Off My Chest....

This will be a bit depressing and not really a fun read but I feel like I have to get it off my chest, so bare with me.
I went to see Capote today and really loved it. It was a great movie, well filmed and also a story I didn't know anything about. It is basically the story of Truman Capote, who got to know two men that murdered a family of 4 in their own home in 1959. He wrote a book about it that became a best seller and made him the most famous author in America. Basically the thing that effected me most was the realization of the power we hold as parents. We can create well adjusted loving children that grow into wonderful adults, but if we treat them badly they have the potential to become monsters. It is very scary to know that there are parents out there like this and makes me want to wrap my kids up in cotton wool. In saying that there are many children that are treated badly that can become normal, contributing, functioning adults, but why would we take the chance?
There was a line from the movie that stuck in my head. Truman Capote did not have the greatest upbringing either, as he explained to one of the jailed men, he said that his mother would lock him in hotel rooms while she went out on one night stands with men. He would stand at the door screaming and crying, night after night, until he collapsed from exhaustion and fell asleep on the floor beside the door. He explained to someone that he felt that he and one of the jailed men had been brought up in the same house, and that he had left by the front door, while the jailed man had left by the back door. I hope that no-one in my family or anyone that I know ever meets someone that left through the back door.

I also saw two other moving things on TV recently. One was on the ABC Compass program and was about the Genocide in Rwanda that happened in 1994. It was about the man that was sent over as head of the UN peacekeeping force and his trip back after 20 years. It brought up things I didn't know, like the fact that 800,000 thousand men, women and children were murdered in 100 days. Yes 800,000 in 100 days. The worst part was that the world looked the other way and our indifference to it all. It was awful to actually see the footage, and know that there were people there that were trying to get the worlds attention and no-one would listen. And yet 4000 people die on Sept 11 and we are in an uproar (as we should be), how can these things happen, without us barely knowing about it. I don't know what I could do to change these things, but I do know that I feel incredibly impotent. Read more here, if you are interested.

I also watched another program called Saving Andrew Mallard about a man with bi-polar that inferred (during a manic episode) that he murdered a woman. He was subsequently jailed, despite the fact that there was no evidence to support that he did it. His Mother and Sister contacted a journalist to champion their cause and she said she would read the transcripts of the trial, thinking that they were another family in denial. She concluded also that there was no evidence that this man committed the crime and enlisted the help of a lawyer. The appealed several times over an 11 year period and at the last opportunity (The Australian High Court) his conviction was eventually overturned.

There are people out there that fight injustice, there are just not enough of them.

I will do another, much lighter entry later tonight..... Sorry for the downer.....