Just an ordinary looking guy with an odd refugee backstory who comes along, works with wood, talks some smack, heals the crowd, dies for all, inexplicably
Rises again.
The end-the beginning
for all of us.
Elevator Pitch Savior
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Category Archives: murder of the innocent
You and me on the old back porch
In an already messy old house
I try to find a place to stash my anger
The beat-up old chest?
Grandma’s dresser?
Each place I go I feel your loss
The way a tall boy once held a short girl at arm’s length
As she beat at the air with rage and sorrow
Maybe it is the air that is the problem…
Not enough oxygen?
The matrix of maternal affection somehow dislodged by
Something?
Something missing.
It is as though the lost girls had become those things-
A trunk, a cup, a worn blanket
Trapped in closets
…in the minds of monsters
The old childhood nightmare turned on its head-
The child in the closet
The mother, the monster
Shaking its imaginary head
“Even I could not
Would not
Do something so unspeakable
To a human child.”
Jacob Wetterling
they say you should not
look directly
at the sun
ignoring the real possibility
that it is the night
that has already
blinded us
To the scared, cold,
Ordinary child
In each photograph
Owned by
This oddball monster
While the dying sun,
Claw-handed scribe, failing light,
Scribbles justicejusticejusticejusticejusticejusticejusticejusticejusticejusticejusticejusticejustice…justicejusticejustice
Into one kind of eternity
Or another
Beneath the mango tree…
We need pictures.
Pictures of the people we have lost.
And smells as well.
In May the mango trees would be in full leaf, but not fruit, months from the vinegary rot of dropped fruit- a condition you might never smell if the people who lived close to the tree were poor and hungry.
I used to live near mango trees. Despite what might get picked or eaten, dozens of mangos would fall to rot on the ground.
So to hang children on a mango tree. What does that mean? To hang them by their own clothes after they have been raped and brutalized?
To do all of this with family. To do it deliberately.
To lie in wait for girls to go to a field to relieve themselves.
To believe you will not face justice.
To almost not.
We need to see the tree. We need to see the broken girls. We need to face how close they are to our own.
Years ago I had a normal conversation with Charles after he talked to a pretty girl his age at a playground. I asked him about the girls he liked. He gave me a blurry answer except for this–
not Asian.
The not Asian has haunted me since I discovered that he abused children. He groomed us all. He was so very careful. Did he tell me that to deceive me? Did he tell me everything to deceive me?
We need a picture. A picture of grief. A picture of murdered children.
And another picture as well–
A picture into the mind of hate. The excuses, lusts, and prejudice that could effectively strip men of the last shreds of decency. The last vestiges of the soul.
Atonement
This weekend my glasses snapped–broken down their center line.
My friend helped fix them temporarily with a bit of purple tape. It was not my most fashionable weekend.
But I was catching glimpses of the crucifixion–reading chapters from the gospel. Little snapshots–Jesus betrayed, Jesus beaten, Jesus mocked, scorned, tried.
At what point would he have lost his glasses? I do not believe he needed them, let us be clear, but the question lingered–at what point did the story of the death of Christ become unbearable?
Pretty early on.
Jesus suffered agony and humiliation in my place. He took on more pain than we can bear to even contemplate.
Our mistake. We should.
Because the Cross was agony we have the glimpse and promise of heaven.
Jesus paid it all.
For us, with the rank winds of hell at our backs.
Sir Young, Judge Howard, and the myth of the “atypical” rapist
This one is a doozy– a female judge in Texas sentences a man who sexually assaulted a teenager to a laughably light sentence that included volunteering at a rape crisis center!
This is Texas, people, and just like the affluenza case, it happened in Wendy Davis’ stompin’ ground.
And it is an affront to us all.
Not only is Sir Young a very typical and completely excuseless sex offender, the mythology of any of these losers being somehow “not your typical” rapist is an atrocious fiction.
An atrocious fiction that hides an egregious truth: in Texas and all over this country rapists and pedophiles are getting light-to-no punishment for rape, not just because of shoddy law enforcement and incompetent judges. No. They are dodging sentences, jail time, and felony convictions simply because the states, counties, and local jurisdictions do not want to be responsible for the cost of their incarceration and supervision.
We need to clean house and make the perps pay the legal price for rape. The perps, not their victims.
Charles Frederick Warner’s Legal Rights
I believe anyone who is fighting for Warner’s right to life should have to read his trial record. We have seen massive media attention playing up the inhumane factors in death by lethal injection, but few people are willing to print the whole truth–millions of dollars have been spent trying to protect the life of a man who raped and murdered a baby. Little or nothing has been done to heal the wound this man left in the world.
Killing Charles Frederick Warner will not remedy his monstrous crime, nor will it restore the life of his primary victim. A playful little baby was turned into the recipient of unimaginable violence and premeditated rape.
One has to wonder about all the “good people” who defended this man–he did not file legal motions by himself. He had a mess of defense witnesses. Who are these people? What is their motivation?
Have we created a partisan team mentality that parses out the egregious crime and unrepentant criminal from the desire for safety for our babies?
Adrianna deserved to live. And once that right was taken from her she deserved justice.
Adrianna Waller
Charles Fredrick Warner Fights For His Life
…but who fights for Adrianna?
For the last 3 years I have written about the utter–and I do mean utter lack of legal protection afforded the children of this country.
The massive outcry over the fates of convicted rapists and murders (of children), Clayton Lockett and Charles Warner speak volumes about this terrible sin of omission.
Every major news outlet in this country has had a banner headline about these cases. Most focus on the convicts fighting for their rights.
Only one or two mention the brutal crimes these men committed against children.
Lockett tortured and murdered a teen.
Warner raped, savaged, and murdered a baby.
The way we defend the rights of child rapists and murderers matters.
The way we ignore their victims matters more.
Kayleigh Slusher, Girl in the Refrigerator
This is a test. Read just the following sentence then follow the prompt:
3-year-old Kayleigh Slusher was murdered in San Francisco shortly after police responded to reports of violence and abuse at her home.
Her body showed signs of sexual assault and blunt force trauma.
Okay. Deep breath.
Now. What do you think?
How long will Kayleigh’s untimely death remain in your thoughts?
I ask because Kayleigh’s violent death allegedly at the hands of mom and mom’s boyfriend coincides with the death of Kevasia Edwards, the death of Phillip Seymour Hoffman, and a flurry of editorial opinions about Dylan Farrow, abuse survivor.
If you want to take my test a step further google each of these stories then scan for how much air each story has gotten.
Hoffman’s death is a tragedy, no doubt, but while police in New York and San Francisco are scrambling to punt responsibility for Kayleigh and Kevasia, people have been arrested for selling drugs to Hoffman.
Don’t get me wrong. People got arrested for the deaths of the two little girls. People who were known to be dangerous parents? People who had already incited the scrutiny of neighbors, authorities?
What should have been done to save them?
And why wasn’t it?
Should a grown man choosing to engage in deadly behavior warrant more intervention than helpless children? Helpless because we turn away.
Forget.
Don’t want to get involved.
Kayleigh was a citizen of Napa, California. Early reportage placed her brief life and tragic death in San Francisco.
Carrying Light 