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Nothing’s Changed

Any fleeting thought that, somehow, America could have changed in the ten days I was away, was laid to rest by the first news broadcast viewed after my return. Two items stood out as typical of this nation’s inanity; of it’s apparent desire to prove to the rest of the world just how utterly crazy and immature America can be, and how such crassness impacts its innocent citizens. For it is not, generally, ordinary Americans who lack responsibility (though their strangely somnolent disinterest in the workings of those they elect could be considered lax) but the officials one might expect to display a modicum of humanity and commonsense, namely the local state legislators and those holding official, governmental positions.

Take the case of Elisa Kelly from Charlottesville, Virginia, who is just beginning a two and a quarter year sentence in the county jail. She’s one of the lucky ones. After a lengthy appeals process her sentence was cut from the EIGHT YEARS originally imposed.

Elisa Kelly’s crime was to serve beer in her own home, to the sixteen year old guests at her son’s birthday party.

Was she foolish?

Probably.

Is she a criminal?

No.

Does she deserve to be incarcerated for one day, let alone twenty-seven months?

Not in a million years.

The goody-goody, prim and proper, moralistic, hypocritical, inhumane officials of Charlottesville, Virginia, are a bunch of pompous, dim-witted ass-holes more deserving of jail-time than Elisa Kelly.

Much could be written on this matter, but it already has been and by a far more accomplished writer than yours truly. The BBC’s Matt Frei has an article about Elisa Kelly on the BBC website, for all the world to read – and judge American justice. I recommend it as an eye-opener to the narrow-mindedness and duplicity of those responsible for Virginia’s state laws.

The Matt Frei article is available HERE.

Hot on the heels of this report about Virginian barbarity, came the incident of a furniture warehouse fire in Charleston, South Carolina. Nothing unusual, one might think, except that nine, yes NINE, firefighters lost their lives fighting this fire that was described as a “tornado of flame thirty-feet high”.

A sad story and one the media masticated and digested for all it was worth. “Hero” was the most over-used word of the day.

The most under-used phrase of the day was “sprinkler system”.

It takes little imagination to visualize the effects of fire on a furniture superstore stuffed to the gills with sofas, wooden tables, beds, mattresses and a plethora of flammable materials. Yet, according to a quick one-liner from NBC’s reporter on the story, stuffed between emotional “Hero” language and views of sobbing fire chiefs:

“No sprinkler installed, or required.”

Excuse me? Wind back the Tivo so we can hear that again! Yes, that WAS what he said before rapidly rebounding to wring the last emotional drips from the story.

“No sprinkler installed, or required.”

And it seems NO-ONE has questioned that. Nine firefighters died because legislators decided a potential firebomb was not required to have a sprinkler system. Nine firefighters died because – just as in Charlottesville, Virginia – Charleston, South Carolina’s legislators are a bunch of useless, corrupt, hypocrites. The mayor of Charleston called the incident:

“A tragedy of immense proportions”.

Presumably, as mayor, he takes no responsibility for this “tragedy of immense proportions”?

Surely, as mayor, he has a responsibility – along with the fire chiefs and other legislators – to ensure the town has adequate fire prevention laws, forcing every store carrying flammable stock to fit sprinkler systems?

Obviously, Mayor Joseph Riley of Charleston, South Carolina, doesn’t believe that to be the case.

If there was one scrap of justice in this god-forsaken apology for a nation, Elisa Kelly would be vacating her prison cell today, allowing Mayor Joseph Riley and his band of renegade legislators to move in, and for a lot longer than twenty-seven months.

More on this story HERE.

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3 Replies to “Nothing’s Changed”

  1. Perfect use of comparison. Really, things can’t be more absurd in this country. I shouldn’t say that because every time I challenge the odds, it gets worse. So, shhh. Don’t tell anyone I said it.

  2. Bravo! Opponents to fire sprinkler requirements repeatedly point to the “cost”. What about the cost of human life? Just because someone is a firefighter, does that make him/her expendable? It’s time legislators step up to the plate and stop bowing to the pressure of the opposition. Why does it always take a tragedy to bring something like this to light? How in the world in this day and age could a warehouse with flammable materials go unsprinklered? The fact remains, if this building was sprinklered, those nine human beings would be alive today. This is not just a statement, it is a fact. There has only been one fatality on record in a building that was sprinklered, not counting victims that were “intimate” with the fire, i.e. being right at the initial combustion site. Check out the facts, go to NFPA.org, read the data, learn the facts. It’s time human life comes before the dollar bill.

  3. PM – these two incidents are about money and religion. The morally incompetent judgment in Virginia resulted from a combination of false piety coupled with the power of wealth and position. The cause of the fire in South Carolina stemmed from similar causes, only in that instance there was the addition of cronyism – a byproduct of piety and power, that allowed state legislators to overlook the passing of laws that required such establishments to fit sprinklers.

    Frank – welcome to Sparrow Chat. You are right about the financial factor, and dollar-cost can never be a good reason for risking life. Sadly, firefighters are all too expendable. In this age where power and money rule, those with neither are dispensable. Whether it is the state legislature neglecting their duty in order to protect the stuffed wallets of their business cronies, or a US president sending thousands of soldiers to die in a war of whim, we the ordinary people are pawns to be cast aside with only the false face of uncaring grief displayed by those responsible.

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