Depressing News of the Day

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CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas (AP) -- Police asked local TV stations to air a surveillance video showing a homeless man who was set ablaze flailing his arms and running in a circle as he tried to extinguish the flames.

Police were looking for up to eight men who participated in the attack outside an agency that helps the homeless. The victim, Lucas Adama Wiser, 21, was sleeping on a bench when he was set on fire Tuesday, and remained hospitalized Thursday with third-degree burns.

"I don't know if this was a joke that they thought they were playing on somebody or what their mindset was, but it was a pretty sick joke," Police Lt. Rocky Vipond said. "We're hoping someone might recognize that vehicle and possibly the group of guys."

The surveillance video at Corpus Christi Metro Ministries showed a dark sport utility vehicle and a smaller vehicle pulling up to Wiser and setting him on fire.

Police could not identify license plate numbers from the video.

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Friday, 18 June 2004 04:10 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't know why people find this shit funny.

― hstencil (hstencil), Friday, 18 June 2004 04:12 (twenty-two years ago)

same reason why people took picnics to lynching...they stopped thinking of the homeless as people.

― anthony, Friday, 18 June 2004 04:22 (twenty-two years ago)

I would disagree - people do shit like this to other people precisely because they are interested, in some bizarre way, in seeing violence foisted on their fellow humans. And while I can sort of understand that motivation, I can't understand any justification for it.

― hstencil (hstencil), Friday, 18 June 2004 04:26 (twenty-two years ago)

Is it violence against the different as a sort of male rite of passage into adulthood, that will never get completed since there is no instructions?

― Sébastien Chikara (Sébastien Chikara), Friday, 18 June 2004 04:29 (twenty-two years ago)

It's depresssing enough he's homeless at 21

― Andrew Blood Thames (Andrew Thames), Friday, 18 June 2004 04:30 (twenty-two years ago)

women can be violent too, Sebastien.

― hstencil (hstencil), Friday, 18 June 2004 04:35 (twenty-two years ago)

yes but I was thinking of that trend: group of young males go out and bash someone that looks different. The (non)rite of passage for women is softer because of the sociological factors they integrate to build their women id I would bet.

― Sébastien Chikara (Sébastien Chikara), Friday, 18 June 2004 04:54 (twenty-two years ago)

ps when I was young I never went out in a gang to attack people looking different.

― Sébastien Chikara (Sébastien Chikara), Friday, 18 June 2004 04:56 (twenty-two years ago)

Sebastien - a few years ago when I was living in Chicago there were a couple of news stories about young women in gangs beating up, and in some cases stabbing, complete strangers in Humboldt Park as part of "girl gang" rituals. That's where my comment came from - I don't think the traditional equation of "female" with "softness" applies much anymore, for better or for worse.

re: "when I was young I never went out in a gang to attack people looking different" - nor have I. Maybe that's why I can't understand it.

― hstencil (hstencil), Friday, 18 June 2004 04:59 (twenty-two years ago)

Women do this shit, but psychologically, leaving you mentally scarred for years (o yeah, high school be fun).

This really is a disgusting sad story. Humanity makes me ill.

― Trayce (trayce), Friday, 18 June 2004 05:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Some guys who had been my friends through high school did some things like this though perhaps not as bad. They went out and kicked the living hell out of a drunk guy in a park and threw water balloons at women pulling their kids on sleds in the wintertime in our hometown. Because the guy was drunk and native and the women were native it didn't even make the news. I didn't talk to those guys for years after that. I fucking hate going back to that town. One of my "friends" had a cop for a dad so calling in a tip probably wouldn't have made any difference if anyone's wondering why I didn't turn them in (I actually only found out about it a couple of months after anyway).

― Bryan (Bryan), Friday, 18 June 2004 05:07 (twenty-two years ago)

hstencil, I remember the example you mentioned but you have to agree this is a marginal case and the softness thing is still big when it comes at raising kids. I remember reading a socio experience: when people have to watch over a kid for a short period of time, they tend to keep the one they were said to be a "girl" in their arms longer, making possible more body language reading, speaking softly, soft toys etc and the "boys" would go on the ground sooner, given hard metal toys like you know, trucks and stuff, go play outside etc. I agree this is very basic stuff but there's something there... maybe ilx parents would like to comment if they are helping the transmission of these sociological factors or not and stuff.

― Sébastien Chikara (Sébastien Chikara), Friday, 18 June 2004 05:20 (twenty-two years ago)

Or we could do a quick poll and see if any male on ILX has ever beaten someone up thusly. Me, no.

― Andrew Blood Thames (Andrew Thames), Friday, 18 June 2004 05:21 (twenty-two years ago)

no. not even close.

― Bryan (Bryan), Friday, 18 June 2004 05:23 (twenty-two years ago)

ilx is not the internet.

― Sébastien Chikara (Sébastien Chikara), Friday, 18 June 2004 05:25 (twenty-two years ago)

in the sense that parenting is more interesting for some reason in here than what I assume to be our overall non-violence.

― Sébastien Chikara (Sébastien Chikara), Friday, 18 June 2004 05:29 (twenty-two years ago)

sebastien i don't think you can really chalk this episode up to some sort of pervasive aspect of male socialization, otherwise it'd be happening all the time and wouldn't even warrant a "depressing news of the day" thread.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Friday, 18 June 2004 05:37 (twenty-two years ago)

This is sickening. And someone who would do this sickens me. And I really truely hate those fucking bum fight videos too. In high school kids would watch them on the computers and thought they were hilarious, and it was like watching the final moments before the horsemen came riding.

― David Allen (David Allen), Friday, 18 June 2004 05:38 (twenty-two years ago)

amateur!st, toned-down variations of this case happens all the time, that's why I thought that sociological approach could be of help to explain this case, as an exacerbation of this model.

― Sébastien Chikara (Sébastien Chikara), Friday, 18 June 2004 05:53 (twenty-two years ago)

i randomly headbutted someone in my school once

― ken c (ken c), Friday, 18 June 2004 06:50 (twenty-two years ago)

Was it me?

― Jarlr'mai (jarlrmai), Friday, 18 June 2004 12:48 (twenty-two years ago)

were you once headbutted randomly while in school?

― ken c (ken c), Friday, 18 June 2004 12:50 (twenty-two years ago)

three years pass...

okay the drowning parents thing is rly horrible.

― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Tuesday, 23 October 2007 19:57 (eighteen years ago)

― J0rdan S., Tuesday, 23 October 2007 20:25 (eighteen years ago)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7057412.stm

― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Tuesday, 23 October 2007 21:17 (eighteen years ago)

That's horrible, but at least it's not as depressing as a gang of youths setting a homeless guy on fire. Noone in this story is hurting another human being for enjoyment.

Randy California from Spirit died trying to save his son from drowning. He succeeded, but lost his life in the process.

― Bill Magill, Tuesday, 23 October 2007 21:20 (eighteen years ago)

Whoa! I had no idea! That band, they have too many peculiar anecdotes surrounding them.

― Abbott, Tuesday, 23 October 2007 23:54 (eighteen years ago)

two months pass...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/animalrights/story/0,,2238186,00.html

humans = evil part 1,000,000,000

― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Thursday, 10 January 2008 09:27 (eighteen years ago)

the old dichotomy:
poor defenceless animals etc. SOMETHING MUST BE DONE
black people being incinerated in church NOT OUR PROBLEM

― Dingbod Kesterson, Thursday, 10 January 2008 09:31 (eighteen years ago)

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jc9E7RRBYrk0zhFlkZfLra35mVhAD8U2MKBO4

― Kerm, Thursday, 10 January 2008 09:43 (eighteen years ago)

But humans saved most of these animals, reported the miscreant in the first place and are finding places (run by other humans) to look after these animals. Incidentally if you want to help donate some money to Redwings (where I understand a lot of the horses have gone).
http://www.redwings.org.uk/

― Ned Trifle II, Thursday, 10 January 2008 09:43 (eighteen years ago)

good point dingbod.

― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Thursday, 10 January 2008 09:47 (eighteen years ago)

the old dichotomy:
poor defenceless animals etc. SOMETHING MUST BE DONE
black people being incinerated in church NOT OUR PROBLEM

This isn't really a dichotomy. What exactly am I supposed to do abut the latter? Tell me and I'll do it.

― Ned Trifle II, Thursday, 10 January 2008 09:49 (eighteen years ago)

someone keep dingbod around

― J0rdan S., Thursday, 10 January 2008 09:49 (eighteen years ago)

children off bridge thing is so fucked up

― J0rdan S., Thursday, 10 January 2008 09:49 (eighteen years ago)

ie. both are awful (and on a sliding scale the burning people are way above the dead horses) but I can do something about one and I don't know what the fuck I am supposed to do about the other.

― Ned Trifle II, Thursday, 10 January 2008 09:51 (eighteen years ago)

Humans go out of their way to save animals. Humans allow fatally stabbed teenagers to lie unnoticed in council estates for 24 hours.

So one answer might be: start at home.

― Dingbod Kesterson, Thursday, 10 January 2008 09:51 (eighteen years ago)

i.e. priorities need changing.

― Dingbod Kesterson, Thursday, 10 January 2008 09:52 (eighteen years ago)

i regularly patrol council estates looking for neglected corpses, actually.

― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Thursday, 10 January 2008 09:53 (eighteen years ago)

the job that has to be done

― J0rdan S., Thursday, 10 January 2008 09:57 (eighteen years ago)

I understand Iain Sinclair makes a decent living out of it.

― Dingbod Kesterson, Thursday, 10 January 2008 09:57 (eighteen years ago)

Humans allow fatally stabbed teenagers to lie unnoticed in council estates for 24 hours.

Where was this?

― Ned Trifle II, Thursday, 10 January 2008 09:58 (eighteen years ago)

i.e. priorities need changing.

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/funding/story/0,,2238141,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=11

― Ned Trifle II, Thursday, 10 January 2008 10:04 (eighteen years ago)

keywords: olympics, nepotism, scared of daily mail

― Dingbod Kesterson, Thursday, 10 January 2008 10:08 (eighteen years ago)

This is disappointing stuff. 17 posts and nobody loling at the horse sanctuary being called "Redwings".

― Noodle Vague, Thursday, 10 January 2008 12:45 (eighteen years ago)

I don't get it.

― nate woolls, Thursday, 10 January 2008 12:48 (eighteen years ago)

urbandictionary.com

― Noodle Vague, Thursday, 10 January 2008 12:50 (eighteen years ago)

lol didn't see that

― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Thursday, 10 January 2008 12:51 (eighteen years ago)

Oh right I get it now.

― nate woolls, Thursday, 10 January 2008 12:57 (eighteen years ago)

And there i was thinking that lolzing culture was finally on the wane.

― Ned Trifle II, Thursday, 10 January 2008 14:26 (eighteen years ago)

coping mechanism

― Kerm, Thursday, 10 January 2008 14:35 (eighteen years ago)

Another suicide bomber in Pakistan.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/pakistan/Story/0,,2238322,00.html

Toronto Maple Leafs in freefall after yet another embarrassing loss.
http://www.thestar.com/Sports/Hockey/article/292737

I am not in any way trying to equate a slumping hockey team with a nuclear armed country which appears to be sliding towards chaos, but these are the two headlines which almost ruined my morning today.

― j-rock, Thursday, 10 January 2008 20:51 (eighteen years ago)

god help us if the the bomb should fall into the hands of Maple Leaf Entertainment.

― The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall, Thursday, 10 January 2008 20:58 (eighteen years ago)

If it makes anyone feel better, two older guys in New York were taking care of their buddy, who had Parkinsons, but then the buddy died, so the two guys put his body in an office chair and tried to wheel him into a check-cashing place to covert his final Social Security payment.

People who knew them pretty much said "LOL CLASSIC, yeah, the dead guy would have really gotten a laugh out of that scam, that was right up his alley."

Feel-good crime of the year.

― nabisco, Thursday, 10 January 2008 21:01 (eighteen years ago)

Do you guys think the horse thing was a guy running an ungulate mill (ala puppy mill) OR this is just animal hoarding behavior? Bcz as fucked-up as the latter is, I have always found hoarding kind of fascinating.

― Abbott, Thursday, 10 January 2008 21:31 (eighteen years ago)

Wow, nabisco, that is straight-up Farelly Brothers.

― Abbott, Thursday, 10 January 2008 21:32 (eighteen years ago)

"god help us if the the bomb should fall into the hands of Maple Leaf Entertainment."

They would probably just trade it away for an overpriced veteran past their prime anyway.

― j-rock, Thursday, 10 January 2008 23:14 (eighteen years ago)

Twins who were separated at birth have married each other, unaware that they were brother and sister.

― nate woolls, Friday, 11 January 2008 14:40 (eighteen years ago)

farrelly brothers just came

― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Friday, 11 January 2008 14:41 (eighteen years ago)

one month passes...

Bride dies during marriage's first dance

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080210/ap_on_re_us/wedding_death

― Whiney G. Weingarten, Monday, 11 February 2008 17:00 (eighteen years ago)

Very sad. ~~Did she say anything about an ipod?~~

― Mark G, Monday, 11 February 2008 17:06 (eighteen years ago)

nine months pass...

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2008/11/13/waugh.ga.cat.used.as.football.wjxt

Kitten 'kicked like a ball'

― Whiney G. Weingarten, Friday, 14 November 2008 20:41 (seventeen years ago)

one month passes...

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/SANTA_LETTER_MOLESTATION?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2008-12-15-22-13-39

Letter to Santa leads to Texas molestation charge

― TUOM Gang (Whiney G. Weingarten), Wednesday, 17 December 2008 21:23 (seventeen years ago)

Fuck:

Investigators have refused to share the letter to Santa, saying it is evidence in an ongoing investigation. But the charging affidavit described it as "a wish list to Santa" asking that the girl's relative stop touching her and her sister.

― TUOM Gang (Whiney G. Weingarten), Wednesday, 17 December 2008 21:23 (seventeen years ago)

four weeks pass...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/derbyshire/7831166.stm

― Matt #2, Thursday, 15 January 2009 16:31 (seventeen years ago)

five months pass...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/5516780/Secretary-forced-out-of-Muslim-school-by-parents-who-thought-she-was-a-man.html

― FREE DOM AND ETHAN (special guest stars mark bronson), Monday, 15 June 2009 19:09 (seventeen years ago)

I saw this in the Mail. Naturally it's readers were quick to find the real culprits...

Welcome to the future of poor old Britian. Thanks Liebour.

- standfast, london, 12/6/2009 14:24

― Old Ned 1962 Vinyl Edition (Ned Trifle II), Monday, 15 June 2009 19:31 (seventeen years ago)

maybe this was obvious to everyone else, but apparently the pictures make it clear that the secretary is a lesbian. no one in the telegraph story is quoted saying they actually believe she is a man, but just that she is in "manly clothes behaving like a man". kind of feel that the papers should have faced up to the fact that this is a story about a coded anti-gay campaign rather than just a lol backward muslims story.

― joe, Wednesday, 17 June 2009 00:06 (seventeen years ago)

seven months pass...

http://www.missoulian.com/news/local/article_3a4d2f20-0f98-11df-bec3-001cc4c002e0.html

http://www.missoulian.com/news/local/article_2773652c-10f1-11df-9184-001cc4c03286.html

http://www.missoulian.com/news/local/article_148af0e0-11cf-11df-9dc5-001cc4c03286.html

― iiiijjjj, Saturday, 13 February 2010 20:42 (sixteen years ago)

― DJ NAIR (tehresa), Saturday, 13 February 2010 20:49 (sixteen years ago)

Why do I click on this thread every time?

― kenan, Saturday, 13 February 2010 20:58 (sixteen years ago)

after the two first links i was prepared to write something vicious and hateful but i guess that's kinda redundant now. depressing story

― sonderangerbot, Sunday, 14 February 2010 01:10 (sixteen years ago)

one year passes...

oh god this mining accident story

― a fake wannabe trying to be a pimp (history mayne), Friday, 16 September 2011 08:01 (fourteen years ago)

tbrr i didn't know they still had coal mines in wales

― a fake wannabe trying to be a pimp (history mayne), Friday, 16 September 2011 08:02 (fourteen years ago)

Neither did I, and I live in Wales.

― nate woolls, Friday, 16 September 2011 08:03 (fourteen years ago)

one year passes...

Amid Cosmic Fatigue, Scarcely a Star Is Born
Cosmic GDP Crashes 97 percent As Star Formation Slumps
Universal decline: Astronomers say 95% of the stars that will ever exist have already been born

― in the Land of the Yik Yak (Sanpaku), Tuesday, 20 November 2012 05:27 (thirteen years ago)

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