Words fail me

This was the first thing I read this morning. The sheer brutality and kindess embodied in this story leaves me speechless.

From horror to hope: Boy's miracle recovery from brutal attack

You cannot die! You cannot die!" the father mumbles to the bloodied, mutilated boy who lies unconscious on his lap.

His hands press down on the boy's slashed-open stomach to keep the insides from spilling out. He sobs convulsively.

"Listen to me! You cannot die!" he repeats his morbid mantra. "If for nothing else, to exact justice."

The two are on a rickshaw headed to a hospital in Dhaka. It's not the most effective way to transport a dying child through the cramped, congested streets of the Bangladeshi capital. But it's all that the impoverished father can afford.

Hours earlier, four men had surrounded the 7-year-old boy, bound his hands and feet and cracked open his head with a brick. They held him down and took a switchblade to his throat. They sliced his chest and belly in an upside down cross.

And in a final brutal act, they hacked him sideways, chopping off his penis and his right testicle.

"It's amazing that he lived," a doctor would later say. "I'm really surprised he didn't bleed to death prior to getting to the hospital."

He was only seven years old at the time. Read the article. Educate yourself on the brutality of forced begging. See what a concerted effort by a team of individuals can do to help the situation. And see what you can do to help other children like this boy at CNN's Operation Freedom Project: Ending Modern-Day Slavery page.

Budding young sociopath or misunderstood and maligned?

18-year old charged in Florida cat mutilations

Police investigated over 30 cat deaths in the Miami area where residents have been horrified by a series of cat mutilations/deaths. Tyler Hayes Weinman was charged today with 19 counts each of animal cruelty and improperly disposing of an animal body and four counts of burglary in the deaths.

If the police have their man, then I hope they throw the book at him. Besides the general consideration of how this killer has upset lives of loving families who have lost their pets in chilling ways, research suggests that those who torture or kill animals often eventually make their way up to people. It is a red flag in the past of young sociopathic killers.

Of course, if he's being made a scapegoat and is innocent, that's wrong. And if he is innocent, it's a shame that police took him in for questioning on his prom night, in tuxedo, making him miss the dance.

But if he is guilty...thank the Gods they caught him now. I don't know what Florida or local laws are for animal cruelty--some places are very lax, others more stringent. But if he is guilty I'd like to see him in prison for a good long time.