For. The. Children.

It's probably been a couple of years since I posted on the topic I loosely call For. The. Children,  and I am prompted to do so by a post I just saw over at First Draft blog.

It's entitled There is No Prison Dark or Deep Enough/For the People Who Did This to Flint.  An excerpt:

In 20 years we will have a court case, maybe, and people will discuss if reparations are due, and we will say why no, of course not, we can’t afford that, probably some people are faking or exaggerating their symptoms to cash in, and we will forget that America poisoned babies in their bathwater and there is no repair for that, only punishment.

I want serial killer prison for Rick Snyder and everyone downward who touched one of those horrifying e-mails about let’s not tell anyone about the poison. I want Supermax, Unabomber, you’re-only-alive-because-beheading-is-messy prison for anyone who knew and did nothing. For anyone who saw and stayed silent. For anyone who let a mother pour water over her baby’s head thinking in perfect safety and, it turns out, doing irrevocable damage.

Poisoning babies in their baths. I want them seeing daylight one hour out of 24. I want us to keep Gitmo open just for these people.

xx

Where I Run: the Death of William Rihl

(photo credit here)

About 3 miles from my home, some 147 years ago last week, shots were fired in anger. Grown men were making war on one another. Two men were shot, one of whom was killed with a bullet in his brain, William Rihl.

Now, one man’s death didn’t amount to much amidst the carnage that characterized the American Civil War. But William’s life certainly mattered to him, and to his siblings, and to his mother and father, who had raised him, as would any parent, with hopes and dreams and plans for a happy life.

Rihl's death is memorialized with a monument as shown in the photo above.  You should click on the link to see some additional photos of the site and read the description of this small unit action.

Whenever I run by the monument, I try to remember William Rihl and the waste of how his life was cut short, ultimately, by politicians from both sides who found it easier to start a war than negotiate a peace....