Do You Think Maybe It's Time...

Do you think maybe it's time...?

The two stories below were in today's news. I hope there's a wake-up call here: (1) "Chastity Turner, 9, was sitting on her grandmother's porch washing her dog when someone opened fire from a van in the 7400 block of South Stewart Avenue on the South Side.

Chastity was shot in the back or neck and later died at the University of Chicago's Comer Children's Hospital. Three other people, including her father, were wounded in the shooting.

A 31-year-old man and 17-year-old boy were taken to Stroger Hospital of Cook County with gunshot wounds to the back. The victim's grandmother, Tanya Turner, says that shootings happen constantly in the neighborhood.

"She told me this morning, she said, 'grandma, I'm going home, it's not safe around here,'" said Chastity's grandmother Tanya Turner. "I said, 'baby, it's not safe no place now.'" (http://cbs2chicago.com)

The grandmother was right, but some places are safer than others. Gangs are a scourge! The First Amendment includes "...the right of the people peaceably to assemble," which includes the word "peaceably." With the average lifespan of a gang member reaching something like 21 years old, maybe it's time to do away with them and take the cities back. If gang members see them as their family, maybe it's time to do something to get back the real concept of family - we should have real fathers and mothers instead of sperm donors and baby incubators. I get so #@!&*%# frustrated. That's a great goal in life - to flash finger symbols and kill someone on a perceived slight or whim. The movie "Logan's Run" offered a "perfect existence" until age 30, at which time people were "renewed" (executed). Very few of my former students would accept that, which in a way is almost exactly what gangs are offering (except many don't make it to 30).

(2) From the Columbus Dispatch: "A Columbus firefighter admits that he took his two dogs to the basement, tied them up and blasted them with a rifle so he and a girlfriend could vacation without paying to board the animals.

"I think it was the thrill of the kill for him. He has shown no remorse for this."

Firefighter David P. Santuomo, 43, pleaded guilty yesterday to two counts of animal cruelty and one count of possession of a criminal tool -- for taping a 2-liter plastic bottle onto the gun as a makeshift silencer.

He was convicted of 'needlessly killing ... a companion animal" on Dec. 3, according to the charges filed 10 minutes before the hearing in Municipal Court. One dog was shot six times in the head.

Santuomo, who did not give a statement in court, will spend 90 days in jail, pay $4,500 to cover the cost of his investigation and serve five years' probation, Judge Harland H. Hale ruled.

'This is a travesty and abhorrent behavior to those in this community who work to save the lives of animals,' said Jodi Buckman, executive director of the Capital Area Humane Society."

And here we are, policemen for the world and we can't even tend to our own gardens! Interestingly, I don't see guns as the problem but "people"! Who in his right mind would do something as above?

I don't have the answers, but I sure have lots of questions....

Later.