Setting a Young Man on Fire and Thus Causing His Death

Steve Simpson-- a gay college student with Aspergers, a seizure disorder, and a speech disorder-- had anti-gay slogans written on his body and after being doused with suntan spray was set on fire .  The accused and now convicted, one party crasher by the name of Jordan Sheard received only three and a half years in the lock-up for the death of Steve Simpson.  Sheard ran away instead of helping.  A neighbor Sean Banner doused the flames which makes him a true hero in my book.  Banner burned himself in the process.  Simpson's body was covered with the burns-- sixty percent of his body.  The judge, one Roger Keen, used the phrase "good-natured horseplay" to describe everything before the ignition of Simpson's groin.  

radical sapphoq says:  I don't know much about the U.K. and next to nothing about the legal process over there.  Perhaps the judge was correct within the laws over there.  I really do not know.  What I do know is that a young man lost his life.  There are no words to express the horror inherent in the circumstances surrounding the death of Steve Simpson.

And yes, Sean Banner, you are a hero.





http://www.thestar.co.uk/news/local/barnsley-teen-burned-to-death-on-his-18th-birthday-1-5521116

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-21887535

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2297053/Yob-killed-autistic-gay-teenager-Steven-Simpson-setting-18th-birthday-party.html

A Bit on Autism

One summer some years ago, I had the privilege of being a companion to an autistic kid; and also of helping him in his morning summer school sessions.  We had much fun and I often think about him even now.

I dedicate this video to Brett.  Wherever you are Brett, I hope that you are not thinking of yourself as some fractured kind of puzzle piece.

We are who we are and being who we are is both freeing and terrifying.  Yet, I would have it no other way.





I found the video on you tube.  I thought that it gives a radical hopeful expression of things that helping professionals in their ignorance want to change and should not.

Let us celebrate our differences, embrace them.  By doing so, we can lead the way to a better tomorrow.

radical sapphoq

More on Victoria and the Psychic 6/21/08

credit: xkcd comics at http://xkcd.com




Actually, the psychic was really really wrong. Victoria is equipped with a G.P.S. system (because the school had "lost" her a couple of times before apparently) with a listening-in device.

And there is no male between the ages of 23 and 26 that Victoria is around. I tend to agree with some of the folks who commented on Daylight Atheism that if Victoria's mother had a boyfriend or relative or neighbor of that age (and Victoria hadn't been equipped with a listening device), that man would be sitting in a jail right now.

http://www.nugget.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1079288
and
http://www.citynews.ca/news/news_23845.aspx
and
http://www.daylightatheism.org/2008/06/the-harm-psychics-do.html

Those of you who are for the psychics will not like what Daylight Atheism readers have to say about it. The only thing I can tell you is that yes Virginia, psychics have been known to do some harm with their predictions.


radical sapphoq on Victoria and the psychic