Word Power

B"h

Words have enormous impact. They can wound and destroy people more quickly and more viciously than any physical battering will. Words can permanently (if allowed) impact the way a child or adult thinks and perceives themselves. There are some who like to destroy others through their use of words, slander and stories or just to have a bit of 'harmless fun' at the expense of someone else. Judaism takes the feelings of another person very seriously and through out the whole of Pekai Avot we are given more than subtle hints about how serious offending or wounding someone else is taken. A person who makes another's face white with shame, is likened to a murderer. A murderer murders more than just the person, but that person's whole line of descendants. They murder a world.
Just recently we have two irresponsible young people who directly or indirectly cause the death of another person by the flippant way they used their power as radio announcers and programmers to make a joke. It was no joke and to be honest, I personally thought it was pretty tacky and an invasion of the privacy of the young royals. So the Duchess of Cambridge has severe morning sickness that necessitated a visit to hospital. For goodness sake, leave her alone and Prince William. She is pregnant and let her and Wills enjoy this time together and have some privacy. It is actually disgusting that two members of the royal family cannot have a bit of peace and quiet at this time, without the press poking their noses into every corner of the Royals lives. Who would want to know all this personal stuff any how?
But if reporters go through the garbage of stars, then anything is possible.
However what appals me is the indecent obsession of mental health professionals with these two radio announcers and their 'fragility' because of the suicide of the nurse. It is almost as if they are blaming the nurse and trying to say that she was 'overly sensitive and had other issues'. To be honest, who really cares. So what if she did? The behaviour of these two radio personnel was utterly appalling and they obviously are not responsible enough to be on radio.
Now I do admire and always have admired Derryn Hinch. The guy is a person who uses and used his power as a public personality to effect good. He also named a paedophile on the radio and good on him. It is about time we stood up for our kids and the victims. Derryn went to jail to protect young people from a predator. We all need to take the protection of children against sex abuse or molestation extremely seriously. These sorts of people do not change. They have unnatural appetites that they may suppress but as they get older it is often harder for them to curb the desires. They do enormous damage to the psyche of those they abuse.
Now I see a heap of articles blaming the nurse for her suicide.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/time-to-do-more-than-just-talk-about-radio-standards-20121209-2b3nk.html#poll

And of course Jeff Kennett the great supporter and patron of BeyondBlue
http://media.theage.com.au/news/national-news/radio-hosts-deserve-our-support-3875883.html
calls this 'prank' harmless. It was anything but 'harmless' and it is disgusting that he is meant to be a patron of this body and comes out downplaying their actions. No, Jeff Kennett, real honest to goodness maturity means facing up to what has been done and knowing the difference between tasteless joking and harmful jokes as opposed to jokes in good fun. It is a good idea to get the permission of the persons on these tapes before they publicly humiliate them by airing a conversation that makes said member of the public look ridiculoous and shows them up to be 'incompetent and unprofessional' despite a previous history of caring and diligence.
Yes, this incident may have been the last straw. Who knows and does it really matter? She sounds as though she was a very kind and diligent person. She was in a healing profession and genuinely cared for people. That is something we cannot get two shallow, spur of the moment idiots who yabber, yabber on about anything radio show, to understand. They were too busy trying (being the operative word) to be funny, because they were too egocentric and too busy concerned about how they would look to others. They did not care about other people and still don't probably. Selfish idiots. Let them eat the dirt and stones they created for themselves.
DO THEY DESERVE ONE MINUTE OF OUR TIME AND SYMPATHY?????
NO, NO, NO!!
I am saving it for the family of the nurse and the two children left without a mother. Let these other two selfish gits do some volunteer work and community service in hospitals until they can understand what it means to really care about others.