Desensitized (Battle Of The Outrageous News Stories)
Rockadelic
Out Digging 13,993 Posts
I read way too much news from around the world....and I see some crazy stories....but these three struck me this week as being signs of the apocalypse or somesuch overreactive BS.....so I want to take the pulse of the Strut...what is the order of outrageousness of the three below news stories in your opinion??
1) LANCASTER, Texas - Investigators said Monday they believe the 27-year-old son of Dallas Police Chief David Brown shot and killed a man at a suburban apartment complex and then opened fire on responding officers, killing one, before being shot to death. The younger Brown was said to have been behaving erratically before the shooting spree, wearing just sunglasses and boxers. The first man killed had just pulled into the complex in his car, with his wife and children, when he was fired on from the driver's side of the car. Before the police arrived a resident of the apartment complex took cell phone photos of the first murder victim and posted them online.
2) (NEWSER) ??? Joran Van der Sloot is charged in the murder of one woman and suspected in the disappearance of another???but for some reason, the single ladies can't get enough of him. He's being inundated with letters proposing marriage, or so he tells Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf, the AP reports. ???One of them even wants me to get her pregnant,??? he says.
3) SAN DIEGO ??? A 14-year old boy who stabbed a 13-year-old girl who is also the mother of his child was charged with attempted murder and other counts in San Diego Juvenile Court on Monday. The boy???s identity is not being revealed because of his age and because he is being prosecuted as a juvenile and not as an adult. The girl was stabbed in the neck with a kitchen knife and taken to the hospital. She is expected to recover. The attack may have been precipitated by what police called jealousy issues between the two.
1) LANCASTER, Texas - Investigators said Monday they believe the 27-year-old son of Dallas Police Chief David Brown shot and killed a man at a suburban apartment complex and then opened fire on responding officers, killing one, before being shot to death. The younger Brown was said to have been behaving erratically before the shooting spree, wearing just sunglasses and boxers. The first man killed had just pulled into the complex in his car, with his wife and children, when he was fired on from the driver's side of the car. Before the police arrived a resident of the apartment complex took cell phone photos of the first murder victim and posted them online.
2) (NEWSER) ??? Joran Van der Sloot is charged in the murder of one woman and suspected in the disappearance of another???but for some reason, the single ladies can't get enough of him. He's being inundated with letters proposing marriage, or so he tells Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf, the AP reports. ???One of them even wants me to get her pregnant,??? he says.
3) SAN DIEGO ??? A 14-year old boy who stabbed a 13-year-old girl who is also the mother of his child was charged with attempted murder and other counts in San Diego Juvenile Court on Monday. The boy???s identity is not being revealed because of his age and because he is being prosecuted as a juvenile and not as an adult. The girl was stabbed in the neck with a kitchen knife and taken to the hospital. She is expected to recover. The attack may have been precipitated by what police called jealousy issues between the two.
Comments
This is simply how humans are - always have been, always will be. Things aren't getting any worse, or any better. Nor will they ever.
Aint no end of days, just business as usual for Homo Sapiens.
It's the serial killer worship, babies making babies killing babies and desecration of dead bodies as entertainment that's blowing my mind.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/2415428,weekend-shooting-roundup-062110.article
Chester PA - just south of Philly, 4 people shot dead in 1 week, one of which was a 2 year old boy. And Chester is SMALL, son.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/06/20/pa-city-calls-state-emergency-weeks-th-murder/
This too is simply part of the human condition i'm afraid. In only a slightly different context, serial killer worship and publicizing fotos of dead bodies are not considered shocking at all. Not to say this isn't disturbing behavior.
Like the man said:
Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto -
I am human, therefore nothing human is strange to me (sounds a lot ruder in Latin)
If anything is changing - it is our collective, ever increasing obsession with and exposure to the media.
"Investigations into what made, taxi driver Derrick Bird shoot 12 people dead and injure 11 in Cumbria may centre on a family row, reports suggest.
Bird, 52, embarked on a rampage that began near Whitehaven and ended when he turned a gun on himself.
It has been reported he may have been involved in a dispute over a will, and police have confirmed solicitor Kevin Commons is among the dead."
This I spotted on the BBC website last night :-
"A French convict has gone on trial for murdering and eating part of the body of his cell-mate.
Nicolas Cocaign admitted to a court in Rouen that he killed his victim before cutting him open and removing part of his lung, which he then ate.
His lawyers said his repeated requests for psychiatric help before the attack had been ignored.
Cocaign, 39, faces life in prison if convicted for the murder of Thierry Baudry in 2007.
Prosecutors say Cocaign beat Baudry before stabbing him with a pair of scissors and then suffocating him with a plastic bag.
He then allegedly cut him open, removing a rib and pulling out part of his lung, mistaking it for Baudry's heart.
Before the trial, he had told investigators that he wanted to eat his victim's heart in order to take his soul.
"I made several appeals for help, saying I was a man capable of being dangerous. I took action, and then they took me seriously," he told the court.
The court also heard a summary of Cocaign's life, from his adoption at age three to his troubled youth and scrapes with the law.
He was serving a sentence for attempted rape at the time of Baudry's murder. A verdict is expected later this week. "
But not as tough as this:
Tiger Woods Misses Daughter Sam's Birthday For Golf: Report
Posted: 06-22-10 02:54 AM
Tiger Woods was thousands of miles from his daughter on her birthday, just months after vowing that he would "never miss another one," RadarOnline reports. While Woods struggled through the second day of the U.S. Open tournament at Pebble Beach on the California coast last Friday, the web site reports that his daughter Sam celebrated her third birthday far away in Florida.
In April, Woods spoke of the pain he felt after missing his son's birthday while he was in rehab following the public revelation of his wild string of affairs. "I vowed I'd never miss another one after that," he said at the time.
While Woods was referring to his son's birthday, one might assume that the same principle would apply to his three-year-old daughter. It seems that competing in one of golf's most prestigious tournaments trumped his familial obligations, however.
This development may be the latest indication that Woods and wife Elin Nordegren (PHOTOS) are headed toward a long-rumored divorce. It was reported earlier in June that Nordegren may be seeking full custody of the children.
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I'm obviously kidding. I just thought this thread needed a little something to ease the heart-eating tension in here.
I'm desensitized to a small extent, but I ended up watching this recent French horror movie - Inside - finally (was talking about it on the old board) and it was basically a dramatization of one of these types of looney bin type crimes...and I was outraged by the end of it. (But then again, I did sit through and watch the whole thing...Haneke would be pleased.)
I am also the dick that told my wife and kids while watching one particular episode of the show "ER" that they should turn that shit off and go down to the Children's Medical Center if they were entertained by kids being terminally ill.
As someone who believes in fiction as a way to teach ourselves about humanity, I do think fiction/scripted enterainment serve a different purpose than the news.
Shit was a lot more hectic when I was younger.
Cleveland Cops Mistook Woman's Dead Body for Deer Carcass
Submitted by Leader Staff on April 8, 2010 - 9:38pm.
Lying along the side of the Interstate-90 was the deceased body of a woman lying in a fetal position. Two Cleveland police officers drove past the body, which had been dumped on the side of the highway, and did not stop because they believed it was a deer carcass.
The body had been reported early Monday morning by a motorist passing by, but Matthew Prince and David Muniz, driving by at 40 to 50mph, determined that it was a deer carcass. Instead of stopping to check things out, they called the Ohio Department of Transportation for remova.
Two more people reported the body, and about 90 minutes later, an employee with the ODOT called police to inform that it was a body, and not a dead deer.
..crime in Cleveland is so much a regular thing even the cops are ignoring nude dead bodies laying on the side of the highway.....
I agree, but I don't need the visceral rush of clear and present gore that some new horror movies use to tell the story in my life on most days.
Has anyone seen Pixote? That strikes me as a good example of news as "entertainment" (quotes because it's hardly entertaining at times) that gets at the awful realism of something.
I think the news emulating that shit is a bigger problem than our dramas being, 'ripped from the headlines,' or ripping out someone's heart, per se.
Depends on the neighborhood of course, but in general? Yeah, violent crime is much lower these days compared to 20 years back. I think the difference - and maybe this speaks to Rich's point - is that we're inundated with the media-fueled awareness of crime in ways that we were not in the past.
So our perception of danger may exceed the actual peril but I don't know if this gives much comfort.
DO NOT WATCH INSIDE! It's one note and it's a nightmare (arguably literally).
Not an issue- I don't watch any horror flicks. Never will again... Not my thing, and I'm old enough to know.
Excellent point man. But even still, I feel way safer now.
Nicolas Cocaign, charged with murder and acts of barbarism, told the court in Rouen, northwestern France, that he is now getting psychiatric treatment and feels "stable."
After the charges against Cocaign were read in court, the 39-year-old said he was responsible.
Thierry Baudry's mutilated body was found Jan. 3, 2007 by a Rouen prison guard, and an autopsy revealed two chest muscles and part of his left lung were missing.
At the time, Rouen prosecutor Joseph Schmit said Cocaign confessed to stabbing his victim with scissors and suffocating him with a plastic bag before removing and eating part of an organ from his chest ??? though he mistakenly believed it was the victim's heart.
Cocaign, whose face is tattooed with images including bloody tears and a skull, told investigators he had wanted to eat the victim's heart to "take his soul," according to the indictment. At the time, Cocaign was serving a sentence for attempted rape while armed, while Baudry was in prison for sexual assault.
Defense lawyer Fabien Picchiottino said his client had repeatedly asked to be committed to a psychiatric ward before the killing, but his requests were turned down by authorities.
Baudry's mother said she had long dreaded seeing Cocaign in person.
"I want to know why he did this to my son," Jacqueline Baudry said. "I want him to pay."
Monday's hearing traced Cocaign's life, from his adoption at age three to his run-ins with the law. He risks life in prison. A verdict is expected later this week.
A third inmate, David Lagrue, was present in the cell during the attack. Lagrue, who was initially suspected of complicity but was later cleared, committed suicide last year in another prison.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/21/french-inmate-confesses-t_n_619819.html
I agree. I also think it's important that people somehow be kept aware of how crime affects certain people (both as victims and aggressors) and certain neighbourhoods in different ways...not to bolster the stereotyping of certain types of people, but because that sort of ignorance has important political implications with respect to things like people's tolerance for social inequity (i.e. it's not fair that some people have to live around that type of hazard) and belief in how to deal with crime (e.g. society versus individual, preventive versus reactive, the role of punishment).
hahhaaa. i love it. more power to you
im with staxwax...shit dont change. its just now with global media we hear about all the weird shit.
people always been fucked up and murderous and incestuous and all round batshit bananas. not everyone, but we always got a handfull that are waiting to flip the fuck out
The good news is violent crime is down not up.
The other good news is these things get press because they are the exception to normal human behavior.
Not because this is the way humans naturally act.
That Texas cop's son shooting those people is horrible, but putting a photo of the victims on the internet is not radically different than putting the photo in a newspaper.
The horrific photo above was published in almost every newspaper in the country in 1929 and more people looked at newspaper photos in 1929 than will ever see some nobody's photo of a local murder.
Murder is news and news photos can be horrific.
I don't blame you for being horrified by the stories you posted, but it is good to keep things in perspective.
Puppy thrown at German biker gang
A German student "mooned" a group of Hell's Angels and hurled a puppy at them before escaping on a stolen bulldozer, police have said.
The man drove up to a Hell's Angels clubhouse near Munich, wearing only a pair of shorts and carrying a puppy.
He dropped his shorts and threw the dog, escaping on a bulldozer from a nearby building site.
He was arrested later at home by police. The 26-year-old is said to have stopped taking depression medication.
After making his getaway on the bulldozer, he had driven so slowly that a 5km tailback built up behind him on the motorway.
After driving about 1km, he had abandoned the bulldozer in the middle of the motorway, near Allershausen. He continued his journey by hitchhiking.
"What motivated him to throw a puppy at the Hell's Angels is currently unclear," a police spokesman said.
The puppy is now being cared for in an animal shelter.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/10333211.stm#