Gentle Carousel Therapy Horses. They visited Newtown and spent many hours with the survivors of the horrors there, the families of the victims, and the first responders who are dealing with their own grief and horrible memories.
I'm not a horsey person, really. I like horses just fine, but I haven't been on one since childhood. But these little creatures, and their blue eyes! I'm just fascinated, bordering on obsessed. They are based out of Gainesville, FL, and I'd never heard of them until the chance post crossing on Facebook. I want to meet them!
*massacre. I will use that word in connection with the Newtown shootings. Already we are softening our language - more and more, when it's mentioned, it's described as the Newtown "incident," "tragedy," "event." No, what it was was a massacre. Per Merriam-Webster online:
the act or an instance of killing a number of usually helpless or unresisting human beings under circumstances of atrocity or crueltyWe cannot allow ourselves to forget that this is what it was. It wasn't a terrible school bus accident, it wasn't a fire, it wasn't any other sort of "incident" or "tragedy" or "event". It was the slaughter of innocent little children by one random guy with an assault rifle and enough bullets to kill the entire school. When we choose words that soften the horror and make it just another unfortunate thing that happened, we accept it as just one of those things that happens. It must never, ever be just one of those things that happens now and then in our country. As a parent and a grandparent, I can never, ever accept that as what our country has become.
Anyway, I'm just glad that those nice people train those amazingly adorable tiny horses to give comfort to people who are hurting, and packed them up and took them up to work their little horsey butts off for days on end, giving whatever comfort they could. It's a lovely thing.
I completely agree with you. We should not ever re-characterize such horrors nor should we forget these things are massacres.
ReplyDeleteOne of the tiny horses is something I've wanted for a long time. They are darling. Glad they have been sent to comfort the victims. Thanks for passing the link along.
It is weasel words, that is what it is and the people who try to 'soften' the edges and minimise the horror of it are just that:
ReplyDeleteWEASELS !
Sorry I just shouted, but the infamous Port Arthur massacre included two pre-schoolers on an outing with their mother, who tried to hide them from the shooter's sight. She died with Allanah and Madeleine.
Gae, in Callala Bay