[Drake Dun]

I really, really wish that this little news item had not been posted. I have not stopped thinking about it for five minutes straight since I read it several hours ago, and I can already tell it will be days or weeks yet before I put it more or less out of mind. I will continue to remember it spontaneously for months or years. I know, because I have been through this routine before. My fucking chest is so tight right now, it's hard to breathe.

I want to be understood clearly, here. I am not taking issue with the original poster, and this is not an accusation toward users or admins at gothic.net. It's a public forum, not my forum, and I'm not about to suggesting policing content of this type. I should have expected something like it to show up in a forum called "Spooky News" sooner or later, and I also should have been smart enough not to read it.

That said, I cannot imagine what reason there could possibly be for posting it. There are those of us in the world who are not well equipped to block out certain vivid images, and who are inclined quite against our own will to obsess about this kind of stuff. One post can cause real anguish. I seriously thought about leaving gothic.net because of this one, before I realized that I could probably avoid a repeat of this by just ignoring the Spooky News section (this is the last time I am going to participate in this area of the board).

The problem is the media. It should be plain to anybody that this story has absolutely no news value whatsoever. Kudos to the journalist for his creativity in making a cursory attempt to recast it as a public safety issue, but it really is a laughable cover. If there were any merit in the story at all, it would have been sufficient to write "A girl suffered life-threatening injuries which may leave her permanently disabled when she was caught in the suction of a pool drain" or something. The ugly details add nothing but horror - which are of course the real point of the story for the slime who sell this shit. I cannot countenance the evident relish with which they were recounted.

I especially like how they went out of their way to paint this image of the victim as a vibrant, beautiful young child, just to make the accident that much more horrifying.

Against the background of a culture underpinned by such a disgusting industry, it's hard to find fault with someone for becoming a vector for the trash we're all fed. All I want to say is, please seriously consider making conscious decisions about what ideas and stories you choose to pass on to others. Your choices matter.

I am astounded that the girl survived. I am trying very hard not to think about what the long term effects of the injury might be, but if I scrape the bottom of the barrel hard enough, I can just barely manage to hope that her entire life is not permanently fucked up and that she will make a substantial recovery. I pray that it is so.

I wonder if they would report it if she did.

I'm going to write a complaint letter to the original source once I manage to calm down again. In the meantime, anybody who wants to write a response to this post that will be read should contact me in one of the other areas of the board or by some other means. I am not touching this thread again with a forty-foot pole.

Thanks ahead of time for reading this post with a patient eye.

Drake