Poestenkill Question

Because this is such an old story, I cannot find any links. If there are minor faults in the narrative I provide, it can be blamed on my memory. As usual.

A young woman of highschool age was being routinely molested by her father or step-father, and it may have been established that he was raping a younger sister too. Same old story. Happens every day. Somewhere in this great land of ours, this is unfortunately probably happening right now; as you read, and as I type.

But in this story the abuse is ended. The abuser had pulled the car into the garage, but passed out behind the steering wheel sleeping off a binge. Dawn Cruickshank, the girl, got the family shotgun and went to the garage, where she confronted him and then blew him away.

I think she got twenty years in one of New York State's dismal prisons. She's probably been out of jail for some time now. She was a hero to many, a tragic figure to all.

I used to wake up at 6 o'clock in the morning when the local classical radio station began broadcasting, and I would read the Albany Times Union before riding off to highschool. Now with computers I can still read at least portions of my old newspaper-on-the-doorstep every morning again.

The Times-Union followed Dawn's trial closely.

Another infamous story from that place and era involved the Schenectady Police, who had arrested a woman whose torso was only partially covered. She had either been drinking or she was one of Schenectady's working women. As General Electric downsized and outsourced work way back then, people joked that prostitution had become Schenectady's second largest industry. Running drugs was considered the first.

The police didn't give her anything to cover up with, which was bad enough, but then one of them entered her cell and forced her to fellate him. She did not swallow his discharge. Instead she spit the spermatazoa into a folded paper cup and kept it. I think she summoned the jail chaplain and then told him what had happened, leading to the arrest of the officer.

This evidence and subsequent trial rocked the police department there. The offending officer went to an upstate prison for about eight years, the police force collapsed in corruption, and eventually even the mayor was forced to resign.

All that was very good.

As is this little gem, from the Letters section of today's TU:

Iraq being molded in America's image

First published: Friday, January 27, 2006

If we leave Iraq prematurely we might invite the rise of a president who would raise a large standing Army, squelch dissent, use intelligence services to spy on citizens, publicly "out" family members of those with whom he disagrees, torture those he captures, secretly try those his government accuses, invidiously discriminate against the poor, conspire with rich corporate interests, stack his country's highest court with judges who will yield to his will, and routinely invoke the name of the Almighty while doing so.

Who would want to live in such a country?

JONATHAN E. GRADESS

Poestenkill

Indeed. Good question.