Friday, October 13, 2006

The Lightning Round:
For The Children

Holy Mother of God, what are we doing to our offspring? Hug your kids a little closer tonight, kiss them a few extra times, and pray for those parents who have no business reproducing -- but do anyway.

HOME CONFINEMENT. A father in Jacksonville, Florida is charged with imprisoning his 9-year-old son by keeping him locked in his room and using cameras to watch his every move -- even in the bathroom.

From the Miami Herald:
"He was just wide-eyed, and so excited we were there," Jacksonville Sheriff's Lt. Annie Smith said. "We told him to put his shoes and socks on to go outside. He said, `Go outside?'"

The boy quickly ran around in his front yard where the swing set had stood unused. He turned on the lights of the police cars sent to rescue him and pinched himself in the arm.

"`Why are you pinching yourself?'" Smith asked him. "He said, `Just to make sure this is real. Days like this only come along once in a lifetime.'"
Investigators say the boy didn't go to school and had no friends.

He is now in foster care. The father, Randall Piercy, is in jail and claiming his inlaws are out to get them. He told WJXT-TV: "This is totally unfair. I'm a very, very, very loving father.

His wife Michelle claims the boy is hyperactive and the cameras were there for his protection.

From First Coast News:
"Maybe some things we were doing weren't right, were overprotective, certainly not abuse at all, no," she said.
Unfortunately, cluelessness is not a criminal offense.

KNUCKLEBALLS AND KNUCKLEHEADS. Youth baseball coach Mark Downs of Uniontown, Pennsylvania is going inside for one to six years after offering an 8-year-old player $25 to bean a 9-year-old autistic boy so he wouldn't be able to play.

From the Pittsburgh-Tribune Review:
The president of the Autism Society of Pittsburgh said a prison term is appropriate for a coach who showed a "win-at-all-costs" attitude.

"More appropriate would be for him to be subjected to the same pain and embarrassment that he arranged to be given to this autistic boy," said Daniel Torisky, who helped create the local chapter in 1968.
You read our minds, Mr. Torisky. We think the targeted player is more than entitled to a free throw at this pitiful excuse for a coach. For maxium impact, this pitch should aim low and outside.

BETTER OFF ORPHANED. Marcy Gant of Davenport, Iowa is charged with selling her 4-year-old son to pay off a wedding dress.

From WQAD-TV:
A friend of Gant's says Gant's ex set her up. ''He's mad because she backed outta the marriage."
If only the child could have backed out, too.

KIDS AREN'T UNBREAKABLE. In Pennsylvania, police say Chyrotia Graham started beating her child's father... with his 4-week-old son.

From the AP:
Graham said she "snapped" and began grabbing things and throwing them at Deangelo Troop, 20, not realizing she had picked up her 4-week-old son, Jarron Troop, telling police she held the child by his legs and swung him at his father. Police had said they believed the woman held the baby by the midsection when she hit the man.
The poor infant -- born on September 11, of all days -- has a fractured skull and bleeding in the brain.

The baby's father is shrugging it off:
"People are trying to make a big deal about it, but she did not do it on purpose. ... It was just a mistake," he said.
Sorta like your having kids in the first place, we gather.

ANGRY YOUNG MAN. Adam Gadahn, a.k.a. "Azzam the American," is now Adam the Indicted on counts of treason and aiding terrorists. Rebellion and angst of youth is normal, psychologists tell us, but this takes it.

We will probably never know the exact reason he abandoned his teenage heavy-metal fetish, choosing Muhammed over Megadeath and Al-Qaida over Anthrax. But the AP clues us in:
Gadahn's conversion came after he began attending the Islamic Center of Orange County, where he is believed to have come under the influence of two foreign-born Islamic radicals, Khalil Deek and Hisham Diab. The Los Angeles Times cited family members of Deek and Diab as saying they were disciples of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, who is now serving a life sentence for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
Gadahn should be the poster boy for Imams everywhere, especially those who don't realize radicalization could be festering right under their noses.

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