Posted on 01/03/2004 9:34:25 AM PST by Sweet_Sunflower29
While gasoline may be a common home remedy, it is not applied inside a home, and certainly not inside a small kitchen. If she had dragged a lawnchair outside and soaked his head we would not be having this discussion.
I don't question the efficacy of the treatment - maybe gasoline works just fine. But I am wondering if this would not have been avoided if there had been a man in the house. I'm not kidding, hear me out. I know I have become intimately familiar with how volatile gasoline can be through a number of thankfully harmless incidents. That has given me great respect for it, and all of those incidents are simply not things that most girls or young women would go through.
The first one I recall was as a boy scout when someone soaked the logs in a big bonfire in gasoline before lighting them. The gas fumes had predictably crept low along the ground in every direction from the logs. When lit, a ring of fire expanded out from the center of the fire, consuming the vapors that were low to the ground. We all just instictively jumped up when we saw this happen and noone was hurt. The flamefront literally passed under us that quickly.
The second time I was stripping some paint with an electric drill, a wire brush attachment, and gasoline. Why? I don't know, but I was, and it worked pretty well. At one time in a fit of idle curiousity I stuck the wire attachment on the end of the electric drill into the bucket of gasoline and truned the drill on. Instantly the gas all caught fire and I singed my hand and face. No big deal, but gee, I don't think I'll be that stupid again.
So maybe being a a boy and doing lots of smaller stupid things while growing up helps you avoid doing the really biug stupid things as an adult.
The treatment for them is similar.
Only after you light the hair on fire and the little critters run out of the heat you stab them with an icepick...
>>>It's something you didn't think out because if you did, you wouldn't have done it." <<<
These two quotes when juxtaposed, show that there has been a continuing problem in Nzinga's ability "to think it out"!
Yea, he was the guy at Woodstock in the orange jump suit with the megaphone and no front teeth. He is all over the place in the movie of that event
He also has a 3,000 acre ranch in Laytonville in Northern California where he and others are permanently retroed into the Sixties.
We used to have the same dentist in Scott's Valley that put the star in one of Ken Kesey's front teeth.
I first met him at the "Flower Farm" by La Selva Beach in Santa Cruz area.
They specialized in "buds"...
Only he was Hugh Romney then.
What I really miss is his campaigning for Nobody for President every 4 years.
Now that was funny.
No kidding. What a shame this kid has such a stupid mother. What a shame she didn't exert some parental control and make him cut his hair and use the OTC treatment on what was left.
This reminds me of the classmate's mother who was trying to get rid of a bees' nest. She made a preparation of bleach and boiling water. As Murphy would have it, she tripped while taking it outside and the concoction spilled on her, burning her terribly.
I'll admit to being a bit of a homebrew fan myself, but dayum, sometimes you have to submit to the evil corporations and just buy the can of Raid.
Koran Jenkins, 13, has undergone eight surgeries since September. A fund-raiser is being held to help his mother, Ayodele Nzinga, with growing expenses. Chronicle photo by Katy Raddatz
East Bay artists rally to help burn victim
Patrick Hoge, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, January 2, 2004
Source
Ayodele Nzinga had heard somewhere that gasoline was effective for killing head lice, and she was applying the fuel to her son's hair in her Berkeley kitchen on Sept. 18 when a spark from the pilot light on her stove flared, and the boy caught fire.
Koran Akindele Jenkins, 13, was severely burned over 22 percent of his body, particularly his head and hands, from which he lost most of his fingers.
A self-described "hip-hop lyricist'' who has performed in a duo with his brother Stanley, 12, called M.A.C., Koran looks forward to again pursuing music and theater with The Lower Bottom Playaz, a troupe that his mother directs at the Sister Thea Bowman Theater at the Prescott-Joseph Center For Community Enhancement in West Oakland.
Nzinga, a single mother of seven, said that at first she was racked with guilt, but now she is determined to focus on her son's recovery.
Nzinga directs three nonprofit theater groups around the Bay Area, and is also a poet and spoken-word performer whose stage name is WordSlanger. She is an artist-in-residence at the Prescott-Joseph Center.
Such artistic pursuits do not make much money, Nzinga said, and she has suffered financially, even though Koran has received much of his medical care free from the Northern California Shriners Hospital in Sacramento.
Nzinga said the costs of driving back and forth to Sacramento, staying in motels, using cell phones and buying medications have combined to bring her family to the brink of financial ruin.
"We are not rich people. This has played total havoc with a really, really delicate budget,'' Nzinga said, adding that she is two months behind on rent and facing large utility bills. "We are on the verge of economic collapse. ''
To help Jenkins' family, numerous performers in various disciplines will gather for a benefit Sunday at Ashkenaz Music & Dance Community Center in Berkeley. The evening features Wavy Gravy and the Original Action Pack improvisational comedy troupe, as well as Rashidi Omari, Silver, Rudi Mwongozi and Nzinga.
Wavy Gravy got involved because for six years Koran has been a scholarship student at Camp Winnarainbow, the circus and performing arts camp in Mendocino County that Gravy runs with his wife, Jahanara Romney. Nzinga's children have attended the camp for more than 15 years.
"It's a horrible thing that's happened to this child, and I'm honored to be able to do something to help him in his recovery,'' Gravy said.
Also helping to organize the fund-raiser is Zippo Dickinson, one of the primary staffers at Winnarainbow, who visited Koran regularly while he was hospitalized.
Dickinson said he had worried that Koran, a gifted athlete, would be vulnerable to depression because he held himself to such high standards on the basketball court.
To Dickinson's surprise, however, Koran has shown tremendous patience.
"He's just maintaining himself very well. It's mind-blowing,'' Dickinson said. "It has been amazing how well he's maintained a positive attitude and how he's tried to help those who are helping him.''
"I get depressed sometimes, feeling sorry for myself," said Koran, who has undergone eight surgeries. "I wonder why this happened to me. But it was just an accident. There's nothing I can do to make it different.''
The benefit for Koran Akindele Jenkins is at 7:30 p.m. Sunday at Ashkenaz Music & Dance Community Center, 1317 San Pablo Ave. in Berkeley. $10-$20 donation. (510) 525-5054; www.ashkenaz.com. Donations can also be sent to WordSlanger, c/o the Prescott-Joseph Center for Community Enhancement, 920 Peralta St., Suite D, Oakland, CA, 94607.
E-mail Patrick Hoge at phoge@sfchronicle.com
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