Martyr Sets Himself on Fire on Chicago Expressway
I read about this last week, but it was so horrific I didn’t post anything on it. Today on the Randi Rhodes show, she was talking about how the media did NOTHING on it. And I thought about it. She’s right. Mark David Ritscher. Here’s a guy who set himself on fire in protest of the war in Iraq. And not a mention of it anywhere. I guess it’s tough to be a martyr when no one reports on what you’ve done. He thought a great deal about this. He videotaped it, he made sure he did during morning rush hour so many people would see it. Sad…..very sad.
From the note he left:
“So judge me by my actions. Maybe some will be scared enough to wake from their walking dream state — am I therefore a martyr or a terrorist? I would prefer to be thought of as a ’spiritual warrior.’ Our so-called leaders are the real terrorists in the world today, responsible for more deaths than Osama bin Laden …
“When I hear about our young men and women who are sent off to war in the name of God and country, and who give up their lives for no rational cause at all, my heart is crushed. What has happened to my country?
As horrified Friday-morning commuters watched, a man apparently doused himself with gasoline and lit himself on fire along the Kennedy Expy. near a 25-foot-tall Loop sculpture titled “Flame of the Millennium.”
A homemade sign was found near his charred body that read, “Thou Shalt Not Kill,” said State Police Lt. Lincoln Hampton. Police are reviewing a videotape that also was found near the body.
The death of the man, whose identity has not been released, was being treated as a suicide, authorities said.
Witnesses told police they saw the man ignite himself just before 7 a.m. near the southbound Kennedy’s Ohio Street exit, Hampton said.
