Signs
My journey home starts at 5, and I often tune in to Radio 4 to catch the main stories of the day in the 15 minutes or so it takes to get home.
By the time I pulled up outside today my eyes were moist, a lump in my throat, and I was looking forward to a big hug from Jane just to make everything all right again.
The crimes of Joseph Fritzl are so off-the-charts in terms of evil that it's difficult to hold the idea in your head all at once. For one brief moment I seemed to comprehend it fully, after some almost throw-away comment by a doctor who'd been treating the daughter and children. He said they need to wear special sunglasses to cope with the sunlight.
They'd never seen the sun. The hate and horror just rose inside me at that point, in a way that I've never felt before.
And then, another story, about a butcher found guilty of horrible negligence, causing an outbreak of the E Coli virus, and the death of a small boy. I heard the mother speak in measured but emotional tones about being powerless to stop the virus that ravaged and then killed her son.
Two horrendous stories, seemingly different but sharing a common thread. In the case of the butcher, there was a failure by the authorities to spot obvious patterns in the inspections they were making, and the inconsistent answers that the butcher was giving to questions. They didn't cause the outbreak, but they didn't stop it either. They didn't see the signs.
With Fritzl it beggars belief that no-one in the long years of his terror spotted something. Did the people who interacted with him, visited the house, not see any signs? Or did they choose to ignore them?
We're all guilty in our lives of living a blinkered existence, ignoring things just to make life a little easier. I think it's natural to be this way, as it's also wrong to live in constant suspicion of others. There's a balance that needs to be struck between being "nosy" and being negligent, but sometimes, I think, we need to take stock, take off the blinkers and actually think properly about the things going on around us.
With any luck, there are no more Fritzl's in this world; but there are dodgy butchers, hospitals disregarding basic standards of care, children slipping through the social worker net. They're all different levels of evil, some much worse than others, and we all need to keep our eyes open for them, and tell someone if we think something's wrong. If we do, maybe my journey home will be a bit less miserable!
By the time I pulled up outside today my eyes were moist, a lump in my throat, and I was looking forward to a big hug from Jane just to make everything all right again.
The crimes of Joseph Fritzl are so off-the-charts in terms of evil that it's difficult to hold the idea in your head all at once. For one brief moment I seemed to comprehend it fully, after some almost throw-away comment by a doctor who'd been treating the daughter and children. He said they need to wear special sunglasses to cope with the sunlight.
They'd never seen the sun. The hate and horror just rose inside me at that point, in a way that I've never felt before.
And then, another story, about a butcher found guilty of horrible negligence, causing an outbreak of the E Coli virus, and the death of a small boy. I heard the mother speak in measured but emotional tones about being powerless to stop the virus that ravaged and then killed her son.
Two horrendous stories, seemingly different but sharing a common thread. In the case of the butcher, there was a failure by the authorities to spot obvious patterns in the inspections they were making, and the inconsistent answers that the butcher was giving to questions. They didn't cause the outbreak, but they didn't stop it either. They didn't see the signs.
With Fritzl it beggars belief that no-one in the long years of his terror spotted something. Did the people who interacted with him, visited the house, not see any signs? Or did they choose to ignore them?
We're all guilty in our lives of living a blinkered existence, ignoring things just to make life a little easier. I think it's natural to be this way, as it's also wrong to live in constant suspicion of others. There's a balance that needs to be struck between being "nosy" and being negligent, but sometimes, I think, we need to take stock, take off the blinkers and actually think properly about the things going on around us.
With any luck, there are no more Fritzl's in this world; but there are dodgy butchers, hospitals disregarding basic standards of care, children slipping through the social worker net. They're all different levels of evil, some much worse than others, and we all need to keep our eyes open for them, and tell someone if we think something's wrong. If we do, maybe my journey home will be a bit less miserable!
Unfortunately this means Fritzl is a complete conundrum. I cannot work out what sane thought processes could have led him to commit these awful, awful acts.
In fact I don't really want to think about it too hard or I will get upset :(
They drain all the joy out of the world for everyone.
I think I need a hug now. :o(
I just finished speaking to a friend in Colorado, an ICU nurse of almost 20 years now. He is livid after burying the 29 year old daugther of a neighbor, a mother of two, turned away from his hospital with a broken ankle because they weren't accepting any more patients who didn't have insurance. It took her 3 weeks to find a doctor who would treat her; by the time he saw her she had clotting; the doctor did outpatient surgery and sent her home though she had major bruising and had trouble breathing. At 3AM her father called my friend because she wasn't breathing...a clot had gone to her lungs and killed her...
His is the one hospital in Colorado the uninsured are supposed to be able to go to, no matter what...
alan
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