Category: Timothy McVeigh

Even Tamerlan Deserves a Proper Burial

Is anyone other than me disturbed that directors of three cemeteries in Massachusetts have refused to bury Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev?  In light of the fact that the United States calls itself a Christian nation, is there something askew here?

True, the now-deceased suspect is accused of doing something heinous, something he had no right to do. But, as doctors are obligated to treat people whose actions they abhor, aren’t cemetery and funeral home directors obliged to do the same? In the end, isn’t it supposed to be God that judges, and not humans?

Peter Stefan, owner of the Graham, Putnam and Mahoney Funeral Home in Massachusetts, says the refusal of cemeteries to bury the young man is wrong.

“We buried (Lee Harvey)Oswald, we buried (Timothy) McVeigh, and (Jeffrey)Dahmer. Somebody buried them,” he said. “We saw the hearse. Who was driving? It wasn’t Mickey Mouse!” (http://www.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_c2#/video/crime/2013/05/05/nr-boston-funeral-director-responds-to-criticism.cnn)

The CNN report said that funeral directors were afraid of backlash from the public should they bury the dead suspect. Was there backlash when McVeigh and others Stefan mentioned were buried? If so, it doesn’t seem to have made the news.

How is it that a Christian nation can so easily bypass and ignore the lessons taught by Jesus. In  the 25th  chapter of  Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says to his disciples that “inasmuch as you have done …for ‘the least of these.’ you have done it to me.”  God sending Jesus here was supposed to teach us humans that there is such a thing called grace, and as we receive it, we should also give it.

Brennan Manning, in his book,  The Ragamuffin Gospel, writes that “we accept grace in theory but deny it in practice. Living by grace rather than law leads us out of the house of fear into the house of love.” This must sound like romantic dribble to those who support the cemetery directors’ refusal to bury Tsarnaev, but to one who loves the Gospel and the power contained within it, it is the crux of the faith so many of say we love and belong to.

Tamerlan was a mother’s son gone bad. Many mothers have been through that, but in the majority of cases, the mother doesn’t or hasn’t ceased loving her son. At the end of the day, even the mother of a convicted murderer wants her son to receive a proper burial. Parents cannot be with their children at all times; parents lose control over their children when they grow up (and some lose control before then.) All a parent can do is pray that his or her child will make good decisions, but when they don’t, the love of the parent does not disappear. The love is replaced by agony and the pain of seeing not only their child suffer but the families who suffered because of their child.

The parent grieves because he or she could not stop the child from doing wrong. And the parent grieves because he and she remembers when that now-troubled young person was an infant, and then a toddler, a child who was loved and who loved back; a child who was the delight of their eyes and souls.

Tamerlan’s parents still love him. And so does God …if, again, the Gospels we read are to be believed.

If there is not a code mandating that cemeteries bury even people like Tamerlan, shouldn’t there be? One would think so, because the code given to us by God doesn’t seem to hold much water.

A candid observation …

 

White Men and Mass Murder

In the aftermath of the horrible shooting in Aurora, Colorado, I find myself asking what it is that compels people to want to commit mass murder.

And…I wonder why so many of these mass murders are done by white men.

I know people don’t like to talk about race, and I know it’s easier to talk about black on black crime.  While black on black crime raises hardly more than a whimper or cause for concern, when a black kills someone white, there is a fair amount of outrage.

But this mass murder thing: why is it that white men seem to be the primary perpetrators in crimes like these? Why is there still a sense of shock when it happens? How come there aren’t some studies being done to find out why this happens? Black on black crime has been said by some to be caused by the deep levels of self-hatred African-Americans have. Black on white crime is said to be caused by long-held anger on the part of blacks. White on black crime is credited to racism in many cases…but mass murder, perpetrated by white men on crowds of people, most of the time predominantly white, has no reason given, or at least I haven’t heard the reason. Have I missed something?

The latest alleged murderer, James Holmes, has murdered at least 12 people as of this writing, including a three-month old baby. He came into a crowded theater, released tear gas, and then opened fire. He apparently carried an arsenal of weapons, and he told police he had booby-trapped  his apartment to explode. He came dressed all in black, and he apparently shot with abandon, aiming at nobody, yet aiming at everyone. This young man, 24, is, or was, a PhD candidate. I would assume he came from a fairly nice family, as “nice” is defined. So, what happened?

I think about the young men, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, who shot and killed and wounded students at Columbine High School; the young men, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, who blew up the Murrah Federal Office building in Oklahoma City, the young man, , T.J. Lane,  who is accused of shooting students at Chardon High School in Ohio earlier this year; and of course, there was the horrific shooting in Arizona where Jared Loughner shot Representative Gabby Giffords and 18 other people in 2011…all white men, and I don’t get it. Why does this keep happening, again and again?

Could it be that white men harbor some degree of self-hatred too? Or is it they carry a lot of anger about …well, about what?  If white men are angry, and especially so angry that they feel compelled to shoot whomever is in their way, why are they that angry?

Isn’t it a topic or subject or situation that somebody ought to at least look into?

My heart is so heavy for the people who were shot in Colorado. All they were doing was watching a movie, and now, some are dead, some are wounded, and all who survived or who will survive are forever changed. It seems like a fair amount of Americans are suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome, all due to domestic violence, and much of due to these mass killings.

It just seems that the tendency of white men to express their anger and rage through mass murder ought to be a subject for study. It’s proper to be horrified when these atrocities happen, but horror isn’t worth a dime if it cannot and does not lead to serious study so that the problem can be alleviated or reduced.

There are just way too many mass murders in America, too many white men who punish a slew of people for something they are upset about. It’s time for it to stop. Past time, actually.

A candid observation …

Mass Murders and White Men

 

 

Seal of the City of Aurora, Colorado
Seal of the City of Aurora, Colorado (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

 

In the aftermath of the horrible shooting in Aurora, Colorado, I find myself asking what it is that compels people to want to commit mass murder.

 

And…I wonder why so many of these mass murders are done by white men.

 

I know people don’t like to talk about race, and I know it’s easier to talk about black on black crime.  While black on black crime raises hardly more than a whimper or cause for concern, when a black kills someone white, there is a fair amount of outrage.

 

But this mass murder thing: why is it that white men seem to be the primary perpetrators in crimes like these? Why is there still a sense of shock when it happens? How come there aren’t some studies being done to find out why this happens? Black on black crime has been said by some to be caused by the deep levels of self-hatred African-Americans have. Black on white crime is said to be caused by long-held anger on the part of blacks. White on black crime is credited to racism in many cases…but mass murder, perpetrated by white men on crowds of people, most of the time predominantly white, has no reason given, or at least I haven’t heard the reason. Have I missed something?

 

The latest alleged murderer, James Holmes, has murdered at least 12 people as of this writing, including a three-month old baby. He came into a crowded theater, released tear gas, and then opened fire. He apparently carried an arsenal of weapons, and he told police he had wired his apartment to explode. He came dressed all in black, and he apparently shot with abandon, aiming at nobody, yet aiming at everyone. This young man, 24, is, or was, a PhD candidate. I would assume he came from a fairly nice family, as “nice” is defined. So, what happened?

 

I think about the young me, Klebold, who shot and killed and wounded students at Columbine High School; the young men, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, who blew up the Murrah State Office building in Oklahoma City, the young man, , T.J. Lane,  who is accused of shooting students at Chardon High School in Ohio earlier this year; and of course, there was the horrific shooting in Colorado where Jared Loughner shot Representative Gabby Giffords and 18 other people in 2011…all white men, and I don’t get it. Why does this keep happening, again and again?

 

Could it be that white men harbor some degree of self-hatred too? Or is it they carry a lot of anger about …well, about what?  If white men are angry, and especially so angry that they feel compelled to shoot whomever is in their way, why are they that angry?

 

Isn’t it a topic or subject or situation that somebody ought to at least look into?

 

My heart is so heavy for the people who were shot in Colorado. All they were doing was watching a movie, and now, some are dead, some are wounded, and all who survived or who will survive are forever changed. It seems like a fair amount of Americans are suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome, all due to domestic violence, and much of due to these mass killings.

 

It just seems that the tendency of white men to express their anger and rage through mass murder ought to be a subject for study. It’s proper to be horrified when these atrocities happen, but horror isn’t worth a dime if it cannot and does not lead to serious study so that the problem can be alleviated or reduced.

 

There are just way too many mass murders in America, too many white men who punish a slew of people for something they are upset about. It’s time for it to stop. Past time, actually.

 

A candid observation …