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14-year-old invades rural Massachusetts home, severely beats woman with shovel
And the victim’s husband says that cause of the attempted murder was a lack of “activity options.” First let’s look at the story in the August 8 Daily Mail:
An award winning children’s illustrator is recovering after a 14-year-old boy entered her Massachusetts home and beat her round the head with a shovel.The Mail does not explain what “not waiting for the third” means. Moving to a different town without a neighboring foster care home? Also, the Mail article appears to be based on a story in the Daily Hampshire Gazette (though the Mail does not give credit, it never does, and I wonder how it gets away with that). According to the Gazette’s article, the suspect is being held on bail, not released on bail. Also, the Mail left out these further comments from Tom Dyer:
Dyer said he’s sensitive to the needs of at-risk [translation: black] youth who need supervision and services like foster care, but believes the rural location isn’t appropriate, and he would like to see it shut down.So the lack of “activity options” is what led the suspect to attempt to murder Jane Dyer. Unless you keep black youth constantly distracted, they revert to their default mode, which is to kill and maim. Tom Dyer recognizes that there’s something “inappropriate” about bringing “at-risk” urban youth to a rural community where there don’t fit in. But he sees this only as unfair to the youth, not as dangerous to the residents. He can’t bring himself to say the self-evident, that “at-risk” youth are a risk to other people. Unless he did say it and the Gazette left it out. But, based on Dyer’s stereotypical liberal comment about the cause of the attack being a lack of activity options, I doubt very much that he did say such a politically incorrect and true thing.
When I was 14, I lived on a cul-de-sac in suburbia, with nothing other than a grocery store within walking distance. In those pre-internet days, I had a severe lack of “activity options” (especially in the summer in Phoenix, when it was too hot to go outside). I was often “at risk” of severe boredom, but managed to find ways to entertain myself. For some reason, it never occurred to me to break into the house of my elderly neighbors and beat them with a shovel …LA replies:
A 63 year old in today’s world is not “elderly.” “Elderly” implies debility, lack of ability to engage in full physical activities. 63 is not even retirement age. What is this spreading use of “elderly” for people over 60, or even over 50? On one hand, people are more youthtful than ever and we’re told that 50 is the new 30. On the other hand, people over 60 (look at Jane Dyer’s photo again) are now routinely called elderly.James P. replies: I didn’t mean that Jane Dyer was elderly. My neighbors when I was 14 were elderly—they were retired.LA replies:
Right, sorry.Michael writes:
I bet my next paycheck, Dyer left her front door unlocked, even after seeing the kid in the driveway. In my experience, liberals and suburbanites love to leave their doors unlocked.BD writes:
The one commenter on the “Daily Hampshire Gazette” story makes the valid point that if she had a gun nearby, she could have taken care of her problem with this “troubled youth.” A couple of nasty dogs would have helped too. But why would someone living in a peaceful rural area of Massachusetts need such protection? Oh yes, the nearby home for “at risk” youths.Beth M. writes:
There has been a trend in recent years to try to move foster kids to rural areas to try to get them away from troubled neighborhoods and dysfunctional extended families, etc. The downside is that the kids lose all contact with ANYBODY who has ever been a positive influence on them (Sunday school teachers, elderly neighbors, etc.) A black child or teenager moved to a virtually all-white rural area is instantly marked as a “foster kid” and becomes the ultimate outsider. The local teens often work in the summers baling hay, etc., but for legal reasons, foster children are NOT allowed to do any sort of farm labor.LA writes: Despite Tom Dyer’s and other white liberals’ implicit recognition that in the absence of activity options, at-risk black youth will commit extremely violent crimes, that doesn’t lead them to recognize that at-risk black youth are … you know, extremely dangerous. It just leads them to re-emphasize society’s obligation to provide more and better activity options.Jeanette V. writes:
I grew up in the ’50s in the suburbs. We had no activities for children. I read and played kick the can (yes I really did play that) with the neighborhood kids. In the summer I lived in rural British Columbia with no TV. I spent my days reading and playing field hockey.LA replies:
I spent my entire childhood playing in the woods behind our house, playing catch and touch football on the street in front of our house, playing with my toy soldiers and bricks and erector set, and reading. I would pretend one of the soldiers was Batman and he would go leaping or swinging from one building to another or I would make a paper airplane with a string attached for him to hold onto and he would fly it like the Batplane. I had a model jet plane that I pretended was a space ship. A friend and I would build structures with my bricks that we pretended were Egyptian pyramids and put one of the soldiers inside and pretend he was a pharaoh’s mummy, then we would pretend to be archeologists and dig up the pharaoh. I had a toy submachine gun I liked a lot. That was about it.Leonard K. writes: Firstly, here I am, your spell checker: pharaoh, not pharoah (it’s not a typo, you misspelled it twice).LA replies:
You’re right, not a typo. I’ve fixed it (them).Paul K. writes:
You wrote,LA writes: Just to underscore a point made by reader Michael, the Mail says:LA writes:
Here is an illustration of the above point about how liberals suppress their own normal, rational reactions. I wrote at VFR in May 2009:LA writes:
I’ve made Jane Dyer’s “thought nothing of it” and the Bakersfield woman’s “not wanting to seem racist” into rules to be added to VFR’s list of behaviors to avoid if one wishes not to be harmed by blacks. Here they are:William writes:
I believe Samuel Coleridge coined the expression “motive-hunting of motiveless malignity” in his description of Shakespeare’s evil character Iago in Othello. It seems that Mr. Tom Dyer is “motive-hunting” for “the motiveless malignity” that committed this crime.LA replies:
Yes, possibly.Jewel A. writes:
I grew up in foster homes. We were hoodlums and petty juvenile criminals, but we never ever committed this sort of crime. Our Catholic foster parents showed us the right end of a belt as often as needed. We also spent time in a Catholic orphanage. When we got out of line, we got punished. I wonder if today’s foster parents are even allowed to punish their keeps? I don’t think so. My brother worked in a Lutheran home for abused boys, and they used to accuse him of all kinds of crimes including rape and assault. Even when he was proven innocent, he couldn’t take the psychological wear-down and ended up quitting. He was not allowed to use corporeal punishment. Little kids as young as seven knew how to game the system. I wouldn’t doubt for a moment that all of them are now in prison or dead.LA replies: God bless you. You seem to have emerged very well from a difficult childhood.Jewel A. writes::
You are welcome. I did indeed grow up to be a well-adjusted woman. I’ve been married 30 years, my children are mostly grown, and when I regale them with stories of my youth, they are quite perplexed at how stable their own lives have been. I credit my faith in God above all other things, and in spite of a mediocre education—8 schools in 12 years, I have a pretty good life.LA replies:
Evariste made several remarkable contributions to VFR, including his reply to Robert Spencer, his rejection of Darwinism, his account of his rejection of Islam, and his post on his developing belief that God has consciousness and personality. He was no more than in his early or mid twenties at the time, and extraordinarily intelligent and eloquent. Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 08, 2012 12:14 PM | Send Email entry |
