This is a sports blog about University of Alabama athletics, offering insight about the goings on of our rivals, as well as others around the country. But every now and then a story breaks that transcends sports. Such is the story in Cleveland, where three young women had been held captive for ten years at the hands of a non-human human being.

The face of evil, and the place it happened for ten years.
By now you know the story; it’s on every news outlet, pimped for ratings as the nation and world wants to learn everything it can about the ordeal. If you haven’t heard, pardon me if I am too sickened to rehash what these girls were put through for a decade.

But Ariel Castro has taught me a huge, valuable lesson. Well, quite a few, truthfully.

1. First, evil exists. It is as real as real can be. There are some people walking among us without a moral compass who are human by definition only. There are people among us who can get to the mental state Ariel Castro did, where his personal pleasure superceded the very freedom of not one, not two but three (and possibly more) other humans. Humans with families that love them and want them for polar opposite reasons than this man’s demented intentions.

This lesson can’t be drilled into our children enough. Evil exists. Not tree poisoners. Those are psychos. Not teabaggers. Those are sickos. Evil. If you have kids, you need to gently push them in the direction of caution when it comes to the people around them. Not pushing them to the point of paranoia, but to the point of caution, and avoidance of the kind of naivity that puts people in a position of trouble.

2. Our justice system is unjust. There is no law on our books, no penalty that we can legally put into effect, that would serve this pig justice. Personally I think Levitical law covers this kind of thing pretty well. But this is a cretin who should have to experience the same kind of horror he put his victims through.

Elect me president and these kind of crimes are punishable by death. You get 30 days to make your peace with God, man and anyone else. But then after 30 days of daily subjection of punishment at the hands of those you hurt, you’re history. You’re not weighing on our legal system, costing tax payers thousands of dollars. You’re not feeding on taxpayers’ earnings for three squares and a place to sleep, not to mention medical care. You’re in a hole somewhere in 30 days after conviction. And no I’m not talking about gray cases. I’m talking about slam dunks, and this one is a slam dunk.

The thing is, Castro likely already has an attorney working day and night to lessen his sentence or get him off for reasons of insanity. That such a person with this desire exists is sobering in and of itself.

3. There could be an Ariel Castro near you. How many people do you know on your street? There are three on mine that I’ve never met or had a conversation with. We need to be all up in each others’ business.

These girls weren’t held in the middle of the desert or in some mountain cave. There were houses and families ALL AROUND THEM. People tuning in, hoping to see LeBron James get beat by the Cavs. People leaving their homes to see if there was anything to this Trent Richardson wearing #33. People sitting down to Thanksgiving meals…TEN to be exact. People coming and going. Life happening everywhere around these girls while their lives were slowly being taken from them. How in the world could this ever happen??

What’s going on in your neighborhood RIGHT NOW? Maybe nothing this heinous, but who is crying out for help that you’re not hearing?

When the neighborhood watch program came out years ago it was paraded like it was going to be the answer to stopping crime. But let’s get real. The automatic garage door killed the neighborhood watch program years ago. We pull up, push the button, drive in, push the button again, and we don’t have to talk or deal with the people around us. We are insulated, self-interested beings by nature, not exactly “loving our neighbors as ourselves” as the Creator instructed.

There are exceptions, but if you’re honest with yourself, how much have you really tried to get to know the people around you. Evil can’t hide itself forever, which is why I think it’s totally bogus that Castro’s family “was shocked” at the revelation that he had done this.

I’ll even take it a step further. I was eating at a Chinese restaurant this week…a hole in the wall I like to go to…and wondered how many of the women working there had been subjected to this kind of thing. Not abduction (but maybe), but human trafficking. Or how many know others of their nationality that has, or currently is? This is a serious problem, and to stop it, or at least damage it, it’s going to take people unafraid to get dirty.

But we’re often too consumed with which linebacker is going where, or taking pictures of players’ cars to prove they’re getting paid. That’s all well and good, and sports is a diversion that we all need. But when our world becomes sports and sports alone…our teams, and just sports in general…we lose a piece of ourselves that makes humanity humane.

4. I’m glad I’m not God. John 3:16 tells us that God loved the world so much that He gave His only Son for us, that WHOSOEVER believes in Him won’t perish but will have eternal life. If that prayer was offered up to me, and I was the big man hearing it, I’d have to act like I missed it. I’d send Ariel Castro to the furthest reaches of hell faster than Onterio McCalleb sprinting out of bounds. But that’s for Him to decide. I am not capable of that job.

All in all, there is no way humanly possible that these poor girls will ever have a normal life. They deserve millions in restitution so that they don’t ever have to think about anything but getting up, nourishing themselves, and putting one foot in front of the other. May God shield them from evil the rest of their days, and may Ariel Castro run into a band of angry inmates (sooner than later) who know who he is and know what he’s done.


(Follow ITK on Twitter for Bama news, commentary and smack.)

10 thoughts on “Ariel Castro teaches us huge lessons”

  1. (political correctness off)

    diversity.

    a concept touted by those telling us we need no restrictions in our nation’s immigration policy to achieve.

    let them all in, let the politicians sort them out.

    yet, in instance after instance, increasing in numbers annually, we see cases like this, like the boston marathon massacre, families devastated by people who never should have been here to begin with.

    google “illegal immigrant driving drunk”. before you do, prepare yourself for a digital graveyard. story after story of families devastated with the loss of loved ones to drunk illegals who NEVER SHOULD HAVE BEEN THERE.

    think about it the next time your driving down the road and hear a PSA (public “service” announcement) on your radio telling you how much better off you and your family are living in a “diverse” neighborhood than one where “everyone looks like you”. (you racist, redneck bastard!)

    yes, i know castro’s likely legal, likely born here, likely from a family that had to prove no worth to the nation whatsoever to immigrate here at some point. allowing people to immigrate to our country without proving some worth, proving themselves no health risk, no background check, are creating large pockets of third world, backward time warps in our nation.

    i’d just like someone to tell me how many more people have to die, how many more bodies mangled, how many more lives destroyed, how many more families devastated before we decide this “diversity” we seek is just another egalitarian pipe dream.

    (political correctness on)

    next lecture: when will our justice system start taking child molesters serious in sentencing?

  2. Good article ITK, but i want people to think of what this country has become. You talk about getting to know your neighbor, but you forget that the liberals in this country have made it almost impossible to ‘get to know your neighbor’.Everybody has ‘rights’ and the left sure doesn’t mind reminding us about them everyday!!. This Castro jerk all of a sudden has more rights now that you are me have.I could go on and on, but let’s remember that he’s to be considered innocent until proven guilty’ such is the way of our laws. I would love to be on the jury that will try his case!!

  3. I blame the judicial system in this country as probably the primary reason as why atrocities such as this, the drug epidemic, the constant murders etc. etc. happen without cease. This very simple situation is turned into the biggest fiasco the world has ever seen. Yay politically correct liberals, its exactly how you want it. Want crime to stop? Get on a level they understand. Treat them in a way they can relate to. I believe the law should be that when a person disregards the rights of another person they forfeit their rights and become the victim of their own actions. I’m not talking about 3 hots and a cot vacation either. I’m talking about permament solutions. They talk about gun control I believe in criminal control. Want to repeal laws? Repeal the cruel and unusual punishment laws. Convicted of rape? Castrate him, HE WONT DO IT AGAIN and I dont have to pay for his jailtime. Molest a child, that should be a capital offense,(and not 20 years on death row, 2 appeals and still found guilty, your done, 1 year max) HE WONT DO IT AGAIN, and I dont have to pay for his jailtime. Yeah call me uncivilized, but until these people are dealt with and some examples are made brace for more headlines, those are guaranteed.

  4. Perhaps we should fear men, the white ones anyway:

    84% of all serial killers are Caucasian

    93% of all serial killers are male

    Pedophilia in the white community has always been culturally rampid. Denying the truth does not negate reality.

  5. Geez! and I thought all this time that that guy in Atlanta that murdered all those kids was just a misprint!!

  6. Yall need to get off the racisr bullshit. First place Latinos by legal definition are Caucasion. Was the UniBomber an ilegal immigrant? Was the canibal Silence Of The Lambs was modled after an illegal immigrant? Was the perpetrator of the incident in Helter Skelter an illegal immigrant? If we had the dumbass immigration laws we already have in 1713, 1813 or even 1913 most of us here would be decendents of illegal immigrants. As detestable as this incident is, I do not agree with your jerk knee proposal. It is one incident among 400,000,000 people. Modern communications is what has brought you Bleeding Heart special interest groups putting their noses in your private business without the faintest idea of what is reslly goestructive government groups like Social Services who rip innocent families apart because some asshole saw somethimg he didn’t understand. Formation of Special Interest Groups who strongarm politicians into passing laws that have anything but your interest at heart in deference to a tiny, tiny minority of people. The government nor law enforcement needs no more influence to stick their noses in citizens private affairs simply because instant communication brings in living color to your livingroom one detesable incident which 50 years ago you would have never heard about. I don’t need some dumbass bleeding heart neighbor sticking their damn nose in my buot knowing shit about the reality of the situation. No more knee jerk reaction to as far as anyone knows, isolated incidents which in any case involves a minute fragment of the po pulation. That being said, there are incidents for which we should still have dungeons with torture chambers as legal punishment for, as in this case.

    1. I certainly don’t trust the present government to snoop around and ‘know what’s going on,’ so we can agree there. Like anything…everything really…the private sector is where solutions like this one come from…not changes of policy. Simply humans being humans, caring about one another…not snooping for the sake of snooping. If you’re my neighbor, I want to know about you. Not out of suspicion, but out of an interest in you.

      But yes, bring on the dungeons.

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