Let this be a sermon
I mean everything I've said
Baby, I'm determined
And I'd rather see you dead
Today's 2 or 3 lines post was inspired by a news item I stumbled across several days after the 2012 election.
From Reuters:
An Arizona woman, in despair at the re-election of Democratic President Barack Obama, ran down her husband with the family car in suburban Phoenix on Saturday because he failed to vote in the election, police said on Monday.
Holly Solomon, 28, was arrested after running over husband Daniel Solomon following a wild chase that left him pinned underneath the vehicle.
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| Holly Solomon |
Daniel Solomon, 36, was in critical condition at a local hospital, but is expected to survive, Gilbert [AZ] police spokesman Sergeant Jesse Sanger said.
Police said Daniel Solomon told them his wife became angry over his "lack of voter participation" in last Tuesday's presidential election and believed her family would face hardship as a result of Obama winning another term.
Witnesses reported the argument broke out on Saturday morning in a parking lot and escalated. Mrs. Solomon then chased her husband around the lot with the car, yelling at him as he tried to hide behind a light pole, police said. He was struck after attempting to flee to a nearby street.
I have to believe that this marriage had problems long before November 6, but who knows?
I also recently stumbled across a very interesting article in the Washington Post about a murder prosecution. The victim and the alleged murderer (who was not convicted) was identical twin brothers, and the article noted that murders of one twin by the other are exceptionally rare.
There were 12,996 homicides in the U.S. in 2010. About 14% were committed by a family member.
Sisters were murdered by a sibling in 19 cases, while brothers were murdered 88 times. Mothers were murdered by one of their children 107 times, while 135 fathers were murdered by their children. Daughters were murdered by a parent 197 times, while sons were killed by a parent 256 times. Aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins were murdered by family members 287 times.
Here's where it gets interesting. Husbands killed 603 wives. But wives killed only 110 husbands! (That's consistent with the fact that 492 boyfriends killed their girlfriends, but only 131 girlfriends killed their boyfriends.)
Do those numbers surprise you? Probably not if you're a wife. And certainly not if you're a husband. (If you're unmarried, maybe.)
Do those numbers surprise you? Probably not if you're a wife. And certainly not if you're a husband. (If you're unmarried, maybe.)
I recently had an interesting conversation on this topic with the woman who lives with me and and has the same last name:
Me: There's an article in the paper today about how many wives kill their husbands and vice versa.
Her: I've thought about doing that, but I'm sure I'd get caught.
Me: (Brief silence.) Well, I'm smarter than you. I bet I could figure out a way to to not get caught.
(Have you ever had that conversation? I didn't think you had.)
I should point out one thing that could make the husband-wife murder ration misleading. Of those 12,996 U.S. murders in 2010, 5724 of them -- or 44% -- were committed by persons unknown.
For all we know, a lot of those unknown murderers are wives who didn't get caught. So maybe wives do commit more murders than husbands -- they're just more clever.
"Run For Your Life" is the last track on the Beatles' 1965 album, Rubber Soul. Rubber Soul is an extraordinary album -- perhaps the best Beatles album ever.
The songs on Rubber Soul seem to be very simple -- they prove that the famous Ludwig Mies van der Rohe statement, "Less is more," applies to music as well as to modern architecture -- and are extremely easy to sing along with. (It's impossible not to sing along with this album.)
Only one song on the entire album is longer than three minutes -- the whole album is less than 30 minutes long.
The only album that I think does it one better is the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds album, which was Brian Wilson's "answer" to Rubber Soul. It's silly to argue which album is better -- both are as nearly perfect as any album of that era. (Rolling Stone magazine ranked both of them in the top five in its "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" list, and I certainly agree with that judgment.)
Here's "Run For Your Life":
You can use the link below to order the Rubber Soul album from Amazon:
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Going back to the 1950's, we have "Your Funeral and My Trial" by Sonny Boy Williamson II (Rice Miller). This song title came to mind in Feb. 1999 when I was on jury duty, and shortly after rendering the verdict, I received word that my ex-wife had died (I had last had contact with her 1987, when the judge "put the hammer down" and dissolved the marriage. The day before the final court appearance, I had gone to a Joan Jett concert). Which leads to another train of thought from the 1990's: I had asked my older daughter what she and her husband would like for Christmas, and she said, "Could you get us tickets to the Barry Manilow show at the Universal [Amphitheater, near Hollywood]?" I went to the Tower Records store (remember them?) in Pasadena and bought the tickets, thinking, "Gee, I hope nobody from the Joan Jett Fan Club sees me doing this!" Barry Manilow may not get much praise from the rock-snob critics, but anyone who can fill the Universal three or four days in a row must be doing something right.
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