Susan Hated Literature

Am I the only person who is a little disturbed at how little coverage the Burma cyclone is getting? I mean I remember the huge coverage the tsunami in Indonesia got, blanket coverage almost every where. People out with buckets on every street corner. So why aren’t we out collecting for Burma?

I’d hate to think it is just because not so many white western types died. But part of me thinks that has to have an impact.

I know, it is a lot easier to sympathise when someone of your own locality/nationality dies. Or maybe it is just that the tourists in Indonesia had cameras and videos and the footage was totally overwhelming. Or maybe western, english-speaking people work better telling their own stories of horror, rather than translators relating some one else’s story?

I don’t really know why it isn’t getting the same level of coverage but don’t you think that maybe you could donate a couple of quid?

And okay, maybe forecasts of 80,000 dead don’t come any close to the numbers of casualties after the tsunami, but come on, it is one huge tragedy.

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This morning, as I walked to work, I happened to glance at the headline of my Metro Family anger at killings verdict. And I thought to myself, this couldn’t be the family of the armed raiders shot while robbing a post office, could it?

Of course it was.

This sort of shite annoys the fuck out of me. Is it sad that you lost a member of your family? Of course. But sometimes family members do stupid things and bad things happen to them. And it is their own fault. These were men attempting to rob a Post Office, armed, the gardaí told them to disarm. They didn’t do that so they got shot. It wasn’t for “no reason” it was because they were attempting to rob a post office and threatening the lives of people.

Garda A gave evidence that he heard a loud bang and saw the glass in the security hatch shatter. He believed that the loud noise was a gunshot and shouted “armed garda, drop your gun” as he opened the door leading into the public area of the post office.

At least half-a-dozen witnesses gave evidence indicating they clearly heard the officer warn the raiders to drop their weapons. Some witnesses said the garda gave the warning several times;
one man said he warned them on up to 10 occasions.

I’m not a huge fan of the gardaí. But in cases like this, where armed robbers are involved? Then I’m backing them. I’m not even a fan of the death penalty. I think it is a ridiculous punishment and serves no purpose apart from revenge, which is not what I think the justice system should be involved in.

Bereaved mother-in-law Ann Grimes, who reared Griffin’s four children, hit out angrily yesterday.
She said the gardaí “knew beforehand they were going to do the job. They should have stopped them”. She added: “they put people in the post office at risk.”

Part of me can understand that coming from the family. After all they have suffered a death. But another part of me is more than a tad annoyed at that sort of attitude. The gardaí knew what was going to happen, so they should have stopped them! How exactly? Should they have arrested them despite having no evidence apart from a tip-off? A rumour?

It isn’t as though the gardaí didn’t try to intercept the raiders;

However, efforts by gardai to stop the raiders’ car prior to the raid, including cordons on approach roads and vehicle tracking, failed, and the three raiders entered the rear of the building at approximately 8am led by Gavin Farrelly, who was wielding a sledgehammer

Maybe Colm Griffin, who knew he was going to rob a post office with a gun, should have stopped himself. He was the only one responsible for his own actions. He went to Lusk intending to pull a gun on people. He took up a firing position, he put people’s lives in danger.

I’d have more sympathy for the family of the second robber killed. After all he was unarmed when shot. But at the same time if the garda involved believed he was armed that what other option did he have? I don’t say that to let the garda off the hook. More to say that you get involved in an armed robbery then don’t try to play the victim when shots are fired. After all if it had been a shoot everyone then the third individual involved still be alive, would he?

And lets not forget that a garda involved in that operation now has a contract out on him.

Oh, and for the record, I’m not saying that the gardaí should be allowed to shoot anyone and then say “he had a gun” obviously there should be an inquest, as happened here, and the fact should come out. But the very idea of turning an armed gunman into an innocent victim is just wrong.

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Those of who in Ireland will have heard about the Dunne family tragedy. Others among you probably haven’t.

It has emerged that when the dead couple, Adrian and Ciara Dunne, visited an undertaker in New Ross last Friday, they ordered four coffins, headstones and a burial plot, for themselves and their daughters, Shania (3) and Leanne (5). Preliminary post mortem results suggest Mr Dunne was hanged, that his wife was strangled or choked, and that the two children were smothered.

The visit to the undertakers was brought to the attention of the Garda last Friday and the HSE on Saturday. The Garda sent a priest to assess the family’s wellbeing on Friday and he was assured by the Dunnes that they were not suicidal. No Garda member went to the Dunne home. The Garda also passed details of the case to the HSE.

And of course bloggers are blogging about it. Some are laying blame. Finger-pointing or asking why. It is almost impossible to answer the why question. For a mother and father to decide that the best thing for their children was death? It is impossible to comprehend.

This post at The Public, the Private, and Everything In Between it struck me that it could almost have mentioned the Dunnes as well.

How private should private be, and who can ever possibly take it upon themselves to turn the private public? We are living in a precarious time, a time when both spheres are bleeding into each other and the line of demarcation is wavering. There is great potential here. Either we will become a society who ostracizes even more violently those who are different from us, suspect of every quiet student who doesn’t dress like the rest, suspicious of any husband or wife who doesn’t drag his or her child to every Saturday soccer game, or maybe, just maybe, we’ll become a society responsible to something greater than ourselves

After all some commenters seem to believe that the gardaí should have intervened in the Dunne case and removed the family. But all they really had to go on was second hand information. It may not even have been a formal report from the undertaker. Maybe she knew the garda and mentioned it to the gardaí unofficially. I don’t know. But if the social services had already been there that week. If the rest of the Dunne family believed there was no danger would it really have been acceptable to traumatise children and remove them from their parents based on no evidence? With the benefit of hindsight it certainly seems that they should have. But if you didn’t know the horrible results, isn’t it possible that maybe the parents were overly morbid and worried about the family dying in a road accident?

I do however believe that the HSE need to be open over the weekend. If they had made contact on the Saturday then possibly the family could have been saved. Then again, maybe not? Whatever the outcome of the various inquiries into this event I think that we should remember JL Pagano’s comments:

On last night’s edition I seem to recall the most telling evidence of all…three hearses carrying four coffins. This tells me we should let the family grieve, and if any pressure is to be applied anywhere, it’s to those responsible for setting up a public enquiry in a reasonable yet respectful time period so our debate can be a properly informed one.

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Of course bloggers are blogging about it, but I’m not going to. It’d be pointless.

Instead let us turn to a more light and frothy part of life. An antidote if you will. You know, like the story that Galway’s water is still pretty poisonous or the one about the UN workers killed in a bomb attack. Or possibly the one about US soldiers killing Iraqi police, by mistake.

Yeah, I lied about the light and frothy.

Still, don’t despair. Cause look via Human Under Construction it is a Cuteness Buffer:

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Following the trial of Wayne O’Donoghue, the papers today are full of coverage of the verdict. Cleared of murder, guilty of manslaughter. And from what I’ve read and heard that seems fair. If anything can be said to be fair about the death of 11 year old Robert Holohan.

There are never any winners in a murder case, but this court case was truly tragic. Wayne, a 21 year old student, was a friend of Robert’s. He has been described as almost one of the family.

All you can feel is sorrow for both families. The Holohan’s have lost their son. The O’Donoghue’s must live knowing that their son killed someone.

For the non-Irish readers, you probably won’t know anything about this case. One year ago Robert went missing. For days people searched, but in the end his body was found in a glen, near Inch, 12 miles from his home. Three days later was the funeral.

The whole country had learned through the heartfelt appeals by Robert’s parents, Mark and Majella, that their son feared the dark and, aware of that, a garda charged with preserving the scene asked Fr O’Donovan to pass on a message to the family if he thought it appropriate.

Fr O’Donovan recalled: “He said, ‘I was one of two gardaí who kept watch with Robert last night . . . I would like the parents to know that Robert wasn’t alone last night - I spoke to him all the time’; and then he concluded, ‘I just wish I had a blanket to wrap around him’.”

A day later Wayne made a statement to gardai telling how he had killed the boy.

Wayne O’Donoghue described to the two detectives how a row developed between him and Robert after he had refused to drive the youngster to McDonald’s for a chocolate milkshake. He said Robert threw pebbles at his car.

Wayne O’Donoghue was holding his friend with his left hand by the throat and was telling him to stop throwing stones. He could not say how tight or for how long he held him, but when he released his grip, Robert fell to the ground.

It is just so sad. To hear how friendly they were, and what a pointless death it was.

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In the modern world are women’s lives valued more than men’s?

I ask this because I have noticed that whenever an explosion kills people (be it terrorist related, or done by some country’s army) those giving out about it state that it was terrible because women and children were among the dead or injured. And while I agree that a bomb which kills women and children is terrible, it isn’t any more terrible than a bomb which kills men and children.

The phrase is meant to evoke a sense of the innocent being murdered, and while I am willing to state that the innocent suffer in bombings, surely men are just as likely to be innocent as women?

I don’t mean to say that the women who died deserved death, but neither do a lot of the men. There have been women suicide bombers, women were involved in the Russian school tragedy. Just because someone is female, that does not mean they are innocent, or that their deaths are worse then a man’s.

Of course the argument would be that women are less likely to be involved in terrorist activities. Or that they are the primary care-givers of the children. And while that may be the case, I feel that the phrase “women and children” gives the idea that all a woman can be is a victim, while at the same time suggests that any men among the dead deserved what they got.

Surely the fact that civilians were killed is enough for us to condemn many of these explosions and killings?

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