Assisted suicide the old-fashioned way

Haizhu Bridge is one of the oldest bridges in Guangzhou. It is made of cables and riveted steel. (Source: Flickr.com, March 08)

A passerby pushed a would-be suicide jumper off a bridge in Southern China because he was angry at the jumper's "selfish activity," CNN reported Saturday according to Chinese media reports.

My thoughts exactly.

OK. So let me get this straight: this guy was pissed off that the other was about to kill himself in a selfish way, so he pushes the other off the bridge, thus helping him (Mr. Suicide) commit the act that he (Mr. Passerby) is protesting.

Brilliant.

The "assisted" suicide attempt took place Thursday in the city of Guangzhou as Chen Fuchao threatened to jump off Haizhu Bridge, which has gained the reputation of "macabre" because of 11 jumpers since early April, according to China's Xinhua news agency.

Traffic was held up for nearly five hours and a crowd gathered as Chen sat on the bridge, threatening to jump, Xinhua reported.

Now, what's that about? What's up with "threatening" to jump? Threatening whom? I've never quite understood this. If you're going to jump, jump. If you don't want to jump, then what are you doing standing on the edge of a bridge? Call me cynical, but perhaps if the authorities and general public didn't rush to stop people from doing what they apparently want to do, there would be no such "threats."

Chen wanted to kill himself because he had 2 million yuan ($294,000) in debt after a failed construction project, Xinhua reported. Lian Jiansheng, 66, who was passing by the bridge, offered to talk Chen down. Police refused, but Lian broke through the police cordon and climbed to where Chen was sitting. Lian greeted Chen with a handshake, then pushed him off the bridge.

Classy.

WTF!

Chen fell 26 feet (8 meters) onto a partially-inflated emergency air cushion, damaging his spine and elbow in the fall, Xinhua reported. He is now recovering in a hospital.

Great. So now he's not only still alive and owing the $294K, but he's also crippled. If he couldn't come up with the money before, when he still had a spine, how is he going to get anything without one?

So I ask you, my friends, how is stopping him from killing himself helping him?

Unless someone is willing to pay his debt for him (and some appointments with a psychiatrist...and the meds...) that air cushion just made matters worse.

A photographer documented the sequence of events. The photographs show Lian, dressed in a T-shirt, shorts and socks, saluting to the crowd after pushing Chen off, Xinhua reported.

"I pushed him off because jumpers like Chen are very selfish. Their action violates a lot of public interest," Lian told Xinhua. "They do not really dare to kill themselves. Instead, they just want to raise the relevant government authorities' attention to their appeals."

Well...he does have a point.

If Chen is threatening to kill himself vs. just jumping already, then he must have some demands in order not to go through with it. Right? This is the selfish part that Lian, and many others, object to in these cases.

What makes anyone think that he or she is so valuable and important that others would do anything to stop him or her from jumping to their deaths? If I were to decide to "check out" by jumping off a bridge or a building, wouldn't it be tremendously pretentious of me to assume that people would care so much that they would be willing to do whatever it takes to stop me from doing what I want to and came to do?

Yeah, yeah...I know it's more complicated than that...

Police took Lian away after the incident, Xinhua reported. It did not say whether he would face any charges.

Charges? This might be a stretch for some people, but given that he tried to help someone he found along the road, shouldn't he get a Good Samaritan award?

OK, seriously now. We don't know this guy Chen--his trials and tribulations, what led to them, his state of mind, medical history, nothing. So to be fair, we shouldn't judge him. Let's have some compassion.

But I still think this is one ridiculously funny story and one of the best representations of irony I've ever seen.

Sources: CNN, China's Xinhua news agency
Copyright © 2009, Primetime Oracle
All Rights Reserved

Sick Fuck of the Week

AP Photo

This week another scumbag was arrested for killing his family--his entire family--so I think it appropriate to bestow the Sick Fuck of the Week Award upon Christopher Coleman.

The Coleman Murders

Chris Coleman, 32, an ex-marine who worked as security for Joyce Meyer Ministries, planned and executed the murders of his 31-year-old wife, Sheri, and two sons, Gavin, 9, and Garett, 11, by ligature strangulation in Columbia, Ill, on May 5.

WTF is wrong with these people?

How do you choke your kids to death? What in the name of god--with whom Coleman, reportedly, had a tight relationship given his job--was going through his mind? How--somebody please explain it to me--how in the world did he think he could get away with it? Are people that dumb?

Imagine what the wife's family is enduring. This man they thought they knew. This man they welcomed to their family. A cold-blooded murderer. Unthinkable.

What about Joyce Meyer and her team? That's just what they needed: an adulterer who also turned out to a murderer of the worst kind. Surely it's the devil's fault. They must be praying overtime over there, and I can't blame them.

So Coleman gets arrested and pleads "not guilty." How shocking. God forbid someone in this country takes responsibility for his or her actions...now, that would be news.

I'd like to know what his parents are thinking. Are they going to stand by him because "he's our son"? Would you? Would I? Can anyone truly forgive him? Nothing much has been said about the parents, which brings me to the Anthony's...


Killer Totmom

George and Cindy Anthony continue sailing up and down the Nile...either that or they're committed to do and say whatever it takes to protect and defend daughter Casey, a.k.a. Totmom, 22, who's awaiting trial for the murder of her almost 3-year-old daughter, Caylee.

I knew Caylee was dead the minute news spread about the 911 call Cindy made in July after finding out that her granddaughter had been missing for a month. I just knew she was buried under pile of wet leaves in a heavily vegetated area. And indeed, she was.

As the plot thickens, it turns out Casey, Sick Fuck of the Week for more weeks that I can count, is more of a psychopath than initially suspected. Just her lack of distress about the disappearance of her daughter is enough in my book. Add to that the endless string of lies.

One of my theories is that she went out partying and used chloroform to keep the kid quiet in the car. But she ended up killing her with excess chloroform or asphyxiated by a stuffy nose and duck tape over the mouth meant to keep her quiet. Yet, this theory does not explain the break-necking searches Casey did on the Internet, which show an intent to kill.

And that's the question that grips me: why. Why kill her kid? For what? How would she profit from it? What was there to be gained by ending her life? Was Totmom planning on extorting money out of her parents with a bogus kidnapping scenario? We haven't heard anything about she asking for money to give the alleged "kidnappers"--have we? This is one bizarre case...

Talking about bizarre, what's up with Casey's brother Lee? First he gives a fucked up speech during Caylee's memorial service that was full of Casey and totally devoid of Caylee. Dude, it's your niece's service! She died a horrible death and you're stuck on your sister? WTF?! Then came his deposition in the civil suit Zanny the Nanny filed against the Anthony's for slander and messing up her life. His testimony is disturbing at best. Lee is seen joking around, laughing out loud, having a good old time. The craziest part is how while he's revealing all the lies Casey has told him, he's also saying that "to this day [he] believe[s] everything [my] sister tells [me]." Uh...hello?

I suppose there's only so much trauma a person can take, and perhaps losing Caylee to a horrible death and Casey to the justice system is too much for Cindy and George. I just don't see how anyone--anyone--could believe all of the stories Casey has fed the Police and her family since day one. One would have to put common sense on hold to believe such crap.

Talking about crap reminds me of another sick fuck.


The abominable Melissa Huckaby

In late March, Huckaby, 28, took 8-year-old Sandra Cantu, drugged her, raped her with a foreign object, killed her, stuffed her in a suitcase and dumped her in an irrigation pond nearby.

And get this: This piece of trash was a Sunday School teacher and the granddaughter of a Baptist pastor. Another church-going sociopath. What Book are they reading? Who's Word are they following?

Since her arrest in April, the authorities have discovered that Huckaby was no newbie to depravation. Not long before she assaulted and killed Sandra, she took a 7-year-old girl and drugged her. This one, she didn't kill.

What compels a person to do something like this? Is it due to some sort of malfunction somewhere in the brain? Or is it just plain evil? And does evil even exist? Nowadays any and every behavior seems to be explainable by a psychiatric condition. Can someone please explain it to me? Are the people who commit these heinous crimes sick or evil?

So far, these three characters are neck and neck for the Sick Fuck of the Year award, but for this week the trophy goes to Coleman.

Copyright © 2009, Primetime Oracle
All Rights Reserved