Did you all see this story? It is absolutely horrifying and shocking. I was cruising through Penn Station on the second leg of my morning commute today, when I passed one of the newsstands and the front page of the Daily News stopped me in my tracks. Looking up at me was a picture of five siblings: the eldest girl, her sisters, a set of twins, and her brothers another set of twins. These children were tragically shot and killed by their father in what appears to have been a murder/suicide. Their mother was also killed. So there you had an entire family wiped out because the parents lost their jobs and the father was apparently so distraught over it that he took everyone’s life, including his own. 

“After a horrendous ordeal, my wife felt it better to end our lives and why leave the children in someone else’s hands,” Ervin Lupoe wrote in the note he faxed to a Los Angeles TV station.

After typing his name, Lupoe printed an anguished postscript: “Oh Lord my God is there no hope for a widow’s son?”

The letter, which appeared on the KABC-TV Web site Wednesday, reveals the writer clearly did not think so.

It also shed more light on why Lupoe shot his wife and kids execution style in the heads before shooting himself.

I can’t describe my feelings to you, dear readers. Those children looked healthy, happy and they were gorgeous. How could their father look at them and shoot to kill? He must have been insane, or at the very least, severely emotionally disturbed. And to say that it was all the wife’s idea? I think we all know who was responsible. When I got to work and pulled up the story on the newspaper’s Web site, the details of the situation made me angry. He planned it, folks. 

He was distraught over the loss of his job, but the story gave no details of a worsening financial situation or gave any indication that the whole lot of them were facing homelessness and abject destitution. Instead, it said something about a dispute with the hospital administrator stemming from a childcare issue. In what appeared to be a suicide letter faxed to a media outlet, he grieved over the possibility of leaving his children with strangers. Wha??? I’m not sure what the hell was on this man’s mind. 

In the first place, there had to have been several very good solutions to the family’s problems, instead of shooting and killing everyone. Downsize from the house. Relinquish the children to a trusted relative for a while if things get really bad. But no, in this man’s mind only he knew, and only he could ever possibly know what was best for his kids.

Apparently not!!!  

What the %$#@ is wrong with certain people? Parenthood is not a priesthood, ‘k? Loads of adults in this world are moral, nurturing, caring and responsible individuals who would guide another person’s child safely through adolescence without molestation, beatings or taking any other tragic twists. Just because you gave birth to or sired your children, it doesn’t always mean that you have what it takes to be the very best parent, or that you always know what is best for junior. But in yet another stunning lack of the ability to think rationally, this man thought that handing his kids to ‘strangers’ — spooky dirty strangers — was a fate worse than death! It’s awful. And now five beautiful children — and their mother — are gone. I just want to puke. 

And it reminds me of the narrow thinking that people of different races, tribes, nationalities, etc., bring to the table when it comes to relating to each other. Can’t intermarry because that guy/woman is from a group of ‘strangers’. Don’t want your child dating someone from another race because they are ‘strangers’. So what do they do? Commit murder in another way, by perpetuating hate and derailing another person’s chances for happiness. Ugh. It makes me mad sometimes. 

People, please get it together!! Stop the bone-headed thinking that leads you down a path of destruction and start to see the possibilities for good in other people and in the world. And for goodness sake, if your circumstances take a turn for the worse, whether over a job loss or illness or something, please don’t take it out on your babies. Find another way out.

I think Mrs. Bojanowski off the mama’s boy reality show is in love with her own son jojo. I think her love for him goes way beyond the motherly kind. Any woman would be crazy to get tangled in that mess. Its sick! Just sick — Submitted by: marymarymar

Although I’m not sure I agree that Mrs. B is unnaturally attached to her son, I do think her cultural attitudes offer really good insight into why some interracial relationships fall apart under the pressure of divergent cultural values. I thought that in her profile video, she said something about being from Iraq. Am I right? I’ve noticed something about people from certain countries outside Europe and the U.S., including Jamaica, from where my heritage is derived: older people are physically incapable of seeing members of the younger generation as anything other than their personal property and when it comes to respect, they refuse to reciprocate. It goes way beyond expecting young people to have respect for their elders, an idea that I generally agree with. 

People of Mrs. B generation and older, and who are from old-world countries or any other place that values older citizens, believe that they are to be revered, placed at the center of everything and that securing and maintaining their happiness should be the goal of every young person with whom they have contact. Mrs. B felt that Mindy should be kissing her butt in order to gain acceptance (which she would never give), and she threw a tantrum because none of the young women wanted to make a traditional Iraqi dish during the cooking challenge. I rolled my eyes as she huddled on a set of nearby steps and wept about how her feelings were hurt. She must have forgotten that in a few short days before that she freely and without remorse trashed Asians, blacks, Jews and a host of other types of women in that house. Their feelings were not taken into account while Mrs. B was running her mouth. Nothing more than manipulative b-s, something that I’ve seen over and over from old school matrons who think young people ought to worship the ground under their feet. 

An attitude like that is too extreme. It goes beyond what is reasonable in terms of how young people should treat their elders, and it would make life hell for any young woman to accept, especially an independent and accomplished American, British, French or other modern woman from one of the more affluent or ‘white’ countries. Imagine being married in that environment — until death parted you and your husband. (If Jojo had picked someone like Vita Alexander, death might very well have visited that family.) The expectations would be crushing and a woman would be in for a lot of abuse if she failed to live up to those impossible expectations. 

Of course, I do think that Mrs. B is a racist, no doubt. She made that fact plain and clear when she became physically violent at the sight of her son making out with a black woman. And when the helicopter landed, she made a show of sitting on the side and dry heaving in disgust. And calling Misty all kinds of nasty names usually reserved for prostitutes and the like.

This website certainly is not a defacto “Momma’s Boys” recap site, but given some of the interesting twists that the show is taking, I thought I’d continue to keep you up to date. 

So the romance between Rob and Camilla continues. He selected her to go to the U.S. Virgin Islands, while his mom — playing the matchmaker — keeps on pushing the issue with Lauren. I haven’t actually seen the episode whose highlights I’m now relating to you: I just gleaned what I could from the NBC Web site, which is not very well done, I might add. Anyway, I think that the Rob & Camilla story line will end up with him choosing Camilla, and them breaking up after three or four months, once they realize that without all the contrivances of a major network, real love in real life can be very challenging. Let’s not forget that Camilla will never win over Rob’s mother — Esther feels that it is extremely important to continue the religious lineage, and no matter how much Camilla learns about Judaism, she will never be authentically Jewish and raise her grandkids in a way that faithfully carries on their traditions.

As for the other two? Michael does not impress me at all. He obviously came on this show to make out with as many surgically enhanced, bottle-blonde tarts as he possibly could. And poor Jojo Bojanowski. No matter the outcome of this show, his romantic life will be a struggle. He will have to confront his mother at some point about the way she constantly interferes with his efforts to find the perfect woman. Get it through your head Mrs. B: YOU are not the perfect woman for your son!    

But like I said, there is entertainment value in this show — even if it is to shake one’s head.

I’ve got to make this one quick, folks. Baby is latched on to my left side and I’ve got a shepherd’s pie heating in the oven. My latest guilty pleasure, NBC’c “Momma’s Boys”, took a couple of interesting turns in as many weeks.
Jojo stood up to his mother twice: last week he chose an Africa-American woman, Misty, for his daylong date, an interesting twist considering his mother;s outrageous ideas on interracial dating. That event was capped off with a steamy kissing session in a hot tub.This week he chose a fairly wholesome-seeming Southern blonde who should fit Mrs. B’s description of a suitable daughter-in law, unless Mrs. B happens to be crazy.
Meanwhile, Robb and Camilla seem to be getting along very well. Their relationship just might beat the odds of these reality/exhibition/dating shows and last until the next equinox or solstice! 

We know how these things turn out, but maybe we can suspend disbelief and enjoy the ride for 40 minutes a week.