What country do we live in, when this can happen?

August 16th, 2007

Sad as Hell News of the Day

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A man threw his seriously ill wife four stories to her death because he could no longer afford to pay for her medical care, prosecutors said in charging him with second-degree murder. According to court documents filed Wednesday in Jackson County Circuit Court, Stanley Reimer walked his wife to the balcony of their apartment and kissed her before throwing her over.

This is a tragic story on every level. The wife’s illness, the medical bills that just mount and mount with no way to pay for them, the decision to end her life in that way rather than try to find some other solution. Of course I don’t condone what he did, but who knows how mentally unstable that would make you, caring for your wife through cancer, seeing her wither down to 75lbs, partially blind and unable to walk, knowing you’d never get out of the debt her care was creating and that despite it all, it did no good - she was dying a miserable death anyway. What is wrong with this country, when capitalism trumps the health of its people? Why the fuck don’t we have universal health care by now instead of throwing all our cash down a huge hole in the desert? Why do I even bother to rant anymore, when outrage fatigue has me just wanting to bash my head against my desk?

I am so frustrated and bored right now. I tend to pride myself on never being bored - I always have something to do. But when you can’t do the thing you want to do it makes the things you have to do look so much more unappealing. This ridiculous heat and the incredible number of mosquitos at my house have conspired to keep me from doing jack-squat in the garden for the last three weeks. I was out there just pulling some crabgrass yesterday, maybe for 10 minutes,  and when I came in I had at least 10-15 bites. Seriously, if I don’t get West Nile, it will be a miracle. The front of my house looks so crap that I am sure people think it’s vacant. I have weeds up to my knees and all kinds of dead grass from the RoundUp I sprayed. But I have to wait for the perfect synchronozation between “cool enough to work outside” and “not so cool that all the gangster kids will be out and try to shoot my ass.” That’s a hard one to judge. And just for the sake of whining — because hey, I already am there — when I am out in front I obviously can’t have the pack with me, since there’s no fence. So I want to leave them inside behind the storm door, with the front door open. That way I can get inside quickly if I feel threatened and they can look up and down the street and howl like banshees if anyone’s coming that I don’t see yet. But the stupid assclowns who rehabbed this house didn’t hang the storm door correctly, so the only way it will stay closed tightly is if you lock it. Of course, they didn’t provide the key for that door, and I let the locksmith convince me on the day that I moved in that I would never need a key for the storm door. And yeah, that’s my own dumbass fault.

It’s just another one of those random sets of negative goofy things that makes the tasks I want to do seem so freaking difficult. Because I don’t feel comfortable out there with the front door closed and my back to the street - I just don’t. Hence the knee-high weeds and me looking like a white trash asshat. OK, end rant for now. Tomorrow should see at least a mild cool down and I plan on getting out there, completely drenched in OFF! and working for a few hours. And propping some random thing up against the storm door so that the poop machines can have my back. ;-)

  


3 Responses to “What country do we live in, when this can happen?”

  1. Heidi on August 17, 2007 1:32 am

    We got a yard fogger thing from Raid or Black Flag or somebody. Cutter has one, too, but they were out of that one at WalMart when I tried to buy it. I ended up going to the hardware store instead. You use the thing a while before you go outside, and it’s supposed to last for a couple of weeks.

    I’m not sure whether the one we got is pet safe. We just have indoor kitties, so I don’t have to worry about that. But I bet there is something similar that is pet and kid safe.

    I have no words for the story about the guy killing his wife, other than sad. :sad:

  2. SuperBadGirl on August 18, 2007 2:38 pm

    I looked at all of those, and I am sure they would work, the problem is that my goblins eat grass constantly. So even if I waited until it dried before I let them out, they would still ingest a large amount of it. To me it’s just not worth the risk. I’ve also heard that you can spray water that you’ve blended 14 or so cloves of garlic into, and that deters/kills insects, but apparently it deters/kills all of them, even the beneficial ones. And I don’t want to lose my bees and butterflies.

    I know, I am a whiny brat who won’t accept any answer at all, huh? Welcome to my world. It’s very involved, being me.

  3. Heidi on August 18, 2007 3:34 pm

    You are not! :evil: Cut that out. Of COURSE you don’t want anything to happen to the furbabies. And I’m not so sure garlic is ok for them anyway. Stuff from the garlic and onion family can be deadly to cats. Just keep your eyes open and maybe you’ll run across something you can at least use out front. Or you can get a bug zapping light. They’re not great, but I think they’re better than nothing. And it’s always satisfying hearing the mosquitoes go zap. :lol:

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