Does the name Joseph A. Wallace mean anything? How about Edwin
Garcia? Nothing, right? But I'm sure you'll recognize Michael
Vick, the NFL star whose face and name have been all over the
news and on the Web for the unspeakable crime of killing dogs
used in a dog-fighting gambling ring. His multimillion dollar
sports career appears to be over and his story has been the
subject of debate for weeks. Wallace and Garcia were just a blip
on the radar screen for a couple of days and they're accused of
unspeakable acts. What's wrong with this picture?
The travails of sports stars gone wrong bore me because they're
all so predictable since thugs became the primary recruits for
professional spots. Given their obscene salaries and abuse of
their talent, it's really only a matter of time before a
punishing fate pops up. I'm more concerned with the health and
well-being of the innocent.
Joseph A. Wallace, a Port Richmond, Staten Island, resident, was
arrested last week and charged with the manslaughter death of his
two-month-old son who died in May. The city medical examiner
ruled that the baby's death was a homicide, but that's not the
worst part of Mr. Wallace's alleged crime. A post mortem found
that the baby suffered lacerations and bruising of his rectum.
May I remind you that the boy named after his father was only two
months old?
Beautiful Hailey Gonzalez was just 21 months old when she was
battered August 7 by her mother's boyfriend, Edwin Garcia. She
succumbed to her injuries days later and Garcia was charged with
second-degree murder. Her mother, Marlene Medina, was also
arrested and charged with second-degree manslaughter and several
charges of child endangerment.
Both Garcia and Medina were under investigation by the city's
Administration for Children's Services for a prior beating by her
biological father. What? The newspaper carried a photograph of
poor Hailey while she lay comatose in the hospital, her head
swathed in bandages with breathing tubes in her tiny nose. She
looked like my beautiful granddaughter, and I don't care what
excuse their lawyers come up with, these brutal acts against
these babies are just plain evil.
It's strange how books written by atheists are all the rage.
Christopher Hitchens's "God Is Not Great; How Religion
Poisons Everything" is a best seller, as are books by Sam
Harris and Richard Dawkins. They all debunk belief in God while
casting religion as the cause of world troubles. How, then, does
one explain evil? If God does not exist, presumably neither does
Satan.
But how else to explain what is happening to the youngest of the
young? I will never forget Christopher Barrios, a 6-year-old who
was raped by sex fiends then slaughtered.
It seems as if every day, someone is arrested for having child
pornography on their computers. The victims can be only months
old. Evil, evil, evil.
In one of the cleverest films, "The Usual Suspects,"
Kevin Spacey says, "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled
was convincing the world he didn't exist."
Sex has supersaturated our society. There is no escaping its
stimuli, and children are becoming innocent bystanders in the
stampede for sexual pleasure. Purveyors of pornography are a
protected species sheltered by civil liberty groups inveigling
their rights under the First Amendment. Does anyone think that
our Founding Fathers meant the Bill of Rights to protect lewd and
lascivious voyeurs rather than children in libraries? Yet
libraries throughout the country are erecting privacy screens so
that porn surfers can indulge themselves on the free computers.
This is madness. Maybe it's time for a conservative Supreme Court
to set the proper boundaries that will protect our children. Our
nation is crying out for another society, and the message is
going over everyone's head. Look at the recent ratings for the
Disney Channel's made-for-TV movie, "High School Musical
2." It broke all cable movie ratings ever with 17.2 million
viewers and it was good-clean entertainment for the entire
family. Yet Hollywood studios are still producing R-rated and
NC-17 films that produce a much smaller box-office return than
what's made by decent films. Who's making them do it, Church
Lady?
Too bad children don't have a PETA of their own, because right
now, animals get more protection.