commotiocordis

Iraqi judge says shoe-throwing reporter was beaten

That sounds really bad. And yeah, they probably are beating him up somewhere right now. But then you read down, and it turns out they're talking about right after it happened.

Excuse me if this is wrong to say, but. . . duh?

I'm sorry, but I throw an unidentified object at a foreign dignitary, I'm expecting to get my face mussed a mite by his security folk. Hell, I'm anticipating that there's a goodly chance that I'll be shot before the second such item leaves my hand. I'm against torture and police brutality and all that as much as the next girl, but from what I'm hearing, that is not what this is (again: at least not what they're talking about here).

News blurbs.

A Young Life Changed Forever by Iraq War

Really? Just one? Total fluff piece. I mean, not fluff like it's a happy subject, but come on. Human interest piece, I suppose, is the phrase.

Thing that annoys me? Top Chef commercial claiming that NY invented the ice cream cone. Uh, bitchplease. That's ours. According to, you know, every Missouri history lesson every MO child has had to sit through for all 13 years of their public schooling career (as confirmed by Wikipedia), in the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, they were out of bowls at the ice cream booth or whatever, and the waffle guy whose booth was next door was like "Oh, let me iron a waffle into a cone shape and let you put your ice cream in there!" Or something. Whatever; it was ours. QED.


In other news, my 6th grade math teacher (the one who sent me out into the hallway for saying that the Rams weren't going to win the Super Bowl--I very nearly cried, because he was serious, and I had to sit out there with the other teachers thinking I was in real trouble for the rest of the period--but otherwise I remember thinking he was cool) got arrested for "innapropriate contact" with a student. I've known about the situation for a while now, as Tyler's friends with the girl in question, but he got arrested during the school day yesterday.

On the one hand, I think it was unfair for the police to take him away at the school. That was unnecessary; they've been investigating since October, they could avoid making a scene in front of a whole bunch of middle schoolers. It's not like he'll ever work in education again whether he's convicted or not, but that's still not something that needed to happen. If they were worried about the safety of a student right then, sure, but for god's sake, since October.

On the other hand, I've got the girl's back. People aren't believing it because he's a popular teacher, and they're bashing her, which is bullshit. If she were some student of his who found out she's failing his class, yeah, I'd be suspicious. She's 16. It's been happening for years (he's the high school track coach, so he's up there enough). There's no immediacy there that I know of, no overt motive apparent, and she had the strength to come forward anyway. People are spreading all kinds of rumors about her reputation re: truthfulness, so idk what's going on there, because there are also comments condemning them as rumors, but whether she's spread attention-seeking info in the past, I'm pretty sure that the police usually wait until, you know, they've got enough evidence to try a case before arresting somebody.

So guess what. Every single member of the "Free Mr. Wilder" Facebook group? You disgust me. Yeah, you may have liked him. Yeah, he was a good track coach and a personable guy. Yeah, the girl in question has a reputation (at least according to a couple of FB posts on that group) for not being the most truthful. But this is the reason that more girls don't come forward when they're being sexually assaulted. I've got a friend who recently also spoke out after being molested, and she's having a bitch of a time of it, frankly. It's hard, and you're not making it any easier by posting messages like "how does this girl live with herself. . . he's the most awesome guy ever" or even the most disgusting "What's the chick's name? We should all go cut her head off with a kite string!!!".

The more rational ones are stepping above it, asking "Is this what he would want us to do?" which I appreciate. Though it sort of makes him sound like Jesus, LOL, the way they're putting it. Still. I leave with this: you don't know. There are two people who know what really was happening, and until he's proven guilty or not, don't discourage people from coming forward by ostracizing those who do.

Still. The girl who posted the kite string comment? You make me sick, and I sure as hell hope somebody takes that to the principal and gets your ass suspended. Has the Megan Meier case just a few miles from where this is going down taught us nothing about the power of internet speech? If you don't care about being a bitch, care that you could get hauled into court and taken for all your parents' money. (Though that's something else about which it seems I'm the only one who cares.)

I was in Goodwill today, looking for some yarn, since I've been knitting a lot lately.

And there was a woman in there. And her husband/boyfriend/somebody. And their child.

And the father was yelling at the mother. Well, perhaps yelling isn't the right word. Right sentiment, if not right volume.

It was horrible. It was emotional abuse, easily, and, idk, I just knew that that wasn't the end of it.

That it wasn't a one time fight.

That he probably hits her.

I couldn't repeat half of what he said; it was 8 hours ago and I've forgotten/blocked it out/whatever. He was yelling and cursing at her for every little thing: to shut their child up, because she knocked a toy off the shelf, because she wanted to buy something that he didn't agree with. He was at the very least, completely controlling; there was talk about how it didn't matter what she thought they needed because all the money was his and such.

What I'm saying doesn't seem horridly conclusive, I guess, but somehow. . . idk, my dad and brother commented on it too, so it wasn't just me.

And I wanted to watch out of the corner of my eye (because I concluded after 3 minutes in the store that there was no yarn) and call the police or something the second he put a hand on her, even before. I've no idea what I would have said, whether they would have come (at the very least, he was cursing in front of a bunch of children, most not his own, so that should be worth something, perhaps?), but then I realized that that would both do no good and probably get her into trouble at home.

I wanted to help, I wanted to fucking do something, even to just shut him up from cursing in front of the children in the store, but I didn't know how. I didn't know anything that I could do that wouldn't just make things worse.

I just felt so. . . unbelievably helpless, you know?

Holy shit.

Those two boys that got kidnapped, one a few days ago and one 4 years ago? It's been all over even the international news because of the finding the one after four years thing, so I figure everybody's probably heard of it. Four years. I just can't believe that. I was talking to my mom the night before because the latest kid had just hit the 5 day missing mark or something, and I was like "Yeah, they're way past their 48 hour mark. It's not going to happen." And lo and behold, the next bloody day the universe goes and proves me wrong by not only allowing the last kid to be found, but one from 4 years ago. That's excellent.

The not so excellent bit: they found them less than a mile from my fucking house.

Yeah.

I've driven/biked by the apartments where they were being kept multiple times. I walk down to the library that's like 500 yards from there every few days. I've undoubtedly seen the kidnapper guy before.

It's so creepy to think about. Creepy isn't even the right word; that makes it sound like some puerile horror film or something. Nauseating. I don't know. . . .

These kids were my brother's age. And he walks right near there even more often than I do. Nobody's telling him that they were found near us because he was already pretty freaked when they got nabbed (he's really sensitive about this kind of stuff, but it's understandable because these kids are his age) even though where they were kidnapped from is nowhere near our house.

So yeah. My parents have pretty much decided that nobody's walking down to the library anymore. Which isn't great, because then we have to wait for them to take us there and leave when they want us to, which is annoying. Though the way I see it, they got the guy, so now that part of the neighborhood has one less bad guy, making it actually a lot safer. Still. *shivers* I feel really bad for those kids. Especially the first one. Four years. He's got to be so screwed up now.

St. Louis has been sucking as of late. I think we topped the worst US city for crime list not too long ago, and looking back at the past few years, I'm seeing why.
I've lived for quite a bit less than two decades. I'm not supposed to have walked by houses where kidnapped kids were being held. I'm not supposed to have sat at the same table at lunch as a murderer. I'm not supposed to live a little more than a mile from where a cop got shot. Etc. This is nuts.