Clarksville child abuse, torture case

Child abuse du jour here.

Caged Boy

This is why it is obscene and immoral to fill the universe with unwanted children.

US cop finds starving, caged 6-yr-old eating her own flesh to live | The Asian Age

US cop finds starving, caged 6-yr-old eating her own flesh to live | The Asian Age What the world needs now: more random parenthood.

Yes, Let's Get Behind Physically Assaulting Kids in School

Why? Because that'll larn 'em!

Fighting the War on Two Fronts

Well, dog my cat or something, I inadvertantly stepped on a twitter hornet's nest, and I'm just so sorry that I did. I mentioned in a tweet that I thought the conditions of Bradley Manning's confinement, as I understand them, seemed rather Abu Ghraib-y to me: being kept naked, in solitary confinement. Now, if this is not the case, then I will happily STFU.

If it is the case, I will not happily STFU, and my unhappiness at his being kept in such conditions does not merely include Manning's condition, but extends to anyone who would keep anyone in such conditions anywhere anytime.

I am happy to wage war on two fronts: toward the right wing, and toward the left, when it appears to be supporting things I think ought not to be supported: you know, like keeping one's fellow humans in unacceptable conditions. You don't like it? Meh.

Obama is too timid-centrist for me. Always has been, still is. I held my nose and voted for him, and I'm glad he won. That being said, I don't appreciate a lot of what he is doing, and I don't appreciate a lot of what he is not doing. However, I dislike the behaviors and goals of the rabid right wing much much much much more.

Right wing, left wing, throwing people into solitary confinement, naked, and keeping them in those conditions is unacceptable. Stripping people naked is a form of humiliation, and sexual humiliation at that, and it is not a method to address suicidality. Mental hospitals all across America are filled with suicidal people who, remarkably enough, still have their clothes on.

Rly.



ps.
Here's what Arthur Silber has to say re: Manning. Go fight with him.

People Who Love You Get to Hit You and Hurt You, Cape Cod Church Edition

Cape Cod Calvary Church pastor Silas Coellner advocates causing children -- and crawling infants -- pain. On purpose. To teach them that people who love you get to hit you and hurt you, a lesson they will carry with them forever.

MATTAPOISETT — A pastor and father of three poised to become the assistant principal at Old Rochester Regional Junior High School is under fire for sermonizing that spanking children is "critical" — starting with when they crawl.

"I have this little bundle of innocence. When do I start dealing with them?" Silas Coellner said in an online podcast he took down after the Herald inquired about it.

"There's something about when they reach that crawling stage, I have found, in my experience, when you can suddenly see that heart of defiance, of rebellion, for the first time. That's when you begin."

Pastor Silas is one sick puppy. Maybe he needs someone to beat some sense into him?

Torture Is as Torture Does (CIA version)

Manacled to the ceiling?

Well, and why not?
They were, like, Teh Enemy! Once they're dubbed Teh Enemy, you get to do anything you want, do you not?

CIA Torture Program Used Classic Torture Skill-Set

CIA torture program: classic bait and switch?

Nah. Classic inflict and revive.

According to human rights lawyer John Sifton, the CIA tortured some of its detainees in the War on Terror so severely that it had to take measures to keep them alive so they could continue being tortured.

Sifton, who is the executive director of One World Research, told an interviewer for Russia Today that there was both a CIA detention program and a military detention program and that "The CIA program was by far the most secretive. ... That's the one that only had a few dozen detainees at any given time -- but it's the one that saw the biggest abuses, the most serious forms of torture."

"In the military, there was actually a larger number of deaths than with the CIA," Sifton continued. "The CIA engaged in some horrendous abuses, but they appear to have taken precautions to have actually prevented people from dying -- which might sound humanitarian, but in fact was kind of sickening."

"Kind of" sickening?

See, the whole point of torture is to create experiences of suffering that are so horrendous that it makes your torturees wish they were dead. And then -- you just don't let them die. Because that would end the torture. So you just keep on doing it. And your torturees keep on wishing they were dead. And if you don't watch out, they'll go ahead and kill themselves. Or, if they're lucky, you'll slip up in your attempts to keep torturing them, and they'll die on you, the swine. And then the torturees win.


It's all so very medieval, is it not?

It's All About Me. No Really. It Is.

So I've belatedly discovered that the bushist fascists with their dreadful profit-driven health-insurance-healthcare-denial-serf/slavery system have contaminated my mind, and left me vicariously traumatized. Which had been too traumatized to notice until the day before yesterday. No, really.

Here were (are?) my symptoms: irritability, anxiety, panic, angry outbursts (NOT a usual behavior for me), insomnia, hypervigilance. Occasional upsurges of wanting to kick something sentient (REALLY not a usual discursive thought-stream for me.)

So, in the tiny sliver of co-consciousness that miraculously accompanied these behaviors/subjective experiences, I'm like, where is this all coming from?

Which it took me a while to figure out.

It is not my anxiety. (Although I have every possible reason to worry about what I worry about). It isn't mine -- it's theirs. The people I work with at work. I am bringing my work home. And I have been sharing worry about suicidal clients whose insurance providers, in order to save pennies on meds, are dumping people off the latest anti-psychotic drugs and replacing them with cheaper generics or with really old drugs left over from the 1950's. Thus de-stabilizing the previously stable.

I mean, how stupid is that?

And I can't do anything about it. There is no way for me to intervene in this system. I can watch them go from ok on an outpatient basis, to needing to be inpatient, but inpatient is too expensive, so they re-do their meds and spit them out on the streets again, still unstable.

And what is my part in this? Like watching a plane headed into a tall building.

"Oh. Look."

That plane -- is going to -- hit -- that building."

Boom!


Hmm.

So what am I, what are we, supposed to do?

Father Knows Best

Nothing like an honor killing to start out the week with a bang: Dad Kills Daughter For Being Pregnant, Unwed.

A Jordanian man was charged on Sunday with premeditated murder after allegedly stabbing to death his 22-year-old daughter because she became pregnant outside wedlock, police said.

"The father and his brother took the girl on Saturday to a doctor because she suffered stomach pains, and everybody was surprised to learn that she was six months pregnant," a police spokesman said.

"On their way home, the father stabbed the girl with a sword 25 times in her stomach, killing her immediately as well as her unborn baby boy."

The source said the suspect had confessed to the crime, which took place in the Jordan Valley.

"His brother was also charged with premeditated murder, while the victim's boyfriend is being held in custody for his own protection," he added.

Murder is punishable by the death penalty in Jordan but in such cases of the so-called "honour killings" a court usually commutes or reduces sentences, particularly if the victim's family urges leniency.

Honor killings = leniency? Really?

4 year old in criticl condition: 5 adults charged with felony child abuse

Hattiesburg, Mississippi

Nothing to see here; move along.

Neighbors who lived near the home where five adults were arrested for abusing a 4-year-old boy described a horrific scene on Friday - detailing the insides of the Hattiesburg home where the abuse took place.

They told of a vacant home with blood stains, a dog cage that may have been used to confine the child and rooms cluttered with trash and debris surrounded by graffiti-covered walls.

"There's stacks and stacks of clothes and little mats on the floor. It has the smell of feces," said the landlord, who didn't want his name publicized, of the home at 215 N. 25th Ave.

Among the suspects charged with one felony count of child abuse are: Sue Miller, 53; Nancy Miller, 34; Patricia Aguilar, 30; Francys Albertson, 20; and Christopher Lee, 37, all of Hattiesburg.

The landlord, who lives near the house, said all five suspects lived in the home, but only Sue Miller and her daughter, Nancy Miller, and Albertson were listed on the lease of the home, he said.

The suspects were arrested Tuesday after police received an anonymous tip from someone concerned about the welfare of the child inside the residence. Police said the child was in Sue Miller's care.

The 4-year-old boy was one of 10 children taken from the home by Forrest County Department of Human Services officials, police spokesman Synarus Green said. Green said investigators have not determined the relationship between the other nine children and the adults arrested.

The 4-year-old remains in critical condition at a Jackson hospital, police said.

The other nine children are in the custody of the Department of Human Services.

"The child's body was covered with new and old bruises, marks, cuts and abrasions," Green said in a prepared statement. "A lot of them were old injuries. He didn't receive them in one day," he said.

Investigators don't know how long the abuse had been going on, Green said.

A preliminary medical exam showed that the child had cuts on his head and body, broken teeth with damaged gums and internal abdominal injuries caused by blunt-force trauma. . . ."

But really, let's concentrate on the innocent unborn, not the guilty post-born. Oh, and really, let's save them widdle snowfwakes, mm-'kay?

Dept. of Kids So Need Mommies and/or Daddies

Because no one could have predicted Mommy would lock her son in a closet for four and a half years.

OKLAHOMA CITY – A woman was arrested after her 14-year-son told authorities he escaped from a home where he'd been kept for 4 1/2 years, spending most of his time locked in a bedroom closet, police said Monday.

A security guard at a National Guard facility in Oklahoma City called police on Friday after the teen showed up malnourished and with numerous scars and other signs of abuse, police Sgt. Gary Knight said.

"He was hungry. He was dirty. He had numerous scars on his body," Knight said. "It was very sad."

The boy was taken to a hospital to be examined and then turned over to the custody of the Department of Human Services, Knight said.

After police interviews, officers on Saturday arrested the boy's mother, 37-year-old LaRhonda Marie McCall, and a friend, 38-year-old Steve Vern Hamilton, on 20 complaints each of child abuse and child neglect. Formal charges have not been filed, and both were being held on $400,000 bond, according to jail records.

Jail officials were not sure if either had retained an attorney, and no one answered the phone at McCall's home.

The teen, wearing only a pair of oversized shorts held up by a belt, walked up to a security guard at the Guard facility around 5 p.m. Friday and asked where a police station was located so he could report being abused, according to a police report.

He told police that scars on his stomach and torso were from where alcohol had been poured on him and set on fire. Other scars were from being tied up, hit with an extension cord and choked, the boy told police.

"He had scars covering most of his body," Knight said. "They were basically from head to foot."

The teen told police he moved to the Oklahoma City area from New Jersey about 4 1/2 years ago after his mother was released from jail. Since arriving in Oklahoma, he said, he had never been to school and spent most of his time locked in a bedroom closet.

Compassion-Free Con Coburn: No Help for You and Your Suffering Hubby, Lady

So, lady, you say you can't get health care for your husband who has a traumatic brain injury?

Stop whining. Go hold a bake sale.

News for Fetal Sentimentalists: Mom's BF Tortures Five Year Old in Dryer (Among Other Things)

One is working long hours at the trauma industry factory, and is hard-pressed to blog thoughtfully and depth-fully these days. So if one has any blogging time at all, a sure-fire hit is to Google "child abuse" and "news" because there are always lots and lots of grownups torturing the postborn!

I heard this story last night on the local news. And the funny thing was -- when I Googled "child abuse" and "news" this morning, the story didn't come up. Nor when I Googled "child abuse" and "news" and "New Hampshire."

It finally came up when I Googled "New Hampshire" and "dryer."

Manchester – A man is accused of choking and punching his girlfriend’s 5-year-old daughter and putting her in a clothes dryer . . . In court, police prosecutor Lt. Robert Cunha sought to maintain the high bail set following Zawadzki’s arrest, saying the photos of the child’s injuries showed “an egregious assault on a 5-year-old girl."

The affidavit supporting Zawadzki’s arrest said the child’s mother had left her in the care of her boyfriend Monday night and the boyfriend’s explanation for the child’s injuries were that he had to slap her for being fresh and that the child had fallen in the shower when reaching for a shampoo bottle.

According to the affidavit, police spoke with the child after her mother reported the assault yesterday. The girl said Zawadzki became angry with her and choked her with his hands around her neck, lifting her from the floor as he did so. She said he hit her in the face and head and punched her in the legs before putting her in the clothes dryer and spinning the tub with his hands.

In court today, Cunha said the physician who examined the child said the injuries were the worst she’d seen. Police described the injuries as bruising to the child’s face, shoulder, legs, buttocks and vaginal area, as well as a swollen upper lip.

But still, let's save our compassion for the preborn, shall we? Because, you know, there's never enough compassion to go around.

Dump Glenn Beck -- It's About Time

It's about time people objected to the vitriol-speech of Glenn Beck, one of the many loudmouth fire-in-a-theater screamers that Reagan's Un-Fairness Doctrine produced. He's losing more advertisers. May he lose more. He's like Fred Phelps, but using the public airwaves.

The Third-Worlding of America: GOP Runs Death Panels for the Working Poor

RAM usually goes to help the poor in Africa.

But, after 8 years of Bushist fascism, America is the new Africa.

The new third world is here at home.

Oh lookee! Working adults with no access to health care, weeping because they find, having waited in line for days to receive charity health care, that they have high blood pressure.

But they can't afford a doctor. And they can't afford the pills.

In the wealthiest country in the world.

Ain't that a shame?

Hey, Joe -- can you play a few bars of "Serfin' U-S-A"?

Child Abuse Du Jour: Say More About How Kids Need Mommies & Daddies, K?

This five year old kid's mommy punished him by locking him up alone in a sweltering attic, naked, covered in feces. Did his mommy like being a mommy, you think?

The worst part was listening to the TV talking heads interviewing two adult males, the mommy's own daddy and her uncle, who seemed to think that mommy was doing a swell job of mommying, and that this tortured kid really was a handful who just needed some control.

The police report said that when officers unlocked a door at the top of the stairs leading to the attic they found the boy "completely naked, covered in feces from head-to-toe crying to "go downstairs.''

The room was covered in human feces and there were several children's finger markings along the wall, made with feces, that appeared to have been there for a considerable amount of time, the report said.

When interviewed on TV, the kid's grandfather and uncle were complaining about all this negative attention, insisting that this treatment is not child abuse, and that the mommy had been trying to get help, but nobody would help her, boo hoo, which is patently false. This happened in Lowell, MA, home of MassHealth, and home of child protective services that are available on a voluntary basis--overwhelmed parents need only pick up the phone.

But you know, so much for the postborn, let's save our worry for the feti, shall we?

Child Abuse/Neglect No Priority for GOP Gov Ahnold

I don't know if Arnold is a fetus-firster. I do know that he has just slashed funding for the department charged with dealing with child abuse and neglect.

I continue to be horrified by the upsurge in fetal sentimentalism, while the job of actually protecting actual kids from abuse and neglect remains so, well, neglected.

Feh.