Let us remember Sophie Lancaster and those like her

One of my favorite songs these days is called “The Others” by Delain. It's a song dedicated to Sophie Lancaster, a young college student beaten to death by a group of teenagers because she and her boyfriend walked through a park dressed in goth clothing since they were part of that subculture in England. Her boyfriend survived with some brain damage. You can find more about her here. Here's the song.

I've ranted about bullying many times on this blog. But this goes beyond bullying. It's a deliberate attack with the intent to cause serious bodily home and death. Two of the teenagers were convicted of murder, sentenced to life in prison with an option to get out in a short period of time. Personally I don't think they should get that consideration. I feel that for the brutality of their crime they deserve to rot in jail for the rest of their lives. But I'm not a judge and I don't know the kind of defense that was brought up for them.

Another thing that disturbed me was no one came to help them until after the teenagers left. There were a number of people in the park who witnessed the brutal attack. I realize that people could be afraid for their lives when they see such a vicious attack. So I can understand their reticence in doing anything. At least someone called the police once the teenagers left and that they came forward and helped the police catch them. It's still a little disturbing to me.

What drives people to hurt others in the name of hatred? How many people have been murdered or committed suicide because of things like this? Too many for me to want to count them.

No one deserves to be treated like this. The taking of another life just because they're different is appalling and horrible. Sophie and her boyfriend were targeted only because of the way they dressed and what they enjoyed being a part of. It isn't fair that Sophie isn't here any longer because of a bunch of evil-minded children who thought murder was a joke.

I know the world isn't fair. You don't have to tell me that. Still, I think more could be done to make it better. Sophie's parents will suffer the pain of losing their daughter the rest of their lives. Sophie's mother has turned her grief into a drive to help people, which is one of the best memorials she could give her daughter.

What do you think of crimes like this? Do you think people who do this should be locked up with no ability to get out of jail? Or do you think that they should be allowed out on parole?

RIP Jay Lake

I took myself off of Facebook yesterday for a simple reason: it was too sad for me to stay. Why was it too sad you may ask? Because of the passing of one of my favorite authors, Jay Lake.

Jay was diagnosed with colon cancer in April 2008. He documented his fight with it on his blog. His friends and fans watched each post on cancer with mixed feelings of hope and dread, knowing that the cancer could spread from just a single tumor. It did. It metastasized and progressed into other organs. Over the last few months, it got worse. He underwent some alternative treatments through the NIH to see if there was a way to stop it. The NIH treatments didn't work. Jay returned home and was put on hospice. He died less than a week later.

The days prior to his death, after the announcement about the hospice care, my Facebook feed was flooded with the sight of people commenting on Jay's Facebook feed. Since I am friends with him on there, many of those posting good wishes and prayers were visible to me. I posted my own comment on his page and then thought nothing of it. I expected he'd have a little more time and we could all deal with it. I never expected him to die so quickly, even though I know what being put on hospice care means.

Jay passed in the morning of June 1^st. I didn't get the message until the afternoon, when I finally got on Facebook after being off of it most of the day because of various things. I saw the outpouring of grief and prayers/thoughts for the family. I hunted down more information and saw that he'd passed. I posted my thoughts to his page and my own. And then I got off because it was too sad for me to stay.

If you're curious about him, go here. The first of his books I read was Green. I heard it on audiobook. I hunted it up in print format and then read the rest of the series. I was slowly making my way through the rest of the books I could find. I could find them sporadically. My library held a few, and managed to order in a couple more. I loved his way of telling a story.

The SFWA blog has posted a great memorial post here. They put the address there of a place that the family has asked donations be sent in Jay's name.

R.I.P. Jay Lake - you are going to be missed.

Sunday 'fess up...Anni is hurting right now

Hey everyone.

If you've read the blog for a while, you know Himself went in April to say goodbye to his mom because she'd taken a turn for the worse.  She hung in there for another four months before finally receiving an end to her pain and illness on Friday night.  My mother-in-law has finally passed, bringing with her death a more extreme closure to our lives than you might expect.

I used to be close to my mother-in-law.  But events over the past few years drove us apart and for a time even made it so she refused to speak to Himself, let alone me.  But time and her own growing sense of mortality allowed her to forgive Himself and they started talking again.  She refused to have anything to do with me, blaming me for everything - including "stealing" her son away from her.

What's interesting is I'm sad she's dead.  I'm hurting for Himself, who's hurting bad enough over his mom's death.  I'm also hurting because she died with that animosity still between us.  I'd have liked some more time to hopefully work things out with her so we could at least be civil to each other again, for Himself's sake.  I'm sad because Himself really has no other family - his sister...let's not get into her right now, just accept she's out of the picture; his grandmother preceded his mother in death; he doesn't know if his biological father is alive (and he doesn't really care either); and now his mom has passed.  He for all intents and purposes has no family now other than me.

I'm also relieved she's dead.  Not because I hated her.  I loved her in spite of everything.  I'm relieved because she's no longer suffering.  She was in such poor health that she barely recognized Himself when he went to see her in April.  She's finally at peace and no longer shackled to a body that had stopped working right several years ago.  Himself isn't quite ready to accept that at this point (which I don't blame him...I didn't want to accept it after MY mom died), so right now we're just kind of taking it one day at a time.

On the writing front, I'm putting ONLY A NAME on hold for a while.  I want to focus on some of my other projects because I'm to the point where I hate looking at OAN.  I want to delete the whole thing and forget it ever existed.  Not that I'm going to.  I'm just going to ignore it again for a little while and see if my attitude improves and I can finally get it polished and ready for publication attempts.  I've got the same problem with my Beauty and the Beast retelling.

So I'm going to find other projects to work on.  I'm going to find other stories to tell.  And hopefully, one day, when I come back to both of these projects I'll be able to put the kind of care and attention into them that they deserve.  Otherwise they're both going to get deleted and I'll probably kick myself for that in a few months once I've changed my mind about how horrible they both are.

Work is work.  I'm taking a couple days off to deal with Himself and losing my mother-in-law.  Then I'll be back to work.  I'm actually doing better than I was, though I'm still not where they want me.

Music videos for your enjoyment.