The truth is in the comments

Note: This blog entry has some graphic details. Read at your own risk.

The crime is too recent to have the full story, but what appears to have happened is that a woman in Tigard saw a posting online from a girl who was 9 months pregnant, and the woman wanted her baby, so she lured the girl to her house. She planned on coaxing the girl to hand over her baby, and even started out on building her alibi, spontaneously telling people she was pregnant so it wouldn't look weird when she suddenly had a baby.

When the girl came over, this woman tried to coax her into inducing labor (and may or may not have succeeded), and in any case got the baby out of her, then calmly killed the woman and stuffed her corpse under her house. The baby, not yet fully developed, was either never fully alive or died shortly after it was removed. The woman called her boyfriend and had him come over and help her bring the baby back to life. When he was unable to revive the baby, she called the police, saying it was her baby and she needed help, despite showing no signs of pregnancy, no record of having a baby, and a dead body under her house.

There is no ambiguity here. This woman, the reason doesn't matter, was not human. She was severely damaged beyond repair, she is beyond reprieve, and there is no chance that she will ever see free soil again. It's possible that she doesn't even care. At the very least, she will get life in prison for first degree murder of the mother. Then the prosecutors mentioned that if they can determine that the baby was at one point independently alive, it would qualify as a person and they could pin second-degree infanticide on her as well.

The first comments on the news report were fairly straightforward. Condolences to the victim and her family, disgust at the perpetrator. Then a couple people mentioned in passing how awful it was that they were calculating the charges on whether the baby was ever a person. One person casually states that the case makes her want to leave Oregon.

Then the floodgates open.

The pro-choicers come out against the commenter for making it political. The pro-lifers come out against the pro-choicers for not caring about the baby. The Democrats come out against pro-lifers for using the case to push their agenda. The religious conservatives come out against the Democrats for being heartless liberals. Soon everyone commenting have reduced the discussion to saying the other side are all going to hell. Nobody shows remorse for the victim anymore; the only mention of the original article is that everyone states that anyone who disagrees with them are just as bad as the psychotic murderer.

Eventually, someone from the family of the deceased have the misfortune of reading the comments on the page. A mere three and a half hours after the news is released, an acquaintance of the dead adds a comment expressing their anguish. The response is almost immediate:

heathers kin:
Most everyone would feel the same way in your position. I know I
would.

That said...

...and the debate continues. It quickly devolves into people citing statistics on the percentages of pro-lifers vs. pro-choice. Demographics on the death penalty. Geography of crimes in Multnomah County. Rights vs. Suppression of Free Speech. Within less than 28 hours, the conversation thread has devolved into calculating the margin of victory of President Obama.

The only mention remaining of the original tragedy is each side of each argument accusing the other of putting their own political agenda over the death of this poor, poor girl, whom they then use as an instance in furthering their own agenda. Commenters open with a suggestion that all dissenting opinions be removed from the website, then conclude with the pre-emptive accusation that the other side will attempt to suppress them, thus proving their point, whatever that point will be.

Well, now I'll add my two cents to the argument, because let's face it, I'm not better than any of you. I don't even know this woman, and it doesn't affect my life in any way that she's dead. My life is made worse from knowing that this psychotic killer even exists, but even the article itself points to how naive and gullible the victim was, literally to a fault. I do what I can to protect myself, and I assure you that the killer is not that difficult to outwit. Given my personal opinion, I would suggest that she be put promptly to death, and I would suggest keeping a close eye on her two kids—she's surely fucked them up by now.

Now, as far as the other politics: abortion rights, free speech, death penalty in general... I just watched the social discourse, in the span of just one day, completely forget that there's anything wrong with what happened last week. To some degree, every single one of us saw this event as an opportunity. A chance for us to make the world a little better for ourselves. And our anger is not directed at the psycotic baby-killer who caused this, but at our fellow commenters, who have commited the far worse crime of diagreeing with us.

I'm going to say that again in its own paragraph: at our basest level, we consider diversity of thought to be a greater evil than carving a baby out of an innocent woman and tossing her corpse under a house.

Now we know how tragedies like this come to pass. Evidently we have more important things to worry about.

The History of Liberia

After Jim Crow laws were passed stating that no blacks were safe in the United States, even in free states, some of the founding fathers of the U.S. (most prominently Thomas Jefferson, a slave owner) decided that black Americans needed somewhere they could really feel safe if they were freed, so why not Africa? A team of Americans , including Thomas Jefferson, Henry Clay and Paul Cuffe, a Native American slave ship captain, secretly sent a ship to Africa, taking with them 33 African Americans and settled an unmapped city in West Africa called "Freetown." Over the next sixty years, slave ships going to pick up more slaves would secretly ship escaped or freed blacks back to Africa, slowly populating the secret civilization called the ACS (American Colonization Society) and helping them establish a shadow government in Africa. When the Civil War seemed inevitable in the late 1840s, many Southerners who had been part of the ACS movement started sending boats FULL of blacks over to Freeville.

When Great Britain discovered this secret colony, they made an attempt to annex it as part of the United Kingdom. They figured that the United States would be afraid to admit what they had been building and would abandon the colony, giving the UK prime coastal land in West Africa. Instead, the United States officially granted the ACS their independence and renamed them Liberia. Five states—New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Maryland, and the southern state of Virginia, who founded the ACS—all pitched in interest free loans to the Liberian government so they could fund an army. In nearly bankrupted the states, but they felt morally obliged to act.

In 1847, Liberia drafted their constitution and was founded as a free Republic. They renamed Freeville to "Monroeville," in honor of James Monroe, who had raised over $100,000 for the colony while he was sitting President of the United States. Though it's just as rife with conflict and war as any African country, it is still a sovereign nation, still in good standing with the Anglican world, and this year elected their first female President, in an election which was completely free of corruption, and are on their way to drafting a balanced budget.

So you tell me that American History isn't just as fascinating as European.

Hope in the Hardest of Times

The following is from the Oregonian. Enjoy.

Ten minutes before it reopened Thursday night, things could have gone either way at The Zone, the site of Portland's worst mass shooting. Five days afterward, would people be too scared to return? Would the place be packed?

Outside, news cameras pointed toward the entrance. Inside, workers waited, nervous but hopeful. Healing will take time, they said. Might as well start now.
On its first night since the shooting, the club would give all proceeds to the families of the two girls killed.

At 7, they opened the doors and waited.

Five minutes later, the first customer walked in, handing over $10 instead of the scheduled $3 cover charge. "Keep the change," the teenage boy said. All night teens overpaid. Passers-by popped in to donate.
The benefit was originally planned for Jalontae Howard, 16, a Northeast Portland dancer who was shot during the melee that left seven wounded. But Thursday morning, Jalontae's mother called the club's owners. Yeah, I'll have medical bills, she told them. But I also have my son. Give the money to those who lost their daughters. Having Jalontae safe is all she needs, Dyrenda Waller said, as she surveyed where a bullet blew through her son's right ankle, breaking it in two places and possibly ruining his chances at a dance career.
She couldn't walk by the spot where shooter Erik Ayala, 24, of Milwaukie fired on the crowd. Instead, she used the back door. "I'm nervous," she said. "I didn't want to come. I had never been here before, though, you know? It actually feels pretty safe."

Other parents -- about a dozen showed up -- echoed her thoughts.

Sandy Schroll never wanted her 16-year-old daughter, Kristina, like Jalontae a student at Centennial High School, to hang out downtown. She certainly didn't want her returning to The Zone so soon.
"I thought, 'What if there's a copycat shooting?'" Schroll said.

Opening the club up to parents was a rare opportunity for them to check the place out, though, and she wanted to show support. "We actually get to see the personalities that hang out here," Schroll said. "The kids are all hugging, not cussing or acting up." Schroll looked around at more than 100 teens, dressed in Nikes, hoodies and tight, hip jeans.
"I'm the oldest one here," she said. "And I feel at home."
Jalontae, the only victim who attended the benefit, showed up at 7:45. The owners had placed a couch on stage for him. Some of the teens knew him from school. Others recognized him from years of going to the club. As Jalontae sat down and took one deep breath, they thronged to hug him.
The doctors said Wednesday he probably won't dance as he used to. He'll have a cast on for three months, and they expect he'll suffer from severe arthritis the rest of his life. "But he's strong," his mother said. "Nothing's going to stop him."

Club owner Dan Lenzen asked everyone who worked Saturday night to come up on stage. "These are your heroes," Lenzen told the crowd. As all went silent, Josh Dudley, a 21-year-old employee of The Zone, prayed for the victims. He added, "God, thank you for letting us live," and closed with a solemn "Amen."
It was time to heal. Time to dance.
-- Casey Parks; caseyparks@news.oregonian.com

Erik Ayala

The reports on the Erik Ayala massacre in downtown Portland this week are the same as the reports of all the others. The killer was young, quiet, kept to himself. He had a history of mental problems and depression, but had been showing no signs of violence. He had no criminal record, and he was perfectly calm when he walked into the pawn shop and bought a semi-automatic pistol shortly before he turned it on a group of girls, walking down the same street I walk down every time I hit the town, just like they were doing.

There are a few things people have been clinging to as the blame for all of this. The Oregonian put in big headline letters, “fan of video games.” The Tribune was quick to point out that he was born in Mexico, though they downplay the fact that he legally entered the country and was completely assimilated. Today the media focus on how easy it was for someone with a history of mental issues to acquire a gun.

Basically, nobody gives a fuck about this kid; somewhere inside of them they’re grateful that another group of innocent bystanders was shot down in cold blood, because with all the optimism we’ve had recently, they were running out of statistics to point to in furthering their cause.
Me, I noticed the little things. The fact is, I’ve written a suicide letter in my head much like the one which was published from the kid. I’ve written the letter not because I’m suicidal, but because sometimes I’m just angry enough at someone that I want them to have my death on their conscience for a little while. Your mind goes to dark places when it’s past its pushing point.

But you can only have that much anger towards someone you love, and anyone with any empathy could never do that to someone they love. So your mind recovers, and you move on to better times. You turn to your friends, you rant to your parents, you lash out at your significant other, and they understand it’s just something you’re going through.

That’s where Erik Ayala was different. He was detached from his parents. His friends were there but unsupportive—after the incident, none of his friends even knew he was fighting depression. Erik didn’t have any loved ones, and he was just a temp—there was no one he could turn to at work. He didn’t have people who loved him. He just had anger. So he found a group of people he felt he could kill without guilt, probably to ensure that his suicide didn’t just disappear without notice, and then turned the gun on himself, punishing all the people he loved for not loving him back.

I’d like to share something from this story that affected me on a personal level. For any of you who have followed this blog, you will know that I have long faced problems being happy at work. With that in mind, I want to share with you what Erik's old employers said about him (not at the temp agency; at the place that laid him off after two years of service). They asked his old employers what they remembered of him, and this is exactly how they replied:

Erik was our top employee in terms of reaching performance standards both for production and low error rates.

That’s the bonds we have at work. That’s how people who you’ve spent 2/3 of your waking hours with remember you. They ask what someone was like whom they’d known intimately for two years, and that’s how they answer.

If you want to start asking questions about how someone can slowly collapse into homicidal depression without anyone noticing, I’d like to suggest that this is where to start looking.

Hope Isn't Supposed to be Real

I will just tell you, that sitting in a bar full of Portlanders, from ages 21 to 45, I have never seen anything like the moment when the CNN graphic came on the screen saying “Barack Obama, President-Elect.” People who have been voting since Nixon have said that this was the first time in their adult lives that it had even occurred to them that the government could be a force for good, and not an obstacle to overcome. Even when Obama had 230 votes with the polls still open in the 81-electorate West Coast, there was not a single person who was presuming victory for Obama. They kept saying that “theoretically,” he could win the election with just California reporting. It just seemed so obvious that over the span of the last eight years, and especially with 2004 in mind, everyone was just used to the bad news coming at the 11th hour.

Every time I look online at the news today, it’s still there: Barack Obama is going to be our President. I’m only 29 years old—I don’t have any experience having faith in our country. Having an Obama-Biden ticket take four hundred electoral votes isn’t something that really happens, it something we fantasize about over Thanksgiving break, of a world worth living in that might have, in another universe, actually existed.

I’ve got a new universe to get used to.