Chicken Soup with Brian Wood

Five years after blithely attempting to injure another player three times during a single game back in 2006, Brian Wood is still allowed to play football.

Chicken Soup fans will remember that he became the subject of national news stories when Riveroak Redskins Assistant Coach Cory Petero attempted to knock some sense into him during a game on September 2, 2006. The story is a simple and familiar one:

Brian Wood, like all bullies was perfectly content dishing it out to victims who are smaller and weaker than he is. When a larger Cory Petero put him on the receiving end of his own behavior Brian Wood (the bully), the parents who taught him how to treat smaller, weaker people, and all of the world's usual sociopath enablers expressed outrage and feigned bewilderment because there was one adult present who dared to put the safety of the victim ahead of the ego of a stereotypical Columbine Jock. A follow up story reported that Cory Petero was sentenced to pick up trash on the highway for a few weekends, serve four years on probation, complete a 16 week anger management program, and pay Brian Wood (the bully) $100. Brian Wood's mother, Denise Champion expressed outrage and disappointment with what she described as a light sentence.

I'd give the guy a medal.

Once again, terrorists have yet another example to study. American parents raise their children to intentionally harm smaller, weaker children and public outrage is entirely directed at the only adult on the field willing to punish the offender.

Chicken Soup with Embarrassing Statistics

Today is the 10th anniversary of the event known almost universally as "9/11" and there are numerous dedications and memorial services going on as I write. In fact, I've seen more documentaries about 9/11 over the last two weeks than I can remember. I joked to one of my coworkers the other day that I was half expecting to hear a report about the effect of 9/11 on the hairdressing industry.

And now for those "embarrassing statistics."

In the decade since 9/11, according to the FBI's Uniform Crime Report, Americans have committed the following crimes against other Americans:

Homicide: 163,705
Forcible Rape: 927,387
Aggravated Assault: 8,619,877

The American Family just keeps churning them out.

Al Quaeda would have to stage more than five 9/11 attacks every year in order to come close to the rate at which Americans murder other Americans. The United States is not a nation of angels. It's not even close. If you want to make this country a better place to live, take a good look in the mirror and ask what you've done to avoid rewarding or otherwise enabling American criminals. And if you're not even willing to make that small effort toward your own country's future, stop complaining about terrorism, because you aren't really all that concerned about victims.