03 August 2012

Rest In Peace Heather Boyum



Megan Merkel walking into court to be arraigned for vehicular manslaughter



I have a bad temper.  Anyone who has worked with me, played video games with me, fished with me, or golfed with me is well aware of this.  I have taken some steps to deal with my anger issues.  These steps are me thinking to myself, "It's okay, it's just an inanimiate object...." two seconds before I'm overcome by Tourette's and throw said inanimate object across the room.  It reminds me of a funny radio commercial I heard for a computer repair store: Guy goes into store and says to clerk, "My laptop makes a funny noise when I punt it across the room."  I chucked my latest Blackberry across the room a few months ago when I tried and failed, for the emeffing fifth time, to text my friend Melissa.  It bounced off of something into something else and the screen cracked.  Good riddance, I thought.   I don't get mad at people, at least not people in my life.  I get disgusted with politicians, public figures, faceless bureaucracy, the phone people, the utility people, the a-holes that try to gouge me with banking fees, and I get mad and rant at them, but I have a tolerance for the real people in my life.

Fairport teacher Heather Boyum

However, there are real people that I think are lowlife scumbags, like the pair that caused the death of Heather Boyum, a wife and a mother of two, who was killed at 7:45 on a Sunday morning as she was out riding her bicycle.  She was killed by a twenty-two year old 3-time DWI loser who was passing his girlfriend, twenty-three year old Megan Merkel (possible ex-girlfriend who was just "hanging out" with him), on the shoulder of the rode on his motorcycle.  Merkel and 3-time-DWI-loser had both been up all night drinking.  Neither of them has ever held a license to drive and despite their young age both have an intimate and extensive experience of the criminal justice system.  Merkel, feeling like she was being attacked unfairly, went on the radio to defend herself.  She said her boyfriend (or possible ex-boyfriend who she's just screwing around with) was being "retarded" and doing wheelies and generally being the low-life scumbag that he is.  She was driving a car with no brakes and couldn't stop when 3-time-DWI-loser struck Boyum and drove her body in front of Merkel.  Merkel then said she did not know how to express remorse to the Boyum family, which was evident in her Facebook post that told critics they could "suck a d**k and choke on it".  Class act, Merkel.  She has since been charged with vehicular manslaughter and is sitting in jail with no one to bail her out.  It is a story that elicits great sadness from me if I think too long about it, but my bloodlust for Merkel and the 3-time-DWI-loser has kept me coming back to news of Heather Boyum's death over and over.  Is twenty years long enough for these two to serve?  How about a life sentence?

The road to Hell isn't paved with good intentions so much as small ethical compromises that erode character.  Shoplifting doesn't seem like a huge infraction when you are fifteen but what does it lead to?  Dealing drugs when you're nineteen?  Maybe you've stolen something before or resold some pot to make money or driven when you've been intoxicated, and if you have done these things you've probably done so without hurting someone or being arrested.  But the moral of this story is that the standards we set for ourselves should be compromised as little as possible.  Looking back on stupid things we've done and shaking our heads at what buttheads we were is a good sign that we are still here and escaped unscathed, that we got through our transgressions and emerged with a little more common sense.  I think these two are very different than the psychotic person in Colorado who fantasized about committing mass murder and then committed it.  We are all much closer to making a mistake like Merkel than we are to killing strangers in a movie theater.  Merkel and the 3-time-DWI-loser's compromised ethics led to the death of a good person and they deserve a long time in a prison cell to think about what they've done.


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