as he was burglarizing her house, so he pulled a knife from a kitchen counter block and chased her throughout the house, stabbing her repeatedly until she died.
FYI, the guy, then 19, was finally executed for his crime not too many years ago.
Anyway, that was the first time I had to sit down and write about the misery of other people, the most private of hells that only those who have experienced similar could truly understand. I knew this, and knew I was neither worthy or really able to do the story justice.
My second opportunity to walk a mile in the shoes of someone who'd lost loved ones to crime came shortly later when a man in this same town angry over an impending divorce shot and killed his own little girls while their mother was at work. This crime came with its own 9-1-1 tape because the children's grandmother was on the phone with police when their father starting firing. As most cowards do -- and what else but a coward shoots children, right, -- he eventually turned the gun on himself and ended that story.
My editor told me to transcribe the 9-1-1 tape for use in my story. A person can play something that horrific only so many times before one of two things happens. Either you break down or you become numb. I did the first while I was in a back office trying to listen to the static-filled tape in relative quiet. I did the second when I sat down and began to write.
I wrote a lot that night and quickly so as to be rid of the assignment post haste. The nausea, though, lingered on for several more weeks. Terrible.
Now that I answer to no editor, it's always my pregrogative as to whether I address in print something distasteful. Some things, terrible as they are, warrant notice if only to bring light to the darkest reaches of the human experience. Some things aren't terrible per se, just tacky and I am compelled to address them, too. It's tempting to wonder sometimes whether our culture is trying to run itself into the ground on purpose or, with so much momentum built up behind it, could not put on the brakes and regroup even if it wanted to.
The following are recent news items. I leave it to you to decide whether they needed dragging into the light of day or should've stayed buried.
First, from our big buddy in the Middle East: Saudia Arabia has sentenced a pregnant 23 year old woman to jail now with 100 floggings to be administered after her baby is born because she was gang-raped and confessed to it.
Second, from our own fabulous state of California where freedom of choice wasn't meant to include education: A sculptor received nearly $200K of taxpayer money to create statues for a pedestrian bridge in Berkeley. The statues feature small medallions in their bases depicting dogs doing things like pooping, sniffing each other from behind and, yes, having sex. Public money. Public art. And the best they get is dogs having sex. Are people really titillated by this? And if they are, can we identify them and hole them up on Alcatraz while we figure out how to reprogram their brains?
Third, from Michigan where you'd think the economic woes targeting the auto industry would have people taking a more sober and prudent look at life we get: Zoorotica, a Valentine's Day event that for $50 lets you watch zoo animals copulating. Guess all the internet porn, cable TV porn, video game porn, printed porn, and phone porn have become mundane. Nothing's left but to watch animals mating. Whoever cooked up this idea is pretty sad, but not quite as sad as the people who've made this a sold-out event.
And while we're nort of the Mason-Dixon line, let's not forget Chicago whose public schools apparently have a problem treating students humanely. Lots of choking, hitting, and arm twisting going on. Grownups are investigating. I'm sure that will bring about boatloads of change and fast.
Fifth and last, because I feel myself turning green even as I write, we have the Fox News producer who's been arrested for possession of child pornography. According to reports, the affidavit filed to obtain a warrant for his arrest is just detailed enough in terms of what investigators found to make me never want to read it. Never.
The ancient Romans with their Colosseum bloodbaths for sport involving people and animals and their preoccupations with bodily functions seem much more familiar to me now than they did a couple of decades ago.
We look back on that era and marvel at how brutal and disgusting they could be when they weren't exercising their brilliant minds to build an empire.
Kind of ironic, don't you think?
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