Dead Kitties Tell No Tales

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I recently received an e-mail about two teenagers microwaving a kitten to death. Once such an idea or ugly picture is engrained in your mind, it is hard to shake it. I spent several hours researching this story, in an attempt to understand what would cause two teenagers to do such a thing. I would rather believe it to be some sick case of abuse, leaving the poor teenagers so disturbed that they could not help themselves. Anything but believe that a fifteen and thirteen year old could do something so cruel on the own accord.

All my searching produced no results, it turns out the story might be a fake. However, don’t get too happy, there are dozens of such cases from all over the world.

In the UK, there is a woman who was recently jailed for 168 days for microwaving a neighbor’s cat to death. Why did she do it? Because the neighbor reported her boyfriend for physically abusing her, some people don’t deserve help. The judge helped her a little, at least he won’t be beating her for 168 days.

There are several cases of small children who are probably too young to know the difference doing it, children under the age of five or so. It seems to be a pattern that burglars are sometimes microwaving cats while burglarizing homes. Maybe reports of such things being perpetrated by deprived individuals are spurring such copy cat stupidity by teenagers. Who can argue that teenagers are inclined to do stupid things?

A lawyer in Maryland recently microwaved a kitten to death and is using alcoholism and depression as his defense. I say a little jail time might at least cure his alcoholism and the severe case of horse’s butt he’s suffering from. How big are prison microwaves? I’m just asking, don’t take it too serious.

Then you have the closest thing to reality that I could find. A fifteen and sixteen year old in Pennsylvania, placed a kitten in the microwave recently and apparently too stupid to grasp the concept of such complicated technology, threw the microwave and the kitten out a three story window. Being cruel is horrible; being cruel and stupid is simply tragic.

All this brings back one of the horrors of my childhood and one of the most horrible episodes in my book, Informally Educated, which was released as an audio book yesterday, September, 23^rd and is the true story of my growing up in an abusive household.

When I was eight, I had a kitten; I also had three younger siblings who were like stair steps. My step father Jack, had named the kitten the N word, because he was solid black and Jack was solid prejudice. The kitten had gotten into the habit of eating food left on the table overnight, biscuits covered with a rag; that sort of thing. Jack had soaked some left over hamburger patties in hot sauce, the night before. They were left on the table, to teach the kitten a lesson.

We all arrived in the kitchen together that morning, there was the kitten eating a hamburger patty. He would take a bite, and shake his head as he chewed it. Then he would bat the rest around, trying to figure out why it was burning him. He would then go for another bite. We watched for a time and soon started to giggle. It was cute, and we had not yet learned that giggling was tempting or possibly defying fate.

 Suddenly, in one bound Jack was at the table. He scooped up the kitten, wound up like a pitcher and threw him against the wall, which was only the width of the table away. We watched in horror as the kitten literally exploded and fell to the table in a pile of intestines and blood, squirming only briefly before it died.

The poor kitten died on the same plate that contained the hamburger patties. We spent the rest of a nightmarish childhood, eating at that table and never knowing with any certainty, which of us were eating off of the plate the kitten had squirmed to death on. To this day I rarely eat at the dinner table. In our home, the table, our bedrooms and Christmas mornings were the main ingredients of our lifelong nightmares.

There are many lessons learned from a kitty, and not all of them are pretty.

The March of the Morons

You know, I try to be careful and not alienate those who might help in the fight against child abuse. Sometimes I just can’t sit still. This idiot at Penn State, just keeps on dancing and those around and above him are his doe-see-doe buddies. If I had it my way, some if not all of them would dance on the end of a rope, it might not stop it, but it would slow it down.
It’s bad enough that Sandusky has been running around sexually abusing boys for decades. It’s worse that he started a national charity, Second Mile, as some sick farm team for his perverted pleasures. It’s bad that head coach Paterno danced around this issue, it’s worse that those above him danced even longer. These allegations started back in 1998, Sandusky retired in 1999, but continued to use his power and privilege at Penn State to molest boys for at least ten more years.
Dancing with pedophiles is a dangerous business and not just for innocent children. This has already ruined the careers and good names of the head coach, the president of the university, the athletic director and the senior vice president of finance. Not to mention the CEO of Second Mile has resigned. Oh and we must not forget the problems this is causing poor old Sandusky, sticking him in a cell with a bunch of prisoners who are survivors of sexual abuse, gets my vote.
It’s bad that so many ignored what was happening for so long. It’s worse that the more they dig the more they find, it’s always that way when you’re dealing with pedophiles. It’s bad that when I speak on child abuse, people get upset, thinking I’m about to tell them how to discipline their children. It’s worse that people don’t know the difference between discipline and beating a five year old to death. I really don’t think it’s that tough to tell the difference between the two and I shouldn’t have to keep trying to explain it go good caring citizens.
It’s bad what has happened to all these innocent children, do you think the fact that their abuser was famous will make a difference, it will not? It’s worse that when the announcement was made that the president and head coach of Penn, State would be terminated immediately, the students rioted. Penn State is a shining example of the problem and perfectly mirrors what is going on in our society today. Abuse the elderly and the young, but you best not get caught abusing a dog. The morons are marching, the parade is headed to Hell and the country is following along behind waving little banners and American flags.

One in a Thousand Pictures, Tells a Thousand Words!!

A picture is worth a thousand words,
except when it’s not worth one.
Every picture tells a story,
except when it don’t tell none.
A heartbeat keeps the time of your life, if it can.
Every heartbeat, writes the story of every man.
When it’s over and the dying done,
all the pictures are lies, except maybe one.
All the smiles you gave away,
were simply lies you told each day.
Lies for the teachers, the preachers and the world,
lies from the broken, little boys and girls.
Pictures of happiness, fleeting moments at best,
covered the horror, covered the rest.
No pictures, no camera covers the worst,
no pictures, no camera can see the hurt.
Some go on, life on kodachrome,
It’s a life they only dreamed once,
It’s not a life of their own.
But they will live it, it may be they’re only chance,
for any chance they have is still a chance to dance.
Some will struggle through, unhappy to the end,
they’ll spread the word of abuse and let the cycle never end.
Others of us will overcome, do the best we can,
enduring the ability to see through the pictures, into the blackened heart of man.
The pictures at the beach, the pictures at the mall,
never tell the story, never tell it all.
One in a thousand pictures, tells a thousand words,
that picture is never seen, those words never heard.
A bruised and broken body, a shattered beaten face,
are tagged and cover then buried in their place.
Innocents in a cold, lonely room lying on a frigid slab,
Is the only real picture of an abused child that they will ever have.
Don’t worry, don’t despair, you never need know,
those pictures are for documentation, not one will ever show.
The mended ribs, the bruised thigh,
the hint of blood in the nose and ears, the dislodged eye,
makes the picture complete.
Wash them, wrap them, speak the last words they’ll hear.
I beg you make them sweet.