1. You’ll find solid reporting by Jessica Myers and Valerie Wigglesworth in this story about Patrick Sharp, the guy who became unhinged yesterday and led a one-man assault on the McKinney Police HQ. My favorite detail: until his MySpace page was shut down, he said on it, “I love guns more than toothpaste.” I think the lesson here is clear. Anyone who still has a MySpace page should be looked at with suspicion.
2. Note to all the animal lovers who go insane when they read a story about someone setting a puppy on fire: yes, that is a heinous crime. But it falls several orders of magnitude short of a father beating his 4-month-old baby daughter to death with a wooden spatula. In court testimony yesterday, jurors learned that “doctors at Children’s Medical Center discovered that in addition to the healing rib injuries, the baby had a broken arm, a skull fractured ‘like a cracked egg,’ bleeding in the back of the eyes, and a brain injury.” Reserve your outrage for THAT crime. Pressure the DA to set up a special court for THAT.
3. This is one reason we ought to legalize card rooms in Texas. Because it’s a lot easier to hold them up and shoot the doorman in the head when they’re illegal and have to operate on the down low. The other reason to legalize them: tax revenue.
19 comments
#2 Maybe outrage is not a zero sum game and the rubes who love animals are capable walking and chewing gum at the same time.
@Randye: I hear what you’re saying. It just seems from where I sit, when there’s an incident like the puppy burning, the community reaction, on the whole, is louder and more sustained than when a father beats his infant daughter to death. Maybe my beef isn’t with the animal lovers; maybe it’s with the people lovers who don’t make more noise.
In scientific literature you can see that a great many people who are cruel to people started out being cruel to animals. It’s called the “circle of violence.” You can look it up.
And for most decent animal folks, we weep for the child, as well. We weep for all the victims of crime and are saddened.
So it’s not an either/or situation. To suggest otherwise is to sell some good hearts short. Anybody that does evil to a kid ought to be forever locked up.
And the way you wrote your entry suggests that you only care when kids are victims. Surely that’s not the case. Surely you hate it when adult women, perhaps men, old people and others fall victim to these sick people. Surely.
@tim.. you are so right. recently I was at a gathering and said I couldn’t believe that someone had put on facebook that they would go in a burning building and if they could save an animal or a baby… that they would have to think hard. I was so amazed that 2 people looked at me like I had said something something so far fetched.. so I just walked off… I love animals and I certainly don’t want any harmed but to think that a person could do this to a small child is so heart wrenching.. I just wished we went back to “an eye for an eye” theory. If the person that put their child on a stove a few years ago had been put on that same stove…well you see where I am going! Outraged Yes! surprised no!
I’ve thought a lot about that. My experience is that there is a level of empathy for animals that exceeds empathy for human beings. I’m not sure why. I think its the level of helplessness of animals. Of course babies and children and elderly approach (if not exceed) that level of helplessness, and hence the outrage when they are victimized.
as far as thinking hard about whether to save a baby or an animal, I can’t explain that. Its a worldview I just can’t fathom.
Tim, why must our outrage only be for one or the other? There is no punishment too strong–or strong enough–for that degenerate who beat his precious baby to death–or for anyone who abuses children. I would have no trouble voting for the death penalty in a case like that. His heinous crime outrages me. But I am ALSO outraged about animal cruelty. Why can’t we all be outraged about all forms of violent crime towards innocent beings?
We generally see some pretty swift justice for child-killers, not so much for puppy-burners. I’m equally outraged with both situations, but know child-killers usually get theirs in the end. That tempers my outrage.
I shall reserve the right to loathe them both.
Yvonne – I think your eye-for-an-eye theory is a big fail for #2.
Judge: “Defendant, I hereby order you to be punished with a wooden spatula.”
Defendant: “Oh, thank you, your honor.”
The difference is, the people who injure children face stiff penalties. Not much, if anything, ever happens to the animal abusers.
@fredrich… thanks I needed that.. I have almost stopped reading anything because it’s so depressing but you hit my funnybone in this crazy world.
I cannot understand all this;kids killing parents, parents starving, killing their kids. I am going for a bagel and a glass of wine and buy a spatula.
Just think of the outrage if someone were to be exposed that was pulling unborn puppies out of pregnant dogs and killing them.
Why is it that for 1/2 of the population the concern for defenseless children doesn’t start until they are born? The “circle of violence” indeed.
And, scene…
If you save a baby, maybe it will grow up to save a hundred hundred animals, whereas if you save an animal it will probably just eat Alpo and get happy when you come home and stuff and maybe even kill a baby although it’s the owner not the breed and then the animal will just die a few years later. Then again, if you don’t save the baby, there will be no child to be sad when the animal dies, so there’s that. Is that a wash? Surely only a psychopath or a vegetarian would say so.
Maybe the best solution would be to save the baby’s life and then demand that the baby grow up to be a veterinarian — or else. I don’t know, I’m just thinking out loud here. Does anyone know where in downtown has good chalupas? Becasue that sounds good.
Becasue = because
WHO would not be sickened and disgusted and perhaps cry as I did while reading about the human degenerate that beat a completely helpless 4-month-old baby to death? There was no way her murderer could get away with it. He was caught, is being prosecuted and will be in prison. Possibly he will receive the death penalty – God, I hope so.
Here is the difference: the puppy set on fire was just as helpless as the pitiful baby girl, Lea. Many people will read of the puppy’s death by fire without so much as a twinge of compassion because “it was only a dog.” There is very little chance the evil being that killed this puppy in such a cruel manner will ever be caught – they seldom are. Law enforcement does not consider crimes against animals to be a priority and there are far, far too many of them every single day for law enforcement to keep up with them. However, should that person by some miracle be caught – he will not be brought to any type of fair justice for this hideous crime.
Two years ago, gang bangers in east Dallas set helpless dogs “Hope” and “Justice” on fire. The initial blaze did not kill them (though Hope’s face was burned off and both dogs were covered with burns). The poor dogs languished in horrible pain and misery at Dallas Animal Services without help or pain medication for over 14 hours. This is one more sorry occurrence that DAS should answer for but will not. I digress.
One of the criminals that perpetrated this horror received six months of probation and the other received some similar sentence. Horribly abused and murdered animals do not receive much consideration under the law. There – does that make you feel better, Tim and Yvonne?
Daniel, I wanna party with you, cowboy.
I love animals. Not just the cute ones. Well, ok, mostly the cute ones. Regardless, I side with Tim in that peeps tend to completely go batty when any harm comes to an animal, but there seems to be far less outcry for the tiny human victims of abuse. While there should absolutely be HUGE outcry and extreme punishment for anyone that sets fire to a puppy, there should be at LEAST equal if not greater outcry for the abuse of children IMHO.
Why should we reserve outrage for one over the other?
They’re both horrendous crimes committed against the most vulnerable members of our society, is that not good enough reason to be horrified, we really have to choose which one is wrong?