communication, condescending twatbags, ethics, language, law, Massachusetts, social media, true crime

When your virtue signaling “outrage” turns you into a stunningly moronic hypocrite… 🙄

Sorry… this is a rant. I am so sick of people who pop off without thinking about situations about which they know very little.

It’s a pleasantly cool, sunny, Saturday morning here in Germany, and Bill and I have a lunch date for later today. There are probably a whole bunch of inspirational or interesting topics I could write about this morning, but I’ve decided to comment, yet again, on something that happened on Facebook last night. It does have to do with current events, though, so that’s why I’m writing this post today.

If you’ve been paying attention to the news, you might have read or heard, yesterday, about the result of Lindsay Clancy’s triple murder trial. Clancy, a former labor and delivery nurse, and Massachusetts mother of three, killed her three young children in 2023. It’s been widely reported that Ms. Clancy had post-partum psychosis and bipolar disorder, and she was taking a vast array of drugs that might have influenced her decision to kill her children. After the children died, Ms. Clancy cut her wrists and then jumped from a second story window. She’s now a paraplegic, and confined to a wheelchair.

I confess that I have not been paying especially close attention to this case. I’ve read a few articles about it, and I know something about post-partum psychosis, bipolar disorder, and psychotropic drugs. These cases usually include other mitigating details that influence how the public sees them, and their outcomes. It appears that Lindsay Clancy’s case is one of those.

Clancy’s story has been very polarizing, in part because American women are fighting to retain their basic human rights, and American men are “outraged” about women having the “right” to kill their children. 🙄 A lot of it has to do with conservative men feeling like women literally get away with murder (ie. choosing abortion)– while they are always on the hook (ie. paying child support).

So, last night, I happened to see a post by KPRC2 Click2Houston, an NBC affiliate out of Houston, Texas. I read through the usual outraged and offended comments from the peanut gallery. Since this was a Texas outlet, it didn’t surprise me that most people who commented on that post are very angry that eleven out of twelve jurors voted to acquit Lindsay Clancy.

The trial ended in a mistrial, because one man serving on the jury refused to side with the majority. It’s been reported that the man stated that he had reasonable doubt regarding Clancy’s guilt, but he could not bring himself to vote to acquit her. The judge declined to remove the juror from the case, so it’s likely that Clancy will have to be retried.

Although I disagree with those who wholeheartedly believe Clancy is a cold, vicious, murderer, I didn’t bother to opine. I figured it would be a waste of time. But then I saw a comment from a man named Bobby:

i hope that every mother that supports this woman that unalived her kids has their kids unalived. Then the killer goes free. Lets see if they will support their kids killer.

🫪

WHAT?!

I mean… just reading that comment, one already knows that Bobby isn’t a mental giant. But then I considered what he was actually saying in those words. And before I knew it, I was responding thusly:

What an utterly nonsensical comment.

Not surprisingly, Bobby apparently didn’t reread what he wrote and consider why I commented the way I did. He wrote this:

idgaf. i dont see how any parent can condone a mother unaliving her kids. Any mother that supports that. Doesn’t deserve to be a parent.

I don’t think anyone “condones” what Clancy did. It’s just that some of us understand that mental illness is a real thing that can spiral out of control, especially when there are multiple psychiatric drugs and healthcare providers involved, as there reportedly were in this case. Moreover, most of us weren’t in the courtroom, and didn’t see or hear the testimony. It’s really something when eleven people decide to acquit in a tragic case like this, even in “liberal” Massachusetts.

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, Andrea Yates was tried and convicted in Texas for murdering her five children. And a few years later, the conviction was overturned and she was deemed “not guilty by reason of insanity”. Why? Because, just as it is in Clancy’s case, there was ample evidence that Yates repeatedly tried to get help, and she legitimately suffered from post-partum psychosis. She’s spent the last twenty years in a psychiatric hospital. Like Clancy, Yates was also a nurse.

But anyway, I left Bobby a parting shot, because what he wrote seriously doesn’t compute:

If you are so outraged about those children being killed, why would you wish the same fate for other children? That makes no sense to me.

Yeah… Naturally, he declined to respond, which is probably a good thing for him. As you can see, I have lot to “say” about it.

The more I thought about what Bobby posted, and considered the actual situation he posted about, I realized that his off the cuff, ill considered comment pretty much illustrates why Clancy might have been found “not guilty” by the jurors.

Consider this. Bobby, who no doubt thinks his comment was in support of the innocent children in this case, was actually advocating for more children to be killed. Why did he do that? Because of his supposed “outrage” that a group of people– who were actually in the courtroom, listening to the proceedings— dared to come to a different conclusion than he did.

Instead of empathizing with the potentially killed children of parents who “condone murder”– living, sentient, innocent beings that they are– Bobby focused his outrage at any parent who doesn’t want to send Clancy to prison for life. He popped off without consideration. He treated those hypothetical children as objects to be used as punishment for “thought crimes”.

He posted a comment that probably felt right at the time, but when you actually think about the words, convey something very disturbing. It’s pretty clear to me that Bobby doesn’t actually care about children. My guess is that, in fact, he doesn’t like women.

Looking at Bobby’s profile, I see that he lives in Houston, but comes from Morgan City, Louisiana. He’s single. He’s publicly posted about the recently dead celebrities, like Tim Curry, Dolly Parton, and Hayden Panetierre. He has a goofy grin, as he poses, seatbelted, in a vehicle. He’s probably “nice” if you meet him offline.

Like so many other members of the American public, he’s indignant about Lindsay Clancy potentially “getting away with” killing her children. It evidently doesn’t matter to him that Clancy had sought help from multiple healthcare providers. He apparently doesn’t realize that mental illness distorts people’s thinking and can cause them to take drastic actions they would not ordinarily take.

Based on what Bobby wrote, he just thinks Lindsay Clancy is a monster who needs to be locked up. Forget about all of the evidence showing that she tried to be responsible, and was so distraught over her actions that she violently attempted suicide. She will never recover fully from what she did on January 24, 2023.

None of that matters to Bobby. To Bobby, Lindsay is the lowest form of life… until the next outrageous case comes along, and he forgets all about her, and what she’s done. 🙄

Bobby is so “offended” by Lindsay’s actions, and feels such a strong need to virtue signal to the rest of us, that he actually called for more children to be killed! Why? Because some people who are parents don’t agree with Bobby’s clearly “correct” take on things. And as you can see, Bobby is a legal and medical genius. 🙄

I’ll bet he really only meant the mothers who disagree with him, too. There have been many cases of men killing their children, but they rarely get the same level of press coverage as women do. Most people just expect women to be “gentler”, I guess. 😏

So… let’s review…

* Bobby thinks Lindsay Clancy is a cold-blooded killer who deserves, at the very least, to be “put away” forever.

* He is likely in favor of capital punishment and would be all for it in this case.

* He is OUTRAGED that other adults… people who can probably write coherent sentences… don’t agree with his assessment.

* He thinks that people who don’t think Lindsay ought to rot in prison “condone” murdering children.

* He believes that those who “condone” murdering children should not be parents,

* Bobby says that those who “condone” murdering children should also experience the extreme grief of having their own children “unalived”, as he put it, and the killer “going free” (which Clancy has not). 🤬

* Bobby ignores the fact that the children whom he thinks should be “unalived” as retribution for their parent’s (mother’s) disagreement with him, also have another parent, friends, and loved ones who might not share the same opinion as the person who has so upset Bobby with theirs.

Have I got this right? Does this make sense to any of my readers?

And I wonder what, exactly, Bobby thinks would be the end result of such an idea? More people outraged. More people grieving. More violence. More people on trial and potentially incarcerated. More people getting a dopamine or serotonin spike from posting about it on Facebook… and in a few months, those same outraged people will have forgotten all about this case. They will have already moved on to the next rage baiting headline that they’ve never bothered to read beyond. 😏

Except I don’t find this kind of stupidity very funny. Too many people think like this, and it’s destroying our country.

If I had engaged Bobby further, I might point out to him that his response actually illustrates why Clancy’s case wasn’t a “slam dunk”. He, himself, spouted off crazy nonsense in the heat of the moment. It came off as utter bullshit. Someone called him out on it. He doubled down. Then, after a moment of reflection, he backed off and crawled back under his rock.

I might also point out that Bobby has demonstrated why it’s not just us “women” who are emotional reactors… because I’ve seen a lot of creepy conservative types claiming that because of Lindsay Clancy, women shouldn’t be allowed to vote. 🤬 But obviously, there are some unstable, moronic, irrational and impulsive guys out there, too. Being logical and having a clear state of mind is not dependent on whether or not a person has a penis.

People make mistakes. Sometimes, those mistakes are true whoppers. I’m not saying Lindsay Clancy shouldn’t face consequences for her actions, but we have to temper justice with mercy, and we have to consider the actual facts, rather than simply surrendering to emotion and outrage. People need to read beyond the headlines and listen beyond sound bytes before they spout off their bullshit. No matter what, more violence– especially toward innocent children– is not the answer to making things right again.

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book reviews, healthcare

A review of Diary of a Dying Girl: Adapted from Salt in My Soul, by Mallory Smith…

It’s Friday again, and Bill has taken the day off, because on Monday, which is Labor Day, he has to fly to Budapest. He’ll be there for about ten days. That means there will probably be a lot of music production going on in my “studio”.

Today, I’m going to focus on the book I just finished this morning. It’s taken me several weeks to finish this book, Diary of a Dying Girl: Adapted from Salt in My Soul, by the late Mallory Smith. I am eager to review this book and move on to the next one waiting to be read. That doesn’t mean I don’t think the book was terrible. On the contrary, Mallory Smith was an incredible person, and her story is well worth reading. But I have a huge pile of books to read, and not enough energy to read them all!

Who was Mallory Smith and why has she written books… and made a documentary?

On August 20, 2023, I reviewed Mallory Smith’s memoir, Salt in My Soul: An Unfinished Life. That book, published in March 2019, is Mallory’s account of her life with cystic fibrosis (CF). After Mallory’s death on November 15, 2017, mother, Diane Shader Smith, edited and published Mallory’s diary. The book was also made into a documentary by the same name, which was produced in 2022.

I don’t remember exactly how I found Mallory’s first book, Salt in My Soul, but I do remember reading it a few years ago. I was struck by how extraordinary Mallory was, and how she managed to pack so much into her 25 years of living. I’ve read other books by people who have had cystic fibrosis, and they almost always seem kind of like amazing people to me. But what set Mallory apart is that she also seemed very “normal”, to me. She drank alcohol, enjoyed sex, liked surfing, and although, she was very smart and motivated, she was not a saint.

So, when the book Diary of a Dying Girl was published in May 2024, I decided to download it. I just now got around to reading this second book, which her mother, Diane, also adapted from Mallory Smith’s diaries. Looking at my 2023 review and reflecting on the book I just finished reading this morning, I realize that these two books are very similar, but not quite identical. In fact, if this review is interesting to you, I would recommend reading my earlier review of Salt In My Soul to get even more information about Mallory Smith’s story.

What makes Diary of a Dying Girl different from Salt in My Soul?

From what I can tell, Diary of a Dying Girl is a version of Mallory Smith’s story that has been adapted for teenagers. Looking at Amazon’s sales pages for these two books, I see this:

Salt in My Soul
Diary of a Dying Girl

Diary of a Dying Girl is a bit longer, and includes photos that I don’t remember seeing in Salt in My Soul. But I also remember stories I read in Salt in My Soul that I don’t remember reading in Diary of a Dying Girl. For instance, before I reviewed Salt in My Soul, I posted a blog entry about an anecdote from that book about how Mallory was mistaken for a coke fiend because she had a bloody nose. I could be wrong, but I think that story was omitted from Diary of a Dying Girl.

Both books spawned from Mallory Smith’s diaries, that she kept from her high school years until her death. Diary of a Young Girl is a more curated book that includes diary passages that are more about coming of age. There are many passages that overlap Salt in My Soul, but there are less mentions of adult topics, and things Mallory did that would not be appropriate for teens to read about. For example, although she mentions kissing, drinking alcohol, and having sex with her boyfriend, the mentions are brief and not graphically described.

Both books outline how difficult it is, on so many levels, to live with cystic fibrosis. I got the sense that Mallory’s family was well off financially, but they still had to battle health insurance denials, catch 22 situations, and hospital bureaucrats, as well as the conflicting opinions of the army of physicians caring to Mallory. She had to take dozens of medications every day, and endure physical therapies designed to keep her lungs clear of the thick mucus CF causes.

Salt in My Soul has a discussion question section at the end for book clubs. I did not see that in Diary of a Dying Girl.

Progress has been made…

Mallory Smith was born in 1992, and a lot of progress has been made since then. Medical science has made it possible for doctors to identify the gene that causes CF. There are new drugs, treatment protocols, and surgeries, such as lung transplants, that can be done. Mallory Smith received a double lung transplant, and she also had “Phage Therapy” treatment, which is cutting edge approach that uses certain viruses that specifically target antibiotic resistant bacteria. Mallory’s doctors had to get this treatment from Japan, as it was not widely available in the United States in 2017.

At this writing, Phage Therapy is still not fully approved by the Food and Drug Administration ora commercially licensed treatment for widespread use in the United States. It is available for eligible patients for experimental or compassionate purposes. Unfortunately, although Mallory received the very promising Phage Therapy, it was too late for her.

I was born in 1972, and back then, most children with cystic fibrosis died before they became adults. In fact, the first book I read about cystic fibrosis was Alex: The Life of a Child, by the late Frank Deford. It is an excellent book, but Deford’s daughter, Alexandra, died in January 1980, when she was just eight years old. Today, many children with CF live well into adulthood. Some make it to middle age and beyond.

In 2008 or so, I read a book called The Power of Two, by Isabel Byrnes Stenzel and Anabel Stenzel, twin sisters who lived with CF. Both twins, who were born in 1972, have died. Anabel died at age 41 in 2012. Isabel died in 2023, after having had a lung transplant in 2004. Both sisters, like Mallory Smith, graduated from Stanford University. Mallory wrote that she chose Stanford, not just for its academic excellence, but because its hospital has CF specialists available. That is probably also why the Stenzel twins chose Stanford.

Luckily, they were all academically qualified to be admitted to that highly selective school. I remember being astonished that these twin sisters, who commented in The Power of Two that most of their friends with CF died before their high school graduations, were still living in 2008. But today, it’s less surprising to see CF patients live to middle age or beyond.

Overall

Even though I had already read Salt in My Soul, and that book is very similar to Diary of a Dying Girl, I’m not sorry I read the teen focused version of Mallory Smith’s story. It had been long enough, and I have killed enough brain cells, that I had forgotten much about what I read in Salt in My Soul. Mallory’s story is very compelling and inspirational, and well worth reading more than once.

I do wish the publishers had made it clear that this book is so similar to Salt in My Soul. I don’t think they should have given the teen focused version a completely different title, although obviously they did that to sell more copies. It would have been more honest, in my opinion, to keep the title and make it clear that this is an adapted book. I don’t think it’s different enough from Salt in My Soul to warrant a different title.

However… since I have now read both versions, I’m in a position to offer an opinion about which one you should choose. If you have a teen in your life who is interested in true stories or is somehow affected by CF, Diary of a Dying Girl might be the better choice. If you’re an adult and you don’t mind more graphic accounts, then you might prefer Salt in My Soul. Personally, if I had a teen, I would probably encourage them to read Salt in My Soul, especially if they were older.

Below are a few passages from Diary of a Dying Girl that spoke to me:

And here is a trailer from Mallory Smith’s documentary, Salt In My Soul:

I’ve seen this documentary and it’s definitely worthy viewing…
Here’s a TED Talk by Mallory’s mother, Diane. I see I included the quote that Mallory reads in the intro to this talk.

Buy Diary of a Dying Girl from Amazon.com.

As an Amazon Associate, I get a small commission from Amazon on sales made through my site.

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Illustration of a donkey and dog behind cracked glass
Georgia, law, Missouri, Police, tragedies, true crime

Some cops really are cruel… 🤬

AI image, obviously…

Good morning, everybody. It’s Thursday, and that means it’s vacuum day in the “knotty Haus”. I will soon haul out the cordless Dyson and make a pass through the house in a futile attempt to clean up Noyzi’s dog hair. But, before I do that, I would like to take the time to address a couple of distressing cop related events I learned about this week.

The first event involves an adorable baby donkey named HeeHaw, who lived in a pasture at Elsberry Riding and Farm in Rockmart, Georgia. This is a business owned by Hannah Israel, offering pony rides, trail rides, and petting zoos. It is private property.

On Sunday, August 30th, at approximately 12:45 AM in Polk County, police officers from the Cedarville Police Department were searching for a missing 12 year old girl. For some reason, they decided to enter HeeHaw’s pasture without letting Israel know. The miniature donkey, who had been bottle raised and even had some house skills, approached the officers.

One of the cops, apparently “terrified for his life” 🙄, decided to try to use his Taser on HeeHaw. When that didn’t work, another officer shot the donkey dead.

In an incident report, K-9 Officer Trenton Garner (who has abysmal writing skills, by the way 🙄) wrote that he had been asked to assist in using bloodhounds to track the missing 12 year old girl, who had been gone for about two hours. The bloodhounds apparently went through a pasture on Israel’s property. Horses that were in the pasture spooked and backed away, but baby HeeHaw allegedly “charged” and “brayed”. And that’s how Garner justifies killing an innocent donkey in his own habitat… simply doing what donkeys do.

Hannah Israel posted about this incident on Facebook. People are pretty outraged. I dare say that donkey is getting a lot more support than humans who have been shot by ICE have gotten.

I am among the outraged, mainly because I was raised around equines and I love them very much. In my middle age, I have especially come to adore donkeys.

But I’m also disgusted by animal cruelty and the sheer stupidity of these cops. I don’t know anything about Rockmart, Georgia, but it sounds like a fairly rural area. It seems like police officers would be taught about livestock– particularly donkeys– who are known to be territorial and protective of their spaces.

Furthermore, these cops are K-9 handlers, so you would think they’d know something about animals… and about trespassing on PRIVATE PROPERTY, where they have no official business. It seems to me that someone could have let Israel know that they needed to cross her pasture and give her a chance to secure her livestock before the cops went traipsing across her land! Would those cops have cavalierly gone into the pasture if a bull was living there? I would sure hope they’d be smarter than that.

What is even more frightening is that these cops were tracking a 12 year old child, but they discharged a weapon in the dark, while they were frightened of a mini donkey. It just seems like really sloppy work on their part. Yes, it was late at night, and they were eager to find the child… but 12 year olds, especially in rural areas, are usually able to survive on their own for a couple of hours. When I was 12, I was riding my bike back and forth to the barn where my horse was boarded. I don’t see why the cops couldn’t have taken a minute to let Hannah Israel know they needed access to her land before they trespassed.

A year ago, I wrote a blog post about an 11 year old boy who was running around a Houston neighborhood at night, ding-dong-ditching people. There weren’t any bloodhounds tracking him when he was shot and killed by the man he and his relative were harassing. Would there be a bunch of bloodhounds tracking the 12 year old if she’d been male?

Not surprisingly, Israel has lawyered up, and there was a GoFundMe started to help defray the costs. People are so pissed off about this donkey being killed that the donation goal was quickly reached and exceeded by many thousands of dollars.

Israel later stated that she would be pausing donations, because her lawyer, Christopher McCormick, will not be using the money. Israel is also getting some hate from some people, including some alleged defamation. McCormick has stated that he will pursue legal relief against those who defame his client.

As a horse lover, I am absolutely outraged by this case. I know that in Hannah Israel’s shoes, I would be devastated, shocked, and wracked with grief and guilt. I hope she prevails in her lawsuit and, at the very least, these stupid cops get trained on how to deal with livestock… if they aren’t FIRED. On the positive side, at least the 12 year old girl was found safe.

According to Garner’s report, HeeHaw was valued at $6000, but I’m sure to Hannah Israel, he was priceless. My heart goes out to her. She did nothing wrong. Neither did her sweet baby donkey. I pray she gets the justice she deserves.

***

The next case of cruelty by cop comes out of Dexter, Missouri. Former K-9 Officer Derrick A. Durall will be spending 15 days in jail and serving two years probation due to animal cruelty. As angry as I was to read about HeeHaw’s case, I was even more disgusted to read about what happened to K-9 Apollo and K-9 Knox, two dogs who were starved and neglected by Durall. Both dogs were also severely dehydrated.

According to the link, K-9 Apollo was an active duty police dog for the Dexter Police Department. K-9 Knox is a retired police dog for the same police department.

Apollo was found dead in his kennel on February 18, 2024. A veterinary exam indicated that Apollo died of pneumonia, caused by severe malnutrition. He had lost about 25 pounds since his previous veterinary exam, as well as a lot of muscle mass. The vet said that the wasting wasn’t caused by pneumonia, but that pneumonia common in malnourished animals, and that was likely what caused Apollo’s premature death.

Knox, who was kennelled separately from Apollo, survived the abuse, but was in terrible health, with worn teeth, and a severe case of heartworms. Knox had lost about ten pounds since his previous veterinary exam. Untreated heartworms lead to a very unpleasant death for dogs.

Durall was reportedly a K-9 handler for Dexter Police Department from December 2020. The abuse happened between September 2023 and February 2024. I would assume that Durall must have liked animals before this happened; why else would he be a K-9 handler? Maybe he just gets off on hurting other creatures.

I don’t know what caused Durall to neglect the dogs to the extent that he did, nor can I even guess why Apollo’s condition wasn’t noticed by other officers. I just feel so sorry for those dogs, who risked their lives for their handler. Durall betrayed them on every level, and certainly deserves much more than fifteen days in Dunklin County Jail, two years’ probation, and $8900 restitution to the police department for the death of Apollo.

If a civilian had killed either of those dogs, they’d likely get a lot more than 15 days in jail. I know that the actual punishment for that crime varies, depending on the jurisdiction, but in most places, killing a police dog usually ends with someone spending at least one year in jail, full restitution, and heavy fines.

I did read that initially, Durall was to get a year behind bars, but for some reason, the judge passed down a much more lenient sentence. He did get a one year sentence, with all but fifteen days suspended. 🙄

What an asshole. I hope Apollo haunts him in his dreams every night.

Well, that about does it for today’s rant. I’m sure there might be some folks out there– probably cops themselves– reading this post. I know this, because I regularly get hits from conservative areas of the United States on a post I wrote about police brutality. I’m pretty sure that post gets discussed on Reddit, although only one person has had the nerve to try to shame me for my opinions.

I was raised to respect law enforcement, and until pretty recently, I generally did. But the more I see of the way cops in the United States behave, the more I think they are very poorly trained, and have very low respect toward the public, whose taxes pay their salaries. I’ve seen so many instances of cops getting violent at the slightest provocation, being disrespectful, and using language that would make a sailor blush. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised that some cops are cruel to animals, too.

I don’t see police behaving the same way here in Germany. I know there are reasons for that– fewer guns in public hands, less drug abuse, higher pay, and more training, for instance. But maybe that’s too much to hope for in the United States, especially during the Trump regime. 🤔

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language, law, rants, social media

Abortion is not the same as infanticide…

Careful… this is a profane rant.

Welcome to Wednesday, y’all. I just worked up quite a sweat putting clean sheets on the bed. Today, we washed the sheets and both duvet covers, since it’s been slightly more than a week since the last laundry session.

Last Monday, we got a new mattress topper, so I did the sheets a couple of days early. Consequently, the bedding definitely needed washing today, as did the duvet covers, which were loaded with Charlie’s shedded hair. We have a king sized bed, so it’s work to get the bedding straight. We’re also at the dead end of summer, and I’m menopausal, and itchy from bug bites. 🤨

Now, my regular Wednesday housewife chore is done… and I’m ready to write today’s blog post. And I’m going to get right down to business.

You might be wondering about today’s post title. It’s inspired by a very brief but obnoxious interaction I had with a total creep on Facebook last night.

I was on a page called Friendly Atheist, which had posted this:

Naturally, there were many disgusting comments from angry, creepy, Christofascist MEN, who begged to differ…

Because I was feeling a little saucy, I responded to a few of them. One guy wrote a truly horrible comment about how all women are “bitches” and “whores”, and we need to keep our legs closed. The guy also made a comment about how we all let “dicks” into our bodies. 🙄

To that guy, I wrote “Spoken like a man who can’t get laid to save his life!” 🤣

I come to that conclusion because he’s so clearly full of rage. He obviously hates women. And he likely hates women because they regularly deny him access to their bodies, won’t marry him, won’t have a baby with him… Or, maybe one or two did, and he turned out to be a fucking creep, so he got dumped. Now he has to pay child support, and is bitter about that, even though he owes his own life to a woman. 🙄

Then I came across a post from a dude named Alex, who wrote that women need to “close their legs.” I am so tired of these gross guys making brain dead comments like that, especially since they’re usually the same people who demand or beg for sex with women. So I wrote this:

“Shut up. If we want any more shit out of you, we’ll squeeze your head.”

Alex– obviously pleased that someone engaged him– came back like a tough guy. 🤣 He wrote something along the lines of this:

“Nah, Jenny, I’m gonna keep on talking. Because we’re talking about infanticide…”

I’ll admit, that’s when I stopped reading Alex’s bullshit. Because if we’re discussing abortion, there is NO infanticide happening. And if a person is so uneducated that they don’t know what an infant is, they are obviously too stupid for me to waste my time on a discussion with them. There’s definitely no “schooling” going on for me in a discussion with Alex of “Incelville”…

My response to Alex was something like this:

There is no “infanticide” happening in an abortion. Infants are already born babies, shithead. 🙄

And then I turned off notifications for that post, because I didn’t want to spend the rest of the evening being tagged by Alex and his angry, sexually frustrated, desperate, and very ignorant brethren.

According to the child development Web site, Zero to Three:

An infant is not “pre-born”, so the abortion conversation has nothing to do with “infanticide”.

What is infanticide?

Merriam-Webster defines infanticide as the killing of an infant. And an infant, as I’ve indicated above, is a baby that has already been born. Those who have abortions are NOT committing infanticide. In fact, most abortions happen within the first trimester of a pregnancy, when the potential infant is actually still an embryo.

Generally, the embryo becomes a fetus at week 9 or 10 of a pregnancy. Most pregnancies last for about 40 weeks. At 40 weeks, if a baby is born, then you have an infant… and potential victim of infanticide.

Infanticide is a specific term involving the deliberate killing of an infant. There are historical and cultural reasons why infanticide happens. According to the BBC article I just linked, infanticide is more likely to happen in cultures where there is an anti-girl bias.

Historically, there have been many instances of infanticide in China and India, where families prefer males as the first born children. Female babies are considered “worth less”, because traditionally, males are considered more likely to be better wage earners.

In some cultures, female babies are more likely to be killed because they were born into families that either can’t afford or don’t wish to pay dowries to future suitors. Or the family is concerned about what will happen when they reach old age, and need a son to take care of them, financially.

Of course, in 2026, there are real problems connected with the mindset that female babies are worth less.

For example, in 1979, China instituted the “one child policy”, because of concerns regarding the size of its population. Because the culture valued first born males over females, there was a problem with female infanticides and abortions. Now, China has roughly 30 to 35 MILLION more men than women. There are now a lot of lonely men in China, and people are now being encouraged to have more babies.

Infanticide and neonaticide (killing a baby within 24 hours of birth) also happen because the mother is suffering from a mental illness. For some women, pregnancy and childbirth cause severe mental and physical health problems.

I recently wrote about the case involving Texas mother and former nurse, Andrea Yates, who, on June 20, 2001, murdered all five of her children because of post-partum psychosis. She believed her children were doomed to go to Hell. Her youngest child, baby Mary, was six months old, while the eldest child was seven year old Noah. There were many warning signs that occurred before Andrea’s tragic actions occurred. They were dismissed by her Andrea’s husband, Rusty, who was very religious.

Today, Massachusetts mother and nurse, Lindsay Clancy, is in the news, because on January 23, 2023, she killed her three children, who ranged in age from 5 years old to 8 months. Clancy also tried to commit suicide by cutting her wrists and jumping from a second story window. Lindsay Clancy is now paralyzed from the waist down. She’s been on trial for the murders since July 20, 2026, and just yesterday, it was announced that the jury was unable to come to a unanimous verdict regarding her case.

Like Yates before her, Clancy presumably suffered from post-partum psychosis. Yates had her murder conviction overturned in Texas because she was deemed insane at the time of the crimes, due to her psychiatric condition. I’ve noticed that many people like the aforementioned Alex– people who can’t define what an infant is– believe that Clancy should rot in prison because she had the tragic misfortune of being seriously mentally ill due to pregnancy and childbirth. 🤬

Abortion and infanticide are NOT the same thing.

Obviously, I’ve just scratched the surface on the subject of infanticide. Actual infanticide is something that typically happens for cultural reasons. It’s got nothing to do with abortion, which simply refers to the termination of a pregnancy before childbirth. Technically, even miscarriages are considered “spontaneous abortions”. Abortion is not a “dirty word”.

Now… “filicide” is another term that perhaps Alex and his ilk should be studying. Filicide is also the intentional killing of a baby under one year of age. However, it refers to killing by either or both parents, rather than the mother. Filicides are rare. I saw a couple of articles that quote that about 500 babies die from filicide in the United States per year, and the deaths encompass a number of different motives. Studies show that either sex is equally likely to commit filicide, with fathers more likely to kill their older children.

Lots of different circumstances can lead to filicide.

In fact, men are, in general, more violent than women are, and they commit more violent crimes more often than women do. So I’m not sure why all of these MEN are suddenly on a moral high horse about abortion, which doesn’t involve killing sentient, conscious, already born human beings.

Again, most abortions happen well before the pregnancy has advanced far beyond the first trimester. In many cases, abortions can be done by simply taking medication in pill form that causes miscarriage. If people would simply trust women to make their own decisions and stop trying to interfere in their personal business, the more gruesome versions of later term abortions would be even rarer than they actually are.

I am so sick of the stupidity and total ignorance of people like Alex…

And I’m so tired of encountering them on social media. I’m sick of their abusive, revolting comments, which are almost always steeped in dipshittery. I’m ever so weary of their condescending, moronic, chastising tones, especially as they ignore MEN’S roles in causing unintentional pregnancies. And I am so FUCKING tired of hateful men covering up their resentment of having to pay child support to women THEY GOT PREGNANT, because they refused to use a condom, ejaculated carelessly, and/or demanded sex after they paid for dinner and a movie! 🤬

I don’t know a single female who has NOT been repeatedly pressured by men to “open their legs” for them. It’s almost always MEN who want casual sex. So, Alex and his misogynistic, ignorant, incel homies can just STFU. Seriously… if we want any more shit out of them, we’ll squeeze their heads… I’m going to continue to respond to guys like Alex with contempt and derision, because that is exactly what they deserve.

One more thing… I’m glad to see there are guys like Tennessee Brando out there. Tennessee Brando is also sick of the stupidity of men– especially the young ones, who think women will be more attracted to them if they don’t shower before dates, and drink their own urine! 😳

Guys, if you want to get laid, proper hygiene is a MUST… (unless you’re a Duggar, but that’s a topic for another post, on another day…)

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Iced drink beside a fan and chair as bees fly through an autumn garden
blog news, complaints, silliness

It’s already September!

I probably should have made that drink a beer in the AI photo…

Just like that, the summer is pretty much over… It seemed to fly by this year. I do enjoy the autumn months, for the cooler temperatures, crisp evenings potentially spent by the fire, and beautiful fall colors. I also love autumn, because it means I can close the bedroom window, and I won’t be eaten alive by mosquitoes!

I have bites all over me. Bill only has a couple, even though he sleeps by the window, but I get chewed on every year by those vicious, bloodsucking pests, all of whom are females looking for blood meals for their eggs. Male mosquitoes eat nectar.

Every year, during mosquito season, I also worry that it’s some other pest that causes these bites. But they always go away once I close the window. And again, if it was something else, wouldn’t Bill also be eaten? I have always been sensitive to bites. Supposedly, some people just are. I also drink beer, wear dark colors, and am on the large side, which AI tells me makes me more “attractive”. 🙄

The temperature is definitely dropping, though. Bill has to fly to Hungary next week. While he’s gone, I have a feeling air conditioning season will be over. Usually, during the first week or so of September in Germany, the weather takes a quick and noticeable shift toward the chillier side. I’m here for it. I don’t look forward to the depressing weather, but I do look forward to stopping the itching, welts, and gaping wounds in my skin.

Maybe I should order this shirt… 🤔

I didn’t mean to write about mosquitoes today, especially since yesterday’s post was a parody about Trump’s farts. But I’m itching right now, and kind of irritable. I often write about things that “bug” me (see what I did there?). The mosquitoes are definitely bugging me right now. What’s more, we’ve actually had a recent breakout of malaria in the Frankfurt region recently. It came from the airport, and two people have died. Mosquitoes transmit malaria.

By the way, I didn’t realize that in Britain, “trump” is another word for “fart”. How appropriate! I learned that yesterday, while writing my song parody.

I did write a post for my travel blog. It was about how some guy decided to stop in the middle of the road to make sure I cleaned up Noyzi’s pile of shit. I was pretty annoyed by it, so I searched Google to see if I was the only one. I ended up having a hilarious chat with AI. 😳

Yesterday, I never got around to playing guitar or banjo, so I will do that today, before I walk the dogs. Don’t know if there will be any other music made. I like to give my new parodies a chance to be discovered before I make new videos, unless something is demanding to be written.

Bill is seemingly coming down with a cold, which I hope he doesn’t pass to me. But if I do get sick, at least I can recover in my own bed, instead of having to fly to a cheap hotel in Budapest. He’ll be gone for about nine days. It will be lonely… but at least when I’m alone, I can get some things done. One thing I’d like to do is finish my latest book, so I can review it and move on to the next one. Or maybe I might watch one of the many movies I’ve got waiting.

The possibilities are endless…

I thought about going with Bill, but the area where he’s staying isn’t especially tourist friendly. And I don’t necessarily want to hang out in a cheap hotel for nine days. I like Budapest, but it’s more fun when I can be with Bill. On the other hand, I did enjoy last year’s visit, which was a little bit shorter.

This morning, I also spent some time making a new playlist. It’s called September… October… November…, and it features songs with those months mentioned in the title, or other fall inspired themes. So far, it’s turned out to be a nice mix of eclectic tunes, but I really had no idea how many versions of “Autumn Leaves” are in my music library. It’s truly mind blowing.

Well… I think I’ll log off and practice music. My morning chores are done, and I’ve got other stuff that needs attention. So, I hope you enjoy this first day of September. Maybe this will be a very exciting month for all of the best reasons. 😉

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