It is a lazy, sun drenched, day here on the southern plains. It seems as if everything has gone into slow motion after a few frantic days of outrage, stupidity, and brutality.
News on the net continues to trickle in and as always it is a mixed bag of things, good, bad, and ugly.
First on the list is word that Staff Sgt. Robert Bales will undergo psychiatric testing by the army. That is hardly a surprise. The Sgt. is accused of murdering 17 Afghan civilians in their homes. Some might think the extensive tests that are to be performed by a board of army doctors is a tad late at this juncture. It might have been more helpful if someone had taken a long hard look at him before he was deployed on his fourth combat tour. However, such conjecture will probably be construed as Monday morning quarterbacking by the brass who ultimately has to take some blame in this terrible crime. After all, they were the ones who shipped him there after promising him that he could stay stateside and become a recruiter.
Then there is Spike Lee. He issued an apology the other day to David and Elaine McClain for retweeting the address of their home because he thought it belonged to George Zimmerman. Zimmerman, of course, is the man who shot and killed 17 year old Trayvon Martin. Lee also paid the McClain's expenses because they had to move from their home to a hotel to escape the hate mail and possibly worse. And proving once again that vicious idiots are running wild on Twitter and the net, Lee has received numerous angry tweets, many of them racist in nature. If we've learned anything from this grotesque affair it is that all those white conservatives who say racism is dead and maintain charges of discrimination are being used for purely political gain are either liars, or fools. The ugliness is alive and thriving just beneath the surface of this society and it will be generations before we rid ourselves of it.
In a St. Louis suburb a black homeless woman was charged with trespassing in a hospital emergency room when she refused to leave after complaining about leg pain. She had all ready been to a couple of other E.R.'s seeking help, but to no avail . The woman, Anna Brown 28 year old mother of two, was cleared by E.R doctors to be arrested and was carted off to the Richmond Hills, Missouri lock up. Not long after she was ushered into her cell she died of blood clots that migrated from her legs to her lungs.
Over in the Austrian village of Leonding officials removed the tombstone of Alois and Klara Hitler from the grave site at the request of an unnamed and elderly descendant. Alois and Klara sired Adolph who pretty much turned Europe and parts of Africa into his own personal version of Gotterdammerung. The woman reportedly decided to have the head stone taken down because she was too old to maintain the grave site and since only the Russians know where Der Fuher is buried, it had become a pilgrimage destination for neo nazis.
Yes, it was a slow news day. Sometimes though the low grade accumulation of information can mean more in its sum than a four bell story blaring all over the headlines. Sometimes erosion takes a far greater toll than an earthquake.
Well, at least the sun is out.
3-30-12
My bleeding heart liberal instincts are coming out here and, funny thing, I feel no need or desire to apologize to the conservatives for them.
ReplyDeleteSid your blog highlights and underlines in bright color the sick, angry world we live in. I know from first hand experience the military accepts many physically and emotionally unqualified persons into its ranks during wartime to fill its needs. I believe the same was true of the neighborhood watch guard. It appears to me that was more about stupidity than racism but will admit I view the situation through the lens of a white male who has never been discriminated against. Per Hitler, it is a tragic thing to have to remove the gravestones of those who would have been as horrified as anyone else concerning their son's poorly lived life.