Sadness, but also indignation

As I was spreading mulch yesterday, I was thinking a lot about the tragic development in the case of Jessie Davis, the missing pregnant woman from Canton, Ohio. Police have arrested her boyfriend -- himself a cop -- as well as a friend of his whom they claim helped him clean up the crime scene and dispose of the body. How a man could kill the woman who is nine-months' pregnant with his daughter, in front of his two-year old son, then call in help to drag the body away and leave the toddler to fend for himself is completely beyond me. But that is not the point of this post today. The point is this: Bastard took Jessie to the Summit County Metro Parks, within the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, and buried them ("them" includes the unborn child, who had been named Chloe). I drive through this very section of the Park each day on my way to work -- incuding, of couse, the past week, during which time I've been listening to the news on the radio about the search for Jessie, all the while driving right past her "grave."

So. As I filled wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of mulch and hauled it around the house to my backyard, I started thinking about the sick and horrifying case of the father who killed his kids along the Ohio Turnpike, exited the road and buried them in my hometown -- where they remained, undiscovered for two years, as a national search went on around us.

I started to get mad. How dare these twisted fuckers use my hometown and my national park as the burial grounds for their innocent girlfriends and children? How dare they commit such horrible crimes and bring their own brands of hideousness to our pristine and idyllic spaces? This is not to imply that one's anger should be directed solely at the detail of where the bodies were disposed. I know this is not all about me, or the way I feel about my hometown and my national park (and yes, it is mine, in the way that it is all of ours who pay taxes). I understand that the greater outrage here are the crimes themselves, not the location where the criminal tried to hide the evidence.

But still. I look at the road in Hudson where that father buried his kids, and I look at the gorgeous Metro Parks where Jessie and Chloe were dumped, and I can't help but think that nobody and nothing deserves this. Woman and child, or landscape, flora and fauna.

If I have to be scarred by it, you have to be scarred by it, too

I just read on msnbc.com that Britney Spears could possibly be pregnant again. Whatever.

More alarming: the detail with which the story was written, and, I guess, the extent to which said photo was circulated:

In one widely circulated photo, Spears was shown throwing up peanut butter and reports said she had been drinking, but according to ITW, Spears has been skipping the booze.

Does anyone really need to see that? Does anyone even need to read that?

Please, Lord, in all my time-wasting Internetting, don't let me stumble across that photo.

No commentary needed

From MSNBC:

"Britney [Spears] also reportedly hired a doctor to advise her on how to keep her tot safe. 'The doctor advised her not to leave Preston on any high surfaces where he could roll off,' an insider told In Touch Weekly, which also reports that Spears was so impressed with the sage advice that she wanted to hire the doctor full time, but he told her that it wasn’t necessary."

I'd like to be serious, just for a moment

Last Friday police in my small town of Hudson, Ohio, found the remains of two children who had been murdered by their father and buried somewhere along I-80. The father only gave minor clues about where he'd buried the kids before he committed suicide in jail. The poor mother not only lost her kids, but also was robbed of the chance to bury them and achieve some level of closure.

The children were found on wooded land just a few miles southwest of downtown Hudson. Yesterday there were reports that their mother would come to Hudson to collect their remains and get some of the closure she needs.

My cynical side is curious about whether the Hudson Police Department might better spend its time stopping strange men who seem to be burying children not far from large residential neighborhoods -- instead of stopping and checking the IDs of people who are walking on sidewalks at night (this has happened to five people I know in Hudson) or beating people up over picnic baskets. Of course I don't blame that New Hampshire father's psychosis on the Hudson Police, but the officers might simply consider sharpening their view of what constitutes truly menacing behavior.

My compassionate side has been wondering what Hudson can do to offer support to the mother when she comes here. She has rightly stated that she does not want her visit to have any media attention, and it is my hope that people heed her request. But surely there is something we can quietly and privately offer her in recognition of the fact that Hudson has been her kids' resting place for the past two years. Then I got an e-mail from my mother, who works in the Hudson City Schools. Teachers and support staff are pooling resources to contribute to the memorial fund that has been set up in the children's names (after checking with police to make sure her trip expenses were covered, which they are courtesy of the FBI and other sources).

I don't know why I feel so strongly about making sure that mother knows that Hudson is an OK place. It's not that I care about Hudson's image or anything, and I certainly don't expect that she'll ever think, Yes! Hudson! I love it there! Even though my kids were hastily and cruelly buried there through two harsh Ohio winters! I think it's because it might bring her some modicum of comfort to know that, after the horrifying end of their lives, however hideous and undignified, her children were buried in a community that cared, whether it knew it or not.