When we are angry, we are apt to say things we regret, and because I know why @ProfaneFeminist was angry, I’ll take it for granted that she did not mean to insult me personally, and I should hope that others would extend the same courtesy to me, in similar circumstances.
You see, I’m angry as hell all the time. Or rather, I would be permanently angry if not for my sarcastic sense of humor, which enables me to turn even the darkest tragedy into a joke. An ability to laugh in the face of disaster is necessary to survival when you find yourself in trying circumstances. I’ve always admired the “stiff upper lip” attitude of the old British aristocracy, as for example the Royal Air Force pilots who faced the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain. There was a dramatic miniseries about those pilots, the title of which was Piece of Cake. And that title was derived from the way the pilots talked about their dangerous duty. Drawn from the upper classes of British society — an officer was always a gentleman, after all — the RAF boys understood the value of morale, and thus struck a pose of indifference toward danger. So a commander who took off with 12 planes in his squadron might return from a mission with only six or seven, with his own plane badly damaged from a nearly fatal encounter with the enemy, and when he went to the Officer’s Club for a drink, someone might ask, “How was it up there today, Jack?”
To which he would reply: “Piece of cake.”
That is the attitude we should strive to emulate in difficult circumstances, and humor has always been a coping mechanism for me. People are sometimes offended by my habitual sarcasm, which strikes them as inappropriate amid tragedy, but it’s just the way I am. Jocular good humor beats the alternative of hopeless despair, and if you’ve seen as much disaster and misery in life as I’ve witnessed, you must consider it a remarkable accomplishment to avoid despair — or hatred.
So much of what is tragic in our world can be blamed on stupidity, selfishness, dishonesty and cruelty. This makes me angry, and I become frustrated because I feel like everybody else should be as angry about it as I am, and I get angry because they’re not angry enough. Such feelings could easily turn to hatred, and when I express my frustrations, I suppose I might seem as hateful as @ProfaneFeminist. But I’m not.
When you hate people, you don’t bother to understand their problems, but I took time to research what made @ProfaneFeminist so angry.
You see that her cousin was a victim of domestic violence and therefore, according to @ProfaneFeminist, men deserve nothing but hate.
Collective blame — that’s how feminism promotes hatred. If one man does something wrong, all men are to blame for his wrongdoing. So the fact that you had nothing to do with this murder doesn’t mean that you aren’t guilty. You are a man, after all, and therefore you are always wrong, so that if you deny your complicity in this crime, that proves you are responsible. With her brain scambled enough to produce logic like that, you can understand why @ProfaneFeminist deserves sympathy.
Mental illness is tragic, and feminism is a mental illness.
Because of my sympathy, I exercised my Neutral Objective Journalism skills to research the death of @ProfaneFeminist’s cousin, Lauren. This job turned out to be a piece of cake, so to speak. Google “Lauren” and “murder suicide” and you find this local news story:
Lauren McDonald, 28, was the victim of a tragic murder on Dec. 6. She was killed by Kenneth L. Nelson, a 28-year-old from Joliet, who then shot himself.
Lauren’s children attend Forest Park schools, and she was an active member of the community. Friends, relatives and residents are working to set up formal avenues through which people can assist her family.
The shooting took place on Dec. 6 at 5:10 p.m. when police officers were called to the 1500 block of Harlem Avenue in Forest Park with reports of two people down in the street.
Officers found McDonald and Nelson in the street, one in the curb lane and one partially on the sidewalk. Paramedics pronounced them both dead at the scene. Each had suffered gunshot wounds to the head.
It is believed that McDonald exited the passenger side door of a vehicle that had been traveling southbound on Harlem Avenue. Nelson then exited the driver side door and shot her before turning the gun on himself. A gun was recovered at the scene.
Forest Park Police Chief Tom Aftanas said the case is being investigated as a murder-suicide and that McDonald and Nelson were in an on-and-off relationship, but few other details are available at this point.
The Major Crimes Taskforce is assisting with the investigation.
A more extensive report from Friday:
“Lauren was first and foremost a mother.”
Those are the words of Valda Vitton, a 21-year resident of Forest Park and close friend of Lauren O’Connor McDonald, who was killed on Friday, Dec. 6 in a murder-suicide on Harlem Avenue.
Lauren was 28 years old, the mother of three boys, Jeramiah, Tremaine and Xavior, who attend school in Forest Park. She grew up in town, a student at St. John’s. She attended high school in Plainfield, near Joliet where her mother still lives. Lauren’s father lives in Forest Park, and she herself moved back to raise her boys here.
“Family was so important to her,” said Vitton. “Every Saturday, she brought her sons over to her father’s house for lunch.”
Vitton smiled remembering the fun times they had, she with her grandkids and Lauren with her children.
“She took her kids everywhere,” said Vitton. “It was always about them. She had a Brookfield Zoo membership, and we’d go there all the time. She took her children to the park. The pool. Everything she did revolved around her boys.” . . .
Memories and condolences poured forth on Facebook, people describing how she could light up a room, how knowing her made them feel special. . . .
Lauren O’Connor McDonald is survived by her three sons, Jeramiah, Tremaine and Xavior; her father John O’Connor and mother Kathie (Darren) Malina; her sister Crystal Unger; cousins, nieces and many loving friends.
Gosh, a terrible thing, that this 28-year-old mother of three was killed by the man with whom she had an “on-and-off relationship.”
You can read the obituary of Kenneth L. Nelson here.
And don’t say a word, you haters.
Collective blame is always wrong, you see. Viewing people only as members of groups, attributing to them certain traits based on prejudicial stereotypes, and blaming all members of the group (collectively) for wrongdoing by any member of the group — well, that’s the very definition of hate-mongering, isn’t it? Why is it that feminists are permitted to engage in hate propaganda against males, when our society would never tolerate any such propaganda against other groups?
Yet this is exactly where the “social justice” logic of identity politics leads us. Some groups claim collective victimhood, and other groups are collectively demonized as perpetrators of oppression. If you surrender to that kind of ideological cult mentality, it will drive you crazy. You might even be so crazy that you would ignore all common-sense advice and put your own life in jeopardy of criminal violence. However, we are no longer allowed to make such observations, because this is victim-blaming. So while it’s acceptable for feminists to blame all men for the domestic violence that ended Lauren McDonald’s life, we can’t cite her death as an example to warn other women to avoid her fate. Being denied the freedom to speak the truth is frustrating, and it makes me angry, and so I struggle to resist saying things I would regret.
Instead, I will resort to my habit of sarcastic humor, and make an allusion to climate change. Because I suppose Greta Thunberg will be happy at this reduction of carbon emissions. IYKWIMAITYD.
Just a colorful figure of speech . . .
