A year and a half later: the gangrape in West Palm Beach

Can you believe it's already been a year and a half since this:

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - Mother and son huddled together, battered and beaten, in the bathroom — sobbing, wondering why no one came to help.

Surely the neighbors had heard their screams. The walls are thin, the screen doors flimsy in this violence-plagued housing project on the edge of downtown.

For three hours, the pair say, they endured sheer terror as the 35-year-old Haitian immigrant was raped and sodomized by up to 10 masked teenagers and her 12-year-old son was beaten in another room.

I recently came across this great commentary by Rod Dreher on the subject. That's worth reading.

I had a similar occurrence to Dreher. I was in middle school out in Wellington and kids were pegging me with gumballs (doesn't sound painful, but when they hit you in face, eyes, etc. it really hurts). It was in my English classroom. Ms. Warren saw it and ignored it. That set the stage for the rest of my middle school career because at the moment I realized that I wasn't safe. That whatever happened would be up to me to stop, because the adults were too scared to do anything.

100 Confessions: The Authors that Drive Me

(12)My love of writing stems from two very different writers: J.R.R. Tolkien and Stephen King. One's a high-literature writer, one's a pop writer. One wrote fantasy, one writes horror. But both are people who specialize in writing stories of hope. Stephen King may seem an odd choice.

Here's an excerpt from "God in Popular Culture" by Andrew Greeley:

"You're writing religious stories," I accused Stephen King at a Literary Guild cocktail party in New York.
"Of course I am," he agreed. "Most people don't believe me, but that's exactly what I'm doing."
"Anyone who writes about hope," I continued, "is writing about religion."
"Absolutely. Sometimes I wish I was Catholic like my wife. You people have great images of hope. But you almost have to be raised with them."
Thus my theory of sociology of religions was summarized and validated in a brief exchange of dialogue.
King writes stories of hope, maybe only a little hope--as in Cujo in which things got better, not much, but a little better--but still hope. In his non-fiction study of horror literature, King contends that the appeal of the field to readers is that they are scared stuff but still survive and thus experience a hint that one does survive, no matter how great the terror.

100 Confessions: DVD Addiction

(11) I enjoy watching DVD season's back to back. It's my drug of choice. When I began my working life after getting married I found my evenings--well, oddly empty. No homework. No clubs. Even if I did my daily creative writing, that only took up an hour of my time. Mimi and I decided we'd try to some of these "hit" shows and see if they really were any good. We started with the first disc of LOST, which we rented from Blockbuster. Since then, we've been through 24, Heroes, Gossip Girl, How I Met Your Mother, Arrested Development. Currently? We're going through Bones (via Netflix), and Smallville (via cheap prices at Best Buy).

100 Confessions: The Greg CounterBalance Diet

(10) I think people get way to worked up over dieting. Just work out more, ride your bike to work, or (gasp) walk to work. In my high school I would hear people talk about going on a diet and I'd be like "dude, why don't you just do a sport?" Possible objections: diets are healthy.
Let me speak for my own diet. You can eat cheeseburgers, pizza, chocolate cake, all of the above. But when your done, balance it out with a piece of fruit. You counterbalanced the unhealthy food with healthy food so your good again.

100 Confessions: Washing Machine Misconduct

(9) From time to time, I wash things that don't survive being washed. And then I usually throw them in the dryer as well. This doesn't just included those "dry-clean" only clothes that end up coming out 3rd-grader sized but also cell phones, thumb drives, car keys (with electric clicker), etc.

Can't we all just get along?

What's the deal with these folks?

100 Confessions: Travel Anxiety 2

(8) I can't sleep on planes. It's not a fear of flying. My father's a pilot for Continental Airlines and I grew up loving planes. The entire experience is exciting for me, the preparation, the take off, the landing. But I've done it so many times over the years that I can't rightly chaulk it up to excitement either. Maybe it's the uncomfortable seats?

100 Confessions: Travel Anxiety

(7) I get anxious before I travel. I usually have trouble sleeping the night before hand and when I wake up in the morning, I practically jump out of my bed at the alarm. By the time, I've taken my wound-up self out of the house, to the airport and past security, I'm usually exhausted. So exhausted I would normally sleep but can't because of number 8.

100 Confessions: Slaughtered Songs

(6) I enjoy making up new lyrics to timeless songs, essentially ruining them for others forever. Not complete songs, of course, just the most memorable parts and I randomly sing them to myself in front of student, co-workers, friends, family. I'm convinced they'll never forgive me.

A Christmas example:

"Christmas Shoes" Original:

"Sir, I want to buy these shoes,
For my momma please.
It's Christmas Eve
and these shoes are just her size.
Can you hurry sir?
My Daddy says there's not much time

You see, she's been sick for quite a while
And I, know these shoes will make her smile
And I, want her to look beautiful
If Momma meets Jesus tonight."

"Christmas Shoes" Post-Greg Slaughter:

"Man, I'm gonna take des shoes,
For ma hommies please.
It's Christmas Eve
and these shoes are just my size.
Can you hurry, dude,
ma hommies say there ain't much time.

Cause I really want to get away
And I, know the cops are on their way
And I, really want to take des shoes
In case, I hit the slammer tonight."

Yes, Virginia, There is...

I've of course heard the famous newspaper story before. But never before this year has it been so publicized. I heard about this article on three different occasion. What makes an editorial in the New York Sun from 1897 so pertinent today?

First, here's the story from the Newseum website:

Eight-year-old Virginia O'Hanlon wrote a letter to the editor of New York's Sun, and the quick response was printed as an unsigned editorial Sept. 21, 1897. The work of veteran newsman Francis Pharcellus Church has since become history's most reprinted newspaper editorial, appearing in part or whole in dozens of languages in books, movies, and other editorials, and on posters and stamps.

Virginia's letter to the editor:

"DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old.
"Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
"Papa says, 'If you see it in THE SUN it's so.'
"Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?

"VIRGINIA O'HANLON.
"115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET."

Here's an excerpt of the response:

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You may tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

An amazing call for faith that has transcended the ages. Merry Christmas one and all!

Faith as a Unifier or Divider?

I read this article in USA Today and was reminded of this study.

Yes, religion can be a forum for people of different discussions to converse...if they go to the same Church. I'm not sure how often that's the case. I hope for the sake of our national conversation that Mr. Thomas is right. But he certainly has the right thesis:

People are pack animals. We need one another. From the earliest chapters of Genesis we read that it is not good for people to be alone. People need community. Only in community are we fully human.

There are lots of places we go looking for community: bars, golf courses, civic clubs. But it's hard to find real community. Especially since the advent of air conditioning, VCRs, home computers, video games and iPods. Forget gated communities. Most of us live gated lives.

How World War II happened...

At least, according to Robot Chicken.

100 Confessions: Snow

(5) I become a dork around snow. Snowmen, snow angels, snow forts: all open territory.

Alice in Wonderland: A Review

So I recently re-read Alice in Wonderland, a book I haven’t read since childhood. Coming back to the novel now, I’ve noted a few things:

(1)Influence of Opium- it never seemed odd to me as a child that Alice struggled with being “too big” and “too small” throughout the course of the novel. And the only way Alice could attempt to regulate her size was by eating cakes and drinking certain potions. The problem of course is that her size is in continuous flux, so she has to keep taking potions and eating the cakes. Some scholars seem to think Carroll (actually known as Charles Dodgeson) had an addiction problem to opium.

(2)Use of the genre “Literary Nonsense”- yes it’s actually a genre. All the characters in the book use lines of reasoning that make little sense, but all are too stubborn to re-think their reasoning (perhaps a subversive statement about 19th century Britain?). One of my favorite passages from the book:

“I’m beginning to think that Mad Hatter is quite mad,” said Alice.
“Of course,” said the Cheshire Cat. “I’m mad, you’re mad, we’re all mad.”
“Well, excuse me,” Alice said indignantly, “but how do you know I’m mad?”
“If you weren’t mad, you wouldn’t be here.”

Madness was also a key subject of Dodgeson’s life. He suffered from epilepsy and mental disorders for most of his life and was, at times accused of madness. Also, his mother died of an inflammation of brain while he in his first semester at Oxford University.

(3)Integration of English school lessons- I recognized on this reading, just how many lessons are given through the course of the novel. Some have noted that these lessons were meant for young 14-year-old Alice Liddell, for whom the book is presumably named. Of course they also say there was a problem with Dodgeson’s relationship with young Alice. It’s worth noting that not to many books about little girls talk about their breasts. Alice in Wonderland does.

Tales from DC: Unity

I've lived in Washington DC long enough to see that it is, as the saying goes "Two Cities." There's Washington: that famed center of pomp and power; and DC the land of crime and generational poverty. In an essay by one of my students this past semester, he said that Washington was divided "if not racially, at least socially." And I think that's fair. Living off Anacostia on the green line is very different than living off DuPont Circle on the red line. They may as well be two cities.

But I do believe that sometimes the city is one. There's two things we all have in common here in DC: that were all different and we're all here. Maybe that's enough.

A few weeks back, I was on the yellow line headed from Columbia Heights to Chinatown. And I saw something that's stuck with me.

It's a typical metro scene.

I'm sitting down behind a large, graying Caucasian man. He's wearing a Philadelphia Eagles jacket and hat. He's staring out the metro at the nothing that whizzes by through the tunnels. Two black girls are sitting in front of him chit-chatting with their mouths while their eyes are glued to their phones. They're hands pass expertly over the phones, sending text messages perhaps. An older white woman with a sour face is standing, holding onto the rails. Her Georgetown Medical Center tag sways with the tilting of the metro. There's a Hispanic girl also standing, examining her long green fingernails. At Shaw-Howard, an elderly black woman in an electric scooter wheels on. She has oxygen tubing attached to her nose and it flows back to a steel container hooked to the back of her scooter. It takes her a while to maneuver the scooter so that she can easily drive off when we get to her stop.

We pass the Mt. Vernon Square metro station. The metro tilts harder than most. The older lady from Georgetown Medical Center is holding onto the rail with two hands now. Suddenly, the metro jerks to almost a complete stop. The force of it makes the girl with the long fingernails and the woman from Georgetown cling to the rail. But the woman in the electric scooter tumbles to the ground. Her steel oxygen container flies down the metro's center aisle. The scooter pins her to the floor. She cries out. Her body begins shaking under the scooter. For a moment, everyone is still. Not quite able to believe what we're seeing. The metro starts moving again.

The man in the Philadelphia Eagles jacket leaps to his feet and rushes to the woman's side. He shouts "Somebody call for help!"

I hit the red emergency button. I've never used it before. It looks old and rusted. I don't believe it works. There appears to be a speaker so I'm not sure what to do. I push it down and try talking into it: "Hello? We need some help back here...a woman fell...I guess you should get an ambulance." The speaker is dead. No response. I keep pressing it, trying to get it to work.

Once we get to Chinatown the metro begins to grind to a halt. The man in Eagles jacket, the girl with the long fingernails and the woman from Georgetown Medical Center are all around the woman now. An athletic young black man in expensive workout clothes rushes from the back of the train. He and the man in the Eagles jacket lift the scooter off the old woman. Then the woman from Georgetown and the Hispanic girl try to lift the elderly woman. When they can't get her up, the two young black girls put down their cellphones to help and manage to get her back into her scooter. The Hispanic girl breaks a nail and doesn't notice. The woman from Georgetown crawls under the seats to get the steel container.

The doors open. A large batch of commuters try to plow in the doors all at once, but are faced with an elderly woman convulsing in her scooter. A woman from the metro authority tells them to back out of the way. She's holding a walkie-talkie and telling them to bring EMTs down into the metro. She seems annoyed--possibly because of the young guy who kept pressing the emergency button.

The woman from Georgetown returns with the steel container. The girl with the fingernails is rubbing the elderly woman's back, cooing to her that everything will be alright. The two black girls have retreated backwards but only by a step. They want to do more but don't know what to do. The young athletic man and the man with the Eagles jacket step back to let the woman from Georgetown reconnect the oxygen container and strap it back on the scooter.

When she's done, she rubs the elderly woman's back as well and kneels down to be face-to-face with her. The old woman hides her face and her body continues to shake, not longer from fright or pain, but, I think, shame. She seems to be sobbing. The Hispanic girl and white woman's hand touch several times as they rub her back and tell her everything will be okay. They don't seem to notice. The woman from the Metro authority manages to convince the woman to wheel her scooter out of the metro. Before she does, her crying picks up and she shouts "Thank you." It has a southern twang, drenched in her tears.

We all get off the metro. Everyone lingers around the woman for a moment longer than they needed to. Part of it was sympathy I think, but part of it was also that we'd done something together. Something good.

Commuters are beginning to complain about the transition time. A young professional behind me mutters, "In New York, they do this much faster. They don't know how to do this stuff."

Part of me wants to tell him to go back to New York, because what I saw in the metro convinced me that Washington DC as a whole does know how to do this stuff.

Upon further urging, everyone begins to leave. Our metro train departs empty so we can get another one. I watch the two black girls leave. They're holding their cellphones in their hands but not using them and their chit-chat is more somber now. The hispanic girl still hasn't noticed her nail, but she shrugs her purse further up her shoulder and goes to leave as well. The man in Eagles jacket shakes hands with the young athletic black man and they part ways. The only one who stays is the woman from the medical center who continues to rub her back and promises to stay with her until the EMTs come.

Best Concert Ever?

Who's coming down the chimney?

The family's clergy could not be reached for comment.

Ten Coolest Movie Scenes

#6- The Battle of Carthage

This was just a classic scene. The story of the fight itself was that the gladiators move. But dudes, they forgot that they put MAXIMUS out in the field. Using some Roman tactics, they manage to beat out the "Romans."

Not only does Maximus showcase some pretty tight twirling with his sword (not seen in recent years except during band competitions) and cause massive amounts of gore to the delight of male watchers, but story wise, this is a pretty riveting scene.

100 Confessions: Christmas

(5) I have a Charlie Brown Christmas Tree that I put up in my office every year. It came as a package deal with a "Good Grief!" Mug. Ps. Charlie Brown Christmas came out in 1965. It movie spoke the commercialization of the holidays even back then...

100 Confessions: Bottled Water

(4) I think bottled water is a total scam. Think about it. Who could come up with a better business model this? Fiji, Aquafina--they're essentially selling something that technically you can get for free. Somehow the powers that be have managed to make a bottled water seem more "natural" than that out of tap water from a filter. (Think about the carbon imprint of the jets that carry the water from Fiji to North America)Seriously? We're just paying to appear healthy and appear concerned about appearing healthy.

100 Confessions: Clarissa Explains It All

(3) As an elementary kid, I had a secret crush on Clarissa from "Clarissa Explains It All." I never watched the show of course because I didn't want anyone to think I was a wuss. But I would watch every show leading up to it, so I could catch the first five minutes just because "I forgot to turn off the TV." I also got pretty excited when a preview for the show would come on. The long blonde hair-done in an eighties bop, the huge hoop earrings, there was just so much to love...

100 Confessions: Scented Candles

(2) Lighting scented candles makes me feel more artistic. No, I can't explain it. But when i sit down to do creative writing, there's something about lighting a candle that stimulates my mind ("Is this what Tolkien did before he started writing?" "Did Hugo start out by lighting the candle on his desk?") Of course, what often happens is I forget about the candle, leading to a mass seepage of wax all over my desk, paper goods, carpet, etc. Cleaning it up makes me feel much less artistic.

100 Confessions: Benadryl

(1) Benadryl gives me really weird dreams. True confession: I took some benadryl last night and had a dream where mom killed my dad with a brand-spankin-new Dell XPS computer. Now the killing isn't necessarily a far-fetched part of the dream (they are undergoing a divorce), but the dream went like a murder mystery. When I came upon the broken computer, I remember my stomach dropping ("Of course! That's how she killed him!")

Another time I had a benadryl induced dream where I was playing hide-and-seek with Darth Vader in a Publix grocery store. He eventually found me and shot me in the head with a table saw.

GopherLink! Anti-religious fervor in online social networking websites. Do you Digg it?