DawnPapuga.com — Reality 101

I had a great rant planned out for tonight’s post.  It was full of venom and biting attempts at humor.  You would have loved it.  But then I started reading and thinking, and one topic led to another, and suddenly I had way too many things to talk about (imagine that, hmm?).  So rather than ranting, I’m just going to link to the topics that I may or may not discuss at a later date:

• “It’s Not You, It’s Your Books” by Rachel Donadio is an essay about judging people based on their choice of reading material (or lack thereof).  I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t bother looking in your medicine cabinet–I look at what reading material you have lying around.  According to Sloane Crosley, a publicist at Vantage books, “If you’re a person who loves Alice Munro and you’re going out with someone whose favorite book is ‘The Da Vinci Code,’ perhaps the flags of incompatibility were there prior to the big reveal.”  I’ve always said that a person’s choice of “favorite” books and films tell me most of what I need to know about them, and I believe that to this day.  One’s choice of Literature never lies–well, it’s never failed me, anyway.
• “Mexican Serial Killer Sentenced”  Only 8% of the world’s serial killers are women.  The most recent exception to the rule is Juana Barraza, who was sentenced to 759 years in jail today for killing 16 elderly women.  She claims she only killed 4, but her fingerprints matched those found in the other cases.  Oh, did I mention she was a former female wrestler known as “The Silent Lady?”
• “Sisters ‘Burned Witchcraft Children’” It boggles my mind that this still happens today.  This small article alone could lead to a week’s worth of discussion from the historical social uses of “witchcraft” to control women, to the still widely misunderstood stereotypes of “witchcraft,” and I could just go on and on here.  Not but a year ago 9 girls were stoned to death in South Africa under suspicion of witchcraft (they were accused of causing the drought).  This weekend’s burning happened to kill two girls, 3 and 7, while two others, 9 and 8 months, were saved and are in the hospital recovering.

There are, of course, plenty of other things that come to mind, but I’d keep you here all day.  I’ll save my ranting for Wednesdays.  Okay, at least I’ll try.  It did occur to me, though, that someone should have checked out the book shelves of Juanna Barraza.  I bet they’re very telling indeed…

Write well,

Dawn