What a world...

[Gob]

if you believe the Daily Mail...

A French mother who held her four-year-old son by the arms while he was raped by his stepfather in a prison visiting room has been sentenced to a maximum 20 years in jail.

Sabrina Bonner, 25, blindfolded her child and made him kneel on a chair throughout the ordeal.

Her partner, 31-year-old Lionel Barthelemy, who has been jailed since August 2009 for violence, also received the same sentence from the court in Strasbourg, eastern France

A German nymphomaniac who allegedly killed her two newborns so she could go to a swinger club for more sex has been arrested after the corpses of her babies were found by her father.

Steffie Koppers, 24, bragged repeatedly about her visits to the sex club Kali on her Facebook page.

In one, she wrote: 'I'm in the swingerclub Kali. We are three nice ladies but we want men and there are none here!'

A teenage paedophile almost killed a 10-month-old baby boy by abusing him with cutlery.

The infant had to undergo emergency surgery and was close to death after the abuse by Paul Ward.

The 19-year-old, from Leeds, was jailed for 14 years after being convicted of three counts of assault by penetration of a child under 13 and one charge of wounding with intent at Leeds Crown Court.

Judge Neil Clarke told Ward it was 'perhaps the most unpleasant' case of abuse he had come across.

[oldr_n_wsr]

I'm gonna be sick.

[dales]

More proof that the human race is depraved.

[Lord Jim]

More proof that the human race is depraved.

Only part of it, Dale...

The record shows that others are capable of extraordinary feats of bravery, kindness, and self sacrifice...

One of the things that most distinguishes us as a species is the vast range of behavior that we are capable of...

For everyone of the sick, evil, twisted scumbags like the ones mentioned in that article there are many more who would lay down their own lives for their children.

[Big RR]

Or even for others' children (or other adults for that matter). As much as we try to hide it, the human race has a great capacity to reach out to others and help them.

[oldr_n_wsr]

Or even for others' children (or other adults for that matter). As much as we try to hide it, the human race has a great capacity to reach out to others and help them.

Knowing that still didn't stop me from barfing.

I would like to know what goes on those peoples brains. Gotta be on some mind altering/disappearing substances. In my worst drunk or drug induced high I couldn't do that. (I was not a blackout drinker or drugger....yet)

[MajGenl.Meade]

This from a story I wrote in 1979 referring to three items in that week's newspaper:

Visions:
a child standing shaking in a closet a screwdriver drive through his eyeball into his brain dont hurt me again please, a five year old bent and twisted obscenely with burns on his naked body, gibbering wildly, an eleven year old stabbed seventy-nine times they counted carefully

What's new? Don't you get it?

Meade

PS and yes, there was a missing apostrophe, a distinct lack of capital letters and punctuation from hell

[Big RR]

oldr---It doesn't (or shouldn't) keep any of us from getting sick and outraged when others are victimized. there clearly are some sick people in the world.

[Lord Jim]

Knowing that still didn't stop me from barfing.

That's completely understandable, oldr...

These people are the scum of the earth; there's no place in hell hot enough for them...

My only point was that I thought Dale was painting a little too bleak an overall picture with what seemed to me to be an indictment of humanity in general...

The fact is that is that while of course no one is without flaws, there are far more basically good, moral, and decent people in the world than the opposite sort...

In fact if this were not true, civilization would be impossible...

It's easy to forget this since it's the bad guys that get the bulk of the publicity, but it's important to remember.

[MajGenl.Meade]

The fact is that is that while of course no one is without flaws, there are far more basically good, moral, and decent people in the world than the opposite sort

And yet history (and The Lord of the Flies) would seem to argue that you've made an unwarranted assumption. Given the opportunity and the sanction of or fig leaf of legality and acceptance, people in fact seem quite willing to forgo all that goodness, morality and decency and descend to savagery.

Meade

[Rick]

I read a different story; I read if one worships death and decay death and decay is the result in this case of civility.

In this case had Ralph poked Jacks eye out with a sharp stick all semblance of civility would have been maintain.

Ergo one doesn't require a shell to rest good from bad but a sharp stick.

I know precisely where that stick should be applied in these cases.

Either way in the end of the story civility prevailed

[Rick]

Not unlike yer avatars once there was a smoking thug now a clean cut minister

[Lord Jim]

Not unlike yer avatars once there was a smoking thug now a clean cut minister

I was thinking more a left-wing college professor, circa 1970...

[Joe Guy]

I think MGM looks like Spock or Leonard Cohen.

[Econoline]

I'm thinking that this is the next in the series:

[Rick]

Not unlike yer avatars once there was a smoking thug now a clean cut minister

I was thinking more a left-wing college professor, circa 1970...

Simply due to the short supply of right wing college professors

[Lord Jim]

We're still waiting for the picture of Meade wearing his early-70's Mariana Faithful hat...

[oldr_n_wsr]

Knowing that still didn't stop me from barfing.

That's completely understandable, oldr...

These people are the scum of the earth; there's no place in hell hot enough for them...

My only point was that I thought Dale was painting a little too bleak an overall picture with what seemed to me to be an indictment of humanity in general...

The fact is that is that while of course no one is without flaws, there are far more basically good, moral, and decent people in the world than the opposite sort...

In fact if this were not true, civilization would be impossible...

It's easy to forget this since it's the bad guys that get the bulk of the publicity, but it's important to remember.

I was talking to my sponsor over the weekend and brought this up (and other cases). He said (and I have to agree with him) that being sober means there are going to be things that may bother me more than what I am used to. That in the past reading something like this I would think "well that is terrible" and then completely forget about it. Not that I would drink over it, just I was already numb to most feelings already. Now I "feel" the pain a little (or a lot) more. And that this is normal and we alcoholics have to deal with these things.

I know there is more good in the world. I just can't fathom the mother (or father) of a child, not only allowing this, but aiding in the act.

[dgs49]

These extreme examples of abuse of children are nauseating, but the fact is that mis-treatment of kids is ubiquitous. Worst of all is the irresponsible and cruel decision to have kids in the first place when you have not the wherewithal or real intention to nurture them properly.

And even in the "rich, white" suburbs I see kids dragged around the countryside, forced into organized activities so that their pathetic parents can get some vicarious thrill out of seeing the talentless little bastards on some stage (or field).

But everyone gets a trophy, so it's OK.

[Big RR]

Dave--some people make the decision to have kids, some have it thrust upon them after failure of birth control (or failing to use it). And of those in the latter category, many seek to ban any option to terminate the pregnancy and not have kid(s) if they "have not the wherewithal or real intention to nurture them properly".

Sad indeed.