“She was real special and sweet;” Remembering the Victims (Updated With A Heroic Sacrifice From That Day)
[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here.]
Update: See below for the heroic story of Dorwan Stoddard. It’s a must-read.
On September 11, 2001, on a day of death, John and Roxanna Green were welcoming life into this world. Roxanna gave birth to a beautiful little girl that they named Christina. Borrowing from the Daily Mail, this is a picture of the mother and daughter, later in life.
From the article:
Christina already had a bright political future.
She had just been elected to the student council at her elementary school – a post that would be added to her ballet and basketball extracurriculars – and her family were unable to hide their pride.
Hearing of her victory, a kindly neighbour asked if Christina wanted to tag along to a political event that she thought the young girl would enjoy.
It was a sunny Arizona Saturday morning, and Christina was about to meet a woman she would have looked up to – a powerful, beautiful role model, a Congresswoman in the United States House of Representatives.
The little girl must have felt on top of the world. She never suspected that it would be the last day of her life.
For the event that Christina was invited to was none other than the Tucson, Arizona rally hosted by Gabrielle Giffords yesterday – the same event where a madman with a semi-automatic and a grudge against humanity sprayed bullets into a trapped crowd who had no way of escape.
Witnesses estimated that there were roughly 25 people in the parking lot outside a Safeway supermarket in Tucson yesterday.
Due to the way the event was laid out, one told CNN, there was little room for escape once the gunman started firing.
Eighteen of them were shot, six killed – including little Christina.
‘How do you prepare for something like this?’ her uncle, Greg Segalini, asked reporters outside his niece’s house.
‘My little niece got killed. Took one on the chest and she is dead,’ he told The Arizona Republic.
‘She was real special and sweet,’ he said.
You have to think that with the terrorist attacks on 9-11, that Christina was a light of hope to her parents and extended family. And now that light of hope was extinguished.
There is something sick in our political culture, that so many people, upon hearing of this tragedy, looked to try to score political points. Our focus should have always been on the killer and the victims.
Victims such as Gabrielle Giffords. It is appropriate to highlight the attack on her because of her place in society. On Saturday, I was about to post a breaking news post on the Giffords shooting when Patterico asked me to hold off, because he wanted to get in on that. As Murphy’s Law would have it, I had all but completed the post when he made that request, but that is life. One thing I had written at the time was discussing how “evil and undemocratic” this sort of thing was:
I don’t know Ms. Giffords from anyone. But what I do know is that the people of her district chose her to represent them, to speak and vote on their behalf and even if she recovers the people of Arizona will most likely be denied that voice and vote until she recovers. One person vetoed the votes of all the people who chose her and that is wrong and evil, and yes, more serious than the average attempted murder.
We can be gratified that she seems very likely to survive, long term. My impression is that it remains to be seen how fully she might recover, and thus whether she will be able to resume her job as congresswoman. Certainly these videos give us hope. First, we have Dr. Gupta on Cnn, himself a neurosurgeon discussing her condition:
And then we have a discussion with her doctor. And bluntly, I like this guy. He’s confident, and seems to really know what he is doing:
And NPR has this report:
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) is “generating her own breaths … breathing on her own,” Dr. G. Michael Lemole, section chief of neurosurgery at University Medical Center in Tucson, just told reporters.
And, he said, “I’m very encouraged by the fact that she’s done so well. … She has no right to look this good, and she does.”
Lemole and other physicians, however, cautioned that the congresswoman remains in critical condition and faces a long battle.
As for the person behind the story, well Beltway Confidential has a nice piece on the real Gabby Giffords, here.
And then there was Judge Roll, one of the killed. I have seen statements to the effect that this was an attack on the judiciary as a whole, but by all reports the killer was primarily trying to kill Giffords and one has to wonder if the killer had any idea who else he was murdering. If the murder of a judge is not driven by the fact he was a judge, I don’t see it as having a broader impact, except that it deprives the bench of his talent.
In my mind the ideal judge is one you have little to say about, except that he or she is smart and fair. That goes double for any judge below the Supreme Court. And that is what you hear from people who know Judge Roll:
Such a discussion would have been typical for Roll: He had long been agitating for greater resources amid a flood immigration and drug cases. In late November, according to published reports, Roll sent a letter to Chief Judge Alex Kozinski of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit urging the court to declare Arizona a judicial emergency. In the letter, Roll said the four active judges in Tucson could not keep up with what he called a “tsunami of felony cases.”
Tucson solo practitioner Richard Martinez, who specializes in civil rights and employment discrimination, said Roll took the administrative duties of chief judge seriously, pushing for additional judges and resources and ensuring the court’s translation system worked as smoothly as possible. “He was very committed to maintaining the integrity of the system,” said Martinez, who has appeared before Roll for more than 20 years in civil matters.
Though federal and state law enforcement officials said that Giffords was the target of the attack, Roll spoke to the Arizona Republic newspaper in 2009 about death threats he faced while overseeing a controversial immigration case. He told the paper he and his wife had been followed by a security detail for a month. “It was unnerving and invasive. … By its nature it has to be,” Roll told the paper.
As they say, read the whole thing. And you might also consider reading these tributes to Roll over at Bench Memos (here, here, and here). One sampler from them:
It’s hard to describe the virtues of Chief Judge John Roll without making him sound too good to be true. I think that’s because he really was as good as all of us wish we could be, but know we so often aren’t. I would say he displayed “heroic” virtue — not necessarily heroic in the dramatic sense, but in the much more difficult sense of living excellence in every hour throughout each day with everyone he encountered.
The thing about this kind of excellence in a life is that it didn’t make the rest of us who knew Judge Roll feel inferior — on the contrary, he lifted up everyone he encountered by giving them attention, courtesy, and generosity of time no matter who they were. When I visited him as a student in the fledgling Ave Maria School of Law to apply to work as his law clerk, he rolled out the red carpet and treated me like I was the really important person there. When my wife and children came into the office occasionally or visited town in later years, he unfailingly made time to visit with us and remembered completely what was happening in our lives.
But if you are keeping count, we still have four other people who had been murdered that day and still more wounded to some extent. They each had families and lived lives of meaning. We may not know as much about them as we do of Christina, Gabby, or Judge Roll, but you can bet that January 8th was every bit as devastating to them and their families.
Ther murdered bodies were barely cold, Ms. Giffords’ blood was still pouring out, when the vampiric elements of the left swooped in, trying to take political advantage, which naturally required a forceful response by persons such as myself and Patterico to defend against these smears. But one of the tragedies in this was that in this bickering the real crime that was committed here was lost in the shuffle.
The next time something awful happens—and it will happen again eventually—can we ask the left for once in their lives not to immediately try to claim that the right was responsible—especially given that there were no facts to support that assertion? It was amazing for us not to even be sure if Giffords was alive or dead, but somehow they were sure that Sarah Palin was to blame for all of this.
Update: Thanks to Red in the comments for directing me this story. Jesus teaches us that there is no greater love than to lay down your life for another. The heroic story of Dorwan Stoddard is an example of that principle in practice:
Dorwan Stoddard and his wife, Mavanell, grew up together as friends in Tucson, and were high-school sweethearts in the 1950s. The two parted, moved away, and married others. But 15 years ago, having survived the death of their spouses, the two were reunited — and then married — in their hometown.
When Jared Loughner began firing on the crowd gathered around Rep. Gabrielle Gifford at the Safeway supermarket in Tucson on Saturday, Mavanell thought the sounds came from firecrackers. Dorwan knew otherwise and quickly pulled his wife to the ground and threw himself over her. Mavy — as she is known to her friends — was hit three times in the legs, and is now in stable condition and expected to survive. Dorwan was shot, fatally, through the head, at the age of 76. Dorwan was memorialized at the Mountain Avenue Church of Christ — a small Tucson-area church where he and Mavy had worshipped and served — on Sunday….
Dory and Mavy “didn’t write any books. There are no streets named after them. There is no monument to them, but their impact in the community of Tucson will last a lifetime,” Nowak said.
Dorwan Stoddard is survived by two sons, four stepdaughters, and his wife.
Maybe there are not streets named for Mr. Stoddard right now, but that oversight should be rectified. Read the whole thing.
[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]
Can we ask for a large chunk of the right to stop saying (and believing) that everyone to the left of them is either stupid, lying or evil and to admit that people can disagree with them without being Commies, vermin, traitors or libtards? That might also help.
Jim (87e69d) — 1/11/2011 @ 10:52 amThere’s plenty of over-the-top rhetoric to go around, especially when you accuse the ENTIRE “left” of saying “that Sarah Palin was to blame for all of this”. Very few in the mainstream left actually levelled that particular accusation; most merely talked about how leading figures on the right (both in politics and in the rightwing media) have created a climate where this sort of thing can occur.
Kman (d30fc3) — 1/11/2011 @ 10:57 am‘My little niece got killed. Took one on the chest and she is dead,’
There’s nothing we can do to fix that. It’s beyond our power to correct that. But, I’ll tell you what we can do, we can make sure that Jared Loughner never kills another little girl, by promptly trying him, and, if he’s found guilty by a jury of his peers, promptly executing him.
That’s what we ought to do.
Dave Surls (64533a) — 1/11/2011 @ 10:58 amkman
so as usual, did you not read or not comprehend?
dave
amen to that.
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 1/11/2011 @ 11:00 amspeaking of vile hateful rhetoric, here’s something i just put up on Facebook:
so the Westboro maggots are coming to Arizona for the funerals…
as always, i have the answer: AZ DFG should announce a special one time only varmint season and auction off the tags to the highest bidders, one to a customer, with the proceeds going to a fund for the victims and their families. problem solved.
yes, i know i’m a fing genius. %-)
red,
redc1c4 (fb8750) — 1/11/2011 @ 11:08 amwho is a fing genius, but modest too
I think the Westboro-maggots-coming-to-funerals has (finally) jumped the shark. The last few times they’ve tried to do something like that, they were thwarted in legal ways (e.g., by having counter-protesters get to the spot earlier and basically use it all up).
I think similar tactics are intended for Tucson. A group of “angels” are going to show up with wings so large, it will virtually block the WBC people from the media and funeral attendees.
Kman (d30fc3) — 1/11/2011 @ 11:12 amred
that violent rhetoric is… wrong for some reason… but i am having trouble remembering why exactly.
joking aside, now i can’t endorse that. but i can endorse lots of people coming to the funeral and creating a barrier of love between the westboro idiots and the grieving families.
btw, you might be a genius, but i am the most humble man alive. so in your face, sucka!
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 1/11/2011 @ 11:12 amTypical Kman. Just jump into a memorial thread to do his level best to waste time and be a jerk about his choice of topic. He doesn’t seem to even be responding to the post.
His comment is a complete failure. when the NYT speculates openly that politicians and ‘right wing media’ may not have directly caused this, but created the ‘climate’, that is abominable. It’s slimy, and the lame way they attempt to say it without directly being responsible for it is completely irrational and meant only to impress the sophists like Kman, who wish to defend their little bubble. Get a life, Kman.
—-
Anyway, I’m sure that little girl was very special. I’ve known a few men who were similar to how John Roll comes across. These are special people and it’s hard to put it into words. Pat of what marks the specialness of both is the intense extrinsic value so many other people are putting in them. They brightened lives all around them. They decided to look outward. Even the little girl.
I shouldn’t, but when I compare this to how Jared saw the world… he took everything he didn’t understand as a personal affront. Everything out there was twisted because he looked inward. He has poor grammar, so grammar itself is an affront. All his videos talked about himself relentlessly, how he would be called a terrorist for his actions, how everyone would think of him. He really is the extreme opposite of Mr Roll, and as I saw his beaming smile as they took his mugshot, I have to imagine a lot of people understood his selfishness.
Selfishness is the true risk factor in the world. At its most extreme, it is what really makes someone a sociopath. They are so self interested that morality and society no longer mean anything.
I wonder if he’s weighing the option of competency vs explaining to the world why he’s glorious. I guess he’ll find a way to do both at the same time, in a clumsy way. I think it’s not clear at all that he will ever really face justice.
Anyway, there are a few heroes in this mess. There were a few great people who tackled the shooter as he reloaded, and I’m glad Aaron brought attention to this doctor. I also think there have been a few journalists who didn’t turn this into a political points fest, and while that’s not heroic, it elevates them by comparison.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 1/11/2011 @ 11:17 amKman, Tucson is in Arizona. Red is talking about the Tucson funerals.
Jim (87e69d) — 1/11/2011 @ 11:17 amIn the end, Laughner hated life, he seemed to have
narciso (6075d0) — 1/11/2011 @ 11:29 amlittle joy in his life, so he chose to take others,
as for Phelps, how does he live with himself, so willing to inflict pain on others
Very few in the mainstream left actually levelled that particular accusation;
kfart has the amazing ability to boot up his computer and launch one of his screeches without actually reading the post. The Tourette’s is strong in this one.
Dmac (498ece) — 1/11/2011 @ 11:36 amAaron, you are the most humble man alive because Kman and the other posters here prove you wrong so often…
redc1c4 (fb8750) — 1/11/2011 @ 11:37 amIt’s a real mystery. I think this is why a lot of people disagree with speculation he’s a greedy con man who isn’t sincere about his religious anger. If he really was such a cynical being, it’s hard to imagine he could tolerate the full degree of what he’s done unless he’s a sociopath. That is my guess, though. He’s a sociopath trying to scam money by inciting people to interfere with his ‘free speech’.
If Obama’s really clever, he will include Phelps in a discussion of mental health in this country. But I suspect we’re going to get a clumsy attempt to blame Fox News.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 1/11/2011 @ 11:38 amSome of you need to read AW’s entire post, including the last paragraph.
Kman (d30fc3) — 1/11/2011 @ 11:39 amThe unmentioned hero in Arizona
what a sad, but uplifting, story.
redc1c4 (fb8750) — 1/11/2011 @ 11:39 amand some of you need to learn to read for comprehension, not to mention learning to think clearly and logically….
(not mentioning any names %-)
redc1c4 (fb8750) — 1/11/2011 @ 11:40 amKman at 12
> Some of you need to read AW’s entire post, including the last paragraph.
How about you do that first, and demonstrate comprehension, and then lecture the rest of us on the subject.
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 1/11/2011 @ 11:42 amred
big thanks. I will add that in.
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 1/11/2011 @ 11:43 amJudge Roll was in street clothes and probably few there that day (including Loughner) waiting for time with the congresswoman knew he was a federal judge. Among others, add to the mix a smart little girl on the student council and a churchgoing, charitable elderly couple who had gotten together and married late in life. These random people at the intersection of this horrible event–the famous and the non-famous, but none of them ordinary or insignificant– are now forever linked together in history whether they lived or died.
The arbitrariness of this event has really affected me. At the grocery store and again at the post office this morning I looked around at my fellow customers and at the staff and thought, “who are you and what are your stories, all of you who are sharing this place and moment in time with me?
elissa (1c8564) — 1/11/2011 @ 11:48 amYeah, you didn’t read the entire post.
This is at least the 30th time you have made a flippant denial of either the first of last sentence of one of Aaron’s posts, and you almost always do so in a way that shows you have no idea what the actual topic is.
You say people aren’t blaming Palin, and you’re wrong. Aaron was asking people not to do it, but in an aside. You really are a creep.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 1/11/2011 @ 11:56 amupdated. if any of you have any links to any other stories of the victims, i want to hear it.
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 1/11/2011 @ 11:56 amRed, that is a heartbreaking story, but you’re right. It’s uplifting, too.
I will strive to be more like Dorwan. A nice humble man who helped build a church and used his old body to shield his wife’s, shot in the head by a selfish and atheist truther.
Kman will continue to try to change the topic to how Palin and Rush and others like them ‘created the climate that allowed this to happen’, but that is such a betrayal of humanity. Dorwan wasn’t murdered because of any of that. He had nothing to do with Giffords. This wasn’t a political assasination. Jared had delusions that may have some resemblance to politics because he’s crazed about his congresswoman and President Bush and the US Government, but he’s just crazy.
That’s why he shot a 8 year old girl, and a sweet man covering his wife with his body to protect her. Kman may enjoy being a ghoul, but that’s because he’s disturbed himself. His hatred creates its own climate that allows him to do whatever he wants. Kman doesn’t care what the topic is. He’s to egotistical and arrogant to even read what others are saying.
Similar to Jared. Jared’s craziness created its own climate that allowed him to do what he did. His beliefs about Giffords had nothing to do with anything out there in the real world. Like Kman, Jared wasn’t really paying attention, because he thinks he knows it all.
Obviously, Kman’s just a stalker and a troll, and that’s not comparable to mass murder, but it’s disturbing to see Kman’s reaction to all this suffering, and then just spit out another of Kman’s arrogant proclamations about what the thread shall now be about.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 1/11/2011 @ 12:08 pmDustin, you need to stop wetting your pants when you see my name here. Seriously, I’m just a guy.
Kman (d30fc3) — 1/11/2011 @ 12:49 pmThis isn’t about you, Kman. You are really strange, but as I’ve said before, you’re not damaging Aaron and you’re not causing me any grief. You waste a lot of time, and I think you generally make the people you are arguing against look great.
Stop trying to insert your notion that Palin and Beck and others like them ‘created a climate’.
Jared was crazy when he shot these innocent people. He created his own climate. Just as you’re creating this climate where you think Aaron or I are really upset about your brilliant and informed rhetoric.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 1/11/2011 @ 1:01 pmdustin
don’t give that loser Kman that much attention.
i already demolished him. no one will care what he thinks.
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 1/11/2011 @ 1:02 pmI’m really impressed with how much Christianity has improved Mavanell and her husband’s life. They are so able to handle tremendous problems. The athiest truther who shot them wasn’t able to handle the slightest problem… and even though it’s true he’s crazy, I think he would have been so much better off had he had something like Christianity in his life.
That’s hot a fashionable comment, and I’m not saying this to tick off the non-christians around, but everything about Jared just screams selfish and Godless. He has no appreciation for the selflessness that is the theme of Christianity, and ironically, that’s why he was so miserable and ruined.
It’s the big lesson I hope we take from Dorwan’s life.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 1/11/2011 @ 1:05 pm“so the Westboro maggots are coming to Arizona for the funerals…”
That’s easy to fix. Beat the living hell out of them every time they show up at a funeral.
It ain’t that big of a deal. Worst thing that will happen to you, if you beat the snot out of these dirtbags, is the law will toss you in the hoosegow for awhile, and that’s not all that bad.
Trust me, I know what I’m talking about.
You guys that post here who are lawyers can’t start smacking these punks around, because you’re officers of the court, and you have to follow the law at all times, but the rest of us sure can, and if the Westboro leftoids show up at a funeral I’m at, I’m going to beat their fucking brains out, pure and simple, and I don’t give a damn if it’s legal or not.
The last thing these people in Arizona, who are mourning and burying their dead, need is for these worthless Westboro pieces of crap to show up at the funerals and add to their misery, and if the law can’t, or won’t, put a stop to this nonsense, it’s high time we took the law into our own hands and put a stop to it ourselves…by any means necessary, as we used to say in the 60’s.
Dave Surls (dfdf1f) — 1/11/2011 @ 1:28 pmSome of you need to read AW’s entire post, including the last paragraph.
Funniest comment of the day, bar none.
Seriously, I’m just a guy. Who has repeatedly demonstrated creepy and stalkerish behavior in the past.
FTFY
Dmac (498ece) — 1/11/2011 @ 1:40 pm“Worst thing that will happen to you, if you beat the snot out of these dirtbags, is the law will toss you in the hoosegow for awhile, and that’s not all that bad.”
Dave Surls – I am not in any way encouraging untoward behavior, but feel an important qualifier should be added to your comment:
NOT IF NOBODY SEES ANYTHING!
daleyrocks (e7bc4f) — 1/11/2011 @ 1:47 pmDaleyrocks’s ‘don’t get caught’ notion is especially valuable when you consider that the Westboro’s goal is to get someone to push them around, so they can sue that person. They are probably very careful about having cameras and other means of collecting evidence, and intend to take advantage of civil rights laws granting them attorney’s fees (they are their own attorneys).
If you aren’t identified, their entire plan falls apart. If you are identified, it worked perfectly.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 1/11/2011 @ 2:23 pmum, not to encourage anything…
but for the record, when those guys dumped all that tea in boston harbor way back in 1773…
everyone knew who they were. but they still dressed up as native americans, so that witnesses could plausibly claim they couldn’t recognize them.
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 1/11/2011 @ 2:30 pmHey, at one of Westboro’s recent stops didn’t they have problems finding anybody who could replace their slashed tires?
Just sayin’.
daleyrocks (e7bc4f) — 1/11/2011 @ 2:34 pmI like the cut of Dr. Rhee’s jib too. Today he said, quite happily, “She will not die. She does not have that permission from me.” 🙂
Seems he was a surgeon in Afghanistan and Iraq and is pretty awesome. Learned alot about head trauma there, which saved Giffords.
First time I heard the docs’ presser, I thought, Obama is going to ruin this fabulous medical sytem???
Patricia (3aa1fd) — 1/11/2011 @ 10:23 pm