Now out of the service, former Army Ranger Kevin Tillman — whose brother, former NFL player Pat Tillman, was killed by friendly fire as they served together in Afghanistan — has something to say about the war in Iraq . . . and about what we’ve become as a nation. Agree with him or not, it’s worthwhile reading.
And, Lord knows, he’s earned the right to say it. As loudly as he wants.
Somehow America has become a country that projects everything that it is not and condemns everything that it is.
Somehow the most reasonable, trusted and respected country in the world has become one of the most irrational, belligerent, feared, and distrusted countries in the world.
Somehow being politically informed, diligent, and skeptical has been replaced by apathy
through active ignorance.
Somehow the same incompetent, narcissistic, virtueless, vacuous, malicious criminals are still in charge of this country.
Somehow this is tolerated.
Somehow nobody is accountable for this.
In a democracy, the policy of the leaders is the policy of the people. So don’t be shocked when our grandkids bury much of this generation as traitors to the nation, to the world and to humanity. Most likely, they will come to know that “somehow” was nurtured by fear, insecurity and indifference, leaving the country vulnerable to unchecked, unchallenged parasites.
Categories: Uncategorized
I don’t want this to seem like the “all Louisiana, all the time” blog (but, dammit, there are so many oddball and interesting stories there), but try as I might, I keep getting sucked back by stories like this one. It has haunted me all week.
In a society, in an age so horribly fallen — so far from the long-lost earthly paradise of the Garden of Eden — it is ironically difficult to get the concept of “fallenness” across to a people so unconvinced of things such as “wrong” and “right,” “sin” and “holiness.”
People. Look. The painful and tragic (somehow, “tragic” just doesn’t seem to cover what happened here a-tall) saga of Zackery Bowen and “Addie” Hall is what fallenness looks like, albeit in extremis.
Strangling your on-again, off-again live-in girlfriend, committing necrophilia, butchering her corpse and cooking the body parts, then living it up for a week or so before taking a flying leap into eternity is undoubtedly extreme. And it is extremely fallen . . . extremely far from any sane definition of paradise. Or even imperfect normality.
But what is fascinating , in its own grim way, is how they got to the abyss. There lies the story. There lie the little stories that illustrate the big story of what The Fall has meant for humanity — the tragedy of free will, when freedom means the ability to freely choose evil. To be the victim of others’ willing embrace of darkness. To wander rudderless through an out-of-whack world that sometimes drives us to spectacular descents into madness.
From the New Orleans Times-Picayune’s website, NOLA.com:
From the suicide note found on Bowen’s body….
“This is not accidental. I had to take my own life to pay for the one I took. If you send a patrol to 826 N. Rampart, you will find the dismembered corpse of my girlfriend Addie in the oven, on the stove, and in the fridge along with full documentation on the both of us and a full signed confession from myself…. Zack Bowen.”
From a five-page letter left by Bowen in the couple’s residence on Rampart Street…
“I scared myself not by the action of calmly strangling the woman I’ve loved for one and a half years, and then (decimating) her body but by my entire lack of remorse. I’ve known for ever how horrible of a person I am — ask anyone — and decided to quit my jobs and spend the 1,500 dollars cash I had being happy until I killed myself. So, that’s what I did: good food, good drugs, good strippers, good friends and any loose ends I may have had. I didn’t contact any of my family. So that’ll explain the shock. And had a fantastic time living out my days…It’s just about time now.”
May God have mercy on their souls . . . the bruised and battered souls of Zack Bowen and Addie Hall. Requiescent in pace.
Categories: Uncategorized
