For You-ni-verse

for eyes unseen

silence unheard

For lips unopened

and wounds incurred

For bellies filled

with swallowed air

and vanities satisfied

with undue care

for acts of kindness

gone unreturned

and wise lessons

left unlearned

For hopes dashed

and passions undriven

I beg forgiveness

for not having forgiven

Commenting on the German School shooting in which a 17-yr old kid killed 16 people, I found a disturbing throw-away line in two of the reports that I’ve read- from the Washington Post and from BBC News World. Washington Post published:

“I don’t want to speculate too much about this,” Rech said at a news conference. “But it is noteworthy that primarily girls were killed — eight girls and one boy . . . The teachers killed were women.

Three teachers and nine students were killed inside the two-story school building, where about 1,000 students ages 10 to 16 are enrolled, authorities said.”

The BBC had a single sentence at the end of the article that expressed the apparent targetting of women in the shooting. However, some very loud silence followed after these short sentences.

The German Police said that they found pornography and violent videos on the kid’s personal computer, which isn’t all that surprising, after all, what 17 yr old boy doesn’t have these things on their computer nowadays? It would be more informative if it was violent pornography or, say, a letter describing the boy’s motives.

What bothers me is the relative silence on news sites about the possibility that women were the main targets in the school shooting. What, there can only be one Montreal Massacre? Or is the violence-against-women thing too banal? Too passe?

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Yet another Reason why the Catholic Church should go down in Flames

The BBC World website reported today that the Archbishop of the Catholic Church in Olinda and Recife (Brazil), Jose Cardoso Sobrinho, has excommunicated those involved in giving a nine-year old rape victim an abortion. The nine-year old child became pregnant with twins after being repeatedly raped by her step-father. Her mother helped her find a hospital and doctors who would give the poor girl an abortion. In Brazil, the law only allows for abortion in cases of incest, rape or considerable risk to the mother’s health. All three of these conditions applied to this little nine-year old girl. The Archbishop condemned the abortion and all those that were involved in arranging it, save for the little girl, who the church agreed not to hold responsible for the abortion because of her young age.

Now think about this. If the girl is to young to be held responsible for undergoing an abortion in the church’s eyes, then how could she possible have been able to go through with the pregnancy and be responsible for two infants when they would have come to term?? After the holocaust denier caused the Catholic church to come under fire just a while ago, all of the members of the Catholic church should take the hint, and shut their self-righteous and misguided traps once and for all. Or at least untill the outrage over their last debacle has died down.