Three years after murdering his 12 year old brother Jonathon, Kevin Madden had been sentenced to life in prison with eligibility for parole after 10 years. The culprit’s name which had been protected under the Youth Criminal Justice Act because he was only 16 when the murder was committed in 2003 was finally revealed in the sentencing. The murder was heinous – the victim was stabbed 71 times. Another youth, supposedly his accomplice was sentenced to 2 years in youth prison. What I find incredulous is the statement of his lawyer on TV and radio alleging that the sentence was unfair because Kevin Madden had been sane and sober and behaving well without incident for the last 3 years. Whoa? Give me a break here. What kind of earthling has the compulsion to turn his hapless sibling into minced meat ?
When a political party is in dire need of a leader, ambitious politicians would do anything to get their sights on the power chair. Joe Volpe entered the Liberal part leadership race and was accused of registering dead people’s names in his petition to run for the leadership. The party then fines him $20,000 for the infraction. I’m not sure if this guy Volpe has his brains in his butt but he is trying to appeal! Huh? Volpe doesn’t seem to realize that he is vying for the leadership for a major political party and thinks that putting dead people’s names into the list and accepting donations from 11 year olds are oh well, no big deal really. Not me – blame my staff for behaving like jerks. Nice try, dork.
The Super-flyweight elimination fight between South African Hawk Makepula and Mexican Jorge Arce on Sept 23 wasn’t what I would call spectacular but the pre-fight proceedings was interesting. Arce, dubbed as the Mexican cowboy rode on a Harley from the dressing room to the ring donning a cowboy hat. Makepula on the other hand walked with his arms outstretched and looking up to the heavens, singing along with the African gospel song that was blaring in the background, filling the entire arena. In the dressing room pre-fight interview , Makepula spoke about nothing but Jesus and started quoting verses from the bible. I don’t know about you folks but it seems totally eerie for a person to be praising God and claming he has His power and the next moment trying to beat up and blow another guy’s brains out. It is fine to be religious and people will respect that but gosh, this is a boxing match! With his stature as champion and very well respected in his country, he should concentrate on his ministry outside of boxing matches for heaven’s sake. Late in the third round Arce caught the Hawk with a barrage of power punches that staggered him. In the first minute of the 4th round Makepula got tagged again with a couple of power punches that sent him crashing to the canvas. He stood up but the ref declared him unfit to continue hence the TKOvictory for Arce. I guess Jesus wasn’t on his side that day.
Filed under: Human Interest |
The Warped Zone 
Tsk tsk, kids these days are so prone to violence. I bet his lawyer will claim that his client is just an angel who’s gone astray and needs our compassion.
That Canadian politician’s antic is reminisent of the ones our very own are doing. LOL
And yeah, looks like God didn’t look out for that bible-quoting boxer on fight day… 😀
Gosh, weird people around. Oh, whatever happened to that boy. But killing his brother? Unforgivable. Lawyers react the same way when handling losing cases.
Sngl – exactly. Lawyers are fond of making an ass out of the law. I guess the game these days is – ok, my client committed the crime but.. I’m sure he’ll reform ( as if they’ll ever figure it out). In Canada these days you can even dispute a traffic ticket with the provincial court and hire consultants who can drop if not nullify your demerit points ( you will lose your license if you get too many of them and reapply for a test) and guess what – these professional consultants are ex-cops!
Ipanema – this guy also attempted to murder his stepfather. It appears that this kid grew up in a dysfunctional family but the grisly nature of the murder suggests that this guy has no feelings towards family members – how much more with other people?
I can’t comprehend how these youths can kill their siblings or sometimes even parents (the Menendezes). I’ve heard quite a few of them happening here in North America. Okay, they come from a dysfunctional family but there are also kids let’s say in the Phils. who are products of broken homes and dysfunctional families but I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anybody killing his own blood, or has there been also incidents like that? I’m probably just too naive or not too well-informed.
Indeed, we live in a very strange world! Amazing stories…
Oh I see, BW. Is he into drugs? Or was he under the influence of drugs when he committed those horrendous acts?
Niceheart – the Menendez bros case was motivated by greed. They killed their parents so they can get their inheritance. This one is a bit different because the kid wanted to kill both his brother and stepfather but no one knows the real reason is. There might be some serious problems with family relationships. All they know is he had a volcanic temper but to lose it the way he did was odd. Stabbing a person once may bring you back to your but 71 times is mind boggling. Others speculate that he did some devil worship.
Sidney – yep, there’s no shortage of people who could do things that could either amuse or terrify us.
Ipanema – he could be on drugs for all we know but the whole thing was planned with an accomplice so it was definitely premeditated. The mom says she forgave her son for what he did but the damage seems irreparable. I doubt if the relationship could ever become what it was, even if this guy becomes a free man again.
It is really disturbing to hear kids harming or killing other kids. Here in Metro Manila, though not outright killing, I hear a lot of complaints about violence in schools. There’s just too much anger these days 😦
Unable to post comment on your new entry:
I personally believe that education ought to be a lifelong endeavor (even if it’s just reading one novel a month for older folks). And such pursuit need not be constrained by any particular program, course of study, or a piece of paper to be framed and hung on the wall to collect dust; unless, of course, it’s a specialized field such as medicine or engineering or law.
I also believe that in the end, it isn’t so much the question of what degree you have earned, but rather, what have you done with what you’ve learned?
Senor – The upsurge of incidents of family killing family is quite disturbing. It is not so much that families are being torn apart by divorce and bad relationships but nowadays they kill each other. We’ve got mothers drowning their toddlers, sisters killing their mother, husband kills wife and kids and then himself.. the cycle of violence doesn’t stop at the street corner any longer – it goes right into the home.
Sorry – i forgot to turn on the comments. I moved your post to the thread. Hope you don’t mind.