Woman Hits Four Cars, One at a Time, in Pensacola
We love driving in Pensacola. Most of the time, traffic is laid back and courteous. Exceptions like this are rare – no license, no insurance, fleeing the scene of an accident, all her children suffering head injuries in the FOUR separate hits – this woman should not be on the road.. From today’s PNJ Online:
A woman’s alleged attempt at a hit-and-run backfired when she hit three other cars while trying to flee, said eyewitnesses Friday.
About 2:30 p.m., authorities responded to a four-car accident with injuries at Fairfield Drive and Palafox Street, but the number of people injured and the severity of those injuries has not been released.
The incident began at the turning lane at Davis Highway and Fairfield Drive when a woman in a minivan containing three small children bumped an Orkin Man’s truck, witnesses said.
The man, Scott Stricker, said the woman took a look at the truck, said it looked untouched and that she was going to leave. Stricker told her that his company has a policy to pull over and call in any kind of traffic incident.
He said the woman told him that she would pull over just a little ahead, but as he pulled over, she skirted around him and turned down Fairfield.
“She jetted around me,” Stricker said.
While driving down Fairfield, the woman ended up hitting three other cars.
“I heard a hit, I heard another hit and I heard a third hit, and I came flying out of the office,” said Jan Prentice, who works at an advertising agency on Fairfield Drive.
Prentice said the woman told her that she was afraid of going to jail because she wasn’t driving with a valid driver’s license, and she didn’t have insurance.
Prentice said the woman had injuries and that her three small children in the van appeared to have head injuries and were taken to a hospital. It is not clear how many people were injured in the accidents.
Trooper St. Clair of the Florida Highway Patrol said that the incident was a four-car pileup, but that more information will be confirmed by a release that should be sent out later today.
Fed Ex Notification
I received this in my e-mail today. It has a zip attachment that I did not open. I worry that there are people who would believe it.
Your package has been returned to the FedEx office.
The reason of the return is – Error in the delivery address.
Please print out the invoice copy attached and collect the package at our office.
FedEx Services.
Abraham Buys a Cave and a Field
When I was an undergrad in college, I was majoring in political science, and there weren’t a lot of women in the field. You’d think that would be heaven for a young woman, but many of these political scientists had political aspirations, or an ax to grind, and were constantly standing up and making speeches. It was annoying; I needed some balance, so I took on another major, in English Literature, to give my academic life some balance.
It’s not like that was without its own problems; English Lit was full of these really OLD women, like in their thirties, who had come back to school to earn or finish up a degree, and they took it seriously. Aarrgh! Didn’t they know that this was university? This was supposed to be fun? Having those women in class competing for grades forced the rest of us to work harder . . . not such a bad thing.
One of the things you learn in studying Lit is that there are things that are important, or the author wouldn’t include them. As I read today’s Old Testament reading from The Lectionary, I found myself reading as literature, asking “where is the significance?” “why was this story included?” The Hittites are so very gracious to grieving Abraham; they sound like loving friends. Abraham insists on paying for the land, the cave where Sarah would be buried. Why was it so important to pay for the land? Was it so that there would be no question later as to whether the land was his?
Genesis 23:1-20
23 Sarah lived for one hundred and twenty-seven years; this was the length of Sarah’s life. 2And Sarah died at Kiriath-arba (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan; and Abraham went in to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her. 3Abraham rose up from beside his dead, and said to the Hittites, 4‘I am a stranger and an alien residing among you; give me property among you for a burying-place, so that I may bury my dead out of my sight.’ 5The Hittites answered Abraham, 6‘Hear us, my lord; you are a mighty prince among us. Bury your dead in the choicest of our burial places; none of us will withhold from you any burial ground for burying your dead.’ 7Abraham rose and bowed to the Hittites, the people of the land. 8He said to them, ‘If you are willing that I should bury my dead out of my sight, hear me, and entreat for me Ephron son of Zohar,9so that he may give me the cave of Machpelah, which he owns; it is at the end of his field. For the full price let him give it to me in your presence as a possession for a burying-place.’ 10Now Ephron was sitting among the Hittites; and Ephron the Hittite answered Abraham in the hearing of the Hittites, of all who went in at the gate of his city, 11‘No, my lord, hear me; I give you the field, and I give you the cave that is in it; in the presence of my people I give it to you; bury your dead.’ 12Then Abraham bowed down before the people of the land. 13He said to Ephron in the hearing of the people of the land, ‘If you only will listen to me! I will give the price of the field; accept it from me, so that I may bury my dead there.’ 14Ephron answered Abraham, 15‘My lord, listen to me; a piece of land worth four hundred shekels of silver—what is that between you and me? Bury your dead.’ 16Abraham agreed with Ephron; and Abraham weighed out for Ephron the silver that he had named in the hearing of the Hittites, four hundred shekels of silver, according to the weights current among the merchants.
17 So the field of Ephron in Machpelah, which was to the east of Mamre, the field with the cave that was in it and all the trees that were in the field, throughout its whole area, passed 18to Abraham as a possession in the presence of the Hittites, in the presence of all who went in at the gate of his city. 19After this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah facing Mamre (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan. 20The field and the cave that is in it passed from the Hittites into Abraham’s possession as a burying-place.
Egyptian Synchronized Swimmers, Montreal 2009
What I totally love about this YouTube clip (Thank you, Hayfa!) is that the swimmers are so original and have a great sense of humor about what they are doing. They also manage to infuse their performance with their own culture and make it all uniquely their own.
The Problem of Saint Bridget
Today is the Feast of St. Bridget, and I found the following in our Lectionary for today. The problem for Christians is that we are to travel lightly on the earth, caring not for possessions, as Bridget did. The poem is hilarious:
ST BRIDGET OF KILDARE
ABBESS (1 FEB 523)
Bridget (Brigid, Bride, Bridey, or in Welsh, Ffraid) of Kildare was born around 450 into a Druid family, being the daughter of Dubhthach, court poet to King Loeghaire. At an early age, she decided to become a Christian, and she eventually took vows as a nun. Together with a group of other women, she established a nunnery at Kildare (meaning, Church of the Oak). She was later joined by a community of monks led by Conlaed. Kildare had formerly been a pagan shrine where a sacred fire was kept perpetually burning, and Bridget and her nuns, instead of stamping out the fire, kept it going but gave it a Christian interpretation. (This was in keeping with the general process whereby Druidism in Ireland gave way to Christianity with very little opposition, the Druids for the most part saying that their own beliefs were a partial and tentative insight into the nature of God, and that they recognized in Christianity what they had been looking for.) Bridget as an abbess participated in several Irish councils, and her influence on the policies of the Church in Ireland was considerable.
Many stories of her younger days deal with her generosity toward the needy. This aspect of her character has been the subject of a poem:
“The Giveaway” (from The Love Leters of Phyllis McGinley, New York, Viking Press, 1957)
Saint Bridget was
A problem child.
Although a lass
Demure and mild,
And one who strove
To please her dad,
Saint Bridget drove
The family mad.
For here’s the fault in Bridget lay:
She would give everything away.
To any soul
Whose luck was out
She’d give her bowl
Of stirabout;
She’d give her shawl,
Divide her purse
With one or all.
And what was worse,
When she ran out of things to give
She’d borrow from a relative.
Her father’s gold,
Her grandsire’s dinner,
She’d hand to cold
and hungry sinner;
Give wine, give meat,
No matter whose;
Take from her feet
The very shoes,
And when her shoes had gone to others,
Fetch forth her sister’s and her mother’s.
She could not quit.
She had to share;
Gave bit by bit
The silverware,
The barnyard geese,
The parlor rug,
Her little
niece’s christening mug,
Even her bed to those in want,
And then the mattress of her aunt.
An easy touch
For poor and lowly,
She gave so much
And grew so holy
That when she died
Of years and fame,
The countryside
Put on her name,
And still the Isles of Erin fidget
With generous girls named Bride or Bridget.
Well, one must love her.
Nonetheless,
In thinking of her
Givingness,
There’s no denial
She must have been
A sort of trial
Unto her kin.
The moral, too, seems rather quaint.
Who had the patience of a saint,
From evidence presented here?
Saint Bridget? Or her near and dear?
It is reported of Francis of Assisi that as a young man he had a dream in which God said to him, “Francis, repair my church.” He took this to refer to a church building near Assisi which was in need of repair, and he sold a bale of silk from his father’s warehouse to obtain building materials. His father was furious. Francis had not asked for permission: he simply took it for granted that his father would wish to contribute to such a worthy cause. It is said of Bridget that as a young girl she made similar assumptions about her family.
 |
| St. Bridgit’s Cross, at St. Bridgit’s Church in Kildare |
There is a problem here. On the one hand, it can be argued that if our family members do not choose to make sacrifices for God we have no right to make that choice for them. Some time ago, if I remember aright, one listmember wrote in considerable bitterness about a childhood that had been blighted by the decision of the father that it would be nice if the whole family lived in Christian Poverty. (Said listmember found no spiritual blessings in the experience, and saw no sign that anyone else did, emphatically including said father.)
On the other hand, I far more frequently hear Christians argue that their sacred duty to keep everything nice for their spouses and children prevents them, not only from going as missionaries to distant shores, but also from volunteering even quite moderate amounts of their time and money for worthy causes down the block. (Not that all unattached Christians are blameless in this regard.) You will note that Saint Paul, writing to the Corinthians, told them that marriage, while instituted of God and a sign of the union between Christ and His Church, was not without its dangers to the spiritual life of the Christian. But the danger he saw had nothing to do with sex. He was concerned instead that the married are tempted to overvalue security, to feel that they cannot afford, for their families’ sakes, to take chances. And since he expected Christians to be facing persecution soon, he saw this as a matter of urgency.
So, as I said, there is a problem here. I have no final answer to give, but commend it to your consideration.
by James Kiefer
RealAge Test
Have you taken the RealAge Test?
I took it five years ago, when one of the Kuwait bloggers published the link and we all tried it to see how we measured up. I was shocked to learn that because I was not exercising enough, nor seeing a doctor regularly, I was actually OLDER than my age. It shocked me enough to see a doctor and take her advice.
Today I took it, and now, with regular exercise, I came out eight years younger than my age, and younger than I was the first time I took the test, Woooo HOOOOO!
The test has changed, but only updated by the newest findings. It now measures social factors, like how many people you are close to, how many you help, etc. You learn a lot about what is important just by taking the test.
I challenge you. Take the test, and tell me how you did.
Canadian Family Found Guilt of Honor Killing
From today’s AOL / Huffington Post: World:
KINGSTON, Ontario — A jury on Sunday found an Afghan father, his wife and their son guilty of killing three teenage sisters and a co-wife in what the judge described as “cold-blooded, shameful murders” resulting from a “twisted concept of honor.”
The jury took 15 hours to find Mohammad Shafia, 58; his wife Tooba Yahya, 42; and their son Hamed, 21, each guilty of four counts of first-degree murder in a case that shocked and riveted Canadians from coast to coast. First-degree murder carries an automatic life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years.
After the verdict was read, the three defendants again declared their innocence in the killings of sisters Zainab, 19, Sahar 17, and Geeti, 13, as well as Rona Amir Mohammad, 52, Shafia’s childless first wife in a polygamous marriage.
Their bodies were found June 30, 2009, in a car submerged in a canal in Kingston, Ontario, where the family had stopped for the night on their way home to Montreal from Niagara Falls, Ontario.
Prosecutors said the defendants allegedly killed the three teenage sisters because they dishonored the family by defying its disciplinarian rules on dress, dating, socializing and going online. Shafia’s first wife was living with him and his second wife. The polygamous relationship, if revealed, could have resulted in their deportation.
The prosecution alleged it was a case of premeditated murder, staged to look like an accident after it was carried out. Prosecutors said the defendants drowned their victims elsewhere on the site, placed their bodies in the car and pushed it into the canal.
Defense lawyers said the deaths were accidental. They said the Nissan car accidentally plunged into the canal after the eldest daughter, Zainab, took it for a joy ride with her sisters and her father’s first wife. Hamed said he watched the accident, although he didn’t call police from the scene.
After the jury returned the verdicts, Mohammad Shafia, speaking through a translator, said, “We are not criminal, we are not murderer, we didn’t commit the murder and this is unjust.”
His weeping wife, Tooba, also declared the verdict unjust, saying, “I am not a murderer, and I am a mother, a mother.”
Their son, Hamed, speaking in English said, “I did not drown my sisters anywhere.”
But Judge Robert Maranger was unmoved, saying the evidence clearly supported their conviction for “the planned and deliberate murder of four members of your family.”
“It is difficult to conceive of a more despicable, more heinous crime … the apparent reason behind these cold-blooded, shameful murders was that the four completely innocent victims offended your completely twisted concept of honor … that has absolutely no place in any civilized society.”
Hamed’s lawyer, Patrick McCann, said he was disappointed with the verdict, but said his client will appeal and he believes the other two defendants will as well.
But prosecutor Gerard Laarhuis welcomed the verdict.
“This jury found that four strong, vivacious and freedom-loving women were murdered by their own family in the most troubling of circumstances,” Laarhuis said outside court.
“This verdict sends a very clear message about our Canadian values and the core principles in a free and democratic society that all Canadians enjoy and even visitors to Canada enjoy,” he said to cheers of approval from onlookers.
The family had left Afghanistan in 1992 and lived in Pakistan, Australia and Dubai before settling in Canada in 2007. Shafia, a wealthy businessman, married Yahya because his first wife could not have children.
The prosecution painted a picture of a household controlled by a domineering Shafia, with Hamed keeping his sisters in line and doling out discipline when his father was away on frequent business trips to Dubai.
The months leading up to the deaths were not happy ones in the Shafia household, according to evidence presented at trial. Zainab, the oldest daughter, was forbidden to attend school for a year because she had a young Pakistani-Canadian boyfriend, and she fled to a shelter, terrified of her father, the court was told.
The prosecution said her parents found condoms in Sahar’s room as well as photos of her wearing short skirts and hugging her Christian boyfriend, a relationship she had kept secret. Geeti was becoming almost impossible to control: skipping school, failing classes, being sent home for wearing revealing clothes and stealing, while declaring to authority figures that she wanted to be placed in foster care, according to the prosecution.
Shafia’s first wife wrote in a diary that her husband beat her and “made life a torture,” while his second wife called her a servant.
The prosecution presented wire taps and cell phone records from the Shafia family in court to support their honor killing theory. The wiretaps, which capture Shafia spewing vitriol about his dead daughters, calling them treacherous and whores and invoking the devil to defecate on their graves, were a focal point of the trial.
“There can be no betrayal, no treachery, no violation more than this,” Shafia said on one recording. “Even if they hoist me up onto the gallows … nothing is more dear to me than my honor.”
Defense lawyers argued that at no point in the intercepts do the accused say they drowned the victims.
Shafia’s lawyer, Peter Kemp, said after the verdicts that he believes the comments his client made on the wiretaps may have weighed more heavily on the jury’s minds than the physical evidence in the case.
“He wasn’t convicted for what he did,” Kemp said. “He was convicted for what he said.”
Boat 1, Bridge 0
This is both very sad, and funny. What made this guy think he could make it under the bridge? Two spans of the bridge are draped over the bow:
You can read about it here.
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Early Voting in Florida
Here There and Everywhere 