Well?
Here it is: Adventures in Gastronomy 3.1 (since it’s had 3 previous incarnations…plus a temporary one for the past week that I refuse to consider a new version…hence .1).
My next step is to add my flickr photo gallery (which may, or may not, appear to the right by the time you read this).
Outside the blogosphere, Randy is returning from his trip to Virginia this evening. Just in time for the miserable weather! Of course, he hasn’t installed his air conditioners yet so that is what we’ll be doing first upon his return. Come to think of it, this may be the sole reason he wants me to come over tonight. He’s not happy to see me…he’s happy to have a spotter to help put in the air conditioners while it’s 95 degrees and humid.
Dating isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
In more serious news, Boston had it’s 31st murder the other night. The victim was an 8 year old boy. The parents initially told the place that armed intruders broke into their home. Last night it was revealed that they lied and that the boy’s 7 year old cousin accidentally shot him while playing with an illegal/unregistered gun.
I’m going to get hissed at for this, but I don’t understand why a child’s murder is manipulated by the media to be more tragic than the murder of a 20-50 year old. Death is death…and if the victim was in fact a victim (innocent bystander versus gang member), I think they all should get the same amount of sympathy. People (and the media) just see a cute kid’s school photo on the TV and act like it’s the worst thing ever. Yet the same exact thing has happened 30 other times in Boston this year alone (and hundreds of times throughout the country).
Yet after this one murder, the newspapers were showing religious groups, city leaders, neighborhood groups, and others grouping together to finally put a stop to city violence. I know there has been talk of doing this before and smaller efforts have been made to curb violence over the past year…but why is it that only when a child is involved people finally start reacting en force?
Don’t get me wrong…it’s tragic that this child is dead. But why should we feel worse for him than for the others?
That said, I think the victim’s parents and all adult family members in the house at the time of the death should be jailed. Not only did they allow unregistered weapons in their house (around children, no less), but they lied to police…wasting tax payers money as the police searched the city for accused criminals that didn’t even exist. The 7 year older shooter should be taken out of the family’s custody and receive therapy (he must be feeling tremendous guilt, and based on media reports, it doesn’t sound like this family is a very stable place to support him).
There, I’m off my soapbox. You can hate me now.
3 Comments
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Karl, I agree completely but I would extend your concern to other areas. Maybe it’s just because I’m gay, but I’ve always wondered why women have always been protected in emergency situations but it’s just fine for men to be slaughtered (“Women and Children First” and other vestiges of the old “Chivalric Code”).
When the feminist movement started, I thought that if there is to be real equality, then women should have to go to war, be drafted and serve in combat. Some of that has actually happened. But i do keep hearing test balloons put out by the military about a draft–if women aren’t drafted, then we do not have true equality.
Whenever a child is killed we always hear “(s)he had his/her whole life ahead of him/her.” This is nonsense–whenever ANYBODY is killed, they have their whole lives ahead of them.
When I was growing up, it was in a post WWII culture that still harbored sever prejudices against Germans and japanese. I heard in school, at home, and throughout society that “Orientals” have no respect for human life because there are so many of them. The reasoning was that if they lost a million or so, so what, there were millions left. This was bullshit–Asian societies have immense respect for human life and the way they care for and respect elders in their various cultures is wholly admirable and the exact opposite of what goes on in western cultures, particularly in the U.S. where there is contempt for the old and and the focus is entirely on youth. it is we who are cruel and lacking in respect for human life.
We have now killed more Afghan civilians than the Taliban. Bush shakes the bible over stem cell research to defeat measures that could lead to the cure of millions but has no hesitation to send our people to their deaths and no care for the thousands and thousands of Iraqi civilians who are slaughtered every month. He probably thinks they’re some kind of “gooks” and don’t matter.
Sorry for the rant, but you opened the floodgates with your sentiment that I support fully.
I agree with you completely on this, as I also agree with the previous commenter. It’s trés chic in some circles these days to scream “what about the children” at everything, and while it is quite tragic that this child died, what about all the others that were murdered this year?
Well, Karl, you are a known child-hater so…. seriously, I think what people mean is this – (first there is the feeling of lost innocence, that children are innocent, but I think that is too simplistic a thought and frankly off the point) that because they are so young there is a greater sense of lost potential. Which is a little different than “they had their whole lives ahead of them”. And that they didn’t even get the chance to see what they could do/acommplish/create/affect. Also, not so much loving the new look. I like the last two (the most recent & the one you’d had for awhile). And Im not sure I need a picture that close up of your nose! Not that it’s not an attractive nose, but still, it’s a nose! 😉