STORM2K

Sometimes the anguish and pain of local news seems to rip your heart in one direction, then the next.

Here in Phoenix, we had a pedestrian out in the freeway...caught on the traffic cameras...who was hit multiple times by vehicles. Our workers on the way to work reported multiple tarps in various places along the way.

Then there were the two five year olds who were caged in their cribs and not allowed out. Not allowed interaction with others so they could not speak words...only make sounds.

Three kids in one weekend drowned in pools locally.

And today...a mom was arrested for selling her 13 year old daughter as a prostitute in her own home...just to support the family drug habit.

I know our city is just one among many...but this week's news has been pretty tough to take. So sad in many ways. A variety of tragedies that touch your soul.

I'm sure I could find some terrific stories, too, of big hearts, of generous people, and of success and fulfillment. Just seems a little hard to uncover this week.

It's the same way here Steve....why I don't watch the news very often anymore. I can only take it in small doses.

That is awful! It can be really hard to keep a positive attitude when you hear such awful things, but I get by because I tell myself that good or bad, everything happens for a reason. Sometimes that is all one can do...

These events are terrible and make me wonder about humanity.

I don't watch local news. It's all fires, crashes, and crimes. Seems that's what people want to watch. That also makes me wonder.

Jacki, I'll welcome you back on a more upbeat thread!

Especially working in the news business it seems that you hear about more of that stuff, too, than a regular average citizen. My semester on the newspaper staff it seemed I heard more bad things about the campus than I had noticed before I joined.

Steve - I know exactly what you mean. After September 11th, I check the news several times a day. Out of habit now. If I volunteer all day for a school function that is almost the first thing I do. I even ask the family - so what's new today?

And then you hear such horrendous stories like this. It just all almost brings me to my knees. You just cry thinking of those twins. They will be affected for the rest of their lives for this abuse. Heard they reached their arms out to the officers. That's when I cried.

When stories like these hits the news I just have to remind myself, it starts at home. If you truly love and care for children, then they will go out into the world and treat people/animals with respect and dignity. So when it all becomes too much to bear, I think what can I do? I can raise my girls like this. Not that I wouldn't have anyway. But stories like this make you even more determined to smile at a stranger, open a door for someone, help someone out in need. Donate your time, talents and treasures - a phrase our church uses all the time.

Yes indeed Steve.......it HAS been a tough coupla days down there. Those twins, I couldn't BELIEVE that......they were STILL in diapers, unable to speak, still on the BOTTLE. The mother did let the boys out for just a *few minutes* each day, she did let them play outside on occassions, very sad. The father has some BIG TIME drinkin' problems along with some MAJOR mental problems also, I don't understand how he kept from being sent to the state hospital. The twins oldest brother is the one who turned then in.....he couldn't take the abuse anymore.

Dennis

Steve - those things are very sad to hear about.

Whenever I am having a bad day, I don't want to come home and watch the news to hear about all the terrible things that happened in and around Philadelphia. I would instead rather find a show on TV that is more uplifting, or humorous.

I try to find "uplifting" TV, too...but if I don't see it on the news, I'm assaulted with "it" on Lifetime, LMN, WE, Oxygen, and/or a host of other "he done her wrong" channels and movies, or in marathons of "Law & Order" in its several subdivisions (Debi's favorites). :o

Which. perforce drives me to the CD for a visually bereft, musical interlude at the odd time (when she isn't home).