I'm always torn when people talk about the good old days. They really were just days of naivety which, yes, probably was a lot more pleasant for the reader/viewers/listener of the news but probably not so great for those who's horrors went unheard. I like to believe that the benefits of awareness outweigh discomfort.
But it's getting so bad I almost can't cope.
Maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm hormonal. But maybe some of the crimes are just so insidious you'd have to be heartless not to be effected.
The recent findings of the inquest into the 4 year old girl from Adelaide, forced to ride a 50kg motorbike around the backyard by her junkie mother and boyfriend for their amusement until she fell unconscious, are beyond comprehension. They left her for 8 hours before calling an ambulance. She died.
The Royal Commission into Institution Child Sexual Abuse has reached Rockhampton. I've heard several personal statements give to the Commission on the radio. If it's on, I feel not listening is somehow diminishing what happened to those poor children, and cannot fathom how the Sisters of Mercy, who ran the institution, could think that they were at all merciful. I'll spare you the details. But while I was experiencing a carefree, happy childhood in the 70s, there were plenty of kids simultaneously experiencing relentless abject horror, torment and abuse with no-one looking out for them. It's hard to get my head around.
I can only hope that since then, they have had happy, or at least contented, lives.
Also this week was the court case of the Australian baseball player, shot in the back while jogging in the USA. Maybe it's because I lost my own son, (coincidentally also in the US) but hearing the 911 call had me welling up and wanting to switch over to the mindlessness that is commercial radio.
It's not the first time I've felt overwhelmed with the world's evils. I do occasionally have to switch it all off because I feel I might implode with the despair of it all - and I'm merely a witness.
Is it just me??
