Less than a week ago a baby girl was born to the Meske family in Crystal Lake, Ill. This new addition’s name wasn’t chosen by parents Lindsey and Dave though — at least not completely. More than 4,000 people helped make this momentous decision.
Lindsey Meske with her two daughters. The newest bundle was born Jan. 31. (Photo: Facebook)
(Image: Facebook)
Madelyn Rae Meske (Photo: Facebook)
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Would You Let the Facebook Community Pick Your Baby’s Name?
Nine-year-old Lenny Boberg was suspended from school after performing a Michael Jackson dance routine during a fundraiser -- groin reaches and all. (Image source: Winona Daily News)
Image source: Winona Daily News
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‘Clearly Inappropriate’: Boy Suspended Over Michael Jackson Crotch-Grabbing Dance
Since I last reported to you, there still have been no new developments in the case of my missing cousin, Marizela Perez. No news from the police or the medical examiner’s office. No activity on her bank accounts or social media accounts. I reached out to Google’s legal department for help and advice last month in trying to obtain information about her electronic trail in the weeks and months before she vanished. The circumstances of our dilemma remain the same. While the case remains open, the Seattle police are for all practical purposes treating it as a closed and shut case. They will not share the information they obtained from the limited Google subpoena — which our family pushed for in the first place. If we had access to that information, we could continue the search for Marizela on our own that the SPD has neither the time, resources, or inclination to pursue. We have not heard back from Google. As we’ve noted since the day of her disappearance, she was taking anti-depressants at the time of her disappearance. The daunting possibility that she took her life, and the signs that cannot be ignored, still weighs heavily on our minds — as do all the other frightening possibilities as her case remains unsolved and unresolved. I’ve urged you before to support volunteer groups that provide hope and solace for those in need. To honor Marizela, I ask again that you do so if you are able. Thank you for all your continued thoughts and prayers. Cherish life. Lahat ay magiging maayos: All will be well. www.findmarizela.com
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11 months: Marizela still missing
I saw ” Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close .” I went yesterday afternoon. I was intrigued by this film from the moment I saw the preview, just days before Christmas. It came out in limited release in order to qualify for the Academy Awards. It opened Christmas Day. Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock star, and of course that had something to do with my interest. Tom Hanks is probably my favorite actor, and I say probably because I don’t really rate actors all that much. Hanks is on the left of the spectrum politically, but he’s not progressive in the sense of the mainstream Democrat Party establishment today. Hanks is what a “liberal” used to be — someone patriotic who believes in the positive role of America in the world in the defense of freedom. I imagine Hanks is also “liberal” in the old sense of believing that governmental institutions can leaven markets and help solve collective action problems (while not specifically attempting to destroy capitalism). And of course, Hanks’ advocacy for the memory of the World War II generation is a major contribution to contemporary American life. So it was no surprise to me that he’d be playing a lead role in a film which takes the September 11 attacks as the foundation of the story. I went into the movie with only the vaguest details of the story, since I frankly just skimmed the reviews in the most obligatory manner at the time. I knew I wanted to see it for the reasons stated above. Now that I have I confess to being more profoundly moved than I thought I’d be, and I say that with the confession that I did expect to be moved a little bit. I’m a hopelessly emotional sap when it comes to stuff like this. I think I’ve mentioned it before but the movies are the only place where I’ll really cry. I don’t get that emotional most other times. But the movies sometimes open me up and I wish I’d brought a box of tissue. This movie doesn’t really have that one emotionally devastating scene where you can’t hold it in any longer. The gushy scenes kind of ratchet up until the film’s crescendo toward the conclusion. I was wiping my eyes a little by that time, but it wasn’t a gusher or anything. Mostly I was just amazed at how well the story was all tied together. The main character is Oskar, the 11-year-old boy who loses his dad (Thomas, played by Hanks) on 9/11. Thomas was in one of the towers, caught above the impact zone 100 stories or so near the top of the skyscraper. Thomas calls home and leaves messages on the answer machine. Oskar’s school is closed because of the emergency and he comes home to hear the his father’s voice. It’s hard early in the movie to figure out how significant those taped messages are, but it’s a powerful scene when we learn what happened. Oskar is beyond precocious. He and his dad play together like best friends and Thomas designs games and adventures to challenge his son and help build his character. It’s a love story between a boy and his father. There’s some craziness in the pacing of the movie. The flashbacks between the present and the past are hard to separate temporally since the flashbacks only flash back a year to two before the present. And parts of the movie seem improbable: Oskar finds a key that belonged to his dad and he’s convinced the key holds some magical significance. No doubt it’s closure, but most 11-year-olds probably wouldn’t be able to walk across all of New York City to track down the people, hundreds of people, who might have an answer to the mystery. (What does that key open?) But movies sometimes require a willing suspension of disbelief, and this one is so realistic in other respects — and we love and trust the actors so much already — that it’s not hard to do. It’s a great film. It’s nominated for best picture, although I can’t say it’s the best of 2011, having only seen one or two others that were nominated. However, it’s a much more powerful movie than “War Horse” (which I saw a couple of weeks back and meant to write something about but procrastinated). There’s an emotional closeness to “Extremely Loud” that’s at once both endearing and devastating. “War Horse” was much less intense in that regard, although it’s a great movie that deserves a nomination. So with that, I was a bit caught off guard (although not surprised, actually) at progressive hate-blogger Scott Lemieux’s attack on the movie, at the communist Lawyers, Guns and Money , ” Extremely Loud and Incredibly Shitty? “: This was truly a banner year for terrible movies…. But I was interested to see several critics in the New York survey mentioned Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close . About 15 seconds into the first time I saw the preview it was clear that it was going to be a major threat to be the Academy’s middlebrow doorstop of choice. And that was before I knew it had been directed by Stephen Daldry, the homeless man’s Lasse Hallström and the most obvious choice to produce the kind of kitschy “serious” films that simulate content without having any. It’s based on a prominent bad novel using one horrible historical event as a backdrop, and also invokes two other horrible historical events while telling you nothing you didn’t already know about any of them or about anything else. It has an annoying precocious kid, who encounters Noble African-Americans. It has Tom Hanks. I mean talk about your Oscar bait. So did it get nominated? Oh, yes, and I can’t imagaine anyone thinks this is surprising. Has anyone seen it? Could anything be as bad as it looks? All that and Lemieux hadn’t even watched the film. And the “several critics” mentioned are those cited at a New York article on the year’s worst movies. Reading those, along with Lemieux’s response, it’s not hard to figure out that these people simply can’t stand that September 11th is used as an historical anchor to a movie about family, grief, and recovery. Progressives think the U.S. deserved 9/11 and they hate the institution of the family. Why on earth would they give a fuck about a film that features these things as the subject matter? Perhaps read the LGM comments there as well, at least to get a feeling of what radical leftists think about cinema and annual Oscar pageant overall. These losers aren’t representative — not of regular Americans, of course, but not of people in the movie industry either. “Extremely Loud” got great reviews, or at least great reviews in respectable sources. Here’s Betsy Sharkey, at the Los Angeles Times , for example: “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” is a handsomely polished, thoughtfully wrapped Hollywood production about the national tragedy of 9/11 that seems to have forever redefined words like unthinkable, unforgivable, catastrophic. It has also redefined our expectations of filmmakers who try to examine the still aching wound — and perhaps explains why most films about 9/11 haven’t resonated with audiences. Mindful of that, director Stephen Daldry has taken great care in looking at it through the eyes of a precocious New York City boy in a film filled with both sentiment and substance. Finding the right balance was critical to making any adaptation of Jonathan Safran Foer’s provocative novel work. But this is a filmmaker who’s equally sensitive and bold in handling films with heavy emotional and political content as he has in “Billy Elliot,” “The Hours” and “The Reader,” all of which earned him Oscar nominations. He’s up to the task again with “Extremely Loud,” which opens Sunday. Like the novel that inspired the film, screenwriter Eric Roth (“Munich”) has brought things back to ground zero through the story of one family torn asunder by the World Trade Center attacks. So it seems a smart choice to put two quintessentially heartland stars in Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock at its center. It makes acceptance easier, offense harder. Keep reading . Manohla Dargis is more critical in her review at the New York Times , ” A Youngster With a Key, a Word and a Quest .” She writes: In truth, “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” isn’t about Sept. 11. It’s about the impulse to drain that day of its specificity and turn it into yet another wellspring of generic emotions: sadness, loneliness, happiness. This is how kitsch works. It exploits familiar images, be they puppies or babies — or, as in the case of this movie, the twin towers — and tries to make us feel good, even virtuous, simply about feeling. And, yes, you may cry, but when tears are milked as they are here, the truer response should be rage. Okay. Right. We should have rage. Personally, it’s enraging that we’ve had so few films of this caliber dealing 9/11 that we should bemoan kitsch and demand rage. That’s progress. In any case, Mandelyn Kilroy has an approving review at Philly Buzz , where she notes, it’s “a must-see movie, just make sure to pack the tissues.” That’s good advice.
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‘Extremely Loud’
Concerns are growing over the safety of a Pakistani doctor who might have played an unwitting yet heroic role in the U.S. take-down of Osama bin Laden. According to Fox News , Dr. Shikal Afridi may be in the custody of Pakistan’s clandestine Inter-Services Intelligence agency after it discovered the doctor’s participation in a fake Hepatitis B vaccination program that attempted to gain DNA samples from those within bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound — including several followers and their families. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta this week questioned the charges against the doctor. “I’m very concerned about what the Pakistanis did with this individual,” he told CBS News. “This was an individual who, in fact, helped provide intelligence on — that was very helpful with regards to this operation. And he was not in any way treasonous towards Pakistan. He was not in any way doing anything that would have undermined Pakistan.” Panetta reminded thst the U.S. and Pakistan “have a common cause here against terrorism.” “And for them to take this kind of action against somebody who was helping to go after terrorism, I just think it’s a real mistake on their part,” said Panetta. Fox reports that Panetta’s comments are the first to publicly acknowledge Afridi’s involvement in the operation. Fox provides some of the background: Afridi was arrested shortly after the raid and is thought to still be in custody despite not formally being charged with a crime. His detention has widened the rift between the U.S. and Pakistan, with Washington until now quietly pressing for his release so Afridi and his family can resettle in the U.S., according to The Guardian newspaper, which first reported on the doctor’s role in the operation last July. Reports suggest that Afridi rang the bell of the bin Laden compound during the vaccination drive, and the nurse who was with him was able to get inside but was ultimately unsuccessful in getting any DNA samples. Reports have also suggested that Afridi may not have even been aware that he was working for the CIA and instead may have been recruited by other Pakistanis to carry out the fake house-to-house vaccination program. Now, lawmakers are coming to Afridi’s aid. Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher introduced legislation to grant U.S. citizenship to Afridi as Pakistan’s Inquiry Commission on the Abbottabad Operation has recommended the doctor be tried for treason. If convicted, Afridi could be executed. An official press release from Rohrabacher’s office stated: “It is shameful and unforgivable that our supposed allies in Pakistan have charged Dr. Afridi, who contributed to the operation that killed Bin Laden, with treason,” said Rohrabacher. “The United States needs to stand with those who help us. We have not forgotten about Dr. Afridi.” “By granting him American citizenship we will send a direct and powerful message to those in the Pakistani government and military who protected the mastermind of 9/11 for all those years and who are now seeking retribution on those who helped to bring Bin Laden to justice,” Rohrabacher continued. “We must assume the obvious and conclude that Pakistan’s leaders have plotted for years to kill Americas.” Panetta also told CBS News that there was no actual evidence of Pakistani involvement in bin Laden’s presence in Pakistan, but suspicions must have been raised. “I personally have always felt that somebody must have had some sense of what was happening at this compound,” Panetta said of Pakistan’s alleged involvement in harboring bin Laden. “Don’t forget, this compound had 18-foot walls around it — 12-foot walls in some areas, 18-foot walls elsewhere, a seven-foot wall on the third balcony of the house. It was the largest compound in the area,” he said. “So you would have thought that somebody would have asked the question, ‘What the hell’s going on there?’
Jim Moran, racist pig by Michelle Malkin Creators Syndicate Copyright 2012 Congressman Jim Moran is an old white Democrat from Virginia who thinks he can judge whether we minority conservatives are acting sufficiently non-white enough. Moran’s an inveterate bully, a brawler, a crook and a bigot. And not one of his civility-preaching liberal colleagues has the courage to call him out. Responding on cable news to GOP Rep. Allen West’s blunt criticisms of President Obama this week, Moran derided the retired U.S. Army colonel, who is black, as “not representative of the African-American community.” Moran then launched into the kind of tired race-traitor tirade I’ve heard from progressives of pallor for more than 20 years. How dare we “people of color” stray from the left’s ideological plantation? If we choose personal responsibility over entitlement, capitalism over statism or self-determination over identity politics, presumptuous white liberals appoint themselves spokespeople for our forefathers and deciders of our true destinies. To wit: Lt. Col. West “just seems clueless now that he has climbed aboard ship,” Moran fumed. “He’s climbed this ladder of opportunity that was constructed by so many of his ancestors’ sweat, sacrifice, blood, you know, they did everything they could for his generation to be successful. But now that he’s climbed on board ship, instead of reaching down and steadying the ladder, he wants to push it off.” West, his father, his mother and his brother all dedicated their lives to military service; four consecutive generations of his family served in the U.S. armed forces. As a freshman congressman, West’s message has been a compelling agenda of self-empowerment. For this, he is savaged by a House colleague as a racial saboteur? But Moran was just warming up. Next, he contrasted conservative West with big-government savior Barack Obama, who he said acted in proper accordance with his ancestors “by reducing college tuition and training our workers, trying to get a decent job for everybody” and leaving a “constructive legacy.” Er, how’s the savior’s near double-digit unemployment, record food stamp enrollment, re-inflation of the housing and higher-education bubbles, and massive redistribution of wealth from the working class to the Wall Street bundler class working out for you? Moran hailed Obama as “our Lion King” and compared his Republican detractors to the “hyenas in the background trying to cause trouble” for the White House. This bumbling chief of political correctness apparently is unaware that those hyenas in the Disney movie have been criticized for perpetuating negative stereotypes about blacks and Hispanics. Dog-whistle politics, anyone? Do Moran’s constituents in Virginia’s 8th district support his incessant race-baiting? Last year, he accused Tea Party activists of racism for sweeping out entrenched Democrats in the November 2010 midterm elections. It “happened for the same reason the Civil War happened in the United States. It happened because the Southern states, the slaveholding states, didn’t want to see a president who was opposed to slavery,” he ranted to Arabic-language television network Alhurra. “(A) lot of people in the United States don’t want to be governed by an African-American , particularly one who is liberal, who wants to spend money and who wants to reach out to include everyone in our society.” Yet, only two short years before, this hopelessly racist nation put Obama in the Oval Office with a landslide victory. Logic never was the demagogue’s strong suit. The aptly named Moran, an 11-term incumbent , continues to be rewarded by voters for his extravagant spending habits, self-dealing and diarrhea of the mouth. As I’ve reported previously: – While on the Alexandria (Va.) City Council, he was charged with casting a vote that helped a developer friend win a bid for a lucrative plot of public land. A special prosecutor concluded that Moran had violated the state’s conflict-of-interest law. He sobbed as he pleaded no contest to a felony charge of vote-peddling. He received a year’s probation for a reduced conflict-of-interest misdemeanor charge and was forced to resign. – In 1995, he had to be subdued by Capitol Hill police when he threw a punch at California Republican Rep. Randy Cunningham on the House floor. After the incident, Moran blamed “talk radio” for creating a hostile environment in Washington. That same year, he screamed “I’ll break your nose” at Indiana Republican Rep. Dan Burton during a hearing. – In 2002, Moran revealed in financial disclosure statements that he accepted a $50,000 loan in January 2001 from an “old friend,” billionaire America Online co-founder James Kimsey. The congressman claims to have paid the business mogul back at 15 percent interest over three months, and his spokesman emphasized the loan came with no accompanying quid pro quo. – Kimsey’s gift came on the heels of Moran’s disclosure that he had received another Big Business-tied loan: $25,000 from “old friend” Terry Lierman, a drug industry lobbyist representing Schering-Plough. After getting that unsecured loan at a lower-than-market interest rate, Moran co-sponsored a bill that would extend the patent on Schering-Plough’s allergy medicine Claritin — and prevent generic drug manufacturers from offering inexpensive alternatives. Liberal busybodies are an annoyance. Liberal race-card abusers who lambaste patriotic minority conservatives to cover their own dirty deeds make my brown skin crawl.
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Jim Moran, racist pig
Well, LAT says “may have”:
( Click for full-size ; Source: GOP Oversight ) Scroll for updates… Forget Klownald Trump. This is your story of the day. Attorney General Eric Holder is on Capitol Hill day, facing another round of questions from relentless GOP watchdogs led by House Oversight and Govenrment Reform chair Darrell Issa. You can watch the proceedings live on CSPAN online here . The grilling comes as Border Patrol agent Brian Terry’s family files suit against the lying ATF: The family of slain U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry charged Wednesday that the top federal prosecutor in Phoenix lied to them about the guns found at the crime scene in an attempt to hide the weapons’ connection to the ATF’s failed Fast and Furious gun-tracking operation. Terry was killed in December 2010, allegedly by Mexican bandits carrying at least two AK-47 semiautomatic rifles that had been purchased in Arizona as part of Fast and Furious. The operation was intended to catch drug lords using illegal weapons, but the ATF immediately lost track of 1,700 firearms. The Terry family alleged that then-U.S. Atty. Dennis K. Burke told them last March that the two weapons came from a store in Texas and were not part of Fast and Furious. The family made their allegations in a “notice of claim” stating that they intend to sue the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Justice Department for $25 million. They called the gun-tracking operation “abominable, reckless, nonsensical.” Burke has resigned and has declined to discuss Fast and Furious. But the family’s claim notice strongly suggests that the federal government initially sought to keep Fast and Furious under wraps and hoped it would not be linked to the slaying. House GOP leaders repeat what whistleblowers have been telling us from the start: Top White House/DOJ knew. They knew: Top Department of Justice officials had extensive knowledge of and involvement in Operation Fast and Furious, claims a new report released Thursday, hours before Attorney General Eric Holder’s scheduled testimony to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The report released by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, top lawmakers investigating the botched gunrunning operation, claims Justice Department officials in Washington and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were involved in the coordination in the early stages of the operation. Related Interactive Report released by Issa and Grassley on Fast and Furious Republican lawmakers Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) released a new report suggesting top Department of Justice officials had extensive knowledge of and involvement in Operation Fast and Furious. Justice headquarters “had much greater knowledge of, and involvement in, Fast and Furious than it has previously acknowledged,” the memo reads. Rep. Issa’s preview statement in the advance of the hearing is here : ate last year, after months of investigation, the Justice Department finally acknowledged the allegations were true. Fast and Furious was both reckless and flawed. The Justice Department, however, has been less than forthcoming in cooperating with the efforts of Congressional investigators to determine exactly what happened and who was responsible: • The Justice Department has delivered fewer than 8% of the 80,000 documents we know it has identified as being related to this flawed operation. • It has refused to allow investigators access to numerous witnesses who participated in the operation – one witness, after being served with a subpoena, invoked his Fifth Amendment right to protection against self-incrimination rather than answer questions. • Justice Department now asserts that many documents pertaining to internal discussions and decision making about its response to Operation Fast and Furious are off-limits to investigators. The American people deserve better from our nation’s top law enforcement agency. Thursday’s hearing will feature the nation’s top law enforcement official, Attorney General Eric Holder, who will be asked to explain his decision to withhold this factual evidence from investigators. What he is concerned this information would reveal? Why is the Department trying to keep its internal discussions about Operation Fast and Furious from after February 4, 2011 secret? Why did it take nearly nine months for the Justice Department to acknowledge its earlier denials were false? Why did senior Justice Department officials who knew about and received briefings on the operation fail to stop it? Should Americans have confidence in their chief law enforcement agency even though these same officials remain in their posts? There is now broad bipartisan agreement that the congressional investigation into Operation Fast and Furious has exposed a serious and deadly failure of government. We know that the life of a brave Border Patrol agent has been lost along with countless Mexican citizens who have been victimized by guns from Operation Fast and Furious. Attorney General Holder has acknowledged that the danger created by Fast and Furious will continue for years. This hearing is not about controversial struggles between gun control advocates and supporters of the Second Amendment. It is about the unifying, and what should be bipartisan, expectation that the Justice Department be held to a high standard and that those who failed to meet this standard should be held accountable. I look forward to Attorney General Holder’s testimony. After Issa threatened contempt charges against the Department of Justice Obstructionists, DOJ responded with…more obstruction: The Justice Department response Wednesday rejected Issa’s February 9, 2012, deadline to produce all demanded documents. Cole called the deadline “impossible” to meet because of the broad scope of the request. He did not directly refer to the threat of a contempt charge by Issa. …The hearing Thursday will not be the end of the battle over Operation Fast and Furious. The Justice Department’s inspector general continues to work on a detailed account of the origins of the operation, and who was involved. The report is not expected to be complete for at least a couple more months. Holder has promised when it is completed, he is prepared to make individuals accountable. But Holder says he has no plan to seek resignations or administer discipline until that report is complete. The corruption keeps piling up. Matthew Boyle has a hard-hitting investigative piece in the Daily Caller exposing yet another DOJ scandal involving alleged bribery of top officials involved in a financial fraud probe: A U.S. Justice Department source has told The Daily Caller that at least two DOJ prosecutors accepted cash bribes from allegedly corrupt finance executives who were indicted under court seal within the past 13 months, but never arrested or prosecuted. The sitting governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands, his attorney general and an unspecified number of Virgin Islands legislators also accepted bribes, the source said, adding that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is aware prosecutors and elected officials were bribed and otherwise compromised, but has not held anyone accountable. The bribed officials, an attorney with knowledge of the investigation told TheDC, remain on the taxpayers’ payroll at the Justice Department without any accountability. The DOJ source said Holder does not want to admit public officials accepted bribes while under his leadership. That source said that until the summer of 2011, the two compromised prosecutors were part of a team of more than 25 federal prosecutors pursuing a financial crime ring, and at least five other prosecutors tasked to the case were also compromised by the criminal suspects they were investigating, without being bribed. Washington knew what it was getting when it confirmed corruptocrat Eric Holder. Innocent people have paid with their lives. Ignoring this man and his boss’s utter, systematic contempt for the rule of law has yielded deadly consequences. America, let’s not make that mistake again. *** Update: Go to my Twitter account for live-tweeting of the hearing. Most jaw-dropping moment so far: Indignant Holder demanding he get “credit” for his work at DOJ. Running joke: Every time gun-control Democrats call for more “tools.” There are plenty enough of them in charge in Washington. Side note: Donald Trump stepping on this important hearing tells you everything you need to know about his purported interest in advancing conservative/GOP interests. Circus, circus. Video clips: GOP Rep. Issa’s opening statement: GOP Rep. Patrick Henry underscores that there’s been no accountability for 13 months: GOP Rep. Anne Marie Buerkle confronts Holder with Terry family’s plea for action. At the five-minute mark, you can’t hear it, but Democrats advised Holder: “Don’t answer:”
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Fast and Furious showdown: Holder/Obama defend bloody culture of contempt; Update: Fortress Holder, Stonewall City; vid clips added, Dems advise,…
At Wall Street Journal , ” Afghan Immigrants in Canada Found Guilty of Honor Killing “: TORONTO—A Canadian court found two Afghan immigrant parents and their eldest son guilty of murdering four female family members in a so-called honor killing Sunday, the climax of a case that’s transfixed Canada and sparked a wider debate about clashing cultures amid the country’s large immigrant population. Mohammad Shafia, his wife, Tooba Mohammad Yahya, and eldest son, Hamed, were found guilty of killing Mr. Shafia’s three teenage daughters and Mr. Shafia’s first wife in an elaborately staged, though ultimately bungled, car accident in June 2009. The defense argued the four died after a late-night joy ride went awry. The four-month trial opened a relatively rare window onto honor killings in North America. The crime, where victims are murdered for bringing shame on their family, is increasingly common in western European countries like Britain and Sweden, which has seen large-scale immigration from countries where researchers say the custom happens most—such as Pakistan, India and Turkey …. The prosecution argued it was honor rooted in Afghan tribal traditions that led Mr. Shafia to cleanse the shame he felt from the conduct of his rebellious daughters, Zainab, 19 years old, Sahar, 17, and Geeti, 13. The eldest two took unapproved boyfriends, and all three disobeyed their father through their independent behavior and sometimes-revealing dress. Rona Amir Mohammad, who was Mr. Shafia’s first spouse in the polygamous family, was killed, the prosecution argued, because she was a troublesome first wife and lenient step mother. The trial filled the Canadian press with the macabre details of a murder in which police believe the victims were drowned and then placed into a car that was then pushed into a lock outside of Kingston, near Toronto. The local press printed police transcripts of a ranting Mr. Shafia calling his daughters “whores” and boasting, “nothing is more dear to me than my honor.” Video c/o Blazing Cat Fur . And my previous roundup is here: ” Shafia Family Guilty of Honor Killings in Canada: Updates .”
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Shafia Convictions Put Focus on Culture of Honor Killings
