Musings from Brian J. Noggle

A Homie Too Harsh?

Owen over at Boots and Sabers links to a Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel story about a 71-year-old, wheelchair-bound hit and run victim in my old neighborhood in Milwaukee. Here's Owen's post on Boots and Sabers:

There are some cold, cold people in this world.

I sure hope this dirt bag dies a long, painful, and lingering death. I think that may be too good for him (or her). Bastard.

Owen's being a little harsh on the "dirt bag." Here's more details from the Journal-Sentinel:

McNair was a resident of the Marian Franciscan Center, 9632 W. Appleton Ave. He frequently signed himself out of the nursing home against doctor's orders and did so sometime Monday afternoon, according to information gathered by the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner's Office.

A friend of McNair's told an investigator he came by his apartment Monday looking for money to do some drinking, but left when the friend told him he didn't have any cash.

The circumstances of the accident were sketchy Tuesday, while police asked for any witnesses to contact them.

I don't know about McNair, but I do know that some wheelchair-bound residents of Missouri travel in the road on occasion. So McNair's out, possibly wheelchairing drunk in the street in the dark and he gets hit. The driver runs. Tragic, but not pure evil. The "dirt bag" might be a kid, might be a scared housewife, but the absolute condemnation is wasted, particularly if the circumstances are sketchy.

Full disclosure: The first novel I started in college, entitled Tragedies, dealt with the hit and run accident of a housewife at the corner of Villiard and Appleton in Milwaukee, which is the 9000 block of Appleton. The corner between the Westside Liquor store and what used to be a Sentry foods. The assailants were a couple of scared kids. The tragedies, of course, referred to the fact that all the lives were destroyed. So that's the perspective from whence my ~~bleeding heart liberalism~~ potential for perspective springs.

Of course, running from the accident is wrong, but on the scale of evil, accidentally hitting a hard-to-see object in the dark is substantially less than shouting, "Crippled old man, one point!" and swerving into McNair.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:56 PM