Strollerderby : death

UPDATE: President Obama Issues Statement About Dr. George Tiller

Brett Singer — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 02:36:00 GMT

President Barack Obama has issued a statement about the murder of Dr. George Tiller:

I am shocked and outraged by the murder of Dr. George Tiller as he attended church services this morning. However profound our differences as Americans over difficult issues such as abortion, they cannot be resolved by heinous acts of violence.

Well said, Mr. President.

TheRoot.com points out: "It's fairly unusual for the White House to comment on this type of local story. But the news of Tiller's murder, allegedly by an anti-choice activist apprehended this afternoon by local and state police, has reverberated across the country in a matter of hours—and inflamed a longstanding debate about abortion rights in America."

Methinks this won't be the last we hear about the matter.

Original post follows:

*-*-*-*

Sad news from Kansas -- Dr. George Tiller was shot and killed while ushering at church. A suspect is in custody.

From Huffington Post:

WICHITA, Kansas -- Dr. George Tiller, a Kansas doctor whose clinic received national attention for performing late-term abortions, was shot to death as he entered his Wichita church on Sunday.
Tiller has been among the few U.S. physicians performing late-term abortion, making him a favored target of anti-abortion protesters. He testified that he and his family have suffered years of harassment and threats. His clinic was the site of the 1991 "Summer of Mercy" protests marked by mass demonstrations and arrests. His clinic was bombed in 1985, and an abortion opponent shot him in both arms in 1993.

Anti-abortion group Operation Rescue was no fan of Dr. Tiller; there is a "Tiller Watch" page on their web site. The group has issued a statement condemning the murder.

Tiller was recently tried for "allegedly consulting a second physician in late-term abortion cases who was not truly 'independent' as required by Kansas state law." It was a big deal case (we covered it on Strollerdery), with both sides tossing out big deal rhetoric. "Columnist Jack Cashill compared the trial to the Nuremberg Trials of Nazi war criminals, while NYU Professor Jacob Appel described Tiller as 'a genuine hero who ranks alongside Susan B. Anthony and Martin Luther King Jr. in the pantheon of defenders of human liberty.'" (Source for both quotes: Wikipedia)

This is an ugly end to an ugly story. Hopefully the police have the right person and they will be punished. That won't bring anyone back to life, of course. No matter what side of the abortion debate you are on, I hope you agree that shooting someone in cold blood is a horrible thing to do.

Source: Huffington Post

Image: CrooksAndLiars

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Best of FameCrawler - Week of May 29th

Whit Honea — Fri, 29 May 2009 20:00:00 GMT

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Hit Her Cat, She'll Hit Your Kid

JeanneSager — Tue, 26 May 2009 14:01:00 GMT

OK, so I'm a bit of a crazy cat lady. And I've shed more than a few tears over deceased kitties in my life. But if someone ran over my cat, chances are, I wouldn't be gunning for their kids.

Tina Teixeira says she would. Teixeira strung a sign outside her house after her cat was run over by a speeding car that her neighborhood buzzing.

It read "Hit a Cat, I'll Hit Your Kid."

OK, credit where credit is due. Teixeira says she put it up in anger, and it was for shock value more than anything. She had no intention of getting in a car and running down little kids. When she realized people were actually responding, she took it down and put up a new one that says: "I watch for your kids, so please watch out for mine."

This was after neighbors called her psychotic. Which might have been taking it a little far? The sign was over-the-top, but let's face it - sometimes you need to bring out the big guns to slow down speeders in residential neighborhoods.

As an already admitted crazy cat lady, I feel for her. Yes, the family cat doesn't belong in a road, but speeders who race pell mell through residential neighborhoods (in Teixeira's case they were going sixty-five in a posted thirty-five) rarely even stop when they take out a pet. And what does that say to the kids who just lost Fluffy?

Teaching our kids about life and death is rough (necessary, but rough), but motorists can soften the blow with a little human kindness. And some careful driving. Speed limits aren't just there for the cats.

Image: KSBW

Best of FameCrawler - Week of May 1st

Whit Honea — Fri, 01 May 2009 20:00:00 GMT

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Best of FameCrawler - Week of April 24th

Whit Honea — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 20:00:00 GMT

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Woman Plans to Be Impregnated with Dead Lover’s Sperm

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 17:50:00 GMT

Nabokov wrote, “Eccentricity is greatest grief’s greatest remedy.” This is certainly the case for a Bronx woman whose 31-year-old fiancé died unexpectedly from a heart attack last week. In the wake of her partner’s death, Gisela Marrero found comfort in the possibility that she could harvest his sperm. Marrero and Johnny Quintana had been together for 13 years and already have a two-year-old. According to Marrero, they were planning to have another child.

Marrero’s fight to harvest her lover’s sperm was a race against the clock, as sperm remain fresh for only 36 hours after death and Marrero was required to have a court order okaying the procedure, since she and Quintana were not married. The judge approved of the post mortem sperm extraction with only four hours to spare, so sperm bank employees rushed to the medical center where Quintana’s body was held.

In the midst of the indescribable pain that Marrero must be in, it makes sense that she would jump at the opportunity to keep the man she loved in her life, in any way possible. But, as unimaginable as it surely seems to her now, Marrero could eventually fall in love with someone who would love to be the father to her second child, making life much easier for this unborn child. I’m certainly not against artificial insemination for single women, but bringing a baby into the world so that the memory of his father can live on is, in my opinion, too much burden to place on a child.

Marrero claims that having another child was Quintana's wish and is the "last thing I can do for him." But having a child while alive and becoming a father after death are two entirely separate things. There's no way to know what Quintana, who was not expecting to die so young, would have wanted in this situation.

Do you think that the judge was right to approve of Marrero's desire to increase her family, despite her lover's death?

Photo: Daily News

Mom Gets OK to Collect Dead Son's Sperm

Best of FameCrawler - Week of April 17th

Whit Honea — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 20:00:00 GMT

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Pete Wentz Plays With Strippers, Sends Ashlee Home With Bronx

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Update: Jon & Kate Gosselin Talk About Their Marriage Rumors!

Controversy City Continues: Levi Johnston Dishes More About Palins

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The World’s Most Adorable Funeral

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 22:00:00 GMT

Death is never easy—but it can be mind-bogglingly adorable when the elegy is given by a three-year-old and the elegized is Lucky the Fish.

Having lost her goldfish Marlond just a week earlier, this little girl is well-versed in the harsh realities of death. “We always have to flush fish,” she says solemnly. But don’t worry—her elegy hits some redemptive notes as well. After all, the girl has “more than a few words” to say about her old friend Lucky.

Photo: Goodbyemailbox.com

Best of FameCrawler: Week of March 27th

Whit Honea — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 20:00:00 GMT

Jon & Kate Plus 8 Finale - To Divorce or Not?

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Natasha Richardson's Mom Wore White To Her Funeral - Why?

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Best of FameCrawler - Week of March 20th

Whit Honea — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 20:00:00 GMT

Natasha Richardson - The Sad Story

Katie Holmes is Pregnant!

Remembering Natasha Richardson (Photos)

Watchmen's Patrick Wilson and Wife Expecting Second Child

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Doctors Call for Autopsies to Understand Stillbirth

JeanneSager — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 13:19:00 GMT

Thousands of pregnancies end every year in stillbirth - a baby dead in the womb sometime after the twenty-week mark or dead sometime during the birthing process.

It's heartbreaking for parents, but perhaps even harder for parents to take is the mystery. Of more than twenty-five thousand stillbirths each year, a full third are for unexplainable causes.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is calling for doctors to perform more autopsies on stillborn babies to unravel the mystery of stillbirth.

The goal is to reduce future stillbirths - or determine whether they can be prevented. The March of Dimes estimates stillbirth rates have dipped fifty percent in the last twenty years alone thanks to better technologies and healthcare practitioners' vigilance. They now know who has an increased risk of stillbirth - women thirty-five and older, women who suffer malnutrition and/or inadequate prenatal care, pregnant women who smoke and drink. They also have a host of causes for the two-thirds of stillbirths that are explainable - everything from placental defects to bacterial infection.

With the autopsies, they hope to rid the world of the other third. The question is how parents will take the suggestion from their doctor. Stillbirth is a traumatizing experience for parents, and the last thing a lot of parents want to do is turn their baby over to a scientist to cut, poke and prod.

Will parents be able to look past that and see the greater good? To see that they can make a difference for other parents in the long run?

Image: American Pregnancy Association

Coach Charged in Death of Football Player

KeriF — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 17:02:00 GMT

Max Gilpin was 15 years old when he died in August, just three days after passing out during a grueling football practice. How grueling? So grueling that prosecutors are now charging Gilpin's coach, David Jason Stinson, with reckless homicide.

Prosecutors claim that Stinson acted irresponsibly by overworking his players in sweltering weather with a 94-degree heat index. They say he should have known that heat stroke was possible in such weather.

According to witnesses, Coach Stinson repeatedly yelled at the players and told them they would have to run sprints up and down the field until one of them quit the team. One witness told police it was "appalling" how the coaches were treating the players; another witness said it was typical tough love.

So why is the coach being charged? One witness says no water was offered to the players; the log shows the team received three water breaks in a 30-minute period shortly after taking the field but none after the sprinting began.

Gilpin was not the first player to collapse that day. Another student collapsed around 6pm; he was taken to the shade and treated with water and ice packs. Fifteen minutes later, Gilpin collapsed and was treated similarly; when he did not respond well to treatment the paramedics were called. Both students were taken to the hospital, where Gilpin died three days later.

I do think that high school athletics can be a bit rough, and clearly practice should have ended when the first player collapsed, but I don't really understand why this coach is being criminally charged. There have been other football players who died from heat stroke during practice, most notably Minnesotta Vikings offensive lineman Korey Stringer, who died in 2001. According to the National Center for Catastrophic Injury Research, there were six heat-related deaths in high school and college athletics in 2008. More than 120 athletes have died since 1931. No coach has ever been criminally charged.

Obviously, nothing will bring Max Gilpin back. But hopefully his death will make coaches think twice about their practice techniques in extreme heat. I don't think the threat of a murder charge can have any more power than that.

Kid Dies After Parents Said No to Hib Vaccine

JeanneSager — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 13:31:00 GMT

It's a disease entirely preventable, but a sudden burst in diagnoses of Hib (Haemophilus influenzae type B) in Minnesota kids has led to the death of one seven-month-old. His parents, along with those of two other infected children were in the growing group who have opted out on vaccinating their kids.

The fourth child infected was in the middle of the three-part vaccination process, while the fifth had an immune deficiency.

Despite the low number of infections, the CDC has gotten involved, concerned that parents choosing not to vaccinate their kids are putting other children at risk. Five kids, they say, is the highest number of cases in one area since 1992, when vaccinating against Hib became common practice in pediatricians' offices.

"The situation is of concern," Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Disease at the CDC, told CNN. "It could be happening elsewhere, and of course it's tragic that one of the children actually died from a preventable disease."

Since vaccinating against Hib became the norm for American children in the early 1990s, the CDC has seen a ninety nine percent drop in reported cases (from as much as twenty thousand before vaccinations).The disease primarily strikes kids under five, and it kills one in twenty. Of those who survive, ten to twenty percent end up with brain damage, many more go deaf.

What's troubling to me are the children infected despite their parents proper attempts to vaccinate - because other parents refusal to do so has allowed the disease to once again flourish. It's something very few people in the anti-vaccine community focus on - what happens to everyone else's kids. They argue that they are protecting their children from supposed toxins in the immunizations. But as a recent study proving the efficacy of the meningitis vaccine points out, the "herd immunity" provided by immunizing children protects the community as a whole.

By refusing to immunize their kids, these parents are putting society as a whole at risk - including the fourth and fifth kid in Minnesota, who were at special risks.

Image: CNN

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Best of FameCrawler: Week of January 23rd

Whit Honea — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 21:00:00 GMT

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Would You Keep the Death of a Pet from Your Child?

KeriF — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 17:34:00 GMT

Last year for Hanukkah, my then 6-year-old niece received two parakeets from her nanny, Marina. Who, incidentally, had neglected to mention the live animal gift to my sister. After some behind the scenes negotiating, it was agreed that the birds would live in the nanny's apartment and my niece, Erika, could visit Blueberry and Lemon whenever she liked.

This worked out fine for 6 months or so, until the birds, in rapid succession, died.

Marina couldn't bring herself to tell Erika. She told Erika the birds were at the vet and would be home soon. This went on for well over a week. Marina wanted to secretly replace the birds with doppelgangers. My sister got increasingly frustrated, and finally told Marina if she didn't tell Erika my sister would tell her herself. Which is what ended up happening. Erika was distraught.

I don't blame Marina for being so hesitant to break Erika's heart. No one wants to deliberately make a child cry, which is what you're basically doing when you tell him or her that a pet has died.

But it's a lesson that has to be learned. Hopefully, the closest most kids will come to death is through a pet rather than a relative.

My kids are still a bit young for this; at 3 and 4 they've experienced plenty of death through the waters of their fish tank. But rather than cry, they argue over who gets to flush the little guy down the toilet.

Christy Oglesby writes of the death of her son's beloved guinea pig on CNN. Her concern wasn't with how much grief her son would feel, it was with when he would feel that grief: during three important tests at school. She was able to keep the pet's death a secret through some very careful manipulation (unexplained power outage in the boy's room, unexpected tv-watching at night), and when she did tell her third-grade son two days after the fact, he thanked her for holding off on the news.

I've written before of how much I hate lying to my kids, but I'm not sure where this fits in. Isn't omission of fact just as much of a lie as omission of truth? Our kids need to learn of life and death, but when? Erika still cries over the untimely death of Marina's dog, Chavi, last summer, while my 4-year-old son Declan simply speaks of it matter-of-factly. Neither of them batted an eye when their great-great-Uncle Bob died around the same time.

Perhaps it's just what's familiar to the kids, who and what they see every day that hold the closest place in their hearts.

Have you had to break the news of a pet or loved one to your kids? How did you handle it? How did they?

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Babysitter Puts Baby in a Running Dryer so She Could Watch TV

Cole Gamble — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 17:30:00 GMT

Arielle Smith, 19, has been charged with murder in Louisiana for placing a 5-month-old child in a dryer and turning it on.

This is one of the stories that make it hard to breathe.

Alleged, the teen placed the baby Andre Jenkins in the dryer and locked up Andre’s 18-month-old brother and one-year-old sister in order to watch television without interruption. Smith had removed the clothing from the dryer before placing Andre in and after removing the unresponsive baby she placed the clothes back inside. Then Smith called her boyfriend and the child’s mother, suggesting the death was not intentional.

That is about all of the story I can stomach writing.

After a long time without any kind of babysitter, my wife and I lucked out and were able to get a woman that worked at our kids’ pre-school. We completely trust her competence and motives. I don’t think even a good interview and references can ensure parents don’t end up with an Arielle Smith. All I can say is you can only do your best to perhaps go through an accredited nanny/babysitter service.

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Whit Honea — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 21:00:00 GMT

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Teacher Beats Student to Death for Late Homework

Cole Gamble — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 18:00:00 GMT

There are few things I am certain about. Okay, there is nothing I am certain about...except this. My kids will never, ever attend public school in Egypt. Was this ever a consideration? Probably not, but after hearing this bit of news I am sure it will never happen. What news, you ask? The news an Egyptian teacher beat a student to death for turning in math homework late.

Haitham Nabeel Abdelhamid, 23, is accused of beating Islam Badr Ibrahim with a ruler before taking him outside the class and hitting him savagely in the stomach.

The boy then collapsed in a faint and was taken to hospital - but he died of heart failure.

The attack, which took place in October at the Saad Othman primary school near the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria, caused national outrage in a country where people are already skeptical about the state.

Many believe this horrific incident is a product of Egypt not having enough teachers. So take note, politicians. If you don't fund education evidentially the teachers will start murdering our kids.

UPDATE:

Haitham Nabeel Abdelhamid was found guilty on Christmas Day and sentenced to just six years in prison.

Best of FameCrawler: Week of December 26th

Whit Honea — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 21:00:00 GMT

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Dying Dad Gets Extra Time Thanks to Mystery Donor

JeanneSager — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 17:27:00 GMT

Finally, a bit of news that reminds us hedge fund managers are people too (the NASDAQ be darned). A mystery manager here in the states has ponied up the cash to fund the cancer treatments for a British father denied care by that country's National Health System.

Jack Rosser knows he will die, but thanks to the mystery donor, he may have as much as several extra years to spend with his toddler daughter.

OK, commence weeping. I know I shed a tear or two at this story, not least because the Rosser's diagnosis with an aggressive cancer of his kidneys came just days after little Emma was born. The Rossers should have been celebrating new life; but they were staring death in the eyes.

Rosser was told he probably had two years left, unless he began treatments with Sutent, a cancer drug which costs three thousand pounds a month (currently about $4,450). The medicine would give him extra time, but it couldn't save his life. It wasn't enough of a benefit for the British National Health System. The government told Rosser the treatment was off the table. Attempts to get him into a clinical trial were out too - he was told his cancer wasn't advanced enough. He'd have to accept death . . . and leaving his wife and daughter sooner rather than later.

When his story was highlighted by a group working to fight for cancer patients denied life-lengthening care (and highlighted by Bloomberg late last month), the man identified only as a hedge fund manager from the states stepped forward. He'll pay for the fifty-seven-year-old Rosser's treatments, he said, as long as he needs them.

"It's been such a fight and all I can say is thank you. He's given my daughter the opportunity to get to know her dad," Jenny Rosser told Sky News this week.

Perhaps someone could remind the National Health System - and nasty American HMOs - that sometimes the decisions they're making aren't about that one patient, but the lives around them too. A few extra months for a little girl to get to know her father can make a world of difference in her life.

Oh, and while you're at it, could someone pass me a Kleenex?

Image: Sky News

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Students Watch Autopsy of Teen From School

JeanneSager — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 15:04:00 GMT

I'm not really crazy about sending my kid out to watch an autopsy to begin with. Yes, even in the name of science. But when the body a class of teens is watching the medical examiner cut up belongs to a fourteen-year-old from their school district, you've lost me completely.

It's exactly what happened at a Michigan ME's office; even after the teacher was warned that the teenagers in her high school science class would be subjected to the autopsy of a middle school student from the same school district who had committed suicide.

The Detroit News reported the teacher put it out to her students, kids in the eleventh and twelfth grades at Waterford Kettering High School. None of the kids actually knew the girl, although one student knew the deceased's brother. The ME's office in Oakland County has decided to stop all future high school tours because of the case, but I'd say all the adults involved here need to be reviewing their actions. Kids watching dead kids be examined? It's the stuff that can cause some pretty severe nightmares, not to mention a host of issues for the child's family.

That older teens might be sent to see an autopsy as part of their exploration of potential careers is one thing. Personally I think that kind of thing should be limited to kids who have expressed an interest in the medical field, not required viewing for a regular upper-level science class. If kids feel they're going to be upset by watching a body carved up, by all means, let them stay back in the school building and do busy work.

And the kids who choose to make the trip? They should not be watching the process being done on another child, especially one who they might know in one way, shape or form. Adults have a hard enough time stomaching the thoughts of harm having come to a child. Professionals who deal with this type of thing on a daily basis, despite all their attempts to become immune to the horrors specific to the loss of a child, still struggle. Ask any district attorney who has had to prosecute the case of a child's death if he doesn't go home at night and hug his kids just that much tighter. To expect teenagers, still kids themselves, to process that sort of thing - or to think that asking them beforehand if they're OK with it and expecting their teenaged-bravado not to get in the way - is a failure to protect a piece of their innocence.

Yes, they can see this sort of thing on CSI. But a fake body on a screen has nothing on a real body laid out in front of them, the body of a child they know has walked through the same halls where they once studied math and science.

Let's let kids be kids - as long as we can.

Image: The Detroit News

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Best of FameCrawler: Week of December 5th

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Would You Give Gifts Bought At Wal-Mart Where Man Died?

JeanneSager — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 16:01:00 GMT

Even the most die hard Black Friday shopper had the good grace to stop talking deals when the news of a man trampled to death by shoppers at a Long Island Wal-Mart started hitting the airwaves.

What about those shoppers? Are they in their attics right now, wrapping the results of consumer greed gone horribly wrong? Do people actually feel good giving their kids ill-gotten gifts?

Maybe I'm just not one to ask. I have never been the "up at three a.m., out the door by four" shopper. I have taken extremely well to the push toward Cyber Monday over Black Friday, even if my mega-deal is swallowed in part by a shipping charge. I like to think I can be savvy without being swallowed whole by commercialism. Don't get me wrong. I enjoy a good deal as much as the next mother trying to make ends meet.

But isn't there a time when a deal is just too good? Must have fallen off the truck good? I mean, it's one thing to buy the kids a fleece with a ripped tag . . . another to buy them a box of "Tunka" trucks from the vendor on the street corner. Some people say what the kids don't know won't hurt them. But as parents, you know. Whether it's a game console purchased the day a man died or a pile of games picked up from a shady street dealer, there gift that's supposed to bring kids such happiness has already been marked by incredible sadness. I couldn't do it.

Could you?

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Pregnant Man Receiving Death Threats

Cole Gamble — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 20:00:00 GMT

I guess you could file this under, “Sometimes Human Beings Are Miserable Creatures.” As you probably know, Oregon’s (my neck of the woods) Thomas Beatie, A.K.A The Pregnant Man, is pregnant again. And for this grievous offense, some people want him dead…

Not that death threats are the only troubles Beatie and his wife Nancy have weathered. Of course you have the mockery of kooks, regular citizens and late night talk show hosts. Then you have FOX News. During Beatie’s first pregnancy, a FOX News commentator declared Beatie’s child would be an “Ewok Baby” and that it would be born with a “third eye.” Yep, those words from the reputable, “Fair and Balanced,” journalistic institution that is FOX News.

People are bound to find Beatie and his life weird, perhaps gross, maybe even go so far as to deem it “wrong.” I don’t begrudge regular people for making water cooler talk out of this person’s life; we’re all a little catty deep down. And I’ll admit he played a part in stepping into the spotlight. But death threats? I don’t get why who he is and how he lives his life could make anyone that mad, why they find it so necessary to wipe out all that is unique and interesting about this world. Then again, there’s a lot I don’t get. I was taught to believe this was a country of individuality, where everyone is free, nay, encouraged to make their own path. So if somebody decides to live a certain way and it doesn’t hurt anyone, who the hell cares?

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