All the way to heaven…
Nov1
Far too early this morning I was assaulted by commercial radio in the flexcar my roommate was returning to Dupont Circle. Excuse me if I don’t think that Sean Taylor’s death is any more tragic and saddening than any of the other murders this year. And for the record, DC has the highest HIV infection rate in the country, and has had more homicides by mid-November than in the year of 2006. But no, the person who called into the morning show said it was a “tragic day” and that “whoever did this should be FRIED”.
I knew there was a reason I only listen to NPR in the morning.
Then I come in and am conscientiously reading my blogs, which include a smattering of, well, actual *news*, and see this story. I think I’m going back to bed, because I don’t even know where to start. Do I start with the fact that these parents are not being charged with MURDER? Do I start with the fact that they kept her body in the garage FOR TWO MONTHS?
I’d like to think that this feeling, this barely contained rage is new. But it has taken on the quiet resignation of an unwanted family member who comes by and crashes on the couch of a week or a month. You always hope she won’t show up, but inevitably there’s that knock in the middle of the night, when you’re bleary eyed and sleepy and don’t know how to say “No”.
Last year I reconnected with an old acquaintance and mentioned how almost nothing surprises me after the most horrifying story ever. He said “Oh, the one about the woman who threw her babies down the airshaft?” and I said “Of all of the horrifying news stories EVER, how is it that you know that that particular story was the one I was talking about?” he replied “I just thought back to the most horrifying thing I had read in the New York Times EVER”.
And that about sums it up.
I don’t really know how I feel about living in a world where a 19 and 24 year old torture a toddler to death (let alone ADMIT to it). And when I say I don’t really know how I feel about it, what I really mean is that I know how I feel about it and don’t really want to think about it because I don’t want to live in that world, but since bad people don’t seem to be going anywhere any time soon what does that mean for me?
(For the record, when I searched for The Most Horrifying Story Ever it took an inordinate amount of strength to make my fingers type the search terms (airshaft, murder), and even more strength to read the summary to make sure I found the right story. Let’s not get me started on the fact that those search terms on www.nyt.com returned more than one result).