Couple of days back 2 teenage girls, going to the fields because they have no indoor toilet, were gang-raped and then hanged from a mango tree. Reminds us of the chilling lyrics of Billie Holidays song ' Strange Fruit ' about lynched black men hanging from a poplar tree amidst the scent of magnolias. Then, in Etawah, the mother of a raped girl was stripped and thrashed by the father of the rapist because she would not withdraw her complaint. The police, as usual, refused to increase their workload. Not to be outdone the father and brothers of a pregnant woman in Lahore, Pakistan bashed in her skull with bricks for marrying a man of her choice and not her cousin as they wanted. Right outside the High Court, with the police presumably as interested spectators. Turns out that the husband had killed his first wife to marry this woman. What a life! In Sudan a woman has been sentenced to death because she is a Christian, married to a Christian man who is a US citizen. Because her father was a Muslim so a court in Sudan decided that she has to be a Muslim and is therefore guilty of apostasy, punishable by death under Sharia rules. She has just given birth to a baby girl and her 20 month old son is also in prison with her. All very confusing to us because Muslims and Christians have the same God and presumably believe in the Commandment which says," Thou shalt not kill." It seems to be absolute with no exceptions or exemptions. In an American version of honor killing a student in Santa Barbara killed 6 people and wounded 13 before shooting himself in the head. He wanted to kill women because he could not get a girl friend and was still a virgin. Guns are protected by the Second Amendment and the National Rifle Association, which is so powerful that you cannot get elected if you mention gun control. More than 30,000 people die of gun violence every year and many more must be left crippled. It is not just ordinary people who get shot. President Reagan was shot and his assistant James Brady left in a wheelchair in 1981 while Congresswoman Gabrille Giffords was shot in the head in 2011. A 3 year old boy in Arizona picked up a gun and shot dead his 18 month old brother. But it gets better. A SWAT team attacked a house in Atlanta looking for drugs and threw a stun grenade into a toddler's crib, leaving him fighting for his life. Why should marines have all the fun in Afghanistan, shooting women and children and then calling them terrorists? All this took place within one week. Who needs a world war?
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