Aftermath of Newtown, Connecticut Overwhelming Sadness

By Frosty Wooldridge

You may be as sick of what happened in Newtown, Connecticut as I am sick to my stomach.  What makes me sick stems from the fact that it keeps happening across our country quite regularly, too often with too much insanity.

When I researched the facts about the killings going on in America, I almost emotionally staggered at the five children who are killed daily by their parents or care-givers.  In other words, a Newtown, Connecticut occurs within America every four days, but no one thinks about it because the children who die are dispersed across the USA.  But just the same, those children die horrible deaths, too.  At the hands of their parents.

When I researched the five million women who suffer beatings at the hands of their husbands or boyfriends annually, I would have thought our nation must be a country from the Middle East where they kill their wives and daughters for honor killings—at least 5,000 annually and beat their wives without mercy regularly.

But then I discover an American man beats his wife or girlfriend every 15 seconds in America. How do you swallow that one emotionally, intellectually or otherwise? We are supposed to be a moral, ethical and lawful nation.  Instead, we are a sick bunch of child abusers and wife beaters.

Then, we compare Columbine’s 15 killed that horrible day in Littleton, Colorado to the killings in Newtown, but I found out that 18 teenagers commit suicide every single day of the year in this country.  Count those numbers dear friend: a Columbine-like massacre occurs in this country every single day because those kids feel so disconnected, so disenfranchised, so separated, so unloved that they kill themselves.  It takes my breath away.

Then, when I start thinking about the fact that our Congress and the past two presidents rained down bombs and drones to kill thousands upon thousands of Iraqi and Afghanistan civilians in two 10 year long wars—and we don’t say anything about it.   Does anyone see the disconnect of our self-righteousness as to the pretending to be a moral and ethical nation?   It’s beyond me how our leaders and Congress critters sleep at night.

Then, we come to animal cruelty in this country. It’s staggering.  We kill over  four million dogs and cats just because they are excess because of our own irresponsible behavior of letting them breed.

Animal Cruelty Statistics

• Each year, 10,000 bull dogs die in bullfighting.
• Women in abusive relationships often don’t leave their abuser because they worry what will happen to their pet if they leave.
• 13% of animal abuse involves domestic violence.
• 70% of animal abusers also have records of other crimes.
• 3 to 4 million cats and dogs(young, healthy and adoptable) are euthanized every year in shelters. 
• Animals that aren’t euthanized are often sent to no-kill shelters where the animals are caged for days, weeks, months or years and the animals risk becoming insane and dying of loneliness.
• Millions of day-old male chicksare killed in a high capacity macerator because they are worthless to the egg industry.
• In the United States alone, 1.13 million animals are used in testing and research every year.
• More than 15 million warm blooded animals are used in research worldwide.
• Scientists estimate that 100 species of animals go extinct every day.

Continue reading at NowPublic.com: Animal Cruelty: Facts, Prevention, Statistics and Action | NowPublic News Coveragehttp://www.nowpublic.com/environment/animal-cruelty-facts-prevention-statistics-and-action-2886267.html#ixzz2FeWe8vQw

At some point, we have got to come to terms with the violence in our culture, our violence toward other countries, our violence against nature and our violence as a tool to solve things.

We need to reconnect with God, with Nature, with our natural world, with the animals that we slaughter by the millions and the trashing of our planet. 

I mean, the human race continues to cause the extinction of 80 to 100 other creatures on this planet every 24 hours every day of the week—without pause.

At some point, we must ask ourselves if we want to live on this ravaged planet.  I’ve reported on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch which is a 100 million ton floating plastic debris island out in the Pacific. That plastic litters every ocean on the planet.  It kills endless millions of sea creatures, but none of our leaders and none of our citizens will stand up for a simple 10 cent deposit-return law across this nation and/or across the world. 

It’s as if we think it will solve itself, but it only gets worse.

We remain quiet as our military kills, maims and slaughters endless other human beings in Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, Iraq and Afghanistan—as if we have the right to continue those wars for decades.  How friggin’ sick is that kind of thinking and that kind of action?

Then, when something as horrific as what we’ve done to other countries and other creatures comes home to roost in Newtown, Connecticut, we cry, we mourn, we condemn and we point fingers—but we don’t do anything.

We don’t stop the violent movies, violent video games, the violence on TV and the violence to our women and children across the board.  We don’t even attempt to stop it.

What have you done at the local level, state level or national level to stop the violence?  What will you do?    When will you do it?  What actions will you take?

Answer: probably nothing.

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Frosty Wooldridge has bicycled across six continents – from the Arctic to the South Pole – as well as eight times across the USA, coast to coast and border to border. In 2005, he bicycled from the Arctic Circle, Norway to Athens, Greece. In 2012, he bicycled coast to coast across America.  His latest book is: How to Live a Life of Adventure: The Art of Exploring the World by Frosty Wooldridge, copies at 1 888 280 7715/ Motivational program: How to Live a Life of Adventure: The Art of Exploring the World by Frosty Wooldridge, click:

www.HowToLiveALifeOfAdventure.com