Boy, 13, Dies in beating on street

NEW SMYRNA BEACH -- A 13-year-old New Smyrna Beach boy was beaten to death Friday by a 15-year-old boy who thought the victim had given cigarettes to the older boy's little brother, authorities said.

After an argument that left Shane Michael Farrell, 13, on the ground, the victim begged the 15-year-old boy to stop kicking him, according to one of several boys who said they witnessed the attack near the intersection of Julia and Faulkner streets.

"Please don't; no, no," Shane pleaded as the older boy repeatedly kicked him, according to the father of a witness.

A state publication sent to my home in Oct 1994 titled "your health your choice" told the readers that a pregnant mother is safer using crack than smoking tobacco and the idea of babies being born addicted to crack is only media hype.If you would like a copy contact the Hope Heart Institute in kellogg Michigan, the institute was given 3/4 of a million dollars of taxpayers money to inform public employees on how to choose to stay healthy.

Almost sounds like promotion of crack, these people have no shame.

Some of you need to go read the poem about the blind men and the elephant.

So, which part of this story (not the poem, the news story) do you, Illbay, think us smokers are not seeing?

From what I see, a kid kicked another kid to death because he thought his brother was given a cigarette. There are only two ways you can view this story:-

(a) The kid is telling the truth about why he did this, in which case anti-smoking adults share a large part of the blame for the inordinate amount of time and money they have spent brain-washing him and all other children; or

(b) The kid is lying about why he did this, in which case anti-smoking adults should hang their heads in shame that the best excuse this little punk could come up with for kicking another kid to death is that he gave his brother a cigarette.

Either way, anti-smokers cannot shirk their share of the blame for inspiring such a vast level of hatred, fear and intolerance amongst children towards smokers that one vicious little criminal thought either:-

1. Cigarettes are a motive to kill; or

2. Having killed, cigarettes are a valid excuse/explanation for such a crime.

If you want to read some material which might give you some insight into this type of behaviour beyond Indian moral poetry, I suggest you think about why blacks were lynched on a regular basis until the last 40 years.

The moral of those stories is that, if you deliberately and systematically breed fear and hatred of one group of people into the rest of the population, eventually the frightened, hateful majority start killing the persecuted minority.

So, don't give me this crap about not seeing the full elephant when you can't even see a flea on it's butt!

No, what I'm saying is that a single incident doesn't mark a trend.

OK, maybe you should go and re-read the poem about the 6 blind men and the elephant.

The "trend" is increasing hatred and fear of smokers. The ultimate expression of that fear is murder.

I, too (and the other 25% of your fellow citizens who smoke) hope that this is not the start of a "trend" by non-smokers to murder smokers.

If you don't see this action as part of and the ultimate consequence of a long and dedicated campaign against smokers, you are only seeing the tail of the elephant, not the whole beast.

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