This is what I get from the last messages. People are often stronger than they know, bigger, more gallant than they'd guess. And this: We're all lucky to be here today and able to say what deserves saying, and if you say it a lot, it won't make it common and so unheard, but known and absorbed.
HT:Curt Jester
Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin Killed:
Australian naturalist and television personality Steve Irwin has been killed by a stingray during a diving expedition off the Australian coast.Mr Irwin, 44, died after being struck in the chest by the stingray's barb while he was filming a documentary in Queensland's Great Barrier Reef.
"Stingrays only sting in defence, they're not aggressive animals so the animal must have felt threatened. It didn't sting out of aggression, it stung out of fear," Dr Bryan Fry, Deputy Director of the Australian Venom Research Unit at the University of Melbourne said....
Experts say that while painful, stingray venom is rarely lethal and it would have been the wound caused by the barb itself, which could measure up to 20cm long, which proved fatal.
"What happened to Steve Irwin is like being stabbed in the heart. It has little to do with the venom and all to do with the trauma caused by the barb of the stingray," Dr Geoff Isbister, a clinical toxicologist at the Mater Hospital in Newcastle, Australia, said.
This cries out for some kind of wry joke, probably a pun of some kind, but you'll have to read some other blog for that. I got nuthin.'
From the WaPo:
Stainton said Irwin's American-born wife Terri, from Eugene, Ore., had been informed of his death, and had told their daughter Bindi Sue, 8, and son Bob, who will turn 3 in December.
A few months ago, I posted about about a horrific child abuse story involving a mother, the child of course and paramour. No I am not some kind of strange child-abuse junkie (totally swore off late night Discovery Channel), but whenever I sit down at breakfast, open the front page of the paper, here are these stories.Years ago it seemed you would hear about one of these stories every ten years, now it is every ten weeks. Whenever I read them, I feel like someone hits me in the chest with a sledgehammer, and I walk around with that "ummph" feeling for a couple of days. Then I wonder if there is something I can do...
In our local paper on Saturday, we were graced with another front-page story about a 16-year old and her boyfriend abusing their (or her? they do not specify, but simply refer to him as "boyfriend") child. Again, to summarize without having to read the gory details, the boyfriend is in custody, the baby is recovering in the hospital, and they are looking at prosecuting the mother as well.
The reason why I wanted to blog this is because I found the end of the aricle interesting:
The case is one in a rash of child abuse around the Capital Region by inexperienced, young parents and their companions."We have to break this cycle earlier," said Albany Police Chief James Tuffey, who blames parents for ignoring their teenage children.
"There's a serious problem," Tuffey said. "We as a society have gone soft and we have to return the envelope, in particular, to parents and say 'postage due.' My parents knew where I was at 9 p.m."
Without my usual "family values" tirade, I am sure you can guess what I am thinking.
Pansy and Peony: The Two Sleepy Mommies
