Trash Talking The Dead

"I will never understand why they didn't get out. They should have been sitting on the roof of the garage, smoking a cigarette and waiting for the fire department."
"...Again, I am speculating, I shouldn't, but you will find once toxicology tests come back there was a reason they did not get out."
"Unless, and again pure speculation, they were dazed and confused before this fire started. We're talking, you know, Saturday night, a young man, the first time on his own, two young girls -- they were not reading the Bible, right?" 
"If you mean, they made mistakes, then yes. They started the fire by careless cooking; they transferred the fire to the staircase; they opened windows and they didn't escape by many means."
Andrew Strzelec, landlord, Whitby, Ontario

Teenagers Ben Twiddy, Holly Harrison and Marilee Towie died in a Whitby, Ont., house fire that is currently the subject of an inquest.   Handouts; Ernest Doroszuk/Postmedia Network/File

A Coroner's Court in Toronto has been hearing testimony of a landlord in the case of a 2012 Whitby fire that took the lives of three young people. One, a young man of nineteen, Ben Twiddy, was the tenant. Living on his own for the first time. He had two young female friends Marilee Towie, 17 and Holly Harrison 18, over for the evening. He had been a multiple-transplant recipient, and he rented a flat on the second floor of a building that was coded as a single-family dwelling, yet it had been altered by the owners to represent three separate rental living areas.

Moreover, there were numerous inspections of the building that identified and racked up a number of fire code irregularities which the landlord was told to correct. Most blatant was the use of flammable materials, and no exit route from the second floor other than a staircase lined with the same flammable wood paneling -- nothing that would resist the spread of fire. The carpeting was highly flammable, and so was the wood panelling. The landlord ignored all demands that infractions of fire safety rules be honoured.

Ben Twiddy spoke to the 911 emergency personnel to calmly inform them that a fire was raging and there was no way for himself and the two young women to exit the flat, they were trapped. One of the girls had seen that a teatowel had caught fire beside the stove, and she had flung it down the stairs, where it soon succeeded in transferring the fire which caught nicely on the flammable paneling, and the three teens realized they had nowhere to exit to save themselves.

The fire department was notified immediately. The fire station was almost adjacent the house, a mere 0.2 kilometres away on the very same street. Yet it took five minutes for the fire truck to reach the scene, and another nine minutes before any of the firefighters entered the burning house. There is speculation that the three young people would have died of smoke inhalation even had the fire fighters entered immediately after arrival on scene.

The landlord, Andrew Strzelec, despite having been cited for unlawful irregularities, and fined, made no required amendments meant to create a safer atmosphere for the young man or anyone else living in that second floor flat. Yet he continues to assert that he is not responsible in any way for the dreadful outcome. He rented an environmentally dangerous, illegal unit in a house to a vulnerable young man who paid $710 monthly out of his disability fund for a place to live.

Casting aspersions and responsibility on the three young people, the landlord claimed that if it had been himself in the same situation, he would have experienced no problem placing himself immediately out of danger, and as he would have it, the three teens had likely been drinking, using drugs, having sex, and they began the fire that ultimately engulfed them, he having nothing whatever to do with the tragedy.

Toxicology results cleared the teens of drugs or alcohol. Their youth may go far in explaining the fact that in a panic one of the girls tossed a burning teacloth not in a sink to douse it, but at a vulnerable part of the house; her inexperienced mind likely informed her that if she removed it from the apartment it would no longer remain a threat to them, unable in her panicked reaction to adequately consider the consequences of such a rashly improbable solution.

The landlord makes no secret that he believes the municipality of Whitby and its fire department were after him for flouting safety regulations: "They were circling the wagons", he stated, and if they were, it was for obvious reasons meant to protect the security of a situation such as what had occurred in that 2012 tragedy. Leading the lawyer for the fire marshal to comment that "What didn't come out of your mouth was an expression of condolence for these families."

Professional Respect, Public Professionalism

"Quite frankly, when I was [not] knowing whether I was going to live or die, the last thing I needed to have shoved in my face was a skull. That was offensive."
"If I saw a gang of bikers that had full-on tattoos and were mean-looking and were noisy and had club symbols on their jackets, I'd be afraid of them."
"I don't want that feeling in emergency."
Marie Molloy, Lake Country, British Columbia

Jeff Bassett for National Post   Marie Molloy at her home in Carrs Landing, Lake Country, B.C. on April 4

"The right of patients is to have quality and safe care. A tattoo has no influence on quality and safe care."
"You can dig deep on this one and it gets into very dangerous territory. What about a seven-foot male nurse looking after a newborn? ... Or what if you look 'too young?'"
Linda Silas, president, Canadian Federation of Nurses' Unions

"Currently, you can't look anywhere without seeing a tattoo. You try and encourage students to be as professional as possible, but if society's norms accept tattoos as being normal ... that is not policeable."
Beverley O'Connell, dean, University of Manitoba nursing college

Standards of professionalism may not have eased, but visual representations of professional standards most certainly have. Entering any hospital in Canada now it's difficult to tell from appearances who the nursing and other professionals are. The once-distinguished nurses' and other hospital employees' apparel of neat white garments enabled instant identification. And with it the respect that naturally follows that identification. And with the respect for the profession that cares, came the comfort of trust.

Now, nurses are more likely to be wearing short, colourful, patterned smocks and jeans, or just any casual clothing, not necessarily all that neat and tidy. They are no doubt proficient, know their duties and perform them well, but not accoutered as one might expect them to be. And something is lost in the process. The nurses may redeem themselves by the application of their professional skills, but they no longer have the appearance that gives reassurance of those skills taken on trust.

Vulnerable people dependent on the professionalism and good will of those looking after their medical and health needs at a critical time in their lives are hardly in a position to complain. When complaints are lodged they bear an aura of disgruntlement and unpleasantness and in response to that impression there are natural fears that the individual performing his/her professional expertise will exert somewhat less effort, in response to criticism.

Mrs. Molloy was certainly in a vulnerable position when she was admitted to her local hospital's emergency department and treatment began to keep her alive. She suffers from rheumatoid arthritis positioned in her larynx and coincidentally has an abnormally small airway. Her condition was exacerbated in the aftermath of unrelated surgery and she struggled to breathe, ending up in the emergency department of the Vernon Jubilee Hospital.

The treatment given her remains a blur to the woman. When she awoke after a seven-hour bout of unconsciousness the first thing she saw was an emergency worker beside her, his arm at eye-level, inked with a skull, and it frightened her enormously, seeming to portend a sinister outcome for her to survive the health emergency she was going through. Afterward, after her recovery, she lodged an official complaint but hospital administrators were not impressed.

Some nursing schools in Canada insist that students cover up their tattoos, and although most health facilities in Canada have no official policy restricting body art, studies suggest that patients perceive their display in a negative light. At the Ottawa Hospital, administrators attempted to have staff cover their tattoos. But in 2013 a labour arbitrator ruled that to be an infringement on employees' rights. Toronto's University Health Network representing four of Canada's largest hospitals has no policy on tattoos.

Empirical research on the issue appears to support the reality that the public, exposed to people wearing tattoos in hospitals as health professionals, fail to impress patients with their lack of the appearance of professionalism. It could most certainly be construed as a lack of respect of patients for health professionals to have no proper dress code, let alone restraint in the presentation of tattoos in a situation, and a venue that calls for a professional appearance, if only as a visual assurance.

In 2012, a study in Maryland found that patients exposed to pictures of health workers reacted less than favourably to tattooed and pierced employees. A survey of 765 patients in Italy certainly seemed to suggest that all of those questioned considered it to be inappropriate for doctors to have long hair, visible tattoos or body piercing. It does serve to leave an impression that is not professional, and with that impression comes a diminution of trust in a professional's abilities.

At the University of Manitoba the nursing college established a policy meant to discourage students from giving an appearance of non-professionalism. Students were given instructions that tattoos were to be covered while on clinical rotations at health-care facilities. That rule was initiated by the students' association itself. Perhaps the issue is that people are too casual about the need to themselves observe respect for their profession, and by extension, respect for the perceptions of people requiring professional health services.

Sacrificing Children As Sex Possessions

"My parents are poor, they cannot afford to look after me. I helped my family when I got married; they no longer need to support me."
16-year-old Mozambican girl

"I was in the ninth grade. Now I get up at 6 a.m. I clean the house, then I clean my mother-in-law's house and I also work on the farm."
16-year-old in Inhambane province, Mozambique

"Mostly it's a situation where the mother herself was given away as a little girl, so they think it's normal."
"It becomes something generational."
Pascoa Claudino Sumbana Ferrao, government director, Inhambane City

"The problem is that girls and women are not allowed to speak. If a man stands up in church and says God showed him in a dream that he should marry a certain girl, then that is God's commandment which must be obeyed."
Zimbabwean church elder

Child bride in Niger -- The Economist

In Nigeria, 23 million girls and women were married in childhood, making that country home to the largest number of child brides in Africa. Elsewhere in Africa, Chad and Central African Republic are among the countries with the highest rates of child marriage today. The world gasped in horror as the Islamist terrorist group operating out of Nigeria, Boko Haram, kidnapped almost 300 schoolgirls in Chibok, where they attended a private school for girls. The wholesale abduction of hundreds of girls was viewed as an atrocity, and it was.

But the custom of male relatives of young girls selling those girls into marriages with mature and often much-older men prevails throughout Africa and south Asia. Those girls are sold, although the custom is to consider their selling price a 'bride price', much as cattle are sold at auction for whatever the going price might be, to add to an enterprising man's holdings. In this case, a young girl is considered the property of whoever offers the best bride price to an often rural, often penurious family.

It's hard to see how this practise is condoned and the abduction of hundreds is condemned. How different are they? In either instance, slavery results and a lifetime of misery.

The fate of one girl was outlined, a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl whose school uniform was discarded when she was handed a traditional wedding robe and informed her seventh-grade studies in South Africa were over because her male relatives had taken a $570 bride price from a man she had no idea even existed, who happened to be twice her age. After the marriage where she had been beaten and raped, she made a successful escape and reported her experience at a police station.

Officially, child-bride arranged marriages are forbidden by law in many of the countries where they occur. A law that is ignored in favour of what has become a tradition; selling young girls into lifetime servitude under the name of marriage. In the instance of the young girl who related her experience to police in South Africa, a criminal prosecution of child marriage resulted.

A recently released UNICEF report has highlighted the "lost childhoods and shattered futures", of these young girls with the demands that these governments enact more aggressive responses to put an end to the practise in Africa altogether. Where, across the continent girls are being used as possessions to be sold, the price bargained for to be used for family debts. Sometimes girls are sold into marriage in the belief that this will ensure they aren't able to engage in mischief.
What lies in store for these girls is anything but a placid future life of comfort and care as a valued companion for a man. Their lives are comprised of violent incidents, of poverty and risk of HIV, according to UNICEF. In the criminal case that took place in South Africa the husband was found guilty of rape, assault and human trafficking, sentenced to 22 years in prison for what he kept insisting was a traditional practise.

That tradition is called "ukuthwala". At one time young men would reach an agreement with a girl, and both would make an effort to convince her family to agree to their marrying. At the present time, some older men have taken to abducting girls, raping them, and forcing them into a 'marriage' that has more in common with slavery than marriage, according to the Commission for Gender Equality in South Africa.

In Ethiopia as well abductions and forced marriages of girls represented custom, but were outlawed in 2004. That this is against the law is no guarantee whatever that the practise will not continue, for it does. In Mozambique no laws exist to prevent child marriages. If a village community decides a girl should be married in a traditional ceremony her consent is not required and authorities are powerless to intervene. Nearly half of women between 20 and 24 married before the age of 18.

In Zimbabwean society early marriage is recognized as an avoidance of sin and child marriage is encouraged among the followers of churches combining evangelical Christianity and traditional African beliefs. Church leaders go so far as to enforce virginity testing rituals on girls as young as twelve.

Number of African child brides to soar by 2050 as population grows-U.N

• Pregnancy is consistently among the leading causes of death for girls ages 15 to 19 worldwide.
• Child brides often face a higher risk of contracting HIV because they often marry an older man with more sexual experience. Girls ages 15 – 19 are 2 to 6 times more likely to contract HIV than boys of the same age in sub-Saharan Africa.
• Girls who marry before 18 are more likely to experience domestic violence than their peers who marry later. A study conducted by ICRW in two states in India found that girls who were married before 18 were twice as likely to report being beaten, slapped or threatened by their husbands than girls who married later.
• Child brides often show signs symptomatic of sexual abuse and post-traumatic stress such as feelings of hopelessness, helplessness and severe depression. 
• While countries with the highest prevalence of child marriage are concentrated in Western and Sub-Saharan Africa, due to population size, the largest number of child brides reside in South Asia.   
• Girls living in poor households are almost twice as likely to marry before 18 than girls in higher income households.
• More than half of the girls in Bangladesh, Mali, Mozambique and Niger are married before age 18. In these same countries, more than 75 percent of people live on less than $2 a day.   International Centre for Research on Women

Child Marriage Around the World
Percentage of girls marrying before the age of 18                      1 Niger 76.6
2 Chad 71.5
3 Bangladesh 68.7
4 Mali 65.4
5 Guinea 64.5
6 Central African Republic 57.0
7 Nepal 56.1
8 Mozambique 55.9
9 Uganda 54.1
10 Burkina Faso 51.9
11 India 50.0
12 Ethiopia 49.1
13 Liberia 48.4
13 Yemen 48.4
15 Cameroon 47.2
16 Eritrea 47.0
17 Malawi 46.9
18 Nicaragua 43.3
18 Nigeria 43.3
20 Zambia 42.1 Source: ICRW 2007

Children of Marriage Breakdown

"This is one of the worst. On the scale of deadbeats it's probably the worst deadbeat that I could imagine in any family law case."
"Tens of millions of dollars have disappeared. He [Vrege Armoyan] is not living in a cave. ... My client can't afford groceries She can't afford to fly here for this hearing."
"Mr. Armoyan is many things, but one thing he is not is stupid. He knows exactly what he is doing."
"Not one case in Canada matches this case. Not one. This is the worst possible contempt. He is thumbing his nose at the court process."
Harold Niman, Toronto family lawyer

"We're thinking of framing Lisa's story as an illustration of how the growing problem of deadbeat dads can affect families in every socio-economic strata."
"During their 16-year marriage, Lisa's standard of living was substantial, including ownership of boats, a variety of luxury automobiles, at their palatial residences in the U.S. and Canada, with millions of dollars at their disposal, and lived the life of extremely high income earners." 

Lisa Armoyan. (PRNewsFoto/TransMedia Group)

"Lisa is not only beautiful, but highly educated, a talented fitness model and trainer. She has developed through education, training and personal experience a high sense of wellness, regardless of life's stressors."

"Our goal is to see that Lisa achieves the same standard of living that she had during her 16 years of marriage to prominent Halifax developer husband and Armco Capital Founder Vrege Armoyan, who according to court records, has been so exasperatingly elusive and difficult to pin down during their high-profile cross-border legal battle."

TransMedia Group CEO Tom Madden

Beauty is as beauty does. This beauty happened to have married herself to a man whose conscience is somewhat lacking, and now she is paying the consequences. The couple separated and the husband, a Nova Scotia real estate businessman and developer, withheld court-ordered child and spouse support. Certainly not because, like many men he struggled financially and was unable to meet his obligations. This man, Vrege Armoyan, chose to flee Canada for an unknown destination.

Correction: not completely unknown; the Syrian-born man is somewhere in the Middle East where his wealth ensures he will live well, and where the cross-border attempts between Canada and the United States to achieve justice in spouse and child support for his ex-wife and his three children cannot reach. The man signed over legal rights to grant sole custody of their three children to his wife. Having done which, he has also obviously decided to wash his hands of financial responsibility for their well-being.

The Circuit Court in Palm Beach County, Florida, found that during their marriage the Armoyans accumulated a net worth in excess of $50 million. Mr. Armoyan was given ten days by a Florida family court in 2012 to pay support he had withheld for three years. Following the 2009 dissolution of the marriage, the man appears to have attempted to hide his holdings in an effort to avoid paying support for his children, aged 20, 18 and 15.

Nova Scotia Family Court Judge Therese Forgeron said from the Halifax courthouse that his "defiance spanned many years", leading to the situation at present where he owes a "shameful amount of arrears. His children struggle to survive while Mr. Armoyan has millions", commented the justice, and she sentenced him to four years in prison and levied a fine of $384,000 for having fled the country in his support avoidance scheme.

Dozens of court appearances between the once-married couple were made in Canada and Florida with Armoyan ordered to pay $29,000 a month in child and spousal support in 2012. The full amount was never forthcoming. Leaving a total arrears outstanding of $1,714,684.00. An additional $1-million is owing in court costs. He had been sentenced to 60 days in jail when a Florida court sentenced him for failing to obey a court order on support.

Armoyan sold his luxury yacht in Lebanon in 2013, placed his Lamborghini on sale for $105,000 and a Corvette for $62,000, while receiving a $2-million tax-free capital dividend and over $1-million from his mother. Found guilty of contempt of court last month, Friday he was meant to attend court for a sentencing hearing. Shortly after the scheduled time when the hearing was to commence it became clear the man was not in attendance.

He will, however, be arrested if and when he returns to Canada and will have to serve the four-year sentence imposed by the court though should he pay the fine and the arrears of spousal and child support he would be released from prison. Doubtless he has managed to dissolve his Canadian holdings, or accepted a buy-out from his brother with whom he has partnered in the various businesses that have made him so wealthy, requiring no return to wrap up his business interests.

The issue of child support in separations and divorces is a real and problematical one. In both Canada and the United States women and children are often left to fend for themselves when their former husbands and fathers of their children refuse to pay the financial costs of raising children as they are morally and legally obligated to do. Most women and children don't come from well-off backgrounds like Lisa Armoyan and her children.

However, married to a wealthy businessman whom her efforts on different levels helped in part in his achieving success should have garnered her the financial consideration she is entitled to, had her ex-husband been a responsible individual expressing goodwill and a natural paternal affection for his offspring.

Racist Bigotry in Canada

"Racism and intolerance exist in every community, but we do have a problem in Winnipeg. Instead of shrinking from the challenge, we need to rise up and we need to do better as a community."
"Winnipeg has a responsibility right now to turn this ship around and change the way we all relate."
"My wife is [of] Ukrainian heritage. My family is Metis. I want my boys to be as proud of both of those family lines."
"We're here together to face this head-on as one community."
Winnipeg Mayor Brian Bowman

"I'm not here to pacify racism or to provide a politically correct statement on the reality of racism within the institutions that we function within every day."
"I guarantee that right now somebody's having a racist experience in a restaurant, or on the streets in Winnipeg somewhere. I'm not here to pacify that or to say that it's OK. But what I am here to do is I'm here to acknowledge the great work of people who get up every morning of every day to challenge racism in this city."
Grand Chief Derek Nepinak, head, Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs

"I have a right to be different. If we as a society make that a basic principle -- that all human beings have a right to be different -- we'd go a long way to solving the intolerance that many people experience."
"Instead of putting each other down, we should be trying to lift each other up."
Ovid Mercredi, former national chief, Assembly of First Nations

'The Manitoba capital is deeply divided along ethnic lines. Its Native citizens suffer daily indignities and horrific violence,' the Maclean's article alleges. (CBC)

Canada's news magazine, Maclean's, has published a new issue creating aa newly-controversial argument that Canada has a larger race-relations problem than does the United States. And, it states, the face of that bigotry exists in Winnipeg. Where racial discrimination is alive and raw. Where Native Canadians are held to be uniformly of sub-par intelligence, whose culture and heritage is not worthy of respect. It isn't hard to find statistics showing that First Nations people are over-represented in Canada's prisons.

Pan-handlers surfing the streets, aboriginal women who are drug-addicted and working the streets. Petty criminals of aboriginal background. Alcoholism a problem of staggering dimensions. Reserve councils misappropriating tax-paid funds meant to improve the lives of their tribal dependents. High unemployment among aboriginals. And along with all of that the contempt that some segments of Canadian society holds them in; worse, the depredation of sociopaths on Native women.

It's hard sometimes to figure out where the primary responsibility for the social well-being of First Nations lies. People do have to be responsible for themselves. Other groups have traditionally experienced the wretchedness of oppression and deprivation owing to their status in society, held to be inferior to the majority populations. Yes, the damage to self-esteem and human nature's ability to rebound is severe, but there is also inner resilience that must be called upon.

Simply put, there is no reason why First Nations people cannot be as deliberately capable of more responsibility for themselves, leading inevitably to improved outcomes for succeeding generations. There is an enormous responsibility residing within the prevailing larger populations to ensure fairness, but there is also the need for First Nations leaders to take stock of their own deficiencies and to lead their people toward a place of greater self-respect.

That it is incumbent upon themselves to raise their families by healthy nurturing, and to eschew alcohol and drugs and social-welfare dependency rather than imprint them on their children's evolving values. The inequities facing aboriginals in Canada are undeniably existent. There is no reason for Native Canadians not to be proud of their heritage, but pride should lead to striving for an exemplary lifestyle, not one of dependency on social welfare, drugs and alcohol.

There are more than ample role models from within the First Nations communities for young aboriginals to look up to and emulate. Those who have achieved an advanced academic eduction and who now equal any other ethnic groups in the professions of education, law, medicine, architecture, the humanities and the arts and sciences, demonstrate more than amply that there is no deficit in intelligence quotient, their success illustrates the ambition to achieve success for their futures.

What some can do, others can strive toward, and however far they advance themselves they can take personal pride within. But it does take determination and effort and the desire to achieve a set goal. As for those within society who prefer to believe stereotypes have the last word, and who view First Nations people as somehow inferior to themselves, what they are succeeding in doing is diminishing themselves through their own lack of intelligence.

Winnipeg's new mayor, himself of aboriginal descent, defended his city, declaring the universality within Canada of racism. He plans to lead his city away from its current well-earned reputation as a place where First Nations disrepute is to be found, aspiring to see that Winnipeg can "lead the nation" in the eradication of racism. Racism is a damningly dire pathology that afflicts human nature and it will never be entirely eliminated.

But the effort to decrease its effect on society through education and a focus on leading people to a better place for themselves on either side of the spectrum of polarized mistrust is the path that must be taken to make Canada a better place, one fully respective of a Native history, heritage and culture that is an integral part of the country. At the same time, First Nations people must themselves work at improving themselves, as we all must do.

The city's chief of police is black. Chief Devon Clunis has stated he doesn't believe Winnipeg is the only city trying to come to grips with racism in Canada. "We need to have a difficult conversation in our city respective of race. I think you are seeing who is starting that conversation today", he noted.

Makayla Sault, who refused chemotherapy for leukaemia in favour of alternative treatments, has died

YouTube/Two Row Times    Makayla-Sault, who asked her parents to take her off chemotherapy to pursue ‘traditional’ medicines, has died.

 

Tristin Hopper | January 19, 2015 National Post

Makayla Sault, the 11-year-old First Nations girl who gave up chemotherapy treatment in favour of alternative medicine, has died.

Little scientific, nothing native, about U.S. treatment taken by cancer-stricken aboriginal girls

“We continue to support Makayla’s choice to leave chemotherapy,” wrote Makayla’s family in a statement given to the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation-based Two Row Times. “At this time we request privacy from the media while we mourn this tragic loss.”

Makayla, a member of the New Credit First Nation, was suffering from a unique form of Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, the most common form of childhood cancer. Under proper treatment, doctors estimate it has a survivability rate as high as 80% for children.

After 11 weeks of chemotherapy at McMaster Children’s Hospital, however, Makayla opted to eschew further treatment in favour of indigenous remedies and a stay at the Hippocrates Health Institute. The Florida-based alternative health spa claims to treat serious illnesses with lasers, colon hydrotherapy and a strict diet of raw food and wheat grass.

The decision was prompted in part by Makayla’s claim that she had seen a vision of Jesus Christ at her bedside declaring her to be cancer-free.

“I have asked my mom and dad to take me off the treatment because I don’t want to go this way any more,” Makayla said in a recorded statement last spring.

“I asked him, ‘Can you heal me,’ and he said, ‘You are already healed,’ and he held out his hands to me and I saw the holes in his hands and I knew that it was Jesus. And he told me, ‘Do not be afraid.’”

Although the decision was initially challenged by the Brant Children’s Aid Society, Makayla’s file was set aside because “we have to recognize the traditions and the community of First Nations people,” according to director Andy Koster, speaking last May.

At the time, members of local First Nations had formed the Makayla Defence Force, a “peaceful group of men, women and youth who have promised to protect the Sault family and who are ready to peacefully intervene if anyone tries to remove Makayla or her brothers from New Credit First Nation,” said family spokesperson Nahnda Garlow at the time.

In an October Facebook video, Makayla was recorded as saying “I just want to let everyone know that I’m alive and well and that I am healed.”

However, she was reported as being critically ill as early as November. A statement by her parents to the Two Row Times confirmed that she suffered a stroke on Sunday and died on Monday.

The statement claimed that Makayla died of a stroke stemming from her earlier chemotherapy. “Chemotherapy did irreversible damage to her heart and major organs,” it read.

There appears to be little to no clinical precedent for chemotherapy drugs prompting a childhood stroke several months after treatment has ceased.

A stroke could be consistent with leukemia, however. As a blood disease, leukemia can form clots that cause stroke. Oncology sources contacted Monday night by the National Post, however, said that Makayla’s specific cancer is not consistent with a fatal stroke — unless the cancer had spread to her brain.

Last October, during testimony relating to a similar case of a First Nations girl refusing cancer treatment, a representative with the McMaster Children’s Hospital stated that Makayla’s health was taking a turn for the worse.

Monday night, the hospital offered its condolences.

“Everyone who knew Makayla was touched by this remarkable girl. Her loss is heart-breaking. Our deepest sympathy is extended to Makayla’s family,” said a statement by hospital president Peter Fitzgerald.

National Post

Juvenile, 'like' In Adulthood

"You could tell she was getting ready to get sick, so we hopped up, I opened the window and said 'You can get sick here', so she said 'Okay', and got sick out the window."
"We were like laughing and stuff, we were behind her, like giggling and stuff because she had her shirt on and no pants and she was just like hanging out the window. We were kind of laughing about the night, she was like, 'You guys can keep going', and me and (the other boy), we're like pointing at each other."
"Like, 'You go ahead' and he said 'You go ahead', so I was like whatever, I go on [Rehtaeh], I just posed for the picture and he took his cellphone out and took it [the photograph]."
"I will not live with the guilt of someone passing away, but I will live with the guilt of sending the picture."
"I have pleaded guilty to distributing child pornography, not a sexual assault. I never played a part in the bullying [of Rehtaeh Parsons], nor would I."
Now 20, unnamed [by law] young man who at age 16, enjoyed consensual sex with a 15-year-old girl

Facebook    Rehtaeh Parsons, a young woman who killed herself in 2013 after years of bullying linked to a photo that was shared around of her having sex with a boy.

"I remember looking at him and telling him, 'I don't know whoever you are, but you aren't the son I've raised, so maybe you can go away and bring back the one I know."
"That was a lot for him to carry around by himself for almost a year without telling us about it. No wonder I saw so many changes in him."
"I don't sit here as a parent and say he's perfect. He's not. He's made mistakes. Tell me a teenager who hasn't. If we did something stupid when we were a kid, made out with some boy or something, the worst thing you had to worry about was, was your name going to be written in some stall?"
Mother of boy accused of rape by mother of girl who committed suicide

It is difficult beyond measure, given the camaraderie with which young people view one another, and the distaste and rebellion with which they view anything perceived as interference in the social aspects of their lives from their parents. Perhaps before young people grow into their teen years the perfect opportunities as far as trust and nurturance and communication are concerned should have long since taken place. Above all, to confer upon the pre-teen the awareness of social responsibilities.

Those responsibilities can be summed up neatly enough in the word respect. Having respect for oneself, and for others. When the idea and the realization of respect become fully ingrained in a personality the understanding of parameters and responsibilities should be intact enough to withstand the enticements of casually setting those values aside in the interest of reflecting in their own behaviour that of their peers for whom there are no adequate social standards of mutual respect.

But then, parents upon whom fall the responsibilities of fully nurturing and supporting the social and practical needs of their offspring through communication, discipline and understanding to augment emotional needs would have to demonstrate by conviction and their own code of values and ethics just what should be regarded as uncompromising standards of behaviour. If and when a parent once their child has reached the teen years has failed to succeed in that elemental transfer of a foundational set of values, social and peer pressure take their place.

In the case of Rehtaeh Parsons, a beautiful young girl brought up in Nova Scotia,, attending Cole Harbour High school, casual sexual relations with boys attending the same high school appears to reflect her understanding of what she, as a fifteen-year-old, could engage in. It seems that no parental figure took the bother of vetting her activities. In the case of the boys who complemented her casual attitude to sharing sex, the same can be said to be true. Parents too busy, too distracted, too unwilling to intrude in the intimate activities of their children hovering on adulthood to monitor them.

How else could it be possible that a fifteen-year-old girl could stay overnight at the home of some boys she knew casually without alarming her parents? How was it possible that the boys whose home it was could invite girls to come over for an evening, ply them with hard alcohol and continue on to share sex, without any parental supervision to ensure that these actions would not take place between minors who aren't the best judge of potential consequences of their actions?

But the young man of twenty who when he was sixteen indulged in those respect-demeaning acts with a young girl who was drunk after having been given eight shots of straight vodka to the boys' 11 shots, just as casually recounts his memories of those times to a reporter, in the company of his parents, sounding like an unreconstructed teen-ager, after having achieved the age of majority.

At trial, after the suicide of the girl who became increasingly distraught at her female peers jeering at her 'slut' status with the distribution of an infamous photograph mentioned above by the boy, he rejects the notion that he is guilty of having had anything to do with her death.

At age 20 he should understand that his actions and that of his friend who snapped a picture of the girl, head out the window of the back seat of a vehicle, with the boy behind her who was busy doing "some things" with the opportunity given him of her nakedness from the waist down, ostensibly with her permission after her nausea had passed, was little different than rape, since she was in no condition to consent, even if she had formerly under other conditions.

It was the incriminating photograph, however, that was circulated  endlessly, humiliating and shaming her, that represented the capping of the trauma, causing the girl to take her life.

Her social life at school, after all, had plummeted. She had begged her girlfriends not to consider her a "slut", but girls tend to be pretty smug about shaming those who have been caught out by circumstances of their own making, readily taking to condemning those whose behaviour tops the local gossip chat lines. So the boy excuses himself by stating "Obviously, if I felt like if she didn't want it, it wouldn't have happened. It was all mutual. We were in the groove", he explained in defending as an adult, his younger self's behaviour.

The girl Rehtaeh Parsons, had responded to an invitation to attend a house party where four boys were present. She went along, with a girlfriend accompanying her. That girlfriend was offended when after she had gone out for a smoke and returned to find the younger two boys having gone to a basement recreation room to play games, the older boys and her girlfriend were engaged in sex. She left in anger, and her mother returned with her to the house to retrieve Rehtaeh, who refused to leave the house. "That's when we shut down the whole thing and packed up. I left the house, called it a night, and pretty much thought nothing of it", explained the boy.

Can't get much more casual than that. The following morning he discovered the photograph had been sent to his cellphone. "I thought, 'Okay, that's what happened last night'. I just said, 'Look what I did last night type of thing", he explained, on forwarding the photograph on to the girl who Rehtaeh refused to leave the boys' house with, and instead stayed overnight, sleeping her alcohol-fuelled illness off in a bedroom. "Kind of bragging about it, but it was a joke as well", he emphasized.

It was the 'joke' that travelled in the circles of those attending the same high school, damning the girl for her indiscretion, trampling on her reputation, driving her to despair, and finally to suicide. The extreme depression in which her mother found her would not be alleviated. After the success of the suicide attempt, her mother posted an accusation on Facebook accusing the boys of rape: "Rehtaeh is gone today because of the four boys that thought raping a 15-year-old girl was OK and to distribute a photo to ruin her spirit and reputation would be fun."

The facts are more complex than the inaccurate accusations launched by Rehtaeh Parsons' mother. Parents have an obligation to teach those cautionary tales about self-respect to their children. As for the parents of the boys involved, the boys who were charged with distributing juvenile pornography, who were chided by the presiding judge and given suspended sentences, they seem as obtusely self-forgiving about their responsibilities as the parents of the girl: "I don't understand why kids are having sex at parties. Or two people with one person. To me, I just think sex is something that goes on with two people", said the boy's mother.

"In my mind", said his father, "that's not how we raised him, to have unprotected sex with anybody, at least until you're in a relationship with them. Just to go to a party and have sex with someone and now there's a picture?" Open channels of communication are also not always what one might wish for; it took a year for the investigation into the suicide and the events leading to it, to conclude, and during that time the boy had said nothing whatever to his parents.

Once all was revealed and the names of the boys and their addresses were posted on line as a social act of vigilante vengeance, they were themselves hounded by outraged people in the community. Threats were issued, harassment took place, other reputations tattered. No one emerges from this sad and sordid tale looking very responsible.

A second young man has pleaded guilty to distributing child pornography in the Rehtaeh Parsons case. (CONTRIBUTED)

Actions and Consequences

"I am concerned about the misogynist, sexist, gender violent kind of behaviour. ...We would take a good hard look as to whether or not we thought they were suitable to practise."
Irwin Fefergrad, registrar, Ontario dental college

"The suspension is necessary to ensure a safe and supportive environment for patients and classmates who participate in the clinics."
"We had credible reports from our front line staff of potential self-harm [on the part of the male dentistry students]. We took those seriously and so that concern for student safety overrode our concern about communicating this publicly."
Richard Florizone, university president, Tom Boran, dean, faculty of dentistry, Dalhousie University

Controversy continues to swirl around the Class of DDS 2015 Gentlemen Facebook page, where some fourth-year male dentistry students at Dalhousie University in Halifax posted violent sexual comments about female classmates. (CBC)

Concern shifted from the discomfort and discomfiting situation that women found themselves in at the dental college of Dalhousie University after discovering that a group of their fellow students had been viewing them as fair game-meat in the time-dishonoured culture of males considering females among them to represent as ripe for rape.

The 'gentleman's' club of the dental school's third-year class was comprised aspiring dentists, among them thirteen mature university students, preparing to set out in the world of professional and civil conduct and on their way to assuming their place in that world, they thought it a useful exercise to practise their juvenile frat-room humour through visualizing 'hate' sex with some selected fellow students.

They were even prepared to use some of the tools of their nascent profession of dentistry to set the stage for rape, murmuring judiciously on line of the efficacy of the use of chloroform. The group's Facebook account was rife with immature sexist comments, made over a three-year period as testament to the fact that during those three years they found transition from recruits to adulthood beyond difficult to attain.

When one of the women targeted by their raw commentary was made aware of it, she complained to the university's Human Rights, Equity and Harassment Prevention office. News of the situation became public when the CBC -- to whom copies of some related material was made available in the wake of the Facebook account being removed -- reported the tawdry affair.

After which several other women, also the subject of commentary, along with a number of the male members of the 'responsibly adult' Facebook group approached the school administration. Those social media postings revealed a fairly degraded mindset, one that views women as playthings ripe for abuse. To state that this event's revelations are disturbing with relation to the calibre of the young men aspiring to take their place in society, represents a gross understatement.

The Royal College of Dental Surgeons of Ontario has now insisted it wishes to have the names of the male students involved to enable them to refuse the right to practise in Ontario for any of the thirteen dental students at Dalhousie who manage to complete their professional course and receive accreditation to practise.

This does not bode well for their professional future in Canada. But on the other hand they themselves set the course for the trajectory of backlash that has brought them to this position. One does expect mature, thoughtful, trustworthy behaviour on the part of those presenting themselves as adult and intelligent enough to commit to such a profession where reliance on all those human attributes is anticipated.

Any males of an age that these are who believe it is an amusing pasttime to theorize between them how best to subdue a perceived physically desirable woman who may not be interested in pursuing intimate relations with them, to place her in a position of vulnerability to their unwanted attention representing violent physical abuse has demonstrated without equivocation their infantile, despicable mindset.

Concerns expressed by the university administrators over the distraught mental state of some of the dental students who engaged in this obscenely juvenile behaviour because they see their academic studies and years of achievement gone to waste, their futures absent the attainment of their aspirations are legitimate enough, but serve also to infantalize further those involved, when they should be recognizing the errant offensive stupidity of their mentality.

For every action there is reaction. And for actions that abuse civil adult social codes of conduct there is a penalty when those engaging in abusive actions are found out. The quandary that these thirteen young men find themselves in is of their own thoughtless doing, and the consequences also are their responsibility to deal with.

Crossing the Human-Canine Divide With Love and Trust

"If you take a dog with the weight of a pit bull and particularly when you cross it with something like a Rottweiler, you have a very powerful animal."
"People who cross breeds like that probably have no idea what they are bringing into the world."
Barbara Watt, president, Victoria City (B.C.) Kennel Club

"[Fat Boy, who attacked and killed owner Edward Cahill was] extremely aggressive and unpredictable [particularly when he had a bone to defend]."
"I don’t want people to think bad of pit bulls. They were playful dogs. One slept with the girls and the other slept with me and my husband. It was just a freak accident. He loved his dogs. That’s all I can say, and I think it’s something that just went wrong. He was a great man."
Blanca Rodriguez, Indiana

"Pit bulls get a bad rep. I think this incident has nothing to do with the dog’s breed. I’ve worked with some pit bulls that are therapy dogs and they’re great. An aggressive dog can be any breed. I’ve seen just as many good pit bulls as bad pit bulls."
Toni Bianchi, professional dog trainer

Jeff Kowalsky/Bloomberg    Most kennel clubs have refused to recognize pit bulls as an established breed. Amateur breeders have selected and promoted the animals for their fighting prowess.

Yes, of course there are 'good' pit bulls. But how many 'bad' pit bulls can a society afford in terms of the potential harm they are capable of wreaking on the vulnerable and the unaware? These are muscular animals governed by an inbred instinct to be aggressive, and if something seemingly innocuous triggers their fighting spirit they don't differentiate and hesitate, but go into attack mode, but it against their owner, a stranger or a child. Their attacks are terrifying and often terminal.

Pit bulls and rottweilers and Staffordshire bull terriers are the types of dog, like bulldogs, whose muscular grip is difficult to dislodge. These are powerful animals, and like any such animals, can be unpredictable. Some people love their dogs, irrespective of their breed, because they are familiar with them, communicate with them, value their company, and feel their presence enriches their lives. Some people acquire dogs whose breed is known to be aggressive as a prestige item, one that helps them project a certain type of image.

And this last type most certainly does know what results when two such dogs are interbred; they hope that the characteristics that attract them to the breed are enhanced, the outcome being an even more fearsomely aggressive animal. One that they alone can control, is loyal to themselves alone, and will follow their direction, providing both assurance of 'respect' in the community in which they move, and a threat within that same community, a threat that they can keep in check, or not.

Although all dogs, regardless of breed, may have their breed-specific instincts kept in check with loving nurturance and direction, they can, given the right/wrong set of circumstances, surrender to the kind of instinctual reaction that will result in massively harmful aggression. Those people who treasure pit bulls for whatever they represent to them, and feel them to be harmless, enough so to entrust the safety of very young children to their presence, delude themselves.

Should nothing untoward happen with close proximity between dog and child, all to the good. But to rely on nothing happening, ever, that would endanger the child is to deliberately overlook the potential that it could. While even very small dogs are capable of biting and inflicting some measure of injury, some breeds simply go on the attack more frequently, inflicting immeasurably more harm than others. To leave a child unattended with such an animal, actually any animal without taking measures to ensure that no close encounter can take place, is to dally with danger.

In the same day that a family elderly pit bull mauled that family's newborn in the Vancouver Island community of Saanich, an elderly man was attacked by two pit bulls in Langley, British Columbia. Less than three weeks old, the tiny girl had been attacked by the family's 17-year-old pit bull-Rottweiler cross. While the infant is recovering, the future will hold reconstructive plastic surgery for her. The child's parents likely raised their pet and lived with it for all those years, trusted it and loved it.

A 17-year-old dog, like an elderly human, can become very miserable-tempered when its physical and mental faculties have disintegrated into the fog of advanced age and impaired health. The combination of youth and age, health and declining health do not make for a felicitous introduction. The parents of the baby may face a charge of criminal negligence, a hard lesson to learn, but one that simple common sense should have avoided. Their neglect harmed their child and the animal they loved. It could have been much worse.

Moreover, when dogs have lived within a comfortable household for many years, the object of their owners' attention for all those years, lavishing care and love on it, to introduce another creature into the household can be guaranteed result in some level of resentment perhaps leading to an effort to harm the interloper, on the part of an animal suddenly realizing that someone else is getting all the attention that used to be directed toward it. Not to be aware of such tensions arising, on the part of parents, is mind-boggling in its naivete.

According to the Canadian Veterinary Journal, a study of dog attacks that turned fatal  between 1990 and 2007 found that 85% of victims were children, the youngest one month of age. It is no surprise to veterinarians that such events occur, and more often than they should. Most veterinarians take an active interest in the puppies whose owners bring them in for initial health examinations, annual shots and other care. They talk to people, explaining what can go wrong, and how to avoid such complications.

Half of non-fatal dog attacks in the United States involved pit bull breeds or Rottweilers, followed by German shepherds and huskies; big dogs all of them, and conditioned by nature to be aggressive, a conditioning that is all too often enhanced by dog owners wanting to encourage that trait in their dogs, but not necessarily by all owner. How many have to indulge these childish whims for society to be badly impacted? With or without encouragement, the breeds do own those characteristics; with owners' encouragement they simply become more obviously overt.

The experience in Canada is that pit bulls are involved more frequently in non-fatal attacks than any other breed. Resulting in many jurisdictions banning the breed, to the anguish of those who defend pit bulls, insisting it is people, not dogs, at fault. To an extent that may be true, but we cannot control people whereas we can dogs. People trust the dogs they love and have lived with for many years.

As did 40-year-old Edward Cahill of Indiana. He and his wife had two pit bulls living with them and their four children, as beloved and trusted family pets. Mr. Cahill was found dead on Christmas Day. He had been home alone and eight-year-old Fat Boy, one of the two family pit bulls, attacked Mr. Cahill, who bled to death on the floor of his living room from multiple bites on his face and arms. There he was discovered by his wife.

Who, though admitting the short temper and aggressiveness she was aware of, permitted the dogs to sleep with their children and with her and her husband. Is this not the attention oblivion of blind love and arrogant dismissal of reality?

Honour Among Thieves and Car Manufacturers

"Sitting here today, I cannot tell you why it took years for a safety defect to be announced in that program, but I can tell you that we will find out."
Mary Barra, Chief Executive, General Motors 

General Motors CEO Mary Barra is sworn in on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, April 1, 2014, prior to testifying before the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation. The committee is looking for answers from Barra about safety defects and mishandled recall of 2.6 million small cars with a faulty ignition switch that ha€™s been linked to 13 deaths and dozen of crashes. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) 

 

"There is a risk, under certain conditions, that your ignition switch may move out of the 'run' position, resulting in a partial loss of electrical power and turning off the engine."
"The risk increases if your key ring is carrying more weight (such as more keys or the key fob) or your vehicle experiences rough road conditions or other jarring or impact related conditions."
"If the ignition switch is not in the run position, the airbags may not deploy if the vehicle is involved in a crash, increasing the risk of injury or fatality."
General Motors letter of advisement

"She was shocked, angered and dismayed. Notice was provided to General Motors of the Bakers' intention to sue for wrongful death and punitive damages given that GM knew of the defects for at least the past ten years and did nothing about it."
"Nick was a really good kid. It was a real tragedy for everyone in the family to say the least."
Ottawa lawyer Russel Molot

Nick Baker was 22, driving his 2006 Saturn on his way to celebrate his birthday with his parents at Upper Canada Village. He never got there, and his parents, Suzanne and Danny, never did have the opportunity to hug their son and wish him a happy birthday. Unfortunately, his vehicle was involved in a collision with an oncoming Ford Explorer on October 18, 2012. The family had always wondered what had caused the crash, and they wondered as well why it might have been that the car's airbags didn't deploy. Nick was killed.

And then a letter arrived on Monday, from General Motors by regular mail, addressed to their son. Nick's parents, Suzanne and Danny Baker opened the letter and that's when they finally discovered that the car their son was driving when he died had a dreadful mechanical defect. A deadly one, in fact, linked to at least thirteen deaths in North America. And it was a mechanical defect of deadly serious potential that the company had known about for ten years.

The forever-grieving family retained Ottawa lawyer Russel Molot. And Mr. Molot has filed an intent-to-sue notice to General Motors on behalf of his clients, the Baker family. The faulty part in the lethally dysfunctional ignition switch that caused their son's untimely death would have cost GM about a dollar to fix. And now they are aware of the details that had eluded them for so many years; their son was trustingly driving a vehicle with a defect so deadly it killed him.

When the new CEO of General Motors appeared before a U.S. Congressional committee to respond to their queries about that ignition flaw in the carmaker's compact cars she was apologetic to the victims' families, and swift to promise an internal investigation would follow. The faulty ignition switch in the company's Chevrolet Cobalt and Saturn models represented a clear danger to owners of those vehicles, and she was promising to investigate the situation whereby the country's largest automaker failed to warn its customers.

She will not, though, accept responsibility or accountability for the fact that GM has finally, horribly tardily, recalled 2.6-million vehicles for the purpose now of fixing those ignition-switch defects. As well as another 1.3-million vehicles to address power-steering problems. "I was not part of that organization at the time", she explained to U.S. senators. The fact of the matter is GM went through Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings in the U.S.

And the Companies Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA) in Canada, where the automaker was virtually absolved of anything that might have pertained to its past operations. Claims against GM before its corporate restructuring that took place in 2009 can be set aside; their slate is considered to be wiped clean, for they began all over again. Like a religious confessional when those who undergo the process are cleansed of their declared (or undeclared) sins of omission or commission.

Much as Chrysler chief executive Sergio Marchionne had the unmitigated gall to inform the governments in Ottawa and Ontario that he has a "clear conscience", relating to his decision not to bother repaying $810-million of the $2.9-billion bailout that Canadian taxpayers forked over to bail Chrysler out in 2009. That was the "old" Chrysler. Mr. Marchionne represents the "new" Chrysler.

Aside from presenting themselves as cravenly dishonourable, and obviously untroubled by it, it will be interesting to see how this matter plays out in court when the families of their victims seek justice on behalf of those they have lost because of a lack of social, civil responsibility in an industry whose bottom line is considered far more important than the lives of a few unfortunates.

Sacrificing Self for God

"Archbishop Myers obviously is not paying any attention to the Pope. This is extreme, way beyond what you'd expect to happen. I can't believe the parishioners of Newark are going to allow this to happen."
Charles Zech, Villanova University business school

1.3 million-strong Catholic diocese pays out $500,000 for Archbishop John J. Myers of Newark's luxury retirement palace while Church cries poverty.  Photo by CNS

"Nothing short of an assault on the goodwill and trust of the people of God. The arrogance and self-importance required to undertake such a project on one's own behalf and funded, at least partially, with the proceeds from the sale of other archdiocesan-owned property is breathtaking."
National Catholic Reporter, editorial

Bishop Dennis J. Sullivan

Bishop Dennis J. Sullivan (Photo courtesy of Diocese of Camden via camdendiocese.org)

Read More: Camden Diocese Buying New Home for Bishop | http://nj1015.com/camden-diocese-buying-new-home-for-bishop/?trackback=tsmclip

The National Catholic Reporter published the information that in the Camden, New Jersey diocese, Bishop Dennis Sullivan purchased a 7,000 square-foot mansion complete with eight bedrooms, six bathrooms, with an in0-ground pool, three fireplaces, a library and a five-car garage. In Newark, reported the paper, 28% of the population live below the poverty level.

2006 photo of Woodbury, N.J., home bought for bishop of the Diocese of Camden.(Photo: Al Schell, (Cherry Hill, N.J.) Courier-Post)

This kind of self-entitlement appears to be a specialty among some high-placed members of the Roman Catholic Church, defying and effectively denying their new Pope's message of frugality and thought for the poor of the Earth. Pope Francis has called upon members of his church to be extremely aware and sympathetic to the needs of the poor; he abjures the wretchedness of the capitalist system that results in wealth and poverty.

"Money and economic power can be a means to distance people from one another, confining them to an egocentric and egotistical plane", he wrote in a recently published preface to a book on the mission of the poor, entitled "Poor for the Poor". The message flies above the disinterested and obviously oblivious notice of some, like the New Jersey Bishop and the Newark Archbishop.

New Jersey Archbishop John Myers is being criticized for his disinterest in the plight of the poor in his diocese, and his fixation on his retirement in two years' time. In the spirit of it's never too early to plan for retirement, he is feathering an opulent nest for himself in contemplation of leisure time to enjoy it to full advantage.

He has paid out a princely $500,000 for a 4,500-square-foot, five bedroom, three bathroom, three-car-garage mansion, with a large outdoor pool. Fit for a prince of the church, without doubt. The local Star-Ledger newspaper has reported as well that the archbishop is in the full throes of having a three-storey, 3,000-square-foot addition built onto this already sumptuous home. The addition will include an indoor exercise pool, a hot tub, three fireplaces, a library and an elevator.

The house, actually, is currently used by Archbishop Myers as a weekend residence. He is preparing it for his full-time residence. His spokesperson, Jim Goodness, (how aptly named!) informed the newspaper that the addition would be paid for through selling the off of other church-owned properties. Kindly donors had also contributed to the $700,000 upgrades-cost.

Despite the advice by the good Pope, these men of the church know full well that money can help people achieve goals, and they are simply using the Church money at their command to achieve their personal goals; that it is at the expense of the community which they serve, is simply an incidental inconvenience -- not for the archbishop and the bishop involved perhaps, but the faithful who subscribe to the injunction to give and support their church.

And mostly to the disadvantage of the poor among them.

Deadly Affluenza

"We had over 180 years of life taken, future life not 180 years lived, but 180 years of future life taken and two of those were my wife and daughter."
"Money always seems to keep Ethan out of trouble. This was one time I did ask the court, that for justice, for money not to prevail and ultimately today I felt like money did prevail."
Eric Boyles, Fort Worth, Texas

Ethan Couch (screen shot)

 "The teen never learned to say that you're sorry if you hurt someone. If you hurt someone, you sent him money."Dr. G. Dick Miller, psychologist

Who might have predicted the dreadful occurrence that would take four lives  on an otherwise-pleasant enough June 16, 2013 evening. When a mother and daughter, Hollie Boyles, 52 and Shelby Boyles, 21, stopped on a dark country road south of Fort Worth to give aid to 24-year-old Breanna Mitchell whose SUV had broken down. Youth pastor, 42-year-old Brian Jennings, had the same idea, as he too pulled over to determine what he could do to be of assistance.

High on Valium and alcohol, the pickup truck driven by 16-year-old Ethan Couch plowed straight into the group at a speed estimated to have been 112 kilometres per hour. Aside from the four killed outright, there was an additional eleven people injured, several severely. Two of Ethan Couch's friends were in his truck with him. They were thrown from the truck on impact, and left in a paralyzed condition as a token of that memorable evening.

Ethan Couch and his friends had been out drinking, having a good time partying, that evening. They were on a mission to continue their partying. Drunk from the beer they had stolen from Walmart they were on the prowl to find more alcohol, somewhere. Ethan Couch had no idea what discipline meant; he was never taught to discipline himself and was never disciplined by his doting parents.

He lived a lifestyle quite out of the ordinary. Never being held accountable for anything he did. Never chastised and led by his loving parents to adopt and understand a core group of social values. There was no scarcity of money available, and whatever he wanted he was able to have without question. According to Dr. Miller, hired by the defence, the young man abused alcohol and was given "freedoms no young person should have."

He was permitted to drive at age 13. And he obviously felt there was nothing wrong, troubling, or immoral, let alone illegal about driving while under the influence of alcohol. Clearly, social and legal constraints might apply to most people, but certainly not him; he was immune to restraints of any kind. According to Dr. Miller, Ethan Couch was a victim of a rich-kid syndrome leading him to believe he could buy himself out of any situation.

And it appears he may be right. His sentencing was ten years' probation. He might have been given a 20-year jail term for his actions and their irremediable results impacting so horribly on the lives of other people, depriving four outright of life itself, and another eleven of their quality of future life. State District Judge Jean Boyd accepted that Ethan Couch was a 'victim' of "affluenza".

Not his fault he was never taught, either directly through careful counselling by responsible parents, or by the lifestyle example of self-disciplined parents that there are accountable consequences to one's decision-making and judgements. His parents are prepared to pay out $450,000 in costs to send their son for mandatory therapy.

They are continuing their life-lessons for their son. Buying him the opportunity to remain free from responsibility for his actions.

The vehicle he was driving that night hit a parked car, and it was sent into a Volkswagen Beetle driving in the opposite direction. People unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The parents of Ethan Couch are wealthy owners of a metal roofing company. Their future includes five lawsuits from families of his victims, claiming millions in damages.

Perhaps it is too much to hope that this litigious future will send these people into bankruptcy. If meting out justice in a court of law is too onerous to contemplate, leaving the victims fuming at the lack of justice, perhaps Dame Fortune has a plan of her own, for justice should demand that the parents of this conscienceless young man face the consequences of their dreadful parenting.