BlogHer - crime - Comments

Thank you

Kim Pearson — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 08:32:12 -0500

KimBlogHer Contributing Editor|Professor Kim|

My heart aches every day...

tjsmith — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 23:13:41 -0500

The following is the opening of the blog at my web site. I meet people like this every day. I try to help them, but there is an ocean of them and the tide just keeps coming in... on Thanksgiving I go to Whole Foods and buy little apple pies to give to as many guys like Tony as I can find. Sometimes all you can do is give pie, or let someone believe you are family.

"Today I met Tony. He is homeless and suffers from delusions. He
wanted the ATM machine to give his benefits card back after one of the
voices in his head told him to put it in there. The people inside the
bank were scared of him and called the cops. He is is dirty and smelly
and has bad teeth. When I retrieved his card for him he smiled a huge
single toothed smile and imagined I was his dead sister returned to
life. He had a moment of great happiness.

His smile made me feel good, even while my heart ached with pity and a certain feeling of helplessness. Our world does not have an answer to his dilemma of mental
illness and homelessness. A moment of bliss in Tony's hard life is
rare. Letting him believe that his sister had returned and saved the day for him was easy"

TJ Smith

www.working-with-women.com

Desmond Tutu helps

Mata H — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 10:51:34 -0500

This man is my hero. I can only dream of being able to show his compassion -- but it inspires me. I figure you'll be blessed by his words, too.

There are a wealth of YouTube videos of him that I look at when I need to hear the message in his heart. In this video he has a long and beautiful interview. Check this one too.

~~ Contributing Editor, Mata H. also blogs right along at Time's Fool

Compassion? Shucks, I'm Still Working on Forgiveness

Gena Haskett — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 10:09:20 -0500

The pass few weeks have been hard, both from stories in the news and personal stuff. The anger wants to jump forward and avenge the wrongs.

Rational mind wants to understand what is going on and my spiritual self is plum tuckered out. I wish I had the grace of that man.

I know what it is like to be on the receiving end of false non-sincere compassion. There are churches I will not step foot in because of it. I have also been blessed by good people who freely act from the heart. They have led me to a better place in my life.

I need to review my actions and see if I have logs in my eyes when it comes to my own efforts. Much food for thought. Thank you.

A long-term work in progress:

Gena - Out On The Stoop

AJC creates memorial fund for Officer Johns' family

Jill Miller Zimon — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 22:25:54 -0500

You can read the details of the fund here.

Makes me incredibly proud that the group I just got to become a part of is the one doing this - I know I won't always agree with AJC, but this was a very nice thing to find in my inbox when I got home from the installation (which repeatedly emphasized the role of diplomacy, diversity and bridge building).

Jill Writes Like She Talks

thanks, Cliz

Mata H — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:28:41 -0500

I like your sentiment, and I am sure it does help. Every one who takes a step like that is part of something wonderful in the wolrd. Keep on keeping on, and thanks for the kind words.

Mata

~~ Contributing Editor, Mata H. also blogs right along at Time's Fool

Von Brunn charged with murder

Nordette — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:26:50 -0500

The alleged shooter, Von Brunn, is still in the hospital. Today the Holocaust Museum was closed in memory of slain guard, Stephen Tyrone Johns. CNN has more information on details surfacing about Von Brunn, who should not have been able to get a gun due to his earlier conviction for attempted kidnap of Fed members. Von Brunn had on him a crazy note about Obama being created by Jews and Jews being responsible the economic crisis.

BlogHer CE Laina D. has published a provocative post on the rise of hate groups in America. You may read it at this link.

Nordette Adams is a BlogHer CE & you can find her other stuff through Her 411.

Thank you, Jill

Nordette — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:17:50 -0500

Thank you, Jill, for taking time from what I know is a busy schedule to leave this thoughtful and educational response.

Nordette Adams is a BlogHer CE & you can find her other stuff through Her 411.

Beautiful Post

ClizBiz — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:31:35 -0500

I feel like the headlines are full of racial and religious hatred today so i appreciate this beatuiful story and it's much-needed sentiment. I try to live life as if there are no strangers - only friends I have not met yet. It helps.

~ClizBiz

BlogHer Contributing Editor, Animal Concerns, Proprietor, ClizBiz

Audiences addressed

Jill Miller Zimon — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 07:48:46 -0500

I believe Obama's Cairo speech was intended to reach a slightly different audience than Americans in particular but I believe that it has had a very important impact already - and the goal I would think was to turn the tide more than anything else. I think that can happen and probably is happening - he is a catalyst of a sort but of course no one can do it alone and people who are determined to not take the advice or agree with him on approach, tone or content aren't going to like what he is saying no matter what.

The point about what about on our own land is truly vexing, no question. But i know for myself I find it hard to pull apart what is dislike of Obama, of left of center ideology or of simply not being in control anymore. There's probably other things in there too.

We've all contributed in one or another to stirring the pot - it will take a while for it to stop spinning - and see where it settles - who knows when, or what things will look like then.

Jill Writes Like She Talks

Heartbreaking and Frightening

ShoreBookworm — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 01:45:38 -0500

My most recent blogpost, which you can read here, discussed the Obama Cairo speech. Ok, the speech wasn't perfect. Ok, Obama's not perfect. Hey, I'm not perfect! NONE of us are perfect.

However, I felt the address was earnest, and a good begining to restoring America's stature in the world.

I was therefore stunned at the vitriolic repsonse in Twitter and elsewhere. One girl, a young, attractive girl, on Twitter wrote: "BO can take his message of peace and put it where the sun don't shine"! Who thinks like that?!?!

Well, it seems a lot of people do.

Obama's speech made me feel hopeful. The Twitter comments make me feel terrified. If our own countrymen aren't on board, peace and respect appear to be things that are beyond our grasp.

God bless the soul of the guard who died today and God be with his family in their grief.

God help us all on our little blue and green planet. Because if we don't make respect and understanding a priority, we are doomed.

Marie

www.nourishourselves.blogspot.com

www.theshorebookworm.blogspot.com

Who me, speechless?

Jill Miller Zimon — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 22:02:23 -0500

Naw.

I'm commenting because I love Nordette and she alerted me to when this entry was posted. It's amazing how caught in our own day we can get and then something like this incident happens and nothing else seems relevant.

Tomorrow evening I'm being installed on the board of the American Jewish Committee in Cleveland - a diplomatic and moderate group that has been around for decades. As it says on the about us page:

American Jewish Committee (AJC), established in 1906 by a small
group of American Jews deeply concerned about pogroms aimed at Russian
Jews, determined that the best way to protect Jewish populations in
danger would be to work towards a world in which all peoples were
accorded respect and dignity.

Over 100 years later, AJC continues its efforts to promote pluralistic
and democratic societies where all minorities are protected. AJC is an
international think tank and advocacy organization that attempts to
identify trends and problems early - and take action. Our key areas of
focus are:

Combating anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry;

Promoting pluralism and shared democratic values;

Supporting Israel's quest for peace and security;

Advocating for energy independence;

Strengthening Jewish life.\

And it really does do these things - it operationalizes every one of those key areas. Its presidents past and present (in Cleveland) are Obama supproters as are many of its members and board folks. It is not aligned with AIPAC or J-Street - it is about dialogue. I feel as though I'm finding a home for doing more about and with my religion.

I feel great irony at this event being tomorrow, given what happened today.

The only specific thing I can think of at the moment, to single out from so many other emotions I'm feeling is this:

This man is not alone in his thoughts. This man is no "lone shooter." There's a reason aiding and abetting is a crime. There's a reason when kids get written up for discipline even if they weren't the ones doing the direct teasing or bullying but were egging them on. There's a reason why the men who watched the woman portrayed by Jodie Foster in The Accused - based on a real story - get raped were convicted of criminal solicitation.

And 88 year old white men who hate Jews and Blacks and anything that does not pay homage to the way they always thought it would be and should be and to which they're entitled to have it be are NOT as uncommon as we want to think. I know - because I live around the corner from an 86 year old man who, when I went door to door with my daughter asking people to sign my petition to run for city council, the first question he asked was, What's your faith? When I told him, he said, There are too many Jews in this city already! I will not help you! He then lamented his belief that we currently have the last Christian mayor we'll have and our city is 70% Jewish (horrors! except it's not true). All in front of my middle school child and me.

This man had lived in the neighborhood since a time when it was not only ok but it was expected that you did not sell your home to Jews or Blacks - the land had restrictive covenants that eventually were outlawed by SCOTUS and then the Ohio Supreme Court.

And so now - this is not the place he expected his neighborhood to always be - exactly like him, exactly the way he wanted it.

I can count on one hand the number of times in a year I use the word hate. I don't let my kids use the word hate - I make them find another word or describe their feelings with other words. Hate is a terrible word. It is intense, it is four letters, it fills me with pain - can you conjure up for yourself what you feel when you speak that word? How must it feel to people who FEEL hate as these men do?

I know I know now what it is to feel hated - by someone who lives in my own town.

The really sad thing is - we know there are people driven to do these things for any number of reasons - from the left or the right or any other place that most people don't go. But the critical mass at some of these places has arrived. And the only way to not contribute to that mass is to weaken it - with ideas like Kim's and conversing and asking and communicating like Nordette did to me - asking my thoughts. We must see each other as humans, we must demand that of every single leader as well.

I understand what it is to curse a blue streak of anger and hatred at an act that killed an innocent man doing his job, protecting thousands of strangers. I remember feeling that streak take over me on 9/11 as well. But saying wretched, awful, untruthful, inciteful rhetoric about people we don't even know - groups or individuals - has no value - none.

I've tried to stay focused on doing better - I thank a woman and activist named Tanya Tarr for that mantra. It gets me back to center.

Do better. We just must do better.

Jill Writes Like She Talks

Silence

Nordette — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 20:51:08 -0500

Kim, I get the feeling a lot of people don't know how to respond to this tragedy and crime. You've offered a coping mechanism with a greater purpose.

Nordette Adams is a BlogHer CE & you can find her other stuff through Her 411.

I'm thinking about how to respond to this

Kim Pearson — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 20:47:28 -0500

My first reaction to this horror was to play Stevie Wonder's "Love's in Need of Love Today." It really does have me thinking about how we respond to these acts of hate. I'm thinking that perhaps the thing to do is to mount a Blog Against Radical Evil Carnival and raise money for the Holocaust Museum and other organizations that educate people about the horrors of the past in an effort to ensure that they won't be repeated.

Spread love,

Kim

BlogHer Contributing Editor|Professor Kim|

Control is the issue

mashadutoit — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 15:05:27 -0500

And the preventative measures, even if they aren't guarantees by any
means, still provides every individual an illusory amount of control in
any situation, which can be comforting in overcoming the idea of being
a victim and staying a victim.

For me it is exactly that "controll" that is at issue. The preventative measures are so easily not just a common sense way of keeping safe ( "dont get drunk all by yourself in a public place") but a hinderance to having a full life. Never walk by yourself at night. Dont travel alone. Never trust a stranger. Apart from the very real strictures this places on ones freedom of movement, the very warnings themselves can - at times - become part of that constant nagging fear that keeps you from just being happy in yourself.

Its a fine line between needing to inform one another how to avoid harm, and perpetuating that old old story of blame.

Yes - we need to behave with common sense, and share that information. But why do I never see a chain e-mail addressed to men, pointing out what rape is, and how to prevent a friend from commiting such and act? As it is, I get endless well meaning e-mails warning me how women should avoid getting into this situation. Seems kind of strange, that silence on men's potential responsibility in the act of rape.