Mom Sentenced for Condoning 9/11 with 3-Year-Old's Incredibly Offensive Shirt

zaterdag 21 september 2013

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AppId is over the quota
by Jenny Erikson 14 hours ago

A French woman was fined and sentenced to a suspended jail sentence on Friday, for sending her three-year-old son named Jihad to preschool in an offensive shirt given to him by his uncle. It read “Jihad, Born September 11, I am a bomb.”

Bouchra Bagour and her brother Zeyad were found guilty of condoning a criminal act, as the shirt obviously recalled al Qaeda’s terrorist act in 2001 that brought down the World Trade Center towers and killed nearly 3,000 innocent people.

The whole thing ended up in court because the nursery school workers where poor little Jihad (he didn’t pick his name … or his family members … or his clothes) attended were so understandably upset that they got local officials involved. The mom was fined 2,000 euros, and sentenced to a year in jail, and double that for the uncle.

Just … why?? What could they possibly have been trying to achieve with this stunt other than disturbing everyone’s peace? And this kid! How did he feel to have every adult stare at him in shock, horror, and disbelief? It must have been at least disconcerting, if not terrifying for this little boy to be gawked at by his caregivers. He doesn’t know that what mom did was wrong and downright scary.

Best-case scenario, this was a very misguided attempt at humor, but even so I say the sentencing still fits. 9/11 is nothing to joke about and nothing to make light of, and if you don’t have the common decency to respect the memory of the thousands of people that were murdered by jihad that day, then maybe a little jail time is a good idea. Like an adult version of "go to your room and think about what you’ve done!"

I just hope this kid isn’t too affected by his mother’s lack of judgment. Moms are supposed to teach their kids how to behave and interact with other people, and with role models like this kid has, he’s likely got a long road ahead of him.

Do you think there's any excuse for this?

Image via The.Comedian/Flickr

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Jenny Erikson

is a conservative chick living in Southern California with her two daughters. She loves politics and hates laundry.

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Molester Sentenced to 26 Years Still Has His Supporters -- Are They Nuts or Just Human?

maandag 9 september 2013

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by Kiri Blakeley 2 hours ago

Do you ever really know your friends, your family members? This must be the question that the relatives and friends of elementary school teacher Shane Vicars are asking themselves. Shane has been convicted on 13 counts for molesting boys in an after-school program. He was sentenced to 26 years in prison. And yet do we ever really know anyone? Because Shane has so many friends, so much support in the community, despite his horrific acts, that the judge called him "a good man and instructor who lost his judgment in the most horrible way."

Wow. A "good man" who merely "lost his judgment"? Not only that, the judge received 24 letters of support for Vicars, and a large group of supporters wearing "I Support Shane" T-shirts showed up at his sentencing. Are these people just nuts? Or are they ... us?

Vicar's victims were all between the ages of 7 and 11 years old. Vicars was their instructor at an after-school program when the offenses took place. Last year, the case presented six boys as victims -- and the jury was undecided. This year, they narrowed it down to two victims and he was found guilty. The judge told him:

I find that you took advantage of a position of trust and confidence to commit these sexual offenses.

These children will have to live with this their entire lives. The sexual molestation. The emotional turmoil. The breach of trust. They may grow up to be very different people from what they could have grown up to be. Their pain will never go away.

But thinking about myself, and what I would do if someone I loved, cared for, and trusted, who had never proven himself to be anything over than a good person to me, had done these things ... would I still support him or her?

I honestly don't know. I'd like to say I would not. But what if this was someone I'd known for 10 or 20 years? Someone who had helped me out numerous times?

The fact is, molesters can be charming people. It's how they go undetected for so long. People trust them; that's why they're in positions overseeing children.

Vicars has two sides to him. The man everyone likes. And the man who committed these crimes. It's always extremely difficult to merge those two sides in your mind when you encounter someone like that. Think about how we feel when someone we like and trust talks badly about us behind our backs or otherwise betrays us. We're stunned. We're outraged. We're confused.

So I can only imagine what Vicars' supporters feel.

I do not know what I would do. It would depend on my relationship with him, and what he was saying happened. I think there would be a real temptation to not want to accept reality. To think there's some sort of conspiracy. To think people got it wrong. To think people like that don't really exist. Molesters are scary-looking wild-eyed strangers who smell like tequila and haven't had a shower in two weeks, right? Not the guy we hang out with! Not the man who teaches our kids!

Human beings are capable of so much good -- and, unfortunately, so much bad. The worst is when they are capable of both.

What would you do?

Image via Sacramento Police

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Ariel Castro Is Sentenced in Cleveland Kidnap Horror But Did He Get What He Deserved? (VIDEO)

maandag 29 juli 2013

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by Kiri Blakeley 2 hours ago

Ariel Castro has pled guilty to a slew of charges that will have him never see freedom again. But he will remain alive. He appeared in court to plead guilty to 937 criminal counts of kidnapping, rape and aggravated murder. He will receive life in prison with no chance of parole -- plus an additional 1000 years which, unless he's a vampire, he won't serve, but it guarantees he will never get out. Castro kept three women, Amanda Berry, Georgina DeJesus, and Michelle Knight, captive for at least a decade in a house of horrors in Cleveland. Also inside the house was Amanda Berry's child with Castro, Jocelyn.

Castro seemed lucid and calm as he appeared in court. As the judge told him in no uncertain terms that he would never again see the outside of prison walls if he agreed to the deal, he said, "I'm fully aware and I do consent to the agreement." It appears that while Ariel did not value the life of the three women he held captive, he does indeed value his own, as now he will not be put to death. (Anyone surprised he is such a coward at heart?)

The deal also means there will be no trial, the women will not have to testify, and they won't have to relive every horror they'd been through.

A statement released by their law firm said that the women, "are satisfied by this resolution to the case, and are looking forward to having these legal proceedings draw to a final close in the near future."

There is no doubt that the women were consulted about the outcome. They obviously must have chosen life in prison for Castro over the possible death penalty in order that they could get on with their lives and not have to face this horrific man again. They already appear to be miraculously moving on.

Psychologists said that while for some victims testifying against their perpetrator can mean being given a sense of power and resolution, the trauma that these three women endured over such a long period of time would have been devastating and damaging to recount. Not to mention that millions would have been following the trial.

While many of us would have liked to have seen Castro fry, perhaps it is better that he have so many years ahead of him to contemplate his horrific actions and pay for his heinous crimes. It is, however, unfortunate that he will be fed three times a day and given shelter -- things that a lot of innocent people do not have.

Do you think the sentence is fair?

Image via USA Today/AP

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