Category Archives: crime

Tim Davis’ Inexcusable Excuse

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No doubt an abuse victim himself?

Tim Davis either has inside information about someone abusing Salling as a child, in which case he should report that immediately to the authorities or he has just perpetuated the kind of ignorant, baseless assumption about abuse victims which makes it so difficult for the victims to heal.

Again, if Davis knows Salling was abused he better call the police.

And if he does not, he owes every last victim of sexual abuse (including Salling’s) a retraction and an apology.

Sexual abuse victims are not de facto abusers, and to insinuate so in order to excuse the inexcusable is, to borrow from Davis–a cruel comment.

Signs of Famine and Pain

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Like most people I was appalled and distraught to read about what the Turpin siblings had to endure for nearly three decades. I will continue to grieve for them and pray for healing, justice, and recovery.

But I am angry as well. I am angry because despite (perhaps partially justified) calls to lay this abuse at the doorstep of homeschooling, there were so many people who interacted with the Turpin family, who saw at least some of the signs of abuse and yet no one ever reported anything.

At least two of the children went to public schools….

no one reported anything.

Neighbors saw odd behavior…

no one reported anything.

The children went to a doctor or two at some point in their lives…

no one reported anything.

Former neighbors found hard evidence of abuse and animal cruelty…

No one reported anything.

This is not the first time terrible crimes have been perpetrated by caregivers, ostensibly behind closed doors, but it is remarkable that the abuse intensified in severity and lasted so long because

No one reported anything.

Yet we hear them all now.

Note: if you suspect abuse or neglect you can make anonymous reports either by withholding your name or by relying that when you give your name to authorities your identity will not be shared in an investigation. Not one person who lived in proximity to the Turpins risked anything by making an anonymous report about signs of neglect or abuse.

If you suspect abuse, report

Thing One and Thing Two

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There have always been problems with The Cat in the Hat-

  • Why the heck does the mom leave two young children home unattended?
  • Why doesn’t anyone heed the fish?
  • Why does the Cat come off as jovial instead of super creepy?
  • Which leads me to this:

One day he reads the story with his older sister. When he gets to the part about Thing One and Thing Two he has a few horrified questions. Who are they? Why do they live in a box? Do they ever get to see their mother? Why does the Cat/protagonist/ersatz guardian keep them in a box?!

His questions are so good and true and terrible and she cannot really answer them adequately. When she tries he says, in grief and anguish–but they are children, little children!

In the picture they took of you we strain to see your numbers, strain to see your faces. Look for something, someone to tell us it will all be ok.

As the last few lines of this children’s story

Indict us all.

Eldest Child

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Something about Elvis impersonators, well-fed dogs, and raffles for them rattles around my head–keep asking myself what what can I give them? What can I do? When you were born I was still in college, George HW was president, both Princess Diana and Mother Theresa were still alive.

So many years of hunger.

I wish I could make it all better, like one of those chubby, diminutive fairy godmothers–change the immutable curse into a deep slumber, when you wake up

Wipe away all the tears from your eyes

Prepare a table just for you,

Things any decent mom would do…

Psalm 146:7 NIV

[7] He upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets prisoners free,

She Storms

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She storms in the kitchen finding bits of things to stop her mouth, wish it could stop the words spilling out. How could so many well-dressed people have their heads so firmly wedged up their

Freezing asses?

Fists should swing toward imaginary foes while the real ones all live among us, work at Walmart, never liked that effing little dog.

The Winter Swimmers

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They are out there somewhere still, three, sometimes four, figures and a dog who has long gone, gone past the snake on the path, gone past all the wounds of time, leaving snapshots of a good dog all the while the children howl full wind

They knew no shelter from the start

Miles of lonely nothing

No stones, bread crumbs, or birds to

Guide them back

Home.

Our Savage Selves

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I don’t own a gun but I am grateful the barefoot neighbor in Sutherland Springs did.

Every time we face the devastation of a mass shooting in this country I want to say things like:

We cannot monetize an entertainment culture of violence and not expect it to sway the unhinged.

If we want “better” gun laws we have to enforce the ones we already have.

Andhow many of us know there will be a fatal gap between when 911 is dialed and when help arises?

Without civil accountability in public safety

There is no safety at all.

How to clean a toilet

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When I tell you I found the old mushroom-colored sweatshirt which saw us through thick and thin you will know I am talking about the way the Romans used to have it done, long pole, wad of cloth, vinegar soaked as we raise it to the real hero, his naked pain, the way he eschews ordinary safety for a stretched-to-the-limits agony

I take the brush, add the cleanser, wipe it all down with an uneasy litany

Drab for color

Old for young

Plain for beautiful

Forgotten for remembered

He says

Me for you

Death for life

Life, everlasting.

Any Boat in a Storm

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It has been 30 years since I made the (not very complicated) decision not to vote for political candidates who support abortion.

Abortion on-demand–at-all-is and will be our generation’s genocide stain. The comparison to other genocidal impulses* is not that difficult to make–

  • Genocide systematically dehumanizes the victims
  • Genocide creates words and epithets to divide victims and devalue them from the rest of us
  • Genocide targets people who are legally exposed, minorities, female, from disenfranchised classes (often created through the repeated use of dehumanizing terms), the medically fragile, people whose basic human rights have been suspended or exempted
  • Genocide finds ways to stigmatize and blame the victims
  • Genocide labels victims as “unwanted”
  • Genocide institutionalizes, regularizes, industrializes, and monetizes mass murder
  • And many times genocide co-ops scientists and medical professionals by couching the process of mass killing as medically necessary or scientifically interesting
  • Genocide kills people.

Do you know the statistics for aborted people in your state, country or region? Do you know when it was legalized and who it targets?

You should.

We all should.

We will have to make an account for every one.

*for the purpose of cohesion I have not separated out gendercide, femicide, or the systemic killing of disabled people, all of which characterize abortion and have been components of genocide as well.