Jennifer Kirkland with her son Ethan, 6, who survived after he was held hostage by a deranged killer, in a bunker for six days. Screen shot via Dr. Phil Show.

I know I will likely get some hate mail for stating the obvious here, but after seeing the mother of the boy who was held hostage for almost a week underground by a man he had just seen kill his bus driver, I don’t understand why she a) chose to put her son on television after he’d been through so much and b) why her sentimentalization of her son’s tormenter can be considered anything but a coping mechanism.

Ms. Kirkland, who originally said she would not be doing interviews, decided to go on Dr. Phil and rehash her son’s story.

While 6-year-old Ethan was in the room, Dr. Phil asked him a few questions, one about how he gets to school in which Ethan went over to his mother and whispered something into her ear. Apparently Ethan whispered, “…my bus driver is dead.”

Ms. Kirkland claims she has not spoken to Ethan about anything that has happened. She said she’s there if he wants to talk.

Kirkland also said that Ethan is suffering from night terrors, thrashing around in his bed.

For the second time, Ms. Kirkland publicly stated that she had forgiven Jimmy Lee Dykes, 65, for holding her son hostage for almost a week. Dykes held the youngster captive after he stormed the boy’s bus, shot the bus driver and took Ethan after Ethan fainted from the trauma.

While Ethan was held hostage, Ms. Kirkland pleaded with the Sheriff not to hurt Jimmy Lee Dykes, her child’s captor. She felt he was mentally ill and should be spared.

I would say that Ms. Kirkland is a better woman than I, because had it been my son, I would not have been been so forgiving nor would I have cared what the hell happened to Mr. Dykes or whether he was spared. I believe there is a tendency to humanize and rationalize despicable behavior for the sake of coping. The sentimentalization of the criminally insane has often been a societal barrier in getting dysfunctional, unproductive and dangerous the help they need before they commit acts against humanity because people don’t want to admit that many killers lack any sort of sympathy for their victims. Further, the true irony in sympathizing with the criminally insane is in the majority of cases, they don’t appreciate, respect or value others forgiveness and sympathy. They are incapable of processing those kinds of feelings so the desire to humanize them is wasted.

If it were my kid, I would say, do whatever you need to do to Dykes in a manner that keeps my son safe. This asshole’s sense of self worth is not my concern, my son’s life is my concern.

Even more revealing and curious in the mother’s sympathy for Dykes is that she said that Ethan, her young victim son, described the killing of Dykes as, “The army came in and shot the bad man.”

So, Ethan, who is supposedly on the Autism spectrum and has ADHD, intellectualizes the “evil” of Dykes as a “bad man”, yet Ms. Kirkland still speaks of Dykes fondly, describing him as almost a caretaker even though, the police say that they felt Ethan was in imminent danger when they saw Dykes pick up a gun and get agitated shortly before rescuing Ethan. It’s hard to tell, but it’s still not clear if Kirkland is satisfied with the outcome, as if Dykes were treated unfairly or something.

I also cannot understand why Kirkland has not asked about young Ethan’s experience. I don’t know what psychologists have to say about it or what is the “right” way to proceed, I just know, had it been my kid, I would start asking questions so that I could know how to proceed. Be it counseling, assurance or therapy, I would ask. I would have to know. I would want to know so that I could address my child’s fears. If he’s having such bad nightmares, it’s obviously on his mind. He many not know how to broach the subject, so counseling and communication would be important to me. (Although it is also not clear if she has sought out counseling for the youngster.)

Would you feel sympathy for a man who allowed your baby to cry, 4 feet under the surface of the earth for almost a week before potentially killing him? Would you not ask him to talk to you about what happened?

DOE new mandate requires schools to set up disabled sports teams. Photo via Pierre Benker.

Last month, the U.S. Department of Education, along with the Office of Civil Rights passed a new unfunded mandate which requires schools to make concessions, allowances and modifications for disabled students who want to play school sports.

While much of the new mandate is a refresher on discrimination, something most people with a heart and soul can get behind, the last recommendation mandates that if reasonable accommodations cannot be made for a disabled student, then a school must fund and organize another team to meet the demands of disabled students.

For example, disabilities like diabetes and asthma — schools would be required to have a nurse assigned to that student for any school sponsored event they participated in. That’s going to be costly, but not nearly as egregious as the second part of the mandate, which states that even if only ONE disabled student is interested in a sport such as Basketball and cannot be accommodated with reasonable measures (lets say the student is in a wheel chair and wants to play basketball on the Varsity team), then the school must provide a suitable alternative.

So, let’s say you have three students who fall in to this category; who are they gonna play? The U.S. Department of Education says that schools can comply by starting a school district wide team and that it doesn’t necessarily have to be at each school.

Okay, so let’s say a disabled student lives in a rural area with too few participants to make up a disabled team, the school must now pay for that student’s transportation and what if the long bus ride requires the disabled student to have medical staff? Then the school has to pay for that too. While all of this is very moral and ideal in theory, how are cash strapped schools supposed to pay for this?

Some school districts have declined to comment on it, saying that they’re waiting to find out the costs and determine if the costs mean they must eliminate their sports programs altogether.

Perhaps the U.S. Department of Education will take another look at this, but this is just so typical. Bureaucrats who know nothing about financial constraints passing laws/mandates without considering the consequences. The same bureaucrats who send their kids to private schools or live in cash flush school districts.

The irony of it is — the poorer the community, the more of a negative effect it will have on their schools budget and sports program, which many poor communities rely on heavily.

What do you think? If providing equal funding and teams for disabled students means that schools cannot afford athletic programs at all, would you still support it?

Another irony — the U.S. Department of Education says they put this mandate together because of how vital sports is to the development of minors, but if the program has to be eliminated because school districts can’t shoulder the burden, then how would that be beneficial to anybody?

Infant’s ears pierced. Is it attractive? Photo via sxc photo.

I couldn’t help but notice the large crowd that surrounded a young mother and her infant daughter in a costume jewelry shop in the mall this past weekend. The poor baby. She was all smiles, oblivious to what was coming next. As the attendant drew marks on the infant’s ear lobes, she just sat there taking in the passerby’s as they stared into the glass, causing a gapers’ delay. The baby’s cosmetic right into adulthood was there — on display for the world to watch.

What this little baby didn’t know, she was about to get a sharp jab of pain, but not to protect her from illness, but to have something sparkly embedded in her flesh. She was about to get her ears pierced.

I didn’t bother staying for the puncture. It really bothered me. Pain for aesthetics, at only 6 month or so? It didn’t seem right. In fact, it seemed cruel.

I guess one could make an argument; little girls with earrings is cute. But does the end justify the means with such a young baby?

I remember getting my ears pierced after begging my mother for years as a young girl. She finally relented when I was 10 or so. As much as I tried to care for them, having a somewhat inattentive mother didn’t help the healing process and I wound up with serious infections and scar tissue that had to be removed years later. While I’m glad I have my ears pierced now, I always thought I should have listened to my mother and waited until I was more mature. I also recall my earlobes throbbing for a good three days or so. It’s not the kind of pain I wish upon any non-consenting infant.

So, what do you think? Is it cute or is it trashy?

Will Adam Lanza’s body ever be claimed by his father? Photo via Nicolás Báez.

In a word, no.

Rumor has it — no one has claimed the body of Adam Lanza, the fucker who shot up a first grade classroom at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, killing 20 first graders (most of them only 6-years-old) and 6 school staff members (including four teachers, the school’s principal and the school psychologist).

If the rumors are true and Adam Lanza, 20-years-old, who shot and killed himself only when it was clear he was going to be captured, has not been claimed by any surviving family members, who cares? Honestly, who gives a shit if he winds up rotting there?

Personally, I really don’t care if his family doesn’t claim him but I am struck by the amount of people who thinks he deserves better than that and lambastes the man’s father for failing to give him a proper burial.

My question is why? For all of those who believe that Adam Lanza deserves our compassion and pity, because he suffered too or something, how do you know that? How do you know he was conflicted at all?

How do you know that he killed 20 babies, shooting them at close range between 2 and 11 times — that it was done in order to stifle his pain? And who cares if that was the case?

How do we know that his sole purpose wasn’t to inflict as much pain on others as humanly possible because it gave him pleasure? And even if he was in pain, so what? What does that have to do with anything? From all accounts, he lived a pretty charmed life, so sorry he had the inability to appreciate it, or he was mad at his mom or something.

Humanizing this bastard is just as much of a coping mechanism as calling him out for what he is — subhuman, evil and deranged.

No, I do not pity him. No, I do not feel sorry for him. No, I don’t care what happens to his body. No, I don’t care if his father forgoes his chance to say his final goodbye to him. Judging the man’s father and brother for the inability to pay their respect to him is just as bad, if not worse, than blaming the man’s mother for her inability to stop him.

If his father wants to have a funeral for him, so be it. I will not judge him for it, but given that he’s allegedly fled town with his new wife and his brother hasn’t spoken to him in over two years, they might be so repulsed by his actions that they can’t bring themselves to honor him in any way. And if that’s the case, then that’s their God-given right.

Just as I wrote about the Batman movie massacre shooter, I don’t think it’s noble or obligatory for the parents of such an evil fucker who has committed such unthinkable acts of violence against innocent people to be like “uh, you’re not my family anymore”. I think a parent’s love in unconditional to a point. That red-line for me would be if one of my children shot 20 6-year-olds, regardless of the reason, regardless of their psychosis. Just because someone is of your own flesh and blood, it doesn’t mean that they can expect you to continue loving them, regardless of their actions.

If Adam Lanza’s surviving family wants to forgive him, let them. But I won’t.  I don’t care if he rots in hell. He gets zero sympathy from me and I don’t care if he was struggling with a mental illness, that may be a reason, but it’s not an excuse. I don’t care why he was evil and I’m not going to pretend that a little Adam Lanza resides in all of us, because if he does, we might as well bring on the Apocalypse.

Mayim Bialik, an attachment parenting advocate. Photo via Touchstone.

After Mayim Bialik recently announced her split from her husband of nine years, some people were blaming her continued devotion to extreme attachment parenting as a potential cause.

Bialik, 36, who was a former child actress on “Blossom” and now stars on “The Big Band Theory” has written several books on attachment parenting, hailing the act of co-sleeping, extended breastfeeding, bare-bottom potty training, child driven discipline (where the child decides his or her own punishment) and home birthing without medications.

An article that appeared on People magazine’s website today had the comments buzzing with speculation that her devotion to attachment parenting may have played a role.

What do you think?

Are the following comments far too judgmental? Is it any of their business really?